Last men standing

Hitler’s attack on Russia on this day 70 years ago was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany, writes Geoffrey Roberts

SEVENTY years ago today Adolf Hitler launched the biggest and most destructive military campaign in history when three million German troops invaded Soviet Russia along a 1,000-mile front.

Operation Barbarossa — the German codename for the invasion of Russia — was the climax of Hitler’s bid to establish Germany as the dominant world power. That bid had begun with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, followed by the German conquest of France in June 1940. By 1941 the German war machine had conquered most of Europe as country after country was invaded or forced to join Hitler’s Axis alliance.