Europe, summer 1941. Germany had secured most of Central and Western Europe, with only Great Britain remaining defiant on the islands. The only potential threat to Germany in Europe was the Soviet Union. In order to break the stalemate with Britain and make Germany's strategic position indisputable, Hitler decided to cripple the military capabilities of the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources. Germany planned to achieve this goal by capturing most of the European part of the Soviet Union before the onset of winter 1941. The main attack would take place in the center and be directed towards Moscow, with auxiliary attacks in the north and south. By the middle of june 1941 the Germans had almost completed the preparations and the invasion was about to begin, meanwhile the Soviet forces were unaware of what was coming and were ill-prepared to resist the German invasion. First we’ll look at the southern sector. The Soviets had deployed their strongest units in the south having 1,200 000 men between the Pripyat marshes and the Black sea. They were to be confronted by the Army Group South, that was of roughy the same strength. The first objective of the Axis troops was securing the western Ukraine. On june 22nd the invasion began. The Soviets immediately gathered their armoured forces and met the German spearhead with a massive counterattack in the area of Dubno and Brody, but due to the lack of combat readiness of the units involved, it failed and the Soviets lost most of their tanks. The German advance continued and this created a threat of encirclement to the Soviet troops in the South and they had to be withdrawn from the exposed position. After the main attack had tied down the Soviet reserves, the Axis forces in Romania joined the offensive. The main spearhead now made a dash towards the east and this made the Soviet command think that the main German effort was directed towards Kiev. However, the Germans had stuck to their original plan and turned south. When the Soviets realized the German intentions, it was already too late to withdraw their forces and the Germans encircled and destroyed many of the Soviet formations near the town of Uman. The Soviets now abandoned Western Ukraine and retreated to the eastern bank of the river Dnieper. They deployed the first wave of freshly mobilized troops to establish a strong defence on the river line and also clinged to the port of Odessa. At the same time, operations were being carried out in the North, where one and a half million German soldiers from army groups north and center were facing a million Soviet soldiers. In the beginning of the invasion the Army group center was to encircle soviet forces at the border and then advance towards Smolensk and Moscow. Meanwhile, army group north was to advance directly towards Leningrad threatening to trap the soviet forces between them and the sea. On 22. June the Germans attacked. The Soviet western front was deployed forward and during the first days of the war the German forces encircled most of its formations near the towns of Bialystock and Minsk. In the Baltics, the Soviet counter attacks were defeated in the battle of Raseiniai and then they attempted to pull back and establish a defensive line on Daugava river, but the Germans reached the river before them and pushed onwards, threatening the Soviet units in the west with encirclement. At the same time Army group center had finished encircling the Soviet Western front and its infantry units began to reduce the pockets, while its armoured forces advanced eastwards almost unopposed. The Soviets attempted to plug the gap by deploying most of their pre-war reserves to counter them, but it was not enough and as the German offensive continued, their armour broke through the Soviet lines and trapped these units near Smolensk. By that time, the first wave of Soviet mobilization was complete and the Soviets used these formations to block further German advance and attempted to free the encircled troops. However the performance of these newly created units was lacklustre and they were unable to liberate the pocket. The Germans managed to close it up and eliminate it. The Germans had gained the upper hand in the Central part of the front and now they were faced with two options. They could continue the push towards Moscow immediately or secure the flanks of Army Group Center first and then continue the offensive eastwards. They decided to do the latter and the armoured formations of Army Group Center were sent to aid neighbouring army groups. During this time battles had been raging in the north, where Army Group North had failed to pull out large encirclements and their progress was slowed down by the Soviet counterattacks and bad infrastructure. Nevertheless, they were making slow but steady progress and after securing their left flank, they reached the approaches to Leningrad. When the help from Army Group Center arrived, they were able to perform the final push and cut off the land-based communications to the city. Further north, Finland had entered the war against the Soviet Union on June 25th and the Finnish troops took advantage of the Soviet defeats by taking back the lands lost in the winter war. After that, they established forward defensive positions between the lakes. Even further north, the Finnish and German troops attempted to capture the Soviet port city of Murmansk and cut the Murmansk railway in order to sever the Allied supply route to the Soviet Union. However their attacks became bogged down in the rough terrain short of their objectives. The front became static. Meanwhile the other armoured units of the Army Group Center were sent to help Army Group South. The Soviets had anticipated, that the Germans would continue their attack towards Moscow and concentrated their troops on this direction, which allowed the German armoured formations to push back the weaker Soviet units on their southern flank. The German advance southwards forced the Soviets to abandon their forward positions in the Pripyat marshes to shorten their line. In Ukraine the Soviet troops were occupying a strong defensive position, with their flanks resting on the Dnieper river in the west and south and the marshes in the North. Yet the Panzers from Army Group Center were bypassing the marshes from the east and advanced into the Soviet rear. The Soviets thought, that the German spearhead was overextended and could be contained, however, unbeknownst to them, the Armoured formations of the Army Group South had secretly crossed the Dnieper from the south into a German bridgehead and now broke through towards north to link up with the spearhead. As the groups met, most of the Soviet units in Central Ukraine became encircled. 750 thousand men were trapped in the pocket. When the pocket had been liquidated, the Soviet forces in Ukraine had been severely weakened. After these operations, the flanks of Army Group Center were secure, but now the Germans didn’t have enough time to reach the objectives set in the beginning of the campaign and they decided to go for more limited goals. In order to reach them, they began a full scale attack along the whole front. In the south, the Soviet resistance had been crippled with the recent encirclement and this allowed the Germans to carry out another encirclement, trapping part of the Soviet forces on the coast of the black sea. Then they pushed onwards and established their control over the resource-rich areas of the Eastern Ukraine and conquered the Crimean peninsula, with Soviets abandoning Odessa, but clinging on to the port of Sevastopol. At the same time the German forces were pursuing their objectives in the north. Their goal was to sever the remaining supply route to Leningrad and link up with the Finnish forces. The initial advance was successful and reached its first goal by cutting the railway line supplying the city. The main German effort was in the center. All this time the Soviets had anticipated an attack on Moscow and had deployed 1,250 000 mobilized troops to this sector. During the German operations on the flanks, they had even somewhat managed to push Army Group Center back to improve their defensive perimeter. But by the end of September the German armour had finally returned to the center and proceeded to carry out a new attack. Once again, near the towns of Vyazma and Bryansk, the Soviet troops were encircled and this resulted in halving the soviet strength on the front. After reducing the pockets, the Germans closed their distance to Moscow. Then they attempted to encircle Moscow with a two-pronged attack, but by that time, the long advance had exhausted their offensive capabilities and the weather had become severely cold. The Soviets managed to halt their advance, and although they didn’t have large superiority in numbers, the soviet proficiency in winter combat allowed them to carry out a counterattack. The Germans were forced to abandon their vulnerable forward positions on the flanks and pulled back in order shorten the front line. During the retreat, they had to abandon some of their heavy equipment. At the same time, the German attempt to cut off Leningrad had also failed and they had to retreat to their starting positions and the supply line to Leningrad was restored. In the South the German advance was also checked by the Soviets, forcing the Germans to abandon their forward positions in Rostov. The first year of the war was over. The soviets had stopped the Germans far from their initial goals, but at a great cost to their own military capabilities. The Red Army had been decimated and it would take a year or more to fully rebuild and re-equip the army. The Germans wanted to use this window of opportunity and were sending most of their available forces to the Eastern front to deliver a knock-out punch in the following year. 1942 would be the decisive year of the war.