This country is at war with Germany.

We shall go on to the end.

I remember the sheets of flame which came up and almost blinded us from our guns.

In this episode of the World War II podcast, we're turning our attention to the opening phase of one of the most brutal and vast campaigns of the Second World War, Operation Barbarossa.

On the 22nd June 1941, Hitler launched his long-anticipated invasion of the Soviet Union.

In the first two weeks, the German Wehrmacht made some of its fastest advances of the war.

Panzer groups surged deep into Soviet territory, clashing with Russian arm and forces,

encounters that were sometimes unexpected and for both sides

revealing. To explore this dramatic opening sturge of the war in the East, I'm joined by Richard

Hargrave's author of Opening the Gates of Hell, which examines the speed, scale and the shock of Barbarossa's beginning.

Richard, thanks for joining me.

So it was at the end of 1940 that Hitler gave his order to begin planning for the invasion,

and just six months later, the attack went ahead.

Considering the sheer size of the Soviet Union, the resources this campaign would demand,

especially after the Vermak had already been fighting in Poland, France, and the Luftw had been engaged over Britain in the Battle of Britain,

this doesn't seem much time to prepare. So the Germans already had a set of plans that they could, you know, dust off.

How prepared was the German military for yet another campaign?

So basically, after France, we were talking days after signing the treaty at Compien,

the German army, this is not Hitler himself, the German army is saying,

let's look at Russia. Under the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1989, they've invaded Lithuania and Latvia and

basically Estonia taking advantage while we've been rumbling around in our tanks in France.

They've taken advantage of that and just gone, we'll swipe these three countries all under

...