For the first two weeks of the German invasion of the Soviet Union,

it looked as though the conflict would play out as it had elsewhere in Europe

with a crushing German victory.

But only then did the Germans begin to understand exactly what they were up against.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Music Episode Episode 346, The Battle of Smolensk.

When we left off last time, it was early July 1941, just two weeks after the German army began its massive invasion of the Soviet Union.

With some three and a half million German and Romanian soldiers, this was the largest military operation in history,

and from the Axis side of the front, it appeared everything was going

swimmingly. German Panzer units tore through Soviet lands, leaving behind a swath of dust clouds

and burning villages. Sometimes the Panzers ran so far ahead of the front line that German He11 bombers were pressed into service to drop supplies to them.

A dept at battles of maneuver, these German panzers repeatedly got behind and encircled Red Army defenders,

each time collecting prisoners numbering in the tens of thousands

and capturing thousands of Russian tanks and artillery guns at a stroke.

Back home in Germany, the public was confident. People were taking bets on how long it would

take Stalin to surrender.

Propaganda minister Yosef Goebbels noted with discomfort that many German civilians believed their army was already approaching Moscow,

which was bad news because high expectations invite disappointment.

Even a solid victory might seem unsatisfying. At the Wolfslair,

Hitler's headquarters in the east, the mood was euphoric. Goebbels described the atmosphere as more

like a summer camp than a military command post. A cheerful Adolf Hitler now liberated from the

doubts that had haunted him in the days before Operation Barbarossa began, took up his favorite

pastime, making his subordinates listen to him monologue for hours at a time. And in July 19 1941, these monologues consisted mostly of his plans for how

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