Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, episode 134,

reactions to Barbarossa.

Last time Hitler launched his massive attack against Soviet Russia to prove to Great Britain

just how hopeless their struggle and faith in Stalin really was.

Army Group Center quickly shredded Soviet defenses from Bielisztok to Minsk, as German panzers

made their way to just west of that city.

Within days the Germans there had killed or captured some 340,000 Soviet soldiers.

The Soviet First Line of Defense almost along the entire front between Nazi Germany and

Soviet Russia was shattered.

But what was the reaction of the man of steel, Stalin, in Moscow to all this?

What's more, how did Churchill and President Roosevelt react when the news officially

reached them?

Seeing how they had known something was in the Alphyn and had tried to warn Premier Stalin.

As for the man in Moscow who seemed to believe he could turn his country and Germany away

from a collision course, Stalin went to bed on June 22, 1941, around 3am.

Not one hour later his country was at war, without a declaration, with the experienced

battle hardened, there mocked.

Some 3.3 million soldiers.

There was only one thing for it.

Stalin ever the realist threw himself into the defense of the Soviet Russia.

And because he trusted no one, the majority of the decisions, some questions of the smallest

detail had to go through him.

...