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

197, the beginning of the final solution.

Last time Admiral Yamamoto, commander of Japan's combined fleet, was currently working out

detailed plans to launch a combination air and submarine attack against the United States

specific fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor.

As the plans formed, Takeyo Yoshikawa pretending to be a part of the Japanese consulate, spied

on the Americans, gathering information on warships, planes, and details of the harbor itself.

Japan's war with the United States was coming.

On the other side of the world, war had already erupted full force on June 22, 1941, as

Nazi Germany invaded Stalin's Soviet Russia.

We have already covered that Hitler hoped to quickly beat down the USSR, Churchill's last

hope, at least that's how Hitler thought of it.

But there was another reason for the strike east, or rather another goal, that was to be

achieved alongside Operation Barbarossa.

As Hitler pictured the coming of the end of the war by beating Russia, it was time to

get on with the extermination of the lesser races, those that had tried in vain to keep

Germany from its greatness.

As he told his generals a few months before his three million soldiers invaded Soviet Russia,

this is a war of annihilation.

Hitler was to be ruthless and energetic action against Bolsheviks, agitators, saboteurs,

and the Jews, as each town was taken.

As such, unique military squadrons of the SS Elite Corps, Ainsat Grouping, would follow

...