A separate 1,000–page book would probably be necessary to properly cover this invasion. However, in short: the Nazis lost; the Russian army and the Russian winter won.

The epic “battle to the death,” poised the two megalomaniac mass–murderers, Hitler and Stalin against each other, with the Russian winter tipping–the–balance to the defenders of their erstwhile motherland.

Operation Barbarossa remains the largest military operation, in terms of manpower, area traversed, and casualties (over 4.5 million, at a bare minimum), in human history.

Operation Barbarossa’s failure, opened the door for the momentum of a Soviet counter–offensive westward across Russia, then through Eastern Europe, and ultimately into Germany and then Berlin itself (May, 1945).

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The debacle which unfolded for the Nazis as a direct consequence of their invasion of the Soviet Union, leaves one pause, because on multiple levels Hitler’s Nazi forces aped the precise mistakes made by Napoleon’s French forces who had attempted a similar grand gambit eastward against Russia c. 1812.

1) They both attacked much too late in the Spring/Summer; indeed they both attacked within two June days of each other (instead of say 60 days earlier mid–April).
2) They both had fatally over–extended supply lines
3) They both fatally had the wrong mix of military equipment supplies for the harsh Soviet winter
4) They both had the wrong (substandard) winter clothing for their troops for the harsh Soviet winter
5) They both under–estimated the resolve of the Russian people defending their key cities.