[CaptainCrunch]

At 1:00 AM on June 22, 1941 3 Full Army groups crossed the border into the Soviet Union enacting one of the largest land invasions in history.

After a fairly congenial diplomatic situation between The Soviet Union and Josef Stalin and the Germans and Adolf Hitler, the peace came to an end. In his goal for racial purity and living space for a greater German Empire, Hitler turned his baleful eyes east and threw the kitchen sink at Stalin.

Thus began what was at once the height of German power and the beginning of its end. Marching past trains headed into Germany carrying Grain, Oil and other products, The German's would cut deep into Russia. Stalin at first looked at the warnings of the German invasion even up to the jumping off point as misinformation retreated to his dasha outside of the Hills of Moscow and Russia was left leaderless.

Convinced not to resign by the Soviet Politburo, Stalin rallied the Soviet people, rallied Western support, and fought back denying the German troops shelter and resources and let the inhospitable Russian Winters and the eventual weight of the Soviet Army destroy the German Military eventually stopping it, especially at the steps of Stalingrad and then drove the shattered Germans back, leading to the end of the Third Reich.

This campaign deeply exposed Hitler's madness, the weak German command structure and the fault lines in Germany's strategy.

What was learned?

Like Napoleon before him Hitler underestimated the weather and the size of Germany.

at the time of the invasion most Soviet civilians hated Stalin. Instead of treating them gently Hitler and the SS brutalized them turning them into enemies who rallied around Stalin.

Hitler and his continued changing of objectives as well as an overly romanticized concept of his military fighting to the death didn't allow the German military to preserve its strength retreat back to Germany and dig in. Instead Hitler snapped the spine of the German Military.

In the end Russia marched into Berlin, and brutalized the German capital, gained strength and power that they didn't previously had and gained the ability to drop an iron curtain over Europe.