Images of Barbarossa - the German Invasion of Russia 1941

by Christopher Ailsby

On 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Over 3,000,000 men, more than 3,000 tanks, and over 2,000 aircraft advanced east to begin National Socialism's crusade to destroy Bolshevism and carve out "living space" for the Thousand Year Reich. During the first few weeks of the invasion, the Germans achieved staggering results, as whole Soviet armies were annihilated, thousands of aircraft were destroyed on the ground, and hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers were captured. Images of Barbarossa includes photographs of Operation Typhoon, the attempt by three panzer armies to capture Moscow. However, Soviet doggedness and one of the coldest Russian winters in living memory combined to stop the Germans at the gates of the Soviet capital, and in the process dashed any hopes of bringing the war on the Eastern Front to an end in 1942. Then, the Soviets unleashed a counter-attack along the front, under which the German armies buckled but managed to hold - just. Drawing on many previously unpublished images sourced from Russian archives, Christopher Ailsby recreates the experience of war on the Eastern Front in 1941: the choking dust and endless steppes of the Ukraine, the glutinous autumn and winter mud that made movement by wheeled and tracked vehicles all but impossible, and the numbing Russian Winter, which froze petrol and killed thousands of ill-equipped German soldiers. Away from the battlefield, Images of Barbarossa features the alrocities of the German SS and paramilitary units that followed the armies into the Soviet Union to implement the murderous racial policies of Nazism. Many of the images are haunting, and convey the horror and destructiveness of war on the Eastern Front.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[John]

A good overview of the military history of the German invasion of the Soviet Union from its beginning in June of 1941 until the end of winter in 1942. Covering both Operations Barbarossa and Typhoon. As the title indicates, there are a lot of photographs, the vast majority from the German point of view. It could use more maps, as there's only a single overview map near the very beginning.

In addition to a purely military history, it also touches on the political aspects introduced by Hitler, and has a chapter on the atrocities committed by Germany behind the front lines. The latter mostly covering the moral wrongness, but also touching on the political mistake of alienating people who would have otherwise possibly welcomed Germans as liberators.

Not a bad introduction to the subject.

[John Naylor]

A subject I knew very little about before reading this.

There is plenty of information contained and it stretches beyond the battles. The style of writing kept me interested to the end and the photographs did add information to the text.

My one main complaint would be the lack of maps to help ground the text and photos. I feel these would have helped.

I think this is a good introduction for anyone to this period of history.

[Seth]

Good photo reference for an artist. I used it a lot on my Stalingrad project.