Spring 1941 – the Third Reich triumphant!  Having taken over Germany in 1933, Hitler launched a series of lightning campaigns across Europe that crushed Poland, Denmark, Norway, France, the Low Countries and then the Balkans. Only Great Britain had withstood the Nazis, but even it was battered and bruised and close to defeat.  Then, on 22 June 1941 the Nazi dictator turned East and flung his victorious armies into the vastness of the Soviet Union. The German plan was simple and its scale staggering; over three million men, the same number of aircraft and over six hundred thousand vehicles would be joined by over half a million soldiers from allied countries, together they would destroy the largest army in the world. At the very borders of Asiatic Russia they would halt and what remained of the Soviet Union and the communist faith that spawned it would wither and die. In the newly conquered lebensraum, Hitler and the Nazis would then commence the biggest mass human extermination programme in history.  Barbarossa was huge, but it was fought by men; and on the German side in particular, it would be fought by junior officers and simple soldiers as the Wehrmacht tried to win the war once and for all. Product Information: • ISBN: 9781398107229 • Author: Jonathan Trigg • Publisher: Amberley Publishing • Format: Hardback • Pages: 320 • Dimensions: 23.39 x 15.6 x 2.79 cm