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 - in the most momentous decision of the war - the Nazi dictator turned East and flung his victorious armies into the vastness of the Soviet Union.Having signed a Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler back in 1939, Stalin was taken completely by surprise by the German attack. Hitler-s Wehrmacht - buoyed by years of untrammelled success and led by some of the greatest commanders Nazi Germany had to offer - crashed across the border and sent the Red Army reeling.The German plan was simple and its scale staggering; over three million men, armed with over three thousand panzers, the same number of aircraft, more than seven thousand guns and carried by ov
