ABSTRACT
The attack on Russia was for Nazi Germany the most burdensome undertaking of the war, and the worst risk Adolf Hitler had run. In orchestrating his huge, predatory attack on Russia, Hitler could count, as always, on the professional co-operation of his highly-skilled officer corps. The challenges of nature – which Hitler greatly underestimated and failed to anticipate in his planning – were compounded by the great force of Russian resistance. This, too, had been grossly underestimated both by German intelligence services, and, characteristically, by the Fuehrer himself. There were some very early indications that the Nazi assault on Russia would prove a great disappointment to Hitler. To deny shelter and comfort to the advancing Hitlerites, Joseph Stalin had to first deny it to his own people. The cost to the defenders was obviously enormous, but the Nazis, too, had to suffer and pay the costs of bleak desolation in a land over which they sought to move eastward.
