The initial plan of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s codename for the German invasion of Soviet Union, aimed to take down Moscow within four months. The starting phase was stunningly successful as the whole operation went according to plan. On June 22nd 1941, Germany’s “preemptive strike” on Soviet Union took the Russians by surprise, destroying a vast amount of materiel and capturing hundreds of thousands of prisoners. With the employment of blitzkrieg tactics, Germany’s operational strategy was that two panzer groups moved simultaneously to breakthrough the Russian frontier defenses and push rapidly into Soviet territory, where they were to reconcile in a pincer movement, trapping the Soviet troops in an encirclement.
