The Blitzkrieg into Russia, featuring panzer armor divisions, was initially successful but ultimately failed. The German Armed Forces High Command, the OKW, had originally counted on a 12-week war against the staggering Soviet Union, but under Joseph Stalin, the Soviets rallied and came back stronger than ever.
The German field marshals and generals share in the blame for the debacle that was to come in the East. He was both right and wrong as it turned out, and thus Adolf Hitler was not the only German who had underestimated the Soviets. An estimated four million Red Army soldiers were captured by the Germans during the six months after the launching of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. Indeed, the chief of the German General Staff, Colonel General Franz Halder, wrote, “The Russians have lost this war in the first eight days! Their casualties-in both men and equipment-are unimaginable.”
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