096b - Operation Barbarossa - End of the Nazi-Soviet Alliance - WW2 - June 27 1941

by Panzer
Well, all I'm saying is that I can’t believe he actually did it.
I mean, how embarrassing this must be so embarrassing for Molotov.
I mean, he had that big hit song and all!
Yeah, yeah
June 27, 1941 I said it a few days ago on the day it happened,
but I’ll say it again- this week Germany invades the Soviet Union.
I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
Last week, the British attacked German-led Axis forces in North Africa in Operation Battleaxe,
but the operation was a failure.
The Allied invasion of Vichy French Syria continued and by the end of the week the fighting
had reached Damascus, and Germany was preparing for an Eastern European invasion of its own.
A few things of interest happened in the Middle East this week.
On the 21st as the week begins, Damascus falls to the Allies.
Australian troops had arrived at the end of last week and at 1100 the Vichy French garrison
surrenders.
“Hitler had now lost any chance of an easy descent on Palestine and the Suez Canal.”
Now, Syria falls under the Middle Eastern Theater of Command for the British, and after
the failure of Operation Battelaxe, British PM Winston Churchill decides that the Middle
East needs new blood.
He cables Archie Wavell- Theater Commander- the 21st that although “the victories which
are associated with your name will be famous in the story of the British Army”, he is
relieving him of his command and replacing him with General Sir Claude Auchinlek, who
has been in Command of British forces in India.
Wavell in turn is to be sent to take Auchinlek’s former position.
Steve Sears has this to say about Wavell, “For nearly two years, in victory and defeat,
Archibald Wavell had kept the Middle East in the Allied column.
Certainly no other British soldier in World War Two shouldered so many burdens…
When the change of command was made public, correspondent Alan Moorehead wrote: “There
went out of Cairo and the Middle East that afternoon one of the great men of the war.”
As for Erwin Rommel, leading the Axis forces in North Africa, this week changes everything
for him too.
Adolf Hitler’s orders to him are to march in place for the three months or whatever
it will take to defeat the Soviet Union.
Rommel knows that no reinforcements are going to be diverted for him in the near future.
What’s that about defeating the Soviet Union?
Oh yes, the largest land invasion in history begins this week as Germany invades the Soviet Union.
The attack begins at 0315 June 22, 1941.
German bombers hit 66 Soviet aerodromes this day.
By noon, over 1,000 Soviet planes have been destroyed.