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How Lies Surrounding the Alamo took Root and Other Historic Myths

Khalid Elhassan February 28, 2022 38 min

8. The Myth That Hitler’s Invasion of the Balkans in the Spring of 1941 Doomed the Invasion of the USSR Shortly Thereafter

German armor plunges into the Soviet Union at the start of Operation Barbarossa. Encyclopedia Britannica

Another WWII myth revolves around Operation Barbarossa, the surprise German invasion of the Soviet Union, which ground to a halt amidst the Russian winter a few miles short of Moscow. It holds that the invasion would have succeeded if it had only started a month or two earlier than its actual launch date of June 22^nd, 1941. The reason it did not start earlier, goes this narrative, is because Hitler got entangled in the Balkans, and invaded Greece and Yugoslavia in April of 1941. As a result, the launch of Operation Barbarossa was delayed.

Myth vs Facts - German troops in the Soviet Union in the winter of 1941 — German troops in the Soviet Union in the winter of 1941. Webkits

The first flaw with this account is that gives winter top billing for stopping the German advance. However, other factors such as fierce Soviet resistance, the overextension of German supply lines as the Wehrmacht plunged ever deeper into the USSR, and autumn rains, had already brought the German advance to a halt before the first snowstorms. The Germans had to regroup before they resumed their advance on Moscow, and that gave the Soviets a breather. To be fair, Hitler’s soldiers were unprepared for the terrible Russian winter when it arrived. However, that was only one factor, and not the main one, for the German advance’s halt.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.