Many historians see Hitler’s attack on Russia as a strategic and tactical mistake.
By early December 1941, the Germans had advanced to within a few miles of Moscow, but could not take the city. During that same month, the Soviets began a counterattack which drove the Germans back. The Germans would not come that close to the city again, and during the next three-and-a-half years, the eastern front between the Germans and Soviets would see bitter, violent, and tragic fighting.
After enduring the harsh winter, the German army was ready to fight again in early 1942. Instead of driving toward Moscow, the second year of fighting on the eastern front would focus on the southern end of the more-than-1000-mile-long combat zone: the Eastern Front stretched more than 1,600 km from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
The details of German maneuvers on the Eastern Front, like the entire Eastern Front itself, and like the entire war itself, were the ideas of Hitler, who overrode the wisdom of his military experts. The Nazi Party imposed Hitler’s war plans on the German people, just as Hitler imposed them on the officers of the German military, as historian Richard Overy explains:
When German forces had renewed their onslaught in the early summer of 1942, Stalingrad had not been high on Hitler’s list of priorities. His one thought had been to secure a decisive annihilating victory over the Red Army and crush his Bolshevik enemy once and for all. With the east eliminated, German resources could then be turned to defeat the western Allies. The issue was where the blow should fall. German army leaders favored an attack at the center of the front, to seize the Soviet capital, Moscow. This was where the bulk of Soviet forces was concentrated; the loss of the city would be devastating for Soviet morale. Hitler thought otherwise. The conquest of the Soviet Union was ideologically inspired, but motivated by material greed. Hitler wanted the industries, the oil and the grain of southern Russia; here was real Lebensraum, or living-space. He reasoned that if Germany captured these resources from the enemy the Soviet war effort would be brought to a halt, while the Third Reich would become all but invincible. On 5 April he issued his Führer Directive for the new summer campaign: a general blow to the south against the Crimea, the Don steppe and the Caucasus.
The Eastern Front would continue to be one disaster after another for the Germans until the end of the war. It would continue to be one victory after another for the Soviets.
Both sides would pay dearly in terms of the many lives lost. Both sides were guilty of atrocities committed against civil populations and against POWs. Both sides cajoled, threatened, extorted, and forced their populations into the war effort, whether it was the civilian home front or the young men conscripted.
There is a curious symmetry in these mirror images: Soviet Socialism fighting against National Socialism — one tyranny against another.
The Western Front, by contrast, was asymmetrical: free societies with free market economies opposing Hitler’s socialist dictatorship.
Despite the parallels between the two belligerents on the Eastern Front, there was at least one striking asymmetry: The Nazis were fighting a war of more-or-less unprovoked agression, while the Soviet Socialists were defending their homeland. This difference was arguably one of the variables which helped the Soviets achieve victory: soldiers defending their homes are thought to be more motivated.
Historians have identified and analyzed Hitler’s numerous mistakes: starting a war on the Easter Front at all; ignoring the advice of his military officers; overestimating the abilities of the German army; and others.