72 years ago today on June 28, 1942 Nazi Germany launched its second great summer offensive against the Soviet Union, Operation Blue, following up Operation Barbarossa from the year before. Operation Blue was an all-out effort by Adolf Hitler to seize the great economic prizes of the Soviet Unions main sources of oil in the Caucasus and wheat in the Ukraine. By August, the city of Stalingrad was also targeted for capture, which would have cut Russia in two by severing the Volga River and positioning Hitler to seize the Caucasus oil fields, push into Iran, Iraq and even India, link up with the Japanese and open a field of conquest not seen since the days of Alexander the Great 2,300 years earlier. In the summer of 1942 Adolf Hitlers empire had reached its greatest extent, writes Robert Leckie in his 1987 book, Delivered From Evil: The Saga of World War II. When the German Sixth Army under Gen. Friedrich Paulus arrived at the Volga a few miles north of Stalingrad (in August), Hitler had conquered almost as much of Russia as Genghis Khans devouring Mongol hordes in the 13th Century. The swastika flag now flew from Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain of the Caucasus, a feat that revivified the despondent German people. They realized with jubilation that Germany now ruled Europe from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus. Hitlers empire was immense. Most of North Africa was in his hands and the Mediterranean was an Axis lake. Axis now meant Nazi, for the Italian partner had been reduced to satellite status hardly greater than Romania or Hungary. Central Asia seemed to be opening up and in the far distance the Persian Gulf beckoned. Hitlers insatiable thirst for oil seemed satiated when his forces seized the Maikop oil fields in the Caucasus; but the retreating Soviets had so thoroughly wrecked them that they were for the present useless. Although his troops were within a hundred miles of the Caspian Sea, they never got to the more valuable oil fields at Baku or even those at Grozny farther west. Nevertheless, Adolf Hitler could quite rightfully compare himself to Genghis Khan or Napoleon. ww2today/28th-june-1942-hitler-launches-fall-blau-a-new-attack-on-russia
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 00:45:42 +0000
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