Hitler believed defeating the Soviet Union would be simple. He had watched how the Soviets struggled against tiny Finland in 1939 and assumed their army was weak. He also underestimated Stalin, seeing him as an incompetent leader who couldn’t manage a war. To Hitler, the campaign looked like it would be quick and easy.
His confidence came from Germany’s earlier lightning victories. Poland had fallen in weeks, France in just six. Blitzkrieg — fast, crushing attacks — seemed unstoppable. Fueled by this overconfidence, in June 1941 Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the massive invasion of the Soviet Union. He expected it would take just three or four months to destroy the Red Army, capture vital cities, and seize Soviet oil fields.
At first, it looked like he might be right. German forces advanced rapidly, gaining vast stretches of territory. But the Soviets didn’t collapse. They fought on fiercely, regrouping even as they lost ground. Then came the Russian winter — brutal and unforgiving. The Germans had no proper winter clothing, little food, and fuel shortages. Soldiers froze in the snow while their equipment failed in the extreme cold.
The Soviets, on the other hand, had the advantage of sheer numbers, huge reserves of land, and iron determination. What Hitler thought would be a short campaign turned into a grinding, drawn-out war of attrition.
Hitler’s assumption proved disastrously wrong. The failure to defeat the Soviet Union quickly drained German resources, weakened morale, and opened the door to the eventual collapse of Nazi Germany. What he believed would be an easy victory instead became one of the greatest mistakes of his military career — and a major reason Germany lost the war.
