The Road to Barbarossa
By Joseph Miranda
On 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to attack eastwards into the Soviet Union, launching Operation Barbarossa. Hitler’s goal was the conquest of the Soviet Union and with that accomplished, create a greater Germanic Reich. But what were the reasons behind the invasion?
War and Geopolitics
Adolf Hitler was greatly influenced by the geopoliticians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Karl Haushofer, Nicholas Spykman and Halford Mckinder. Broadly, they viewed the geographical position of a country as being a primary determinant of its ability to conduct foreign and military policy. Britain was an oceanic power, exploiting sea power to create a global empire. Russia was a continental power, dominating the great landmass of Eurasia from Eastern Europe to the Pacific and Central Asia. Th e United States was a combined power, with a dominant continental position in the Western Hemisphere and an oceanic empire stretching from the Philippines to the Caribbean; control of the Panama Canal gave the US a vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Japan was catching up, establishing its own empire in Korea, Formosa, Manchuria and then eastern China as well as moving into Pacific islands.
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