Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany and most of its Axis allies launched a surprise attack against the Soviet Union. The operation Barbarossa put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. By the end of the year, German troops had advanced hundreds of miles to the outskirts of Moscow. German military and civilian occupation policies led to the deaths of millions of Soviet prisoners of war and Soviet civilians.