Photographic Insert
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Stalin and Hitler were kindred spirits, almost perfectly matched in terms of their cynicism and staggering brutality. Stalin was even willing to toast the Führer’s health when he thought they had reached a bargain. But Hitler was determined to conquer and enslave Russia, treating it as Lebensraum for the German people. Speaking in Berlin’s Sportpalast on October 3, 1941, he called the drive to Moscow “the greatest battle in the history of the world.”
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Stalin believed he had outsmarted Hitler by getting him to accept the Soviet grab of eastern Poland and the Baltic states. He also thought that the nonaggression pact would at the very least delay a war between their two countries for a few years. But the German dictator stunned him by launching the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. At first, German troops met minimal resistance.
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General Heinz Guderian’s panzer units pushed east all the way to Smolensk in less than a month. Guderian urged Hitler to allow him to keep going directly to Moscow, but the German dictator insisted that his troops take Kiev first. As Guderian predicted, this proved to be a huge mistake. It delayed the drive to Moscow until the weather began to change and Stalin could call in reinforcements from Siberia.
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FDR with Harry Hopkins in the White House study. Although the United States was not yet in the war, Roosevelt insisted on providing as much aid as possible for Russia. Even as Moscow’s fate hung in the balance, Stalin used his talks with Western leaders to begin pushing his plans for Soviet domination of postwar Eastern Europe.
The Greatest Battle Page 43