Operation Barbarossa  Hitler's Directive 21

On 22 June, a door opened before us, and we didn't know
what was behind it... the heavy uncertainly took me by
the throat.      Adolf Hiltler.

The greatest land war in recorded history began at 3.30 a.m. on 22 June 1941,
the day after the 129th anniversary of Napoleon's attack on Russia in 1842.
The initial German front was 995 miles-1600 km long, and there was another 620 miles-
992 km along the Finnish border. The main front would soon expand to 1490 miles-
2384 km and extend to a depth of over 600 miles-960 km. In to this great space of
steppe, forest and swamp marched the best of the German Army, amounting to
threequarters of it's field strength. By the end of the year, 3.500.000 Red Army soldiers
were in captivity and 4.000.000 had died in battle. At one time the Germans occupied
some 900.000 square miles-1.440.000 square km of Soviet territory.

The road to Stalingrad - Army Group South

22 June 1941 - Operation Barbarossa : Germany attacked the Soviet Union :
Three Army Groups  with 123 divisions, including 17 panzer divisions and 35 divisions
of the allied nations. 3350 tanks, 7.000 field guns and 2000 Luftwaffe aircraft.

Army Group North, Army Group Center and Army Group South. (o.o.b. below)
Army Group South was commanded by Gerd von Rundstedt. (biography below)
 

Gerd von Rundstedt.
Commander Army Group South.

The main objectives were :

- Leningrad (Army Group North).
- Moscow (Army Group Centre).
- Rostov (Army Group South).

Map of operation Barbarossa

By 31 July 1941 the Germans had suffered 213.301 casualties, around fifteen
per cent of their total invasion force and had lost 863 tanks through enemy
action or breakdown beyond repair, nearly one quarter of the original number.
 

Order of battle Army Group South commanded by Gerd von Rundstedt
(soon supported on his right by a small Hungarian and two Romanian Armies)

11th Army : General Ritter von Schobert

Gerd von Rundstedt

1875-1953
in full KARL RUDOLF GERD VON RUNDSTEDT (b. Dec. 12, 1875,
Aschersleben, near Magdeburg, Prussia [now in Germany]--d. Feb. 24,
1953, Hannover, W.Ger.), German field marshal who was one of Adolf
Hitler's ablest leaders during World War II, holding commands on both
the Eastern and Western fronts and playing a major role in defeating
France in 1940 and in opposing the 1944 Allied offensive in the West.

An officer in the army from 1893, Rundstedt rose during World War I to
become chief of staff of an army corps and assisted in the reorganization
of the Turkish general staff. He remained in the army after the war and
was active in Germany's secret rearmament both before and after Hitler
came to power. Retiring in 1938 as senior field commander, he returned
to active duty to command an army group in the Polish campaign at the
outbreak of World War II. Later, on the Western Front, he took part in
the implementation of the plan that defeated France in 1940; as head of
Army Group B he led the breakthrough that sealed France's fate. He
was, however, partly to blame for the order to halt the German armour,
allowing the British to escape from Dunkirk. During the invasion of the
Soviet Union, beginning in June 1941, he commanded the German
southern wing, which overran almost all of Ukraine before winter. When
a Soviet counteroffensive forced a retreat, Hitler dismissed the aged field
marshal.

Returning to duty in July 1942, Rundstedt became commander in chief in
western Europe and fortified France against an expected Allied invasion.
Unable to defeat the Anglo-American invasion forces in 1944, he was
replaced in July but returned in September to direct the Ardennes
offensive (Battle of the Bulge) that disrupted the military timetable of the
Western Allies for several months. Though the scion of an aristocratic
Prussian family and highly disdainful of Hitler and Nazism, he refused to
participate in the plots and assassination attempts against the Führer in
which many of his fellow officers were involved. Relieved for the third
time in March 1945, he was captured by U.S. troops in May 1945 but
was released because of ill health.

Even Rundstedt's opponents recognized his considerable military talents;
General Dwight D. Eisenhower called him the ablest of the German
generals of World War II.