Adolf Hitler

In the spring of 1942, Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler had taken direct command of his Army Groups in the Soviet Union and outlined his plan for the coming campaign season. He intended to throw everything into taking Moscow, except for a smaller operation to capture Leningrad.

Europe was in chaos after the First World War. Tens of millions were dead. Large parts of France and Germany were completely destroyed, including France's major source of coal and much of their farmland. The Total War that consumed so many lives had also consumed the combatants' thirst for war.

With the attack on the United States Pacific Fleet on December 7, 1941, Japan had brought the most powerful nation on earth into the war on the side of the Allies.

In 1932, German President Paul von Hindenburg was asleep in his home. His son woke him with the news that he had defeated Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler and reelection to the Presidency. “It will still be true in an hour,” he said as he went back to sleep. Dismissive of the “Bohemian Corporal” as he called Hitler, Hindenburg hoped making Hitler Chancellor in January 1933 would appease and quiet him. A year later he was dead, and Hitler folded the powers of the Presidency into his own.

Hitler never trusted the professional army officers. His disdain came about because of the poor generalship in World War I that killed millions of German soldiers. He was always worried that the Army would attempt a coup de état and try to take over the government.

In 1934, as a result of the Night of Long Knives, he removed the SA, essentially a gang of thugs that had brought him to power, and killed their leader, Ernst Röhm. In exchange for removing the SA, the Army signed an oath of allegiance to Hitler.