On June 22, 1941 Operation Barbarossa was launched. Within a week the Germans had captured 400,000 soldiers, damaged more than 4,000 planes beyond repair and penetrated 300 miles into Russia, capturing Minsk. Another 200,000 soldiers were captured the second week.
Stalin, recollecting himself from the shock of such levels of destruction, gave a speech July 3, 1941 stirring the spirit of Russia and reassuring its people that victory was possible against such a formidable foe, that the Russian struggle "will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for democratic liberties. It will be a united front of the peoples who stand for freedom and against enslavement."
However, the Soviet Union was still going to need support if they were to win against Hitler's armies. There was strong opposition in America to aiding Russia for various reasons, but the most disruptive one was the thought that the Russians did not deserve American support, that they were no different from the Nazis.
Senate opposition to the very idea of aid to Russia was especially forceful. The Missouri senators were the worst. "It's a case of dog eat dog," barked Senator Bennett Clark from Missouri. Senator Harry Truman, yapped in accord:
"If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible."
Bone chilling words to come from a future American President, words that no Russian would ever forget.
It was thought by many that the Soviets would not last long in a war with Hitler. British intelligence estimated that the Wehrmacht would reach Moscow "in three weeks or less."
Roosevelt felt differently. He would set up a Lend-Lease in March 1941 which allowed the U.S. to supply anti-Hitler collation allies with material. Despite this aid being delayed for months in the case of the Soviet Union, it nevertheless did come, and not a minute too soon.
On Sept 8, 1941 the siege of Leningrad began and would only end in Jan 1944. Hitler intended to starve the 2.2 million Russian inhabitants declaring "Requests to be allowed to surrender will be rejected"We have no interest in preserving any part of the population of that large city."
General Zhukov was sent to the city's defense and saved Leningrad from such a fate. Later Eisenhower would say of Zhukov "In Europe the war has been won and to no man do the United Nations owe a greater debt than to Marshal Zhukov."
Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program was a major factor in Russia's salvation. The list of goods that Roosevelt committed to send to the Soviet Union was astounding. It included shipments every month of 400 planes, 500 tanks, 5,000 cars, 10,000 trucks and huge quantities of anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns, diesel generators, field telephones, radios, motorcycles, wheat, flour, sugar, 200,000 pairs of boots, 500,000 pairs of surgical gloves and 15,000 amputation saws. By the end of October 1941, ships were carrying 100 bombers, 100 fighter planes, 166 tanks all with spare parts and ammunition, plus 5,500 trucks. (5)
The siege of Moscow lasted from Oct 1941 to Jan 1942, it would claim 926,000 Soviet lives before it ended.
The Soviet Union was receiving supplies from the U.S., but it was taking the full brunt of the Wehrmacht army on their own.
According to WWII historian and authority on Nazi Germany Gerhard Weinberg, the German military's own figures show that ten thousand Russian prisoners of war were shot or killed by hunger and disease EVERY SINGLE DAY for the first seven months of the war. This amounts to two million, adding one million Soviet citizens who died during this period, 3 million Russians died in the first seven months of the war.
Eisenhower had drafted a plan code name Sledgehammer to organise a second front to support Russia, but it would rely on the complete backing of Great Britain from where the operation would be launched, for housing and aircraft support.
Major General Ismay head of the British Office of the Minister of Defense was among those who thought it a great mistake to have misled General George Marshall and Hopkins on British support for the operation, stating:
"Our American friends went happily under the mistaken impression that we had committed ourselves to both Roundup and Sledgehammer"When he had to tell them, after the most thorough study of Sledgehammer, that we were absolutely opposed to it, they felt that we had broken faith with them"I think we should have come clean, much cleaner than we did, and said, "We are frankly horrified because of what we have been through in our lifetime.' "(6)
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