"When Operation Barbarossa is launched, the world will hold its breath!" OPERATION BARBAROSSA: A GOOD PLAN? On the night of June 22, 1941, more than 3 million German soldiers, 600 000 vehicles and 3350 tanks were amassed along a 2000km front stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Their sites were all trained on Russia. This force was part of 'Operation Barbarossa', the eastern front of the greatest military machine ever assembled. This machine was Adolf Hitler's German army. For Hitler, the inevitable assault on Russia was to be ....