Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin - Essay Example Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin were ardent believers of totalitarianism.Both were strict adherents of dictatorship who believed that the individual's needs must be subordinated to the State's welfare. However, historically they were strange bedfellows. They distrust and loathe each other. So when both inked a non-agression pact on August 28, 1939, not a few eyebrows were raised. It was no secret that Hitler considered "Bolshevism as the most extreme form of international Jewry".1 Hitler had always considered Russia as Germany's greatest enemy, regarded Russians as inferior Slavs and abhorred its self-imposed title as bulwark of communism. Thus, Operation Barbarossa was conceived to put Russia and Stalin on their knees. Hitler's resolve to decimate Russia in three months time was on the verge of being manic. Behind his back however, Stalin was also cooking a diabolical concoction for Hitler i.e. he was "preparing a preventive strike at Germany".Hitler left no stone unturned in this off ensive. He paraded 3.5 million Wehrmacht troops reinforced with Panzer tanks and hovered protectively by the famed Luftwaffe aircrafts. He then positioned these on a 2,000 mile frontier border from the Black Sea in the Crimea to the White Sea in the Arctic region. Because the Red Army troops were mostly inexperienced, the Germans easily captured most of the western Russian cities. But Hitler's 3-month time frame was stretched. What Hitler failed to foresee was the Red Army's seemingly inexhaustible reserve of manpower, the fortitude of Russian guerillas, the vast distances the Wehrmacht had to advance in