In 1940, fresh from the success in France, Hitler turned his attention to the East. In this volume, Geoffrey Jukes explains what led to Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) and offers an account of the campaign that followed. The Germans expected to conquer Russia in only four months, but at Stalingrad and then at Kursk the Russians held their ground. At a human cost of 27 million Russian lives, Hitler was forced into a humiliating retreat, while the Soviet Union emerged from the war as a global superpower.