Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, involved a number of breakthroughs and encirclements by motorized forces.

Many historians now hold the position that blitzkrieg was not a military theory, and the campaigns conducted by the German military in 1939 to circa, 1942 ( with the exception of Operation Barbarossa ) were improvised invasions put together and modified at the last moment and therefore was not a proper military strategy.

It was only after the Battle of France German thinking reverted to the possibility of a blitzkrieg method for the Balkan Campaign and Operation Barbarossa.

The initial, formal killings of the Final Solution were undertaken by the SS Einsatzgruppen ( Task Forces ) death squads who followed the Wehrmacht during the Operation Barbarossa invasion of the USSR in June 1941.

On the Eastern Front, Soviet fighter forces were overwhelmed during the opening phases of Operation Barbarossa.

In 1941 the Axis campaign spread to the Soviet Union after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa.

* 1941: Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

His special directive, the " Guidelines in Special Spheres re Directive No. 21 ( Operation Barbarossa )", read: " In the operations area of the army, the Reichsführer-SS has been given special tasks on the orders of the Führer, in order to prepare the political administration.

During the early morning of 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler broke the pact by implementing Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Soviet held territories and the Soviet Union that began the war on the Eastern Front.

* 1941 – German troops capture the city of Białystok during Operation Barbarossa.

* 1941 – Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

On 29 March 1941, during a conversation with Matsuoka, Ribbentrop as instructed by Hitler told the Japanese nothing about the upcoming Operation Barbarossa, as Hitler believed that he could defeat the Soviet Union on his own and preferred that the Japanese attack Britain instead.

It was Ribbentrop's hope that a striking German success in Iraq might lead to Hitler abandoning his plans for Operation Barbarossa, and focusing instead on the struggle with Britain.

Despite his opposition to Operation Barbarossa and a preference for focusing the war effort against Britain, on 28 June 1941, Ribbentrop began a sustained effort to have Japan attack the Soviet Union without bothering to inform Hitler first.

Philby provided Stalin with advance warning of Operation Barbarossa and of the Japanese intention to strike south at Singapore instead of attacking the USSR as Hitler had urged.

The invasion was cancelled in December 1940, when Hitler ordered preparations to be made for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

This was a fortunate position since the Luftwaffe's strategy of focusing its striking power on one front started to unravel with the failure of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Situation in Europe by May / June 1941, immediately before Operation Barbarossa

* 1941 – World War II: In Slonim, German forces engaged in Operation Barbarossa murdered 9000 Jews in a single day.

Operation Barbarossa was named after Frederick Barbarossa, the medieval German ruler who, as myth had it, would rescue Germany in her time of need.

Operation Barbarossa was the largest military operation in human history in both manpower and casualties.

Most importantly, Operation Barbarossa opened up the Eastern Front, to which more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history.

In November 1942, following Allied landings in North Africa ( Operation Torch ), the Germans occupied all of Provence ( Operation Attila ) and then headed for Toulon ( Case Anton ).

During World War II, after the Allied landings in North Africa ( Operation Torch ) the German Army occupied southern France ( Case Anton ), leading to the scuttling of the French Fleet at Toulon ( 27 November 1942 ).

The Nazi Germans lost faith in the Vichy regime after Operation Torch, and — during Case Anton in November 1942 — German and Italian forces occupied Vichy France.

During World War II, Operation Fall Rot ( Case Red in English ) was the second phase of the conquest of France by the German Army, begun on 5 June 1940.

Operation Green () often also referred to as Case Green () or Plan Green (), was a full scale operations plan for a German invasion of Ireland in support of Operation Sea Lion ().

* Maxwell, Kenneth, " The Case of the Missing Letter in Foreign Affairs: Kissinger, Pinochet and Operation Condor ", Maxwell's account of the affair over his review of Kornbluh's book.

* Maxwell, Kenneth, " The Case of the Missing Letter in Foreign Affairs: Kissinger, Pinochet and Operation Condor ", Working Papers on Latin America, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, No. 04 / 05-3 © 2004.

Case Blue (), later renamed Operation Braunschweig, was the German Armed Forces ' ( Wehrmacht ) name for its plan for the 1942 strategic summer offensive in southern Russia between 28 June and 24 November 1942.

However a final peace treaty was never negotiated, and the unoccupied zone was occupied by Germany and its Italian ally in Operation Anton ( Case Anton ) following the invasion of French North Africa by the Allies in November 1942.

** " Case Four: Operation Mordred " ( with Lee Sullivan, in 2000 AD # 968, 1995

Reinhard Heydrich was killed after an attack by British trained Czechoslovak soldiers on behalf of the Czechoslovak government in exile in Operation Anthropoid, and knowledge from decoded transmissions allowed the U. S. to carry out a targeted attack, killing Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto while he was travelling by plane.

Adolf Hitler, meanwhile, was almost killed by his own officers, and survived various attempts by other persons and organizations ( such as Operation Foxley, though this plan was never put into practice ).

In 1986, U. S. President Ronald Reagan ( who survived an assassination attempt himself ) ordered the Operation El Dorado Canyon air raid on Libya in which one of the primary targets was the home residence of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

It was soon used in combat — in March 1986 against a Libyan SA-5 site in the Gulf of Sidra, and then Operation Eldorado Canyon in April.

HARM was used extensively by the United States Navy and the United States Air Force for Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War of 1991.

The occupation of these facilities in October 1943 was codenamed Operation Alacrity by the British.

The most recent overseas operation of the Navy was along the coast of Libya as part of Operation Unified Protector.

He was in command of all Allied ground forces during Operation Overlord from the initial landings until after the Battle of Normandy.

After Gott was killed flying back to Cairo Churchill was persuaded by Brooke, who by this time was Chief of the Imperial General Staff to appoint Montgomery, who had only just been nominated to replace Alexander as commander of the British ground forces for Operation Torch.

The conquest of Libya was essential for airfields to support Malta and to threaten the rear of Axis forces opposing Operation Torch.

The Battle of Peleliu, codenamed Operation Stalemate II, was fought between the United States and the Empire of Japan in the Pacific Theater of World War II, from September – November 1944 on the island of Peleliu, present-day Palau.

In 2002, it was a primary combat zone in Operation Defensive Shield, a major military offensive by the Israeli Defense Forces ( IDF ).

After the Taliban government was toppled during Operation Enduring Freedom, Rabbani returned to Kabul and served as a temporary President from November to December 20, 2001, when Hamid Karzai was chosen at the Bonn International Conference on Afghanistan.

For the next five years he and the Northern Alliance were busy fighting the Taliban until the 2001 US-led Operation Enduring Freedom in which the Taliban government was toppled.

Indeed, the final German blitzkrieg operation in the west, Operation Wacht am Rhein, was planned to take place during poor weather which grounded Allied aircraft.

By the summer of 1944 the reversal of fortune was complete and Operation Bagration saw Soviet forces inflict crushing defeats on Germany through the aggressive use of armour, infantry and air power in combined strategic assault, known as deep operations.

Germany's last offensive on its Western front, Operation Wacht am Rhein, was an offensive launched towards the vital port of Antwerp in December 1944.