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Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa 
the panzers start to roll,
Breaking out from Poland’s Baltic,
towards Sevastopol, 
Ten million soldiers strong,
go goose-stepping east,
The Fuhrer’s Wehrmacht, 
alongside his waffen SS elite.

No margin for error, 
nazi Germany’s biggest gamble,
Get this wrong, and under 
the red army might get trampled 
But no need for worry, as 
all before starts to collapse,
Generals believe be over by Autumn 
or Christmas perhaps. 

Murdering and enslaving millions,
as they overrun,
Reds burn their own cities,
denying shelter for the hun,
Hitlers well oiled machine,
begins to slow right down,
As Stalin moves his factories,
to out of range towns. 

Nazis keep attacking,
as only they know how,
But stretched thinly on the ground,
winter has settled in now,
Can see domes of the kremlin,
victory looked so close,
May as well be a world away,
buried deep in Russian snows. 

So nothing for it, must dig in 
wait for the spring,
Writings on the wall, 
offensive over, blunting their sting,
Then comes the counter,
sure as day follows night,
Red army attacks all fronts,
clad in cloaks of white. 

The tide starts to turn, 
in ruins of Stalingrad,
Germans are surrounded, 
uniforms reduced to rags,
No food in their belly’s, 
living off dogs and cats, 
Paulus the general surrenders,
Throwing Hitler into a spat. 

Killing still not over, 
lots more bitter fighting to be had,
Stalin sacrifices millions,
in suicidal counterattacks,
Both sides face off daily,
in a mammoth slugging match,
prisoners were not taken 
none left alive to catch. 

So in the end Nazis crumble,
not beaten by a better army,
Never stood a chance, 
once America joined the party,
Russia lost thirty million people, 
Stalin did not care less,
Was only one real winner in
WW2 and that was the U.S. 

By
David Kavanagh 

In WW2 every life and sacrifice counted, 
my poem is looking at the wider bigger
picture and is not meant to belittle or 
negate any of the other allied nations
involved in the ultimate victory.

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Christopher Flaherty Date: 6/15/2020 2:23:00 PM Absolutely love this poem David 10 out of 7 Because of both the historical fact and content In total agreement the victors in WW2 were the Americans hence the status quo we live in today. The Germans supposedly lost but ended up getting a fresh start economy and country built. All we got was the Bill and Debt. Login to Reply Christopher Flaherty Date: 6/15/2020 4:52:00 PM Cheers David Thank you would love it if you would i hope you find a kindred spirit. Exactly the so callled winner's lost and the losers won We only just stopped paying representations to the french for the trenches in WW1 David Kavanagh Date: 6/15/2020 3:42:00 PM Cheers Christopher the Germans and Japanese gained more economically by loosing to the Americans as you rightly said the rest of us paid for it, I’ll be checking out some of your work too cheers David