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.