When in June 1940 more than 5 million German soldiers launched an attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler and most of the Wehrmacht commanders were sure that victory over the eastern colossus was a matter of weeks – history, however, showed how greatly they were mistaken. Initially, the German war machine confidently pushed east into the USSR, brutally clearing the way to Moscow. However, it was there, as a result of an exhausting battle lasting from October 1941 to January 1942, that the Wehrmacht was defeated and pushed several hundred kilometers to the west.