My wife is Turkish and she told me that she learnt (perhaps at school) that antifreeze was invented by Nazi Germany during Operation Barbarossa, or because of the setbacks of said operation. If I search in Turkish, I can find some sources that confirm this, but without sources. I think this claim is false. I can find on Wikipedia that antifreezes were commercialised during the 1920s. However, I could still ask this question: to what extent did Nazi Germany use antifreeze during Operation Barbarossa? I assume that this would have been a great help and I guess even necessary.
Antifreeze had been around since the advent of WW1 however the reason why Germany is credited with antifreeze during WW2 is that they were the first country to start using antifreeze widely whereas before the war it was seen more of a luxury.
During operation Barbarossa Europe and Russia had recorded some of the coldest temperatures recorded at the time and due to the fact vehicles could not start below certain temperatures antifreeze became the Germans secret weapon and used it in almost all their vehicles so while Russian vehicles and tanks were frozen German vehicles could start in -40c weather and gave them a huge advantage.
In the later half of WW2 the allies started using antifreeze regularly as it was by then a proven product that was cheap to make and provided much needed comfort to front line troops.
After the war it was introduced into civilian use and has not looked back since
