There’s a theory I recently came across suggesting that Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 wasn’t purely an act of aggression, but might have been a preemptive strike — that Hitler believed Stalin was preparing to attack Germany first. How credible is this idea based on the historical evidence we have today? What are the main arguments for and against the notion that Operation Barbarossa was launched to forestall an imminent Soviet offensive?
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Hello, wouldn’t that be the suvorov claim , someone on askhistorian went against it https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5bbsny/how_do_academics_regard_the_thesis_that_stalin/ Attacking the soviet union was ideologically motivated, not only because of hitler anticommunism, there was also the lebensraum he wanted