When Operation Barbarossa Is Launched, The World Will Hold Its Essays

"When Operation Barbarossa is launched, the world will hold its breath!" - Adolf Hitler On the night of June 22, 1941, more than 3 million German soldiers, 600 000 vehicles and 3350 tanks were amassed along a 2000km front stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Their sites were all trained on Russia. This force was part of 'Operation Barbarossa', the eastern front of the greatest military machine ever assembled. This machine was Adolf Hitler's German army. For Hitler, the inevitable assault on Russia was to be the culmination of a long standing obsession. He had always wanted Russia's industries and agricultural lands as part of his Lebensraum or 'living space' for Germany and their Thousand Year Reich. Russia had been on Hitler's agenda since he wrote Mein Kampf some 17 years earlier where he stated: 'We terminate the endless German drive to the south and the west of Europe, and direct our gaze towards the lands in the east...If we talk about new soil and territory in Europe today, we can think primarily only of Russia and its vassal border states'i Hitler wanted to exterminate and enslave the 'degenerate' Slavs and he wanted to obliterate their 'Jewish Bolshevist' government before it could turn on him. His 1939 pact with Stalin was only meant to give Germany time to prepare for war. As soon as Hitler controlled France, he looked east. Insisting that Britain was as good as defeated, he wanted to finish off the Soviet Union as soon as possible, before it could significantly fortify and arm itself. 'We only have to kick in the front door and the whole rotten edifice will come tumbling down'ii he told his officers. His generals warned him of the danger of fighting a war on two fronts and of the difficulty of invading an area as vast as Russia but, Hitler simply overruled them. He then placed troops in Finland and Romania and created his eastern front. In December 1940, Hitler made his final battle plan. He gave this huge operation a suitable name. He termed it 'Operation Barbarossa' or 'Redbeard' which was the nickname of the crusading 12th century Holy Roman emperor, Frederick I. The campaign consisted of three groups: Army Group North which would secure the Baltic; Army Group South which would take the coal and oil rich lands of the Ukraine and Caucasus; and Army Group Centre which would drive towards Moscow. Prior to deploying this massive force, military events in the Balkans delayed 'Barbarossa' by five weeks. It is now widely agreed that this delay proved fatal to Hitler's conquest plans of Russia but, at the time it did not seem important. In mid-June the build-up was complete and the German Army stood poised for battle. Hitler's drive for Russia failed however, and the defeat of his army would prove to be a major downward turning point for Germany and the Axis counterparts. There are many factors and events which contributed to the failure of Operation Barbarossa right from the preparatory stages of the attack to the final cold wintry days when the Germans had no choice but to concede. Several scholars and historians are in basic agreement with the factors which led to Germany's failure however, many of them stress different aspects of the operation as the crucial turning point. One such scholar is the historian, Kenneth Macksey. His view on Operation Barbarossa is plainly evident just by the title of his book termed, 'Military errors Of World War Two.'iii Macksey details the fact that the invasion of Russia was doomed to fail from the beginning due to the fact that the Germans were unprepared and extremely overconfident for a reasonable advancement towards Moscow. Macksey's first reason for the failure was the simply that Germany should not have broken its agreement with Russia and invaded its lands due to the fact that the British were not defeated on the western front, and this in turn plunged Hitler into a war on two fronts. The Germans, and Hitler in particular were stretching their forces too thin and were overconfident that the Russians would be defeated in a very short time. Adolf Hitler's overconfidence justifiably stemmed from the crushing defeats which his army had administered in Poland, France, Norway, Holland, Belgium and almost certainly Great Britain had the English Channel not stood in his way.iv Another important point that Macksey describes is the lack of hard intelligence that the Germans possessed about the Russian army and their equipment, deployment tactics, economic situation and communication networks. They had not invested much time and intelligence agents in collecting information from

My Zambezi Valley

My Zambezi Valley My Zambezi ValleyÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ If the average person was asked about the Zambezi Valley, how many would actually have anything to say? From all the places I have been in the world, the Zambezi Valley stands out most in my mind. The mighty Zambezi River forms the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia as they lie on the maps in our libraries. Few people have been graced the opportunity to be in the presence of this majestic silver python as it carves away at the crust of our earth. There is no better way to experience this natural wonder than by organizing an expedition and venturing into the unknown wilderness of the 'Dark Continent' for memories that will last you a lifetime. Unfortunately these days you have to do it through a Safari company that will charge you an arm and a leg for a week long tour, only skimming the surface and not taking you into the darkest of Africa of which y ou have read in so many adventure novels.Traveling is a very stimulating hobby, but Africa is part of me.ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ ÂÆ'‚‚ Darkness overcame all as Mother Earth turned her back on the center of our solar system. In the heart of Africa everything is sleeping, or so you are meant to think. The ruler of that kingdom is patrolling his territory in absolute silence. His bushy black mane casts a shadow in the pale moonlight. Eyes like those of an eagle penetrate the darkest shadows of the bush. The soft gray pads of his paws tread along the game path barely leaving any evidence of his presence. The great beast strides graciously along before disappearing into black night. He will soon find either a dense thicket or some tall Buffalo grass swaying back and forth on the rhythm of the...

How useful is the psychological contract in managing staff in the Essay

How useful is the psychological contract in managing staff in the police service - Essay Example Even though the psychological contract was initially identified by Schein, Levinson, and Argyris to delineate the subjective character of employment relationships, the current formulation puts emphasis on the individuals’ ideas in and understanding of a promissory contract. Dissimilar to implicit or formal contracts, the psychological contract is innately affective or perceptual, and hence the interpretation of one individual of the agreement may not be shared by the other (Herriot 2001). Recent progresses in the concept of psychological contract are mostly led by Rousseau. Rousseau claims that the psychological contract is based on promises and, in due course, assumes the form of a psychological paradigm which is reasonably stable and resilient. Rousseau clearly differentiated between perceptions at the individual level and at the relationship level, putting emphasis on her assumption of the personal ideas of individual employees about employment relationship. Significantly, the employee and employer may not have the same perception regarding the premises of the contract, which can encourage thoughts that assurances have been breached, or, as it is more commonly known, the violation of the psychological contract (Rousseau 1996). Psychological contracts, involving assumed responsibilities, should be differentiated from expectations, which are common ideas believed by employees regarding what they will encounter in their employment relationship and the organisation (Calo 2006). For instance, a newly promoted manager could expect to be highly compensated, to be respected, to be fond of his new position, or to see his new office painted with an impartial shade. These expectations originate from a broad array of sources, encompassing personal experience, social standards, observations by significant others, and so on. On the contrary, psychological contracts involve