Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.
CNN
—
When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, dictator Joseph Stalin was too shocked to speak in public for nearly two weeks.
On July 3, he finally gave a radio speech, trying to reassure his nation — already suffering serious battlefield losses to the German blitzkrieg — with the words, “History shows that there are no invincible armies.”
Germany’s “Operation Barbarossa” involved more than 3 million troops, about 3,000 tanks and 2,500 aircraft — one of the largest invasion forces in history. Expecting to conquer Moscow within weeks, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler thought the Soviet regime would quickly disintegrate. Over the next four years though, Hitler’s armies proved to…