On June 22, 1941, and despite the reluctance of many German generals, Germany violated the non-aggression pact signed with Stalin two years earlier and attacked the Soviet Union because of the Führer's crazy obsession.
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If the Third Reich had published a decalogue of the ideal Nazi, Otto Günsche (personal assistant of the Führer and member of the Leibstandarte Division – the elite of the Waffen SS) would have bordered on outstanding. His blonde hair, his corpulence, and his two-meter height made him a candidate to enter Valhalla itself.
But, in 1941, after fighting on the Russian front, he was exhausted. That September, as he headed to Bavaria, eager to rest, he stopped at Adolf Hitler's headquarters - the Wolf's Lair - built in northern Poland to direct the offensive against the Soviet Union. What he saw fascinated him: walls so thick they could stop a shell. He asked, seriously, if the leader planned to stay there for the next few months. Julius Schaub's response was a laugh. «Spend the winter here? Absolutely! This is a “blitzkrieg”.
The opinion of Schaub, Hitler's aide-de-camp, was unanimous within the General Staff of the armed forces. The Oberkommando of the Wehrmacht was convinced that the German invasion of the Soviet Union - the so-called Operation Barbarossa - would not extend into the calendar. In three months, they insisted, the German Panzers would proudly parade through Moscow, the heart of Russia and "headquarters of the world Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy." But repeating the Nazi leader's words like a mantra did not prevent the debacle.