Russia s numerical superiority in population, in terms of armed forces, was greatly underestimated by the German High Command. When intelligence had reported 200 active Russian divisions, prior to the invasion, the Germans quickly had accounted for 300 Russian divisions and still more arriving. The German failure to win a quick victory allowed the Russian army to win a bloody war of attrition. OKW also underestimated the amount of Russian crops and supplies that could be utilized army. This was largely due to Stalin s Scorched Earth policy of torching everything in the way of advancing German forces. OKW had planned to sustain a majority of the German Wehrmacht from capture Russian crops, once again evidence of Hitler s ill-planned operation. Furthermore, on the subject of tank tactics, the Russian superiority in tank design became evident soon after the first few months of the campaign with the arrival of the Russian T-60, 70 and the workhorse, T-64. German tanks were often dated as far back as the operation in Poland; still others were only slightly better. Relying heavily on blitzkrieg tactics to avoid major open ground tank battles, the German experienced disadvantages in armour, guns, and daily reliability.
The Thousand Year Reich was barely six years old when the two most dominating faces in European politics united their nations in a grandiose, with a non-aggression pact. Despite this non-aggression pact on several occasions Hitler publicly announced his primary goal, which would be the ruthless Germanization of the inferior race . Ironically the Russian forces ended up crippling the supposedly superior German armed forces, the Red Army was superior to the Germans in weaponry and in equipment. Even though Stalin refused to heed any warning of a German attack, the Red Army still came out victorious due to the Fuhrer s personal racist and ideological ideals, which lead to his hastily planned, ill advised, underestimated campaign. Hitler s plan to attack Russia was hasty by two months and pressed into action, even after German high commanders disputed it. Hitler did not look before him to the men who had once set foot in the shoes that he wore, such as Napoleon and Charles XII who after great quests and many glorious victories met grave disaster. One factor that surely took its toll in Hitler s failure in Operation Barbarossa was every conqueror s disease Egomania .