User talk:2606:A000:8247:B600:C95F:7AF2:8390:F6A4

On the Wiki page about Operation Barbarossa, the map that is displayed for the disposition of Wehrmacht and the Red Army lines, states that there is no larger version of this map available. Since this is an important map I took a snapshot of the map and used a photo editor to produce two larger copies which are 150% (1200 x 900 pixels) and 175% (2100 x 1570 pixels) larger than the map now available which is 780 × 600 pixels. I have been trying to figure out how to add these duplicates of the map but have not able to do it successfully. If the page's writer would care to contact me I would appreciate your help to add the larger copies of the map. And again, I have not changed anything other than to increase their size so I don't see how any copyright laws are relevant or in need of review.

The map I'm referring to is located at URL en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Front_1941-06_to_1941-09.png. The format I've used is jpeg although if you prefer to have it in ping format I can do that.

Please let me know because the period from (June to Sept. 1942) of Barbarossa (IMHO) was the most crucial year of "The Great Patriotic War" because this is when the Red Army stabilized the front and went over on the offensive. Also, Stalin issued Order Number 227, the infamous "Not one step back!" order to soldiers of the Red Army. Which he enforced by placing Party Commissars with the front line troops with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to retreat or surrender. This was also when Russian armaments industry began delivering and deploying T-34 tanks to the front which were superior to the Panzer Mark III in armor, main gun, speed and range. At first the Germans could not believe that the untermench Soviets were capable of building a better tank so the Wehrmacht wasted a lot of precious time and squandered a lot of Panzers before they were able to believe that Russia had designed a better tank than the Panzer III.

Germany's Organization Todt and Albert Speer would not be able to design, produce and deliver the Panzer IV which was supposed to be at least equal to the T-34 until Spring 1943. Thus when the Wehrmacht failed to take Moscow by Dec. 1941 (based on Hitler's assumption that he could first bail Mussolini out of his failure in Greece and then march all of the infantry back to western Poland where, "All we have to do is kick in the front door and the whole rotten structure will collapse." As I'm sure you know, it is because of this belief that das Heer (the army) failed to take Moscow or plan for and provide winter gear to the Wehrmacht on this front which resulted in catastrophic losses to the Wehrmacht during the winter of 1942. At least this is the explanation/excuse that is made for the inexcusable error of not planning for a Russian Winter. Given Stalin's "scorched earth policy" so that nothing useful to the Germans was left behind by the retreating Red Army. Why the Wehrmacht wouldn't or couldn't assume that even if they had taken Moscow that Stalin would not have razed it to the ground is astounding. So even if they had taken Moscow it would have left them in the same catastrophic condition that Napoleon faced when Les Grande Armee took Moscow which forced the French into the disastrous retreat back to France.

Speaking of the Word Used for a German Military "Operation" -- Unternehmen Is Incorrect.

(For what it's worth) I am relatively fluent in the German language so I would like to point out that when most Wikipedia contributors (virtually all) use the word unternehmen for the English word operation it is based on a mistaken understanding of the German language. The word used by the Wehrmacht was "Fall" which is German for "case" such as a case study. Sources for this are the memoirs of Wilhelm Keitel, The German Generals Talk (edited by Liddell Hart), The Nuremberg Diary by Captain Gilbert (USA) and a biography about Jodl. The meaning of unternehmen is literally an undertaking as in: to undertake [a task] or to do something (or) nothing. And as long as I'm writing about misunderstandings of the German language I will address the word Wehrmacht which WWII ETO GI's began to erroneously use to mean the German Army. In German, Wehrmacht means the combined armed forces. The German word for their army was das Heer.

For anyone wishing to check the translation of unternehmen using the internet there is a German to English source at dictionary.reverso.net/German-English. Note also that unternehmen is only capitalized when it is the first word of a sentence otherwise in German only person or place names and all nouns are capitalized.

§Simeon Hovey (Former SFC US Army)