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Currently Playing: How the Luftwaffe destroyed 2,000 Soviet Aircraft on the First Day of Barbarossa

In the early hours of the 22nd of June 1941 all hell broke loose across the long border between Germany and the Soviet Union. Under cover of a hail or artillery fire and beneath waves of bombers, millions of German soldiers began to move forwards. What happened next to the vast Soviet air force is well understood, the reasons for its catastrophic defeat are less so. This video investigates the background to the worst defeat ever suffered by a major air force, begining with the roots of Soviet air power in Imperial Russia and ending on the evening of that fateful day in June 1941.