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Phase 3: The Great Crusade (1941) With the Western Front silent, the Wehrmacht executed Operation Barbarossa on May 15, 1941—a month earlier than historically recorded. There was no Balkan campaign to delay the invasion; Yugoslavia and Greece were bullied into the Axis pact. Three million German soldiers smashed into the Soviet Union. Stalin, convinced Britain was still fighting, kept his best troops in Siberia. The Red Army, still reeling from the Officer Purges of 1937, collapsed. Army Group