Documentary overview

About Hitler's Balkan Blunder: Greece and Yugoslavia Delay Operation Barbarossa

How did Greece and Yugoslavia force Hitler's detour that delayed Operation Barbarossa? This Battlefield episode traces the chain of decisions that pulled Germany into the Balkans, exposed Ploesti’s vital oil, and reshaped the war in the East. After the 1939 pact with Stalin and victory in the West, Mussolini’s failed invasion of Greece in October 1940 drew British forces to the Aegean and threatened Romania’s refineries. Hitler answered with a lightning assault on Yugoslavia and Greece on 6 April 1941, taking Athens by 27 April. The diversion cost precious weeks; the invasion of the Soviet Union began on 21 June, reaching Moscow’s edge as winter closed in. As Churchill observed, Hitler had failed to notice that Russia had a winter. Air power then targeted fuel. Early raids on Romania were ineffective, but on 1 August 1943 B-24 Liberators from North Africa attacked Ploesti at low level, confronting flak, ME-109s, and chaos over the target. Fifty-seven bombers were shot down and 11 turned back, with little lasting damage. In 1944 the American 15th Air Force returned with long-range P-51 escorts. After

Hitler's Balkan Blunder: Greece and Yugoslavia Delay Operation Barbarossa is presented by Real History. Its listed runtime is 52 minutes. The source link and publisher attribution are provided with the embedded film.

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Politics & Warhitlerbalkanblundergreeceyugoslavia
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Documentary details and original source

Title
Hitler's Balkan Blunder: Greece and Yugoslavia Delay Operation Barbarossa
Runtime
52 minutes
Language
English
Publisher
Real History

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