The ensuing attack on the morning of June 22, 1941, was the largest military confrontation in human history, creating a front line that extended 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from north to south (practically the distance from Seattle to Los Angeles). At the outset, the operation involved three million Axis soldiers (across 117 army divisions), 3,580 tanks, 7,184 artillery guns, 1,830 planes, and 750,000 horses. In defense, the Russians amassed 132 army divisions, including 34 armoured divisions.
Called Operation Barbarossa, it was the Führer's time to jump the shark. Seeking to fulfil Germany's "destiny" in the East, Hitler was hell-bent on claiming the vast Russian territories for himself, while purging it of both Bolshevism and other "undesirable" elements — namely Jews and slavs. Convinced it would be a walk in the park, he brushed aside military intelligence's warnings, saying, "We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten Russian edifice will come tumbling down." Nazi Germany, drunk on its recent success in Poland and France, and further motivated by Russia's embarrassing defeat at the hands of Finland, decided to make its fateful move.