Letecká Välka 22. Cervna 1941 1, Cast "P{redehra" / Air War June 22, 1941 1, Part "Prelude"

On Sunday, June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht launched an attack on the USSR under the code name Barbarossa. The conflict is unparalleled in modern military history in terms of the scale of combat operations, the level of destruction, or the number of casualties. The ground fighting was accompanied by massive activity in the air. There were an extraordinary number of clashes, in which the Soviet Air Force faced attacks from the German and Romanian air forces from the morning.

This introductory part of the series of publications examines the deployment of the Soviet Air Force between September 1939 and the summer of 1940, during the journey of Stalin's Soviet Union to the fateful June 22, 1941. We will learn about the engagement of Soviet pilots and their aircraft during the attack on Poland, during the so-called Winter War against Finland, during the occupation of the Baltics and the eastern part of the Kingdom of Romania. These often neglected campaigns significantly influenced the development of the Soviet Air Force immediately before the German attack and also prepared the geographical backdrop for the gigantic clash of the summer of 1941. 

The air battles of June 22nd actually took place to a significant extent over territories that Stalin had not controlled until very recently: these were territories that belonged to the Second Polish Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Kingdom of Romania before the outbreak of the war. They became part of the USSR as a result of the pact in August 1939 and the cooperation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the initial period of the war. The defense of the Soviet homeland, which has been heroized for decades in the USSR and Russia, can therefore be viewed to a certain extent as the defense of the spoils acquired in cooperation with the former partner - and now the mortal enemy, Hitler's Germany.