Millions of these prisoners would die from illness or starvation. When the offensive got under way on June 22, 1941, it surprised not only Stalin but also the soldiers of the Red Army, who were surrounded and captured as Axis forces swept east during the summer of 1941. Now the Soviet leader blinded himself to the warning signs of the imminent German attack. Pact with Hitler to dissect Poland had allowed the German dictator to risk confronting France and the U.K. Soviet Union, clearing the way for a murderous German colonization of the east and securing the raw materials required to fight in the west. For reasons of strategy as well as ideology, then, he decided to send his armies east. A Europe blockaded by the British Royal Navy, meanwhile, proved unable to develop as an economic bloc that could counter this trans-Atlantic threat. Hitler was convinced he would soon be faced with an Anglo-American air armada of unprecedented power.
The resultant supplies were provided to Hitler’s enemies free of charge under the terms of the “Lend-Lease” legislation passed in March 1941. Nagorski writes: “Roosevelt was intent on helping Britain prevail, no matter how fierce the opposition might be in the United States to his policies.” Crucially, once Britain depleted its financial reserves, which had been used to invest heavily in American arms production, Roosevelt was able to replace them with U.S. against the resistance of American isolationists.
Fears of Nazi domination of the Atlantic also made it easier for President