Glantz, David M. Barbarossa Derailed. The Battle for Smolensk 10 July-10 September 1941. Volume 4: Atlas

This volume, which serves both as a supplement to the three previous volumes of this monumental study of the Battle of Smolensk in July-September 1941 and as a standalone battlefield atlas, contains over a hundred specially commissioned colour maps that trace the course of the campaign, each with a detailed caption. At dawn on 10 July 1941, tanks and motorised infantry of the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups of Army Group Centre crossed the Dnieper and Western Dvina rivers and began what Adolf Hitler and most German officers and soldiers believed would be a triumphal march on Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. Less than three weeks earlier, on 22 June, Hitler had launched the massive invasion of the Soviet Union by his Wehrmacht, code-named Operation Barbarossa, which aimed to defeat the Red Army, conquer the country and overthrow the communist ruler Josef Stalin. Between 22 June and 10 July, the Wehrmacht advanced up to 500 kilometres into Soviet territory, killing or capturing up to a million Red Army soldiers and reaching the western banks of the Dvina and Dnieper rivers. This fulfilled the first assumption of the Barbarossa plan, namely that the Third Reich would emerge victorious if it could defeat and destroy most of the Red Army before it could retreat behind these two rivers. With the Red Army now shattered, Hitler and most Germans expected a complete victory within a few weeks. The ensuing battles in the Smolensk region dashed German hopes of a quick victory. After crossing the Dvina and Dnieper, the surprised Wehrmacht encountered five new Soviet armies. Although two of these armies were completely destroyed, two others were severely damaged, and the remnants of three of these armies were encircled in the Smolensk area, the Germans were denied a quick victory. Instead, the Soviet forces encircled in Mogilev and Smolensk stubbornly refused to surrender, and as they continued to fight, in July, August and early September, first five and then a total of seven newly mobilised Soviet armies struck back at the advancing Germans, launching several counterattacks and counter-offensives that culminated in two major counteroffensives that weakened German strength and will. Despite immense losses in manpower and equipment, these desperate Soviet actions caused Operation Barbarossa to fail. Faced with the countless wounds inflicted on his vaunted Wehrmacht, Hitler postponed his march on Moscow even before the fighting in the Smolensk region had ended, turning his troops south instead to attack softer targets in the Kiev region. The Wehrmacht's derailment at Smolensk ultimately became the decisive turning point of Operation Barbarossa.