The army group sent south engaged the ill-prepared, ill-equipped Red Army forces at [[Kharkov]]. 600,000 Red Army troops were quickly encircled and taken prisoner without much of a fight. Hitler declared it, "the greatest military victory of all time."
Most of the Russian POWs became [[slave]] labor in German POWs campslaborers digging tank traps for Soviet [[T-34]]s;<ref>The USSR did not become a party to the [[Geneva Convention]] until 1960. So, although Germany was a partysignatory, Nazi Germany felt to compunction to honor the terms of the convention given German POWs and civilians were also subjected to human rights abuses by their Soviet counterparts.</ref> some Ukrainian POWs were recruited into German fighting units in both [[eastern Europe]], where they committed atrocities against the civilian population, and the Western Front to guard the Atlantic Wall in advance of, and during, the [[Normandy Invasion]].
===Siege of Leningrad===
===Siege of Moscow===
American [[Lend Lease]] tanks provided approximately 30% of the tank force in the defense of Moscow.
==Turning point: The Battle of Stalingrad==