Axis and Soviet air operations during Operation Barbarossa took place over a six-month period, 22 June – December, 1941. Aviation played a critical role in the fighting on the Eastern Front during this period, in the battles to gain and maintain air superiority or air supremacy, to offer close air support to armies on battlefield, interdicting enemy supply lines, while supplying friendly forces. The Axis air forces were generally better equipped, trained and experienced in executing military tactics and operations. This superiority increased because of the Great Purge in the 1930s and mass expansion of Soviet air forces, which did severe damage to organisational structures.
On the opening day, Axis counter-air operations succeeded in destroying 2,000 Soviet aircraft, and gaining air superiority. The success of the strike enabled the Axis to support their armies in highly successful encirclement battles in July to September 1941. Its transport fleet helped fly in vital supplies to the army when the Russian Winter weather made supply difficult on the ground. In particular, the Luftwaffe played an important role on the defensive, countering the Soviet offensive in December 1941. Despite debilitating losses, Soviet aviation also played a crucial role in stemming the invasion and allowing the Red Army to organise defences; first before Leningrad in July, then in slowing down the occupation of the Ukraine, enabling the withdrawal of industries to the Ural Mountains, in the Crimea, enabling a long-term stand at Sevastopol, and then during the defence and counter-offensive at Moscow.
In the event, the Axis land and air operations failed to achieve their ultimate goal – the defeat of the Soviet armed forces. When operations ended in December 1941, both sides had suffered heavy losses, unparalleled in the history of air warfare to this point. Some 21,000 Soviet and several thousand Axis aircraft were destroyed. With its factories in the Urals, out of range from Axis medium bombers, Soviet production increased, out-stripping its enemies and enabling the country to replace its aerial losses. The Axis had vastly underestimated Soviet industrial and technical potential. In the following years, Soviet air power recovered from the purges and losses, gradually gaining in tactical and operational competence while closing the technical gap.
Background
By 1941, the Axis powers were in a comfortable position after defeating the Allies in Scandinavia, Western Europe and in the Balkans (leaving the British Empire as the only significant opposition). Axis forces deployed in Europe could only be engaged in the air or at sea, while the North African Campaign was unlikely to threaten its European territories. However, by this point of the war, Germany was in dire need of raw materials and oil resources available in the Soviet Union.
Adolf Hitler predicted this problem and on 18 December 1940 had issued Directive 21. It ordered the beginning of the preparations for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR. On the other hand, the war with the British was far from concluded and the United States of America were supporting them, while showing an increasingly hostile attitude towards the Axis. A protracted war in the east could be disastrous, so a quick victory was essential.
The plan was to destroy the Soviet Union as a military, political and economic power, by occupying the country up to the A-A line (which fell just short of the Ural Mountains). This would yield vast resources such as oil, rare metals, industrial cities and huge populations which would work for the Third Reich as slave labourers. It would also provide enormous living space (German: Lebensraum) to the Reich and destroy what Hitler perceived to be Communism and Jewish Bolshevism (the main themes for the National Socialists since Hitler's political testament in Mein Kampf, published in 1924). His recently acquired allies (Romania, Slovakia and Finland) were to assist militarily and allow their countries to be used as a base for the German Defence Force (German: Wehrmacht) to launch its offensive.
Although defeated in the Battle of Britain, Germany's Air Force (German: Luftwaffe) played a vital role in the success of the German Army (German: Heer) during the Axis military campaigns against the Western Allies. For Operation Barbarossa, around 65% of the Luftwaffe would be deployed to support the rest of the Wehrmacht in defeating the Soviet Union.