[open_bear]

> "pitiless practice of a forced sacrificing of soldiers' lives"

Of course there were stupid commanders who wasted soldiers's lives, as there were very good commanders. You should look at the big picture:

1) Ratio of Wermacht - Red Army losses is somewhere around 1:1.3, only 30% more. 2) Germany had fully deployed and ready to attack army on the June, 22nd, while USSR was in the process of deployment: second and third line divisions were moving towards the border, stretched for 500-600 kilometers. 3) Wermacht was trained in doing blitzkriegs: Poland invasion, France invasion gave them a lot of experience, Red Army did not have a lot of experience in defending against such an attack (no one had). 4) Germany attacked without a warning, without a formal war declaration, and most of those 30% come from the first stage of the war. 5) Germany had its full industrial potential, together with Poland, Czechoslovakia and France working to provide tanks, guns, food and supplies, while USSR had 1/3 of its territory captured and 20+ million people under occupation for the first two years.