The best known example of a Vernichtungskrieg is the German-Soviet War, which began on June 22, 1941 with the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The Berlin historian Ernst Nolte called this 1963 in a much-quoted formulation as the "most egregious Versklavungs- und Vernichtungskrieg [war of enslavement and annihilation] known to modern history" and distinguished it from a "normal war", as the Nazi regime conducted against France.[11]