After Leningrad had been encircled and Kiev captured, Hitler transferred divisions from Army Group South and North to Army Group Centre. He was now setting his eyes on Moscow, the Soviet capital. Moscow had been a city of 4,000,000 [1939 statistics], but many civilians had fled, and the official figure was now at 2,500,000. Many Soviet ministers had long fled to the east, and Stalin was alone with his defence committee in his now-threatened capital.
The attack was due to begin at 15 September, but delays in the southern and northern fronts forced Hitler to postpone in to October 2.
At dawn on October 2, 1941, aided by the wonderful weather, the Germans launched the first direct attack on Moscow since the time of the Mongolian Empire. With Field Marshal von Bock taking charge, Hitler was confident of celebrating Christmas in Red Square. The Germans had 78 divisions against 77 Russian divisions (German figures). However, the Germans had far more armoured divisions than the Russians, and the Russians also used cavalry, which were suicidal against the German attack.
The German assault was to comprise of many pincer movements around the opposing forces west of the Moscow, encircling them culminating in a final encirclement around Moscow. This strategy was correct, since the Russians actually concentrated the forces in front of their capital.
Capturing Orel on the second day, Guderian swept ahead almost 150 km in two days, while another Panzer Corps behind him veered northwest from there to take Bryansk. By doing so, they encircled two pockets of soldiers, netting a substantial number of troops. The Russians had no time to destroy the factories in the area.
The Germans took Vyazma five days after the assault began. 663,000 Soviet soldiers surrendered, almost as many as in Kiev. The Soviets had not learnt their lesson to spread out troops along a line and not concentrate it in a city, a part of basic military strategy.
Now Moscow was really threatened. Historians agree that only 90,000 men could defend the final defence line covering the approaches to Moscow. A mood of pessimism loomed in the Kremlin. Therefore, on October 10, Stalin replaced his commander of the front with a top-rate general, General Georgi K. Zhukov.
Zhukov was Stalin’s military trouble-shooter. Having defeated the Japanese in 1904, he was in charge of the northern front until called back personally by Stalin. The situation appeared more grim when Stalin announced: “The National Defence Committee appeals to all the workers of Moscow to observe order, remain calm, and give their entire support in defence of the capital.”
Five divisions were improvised from civilians. They were hastily trained. Half a million people were called to dig anti-tank trenches and lay barbed wire. However, These measures could hardly have been sufficient.
Luckily for the Russians, one commander came to their aid: General Winter. The temperature began its dip. The greatcoat of the German Army was inadequate for the Russian Winter that was comparably early and extra cold.
Nevertheless, the Germans continued their advance, capturing Kaluga two days later. They were 161 km from the Soviet capital. Hitler, in his daily meeting with his generals, could see a whole line of troops advancing towards his opponent’s capital.
The partisan problem had become serious, and Hitler launched a program to ‘exterminate and destroy’ the Bolshevik saboteurs. They were in fact threatening to upset the entire Minsk to Smolensk supply line. This line was vital for communication, and if it were disrupted, the German offensive against the Soviet capital would be halted. Kalinin was captured on October 14.
Pessimism reigned in the Kremlin. On October 15 all government offices in Moscow were told to make preparations to evacuate eastwards. However, Stalin chose to stay. [Hitler, like Stalin, would stay in his capital when it was threatened four years later.] Bridges were mined along the approaches to Moscow.
On October 16, six inches of snow were recorded along the Moscow front, and the temperature dropped to 11 degrees Celsius. German troops began to feel the effects of being cold. ‘Our wildest dreams have been stopped by ice and snow,” one soldier reported.
Yet, four cities fell to the Germans as they continued their advance the next day.
On October 25, lots of snow fell on the Moscow front. However, the Germans were less than 100 km from Red Square. General Wagner was convinced that Germany would shortly finish off Moscow.
The Germans conducted no less than 45 separate bombing attacks over Moscow on the last day of October.
On November 7, Stalin rallied his troops by urging them to defend ‘holy Russia.’
The next day, Hitler declared that ‘the last battalion on the field must be a German one.’
The mercury continued to drop. By mid November it had become so cold that sentries who accidentally fell asleep at their post were found frozen to death in the morning. The Russians fought tenaciously. After all, they were defending their Motherland and their capital.
The Russians now drew reinforcements from the east to prepare for a counteroffensive to relieve the threat on Moscow. They gathered them so skilfully that the Germans did not take notice. The mood among German soldiers began to switch towards the pessimistic side.
On the southern front, the Germans captured Rostov. Propaganda Minister Goebbels hailed it as the open gateway to the Caucasus.
By November 25, the Germans were less than 50 km away from Moscow. A sense of impending danger had begun to pervade the Kremlin. However, Hitler too was worried about the winter. Hitler wanted Moscow to be taken quickly.
Two days later, the Russians managed to capture a substantial number of German prisoners. This was the first time they had done so since the campaign started. At certain points, the advance on Moscow had been temporarily halted.
The Russian winter made the defence of the city easier. Also in favour of the Russians was the fact that the Germans had stretched their supply lines, while the Russians were fighting near their bases. However, the Germans were still advancing. Would the capital of Russia fall? Only time would tell.
In his headquarters in Rastenburg, Hitler was faced with two choices: to consolidate his gains and attack Moscow in 1942, or to continue with the assault on the capital? Hitler chose the riskier, but more rewarding one.
At the end of November, the German position was imposing on the map. However, they were really desperate. At some days the temperature dropped to -40 degrees Celsius. German soldiers used captured Russian jackets. They heaped layer upon layer. At some point, the Germans were indistinguishable from the Russians.
However, the Germans were only 20 miles away from the suburbs of Moscow. In the south, German troops had actually passed Moscow and began the encircling movement. Would the Nazi flag fly in Red Square?
On December 1, the Germans tried to breakthrough to Moscow. One was at Tula and the other was west of the capital. Both failed.
Did the Germans reach Moscow?Whether the Germans reached Moscow is a highly disputable fact. Some books say that German troops came within 20 miles of the city; others say that they penetrated within the suburbs in the early days of December. My viewpoint is that detachments of German troops managed to reach some of the outer suburbs of Moscow, but not a whole division. This opinion is also shared by many of the more detailed books on Barbarossa, the consensus being that German troops managed to reach the suburbs of Moscow. If this is correct, this was the first time since the Mongolian empire when foreign troops reached the Soviet capital. |
Unknown to the Germans, the Soviet was gathering a huge number of troops from Mongolia and Siberia. A massive counter attack to save the city was planned. The Germans did not notice them. German generals believed that its enemy was close to being crushed, and that he had no more reserves left.
According to Alan Clark's Barbarossa, the 258th Infantry division broke through the Russian lines during the short hours of the afternoon. Momentarily, they were 'in sight of the towers of the Kremlin reflecting in the setting sun' but were halted by hastily armed Soviet workers.
That day, troops from the 62nd Panzer Engineer (reconnaissance) battalion pushed forward into Khimki, a town nominally detached from Moscow. After terrorizing the locals without a shot being fired, they went back into German lines. This according to Reader’s Digest ‘The World At Arms’, was the closest German troops ever came to Stalin’s lair.
On December 3, some German tanks took the town of Akulovo and advanced from it. Momentarily, they entered Moscow and were in sight of the Kremlin. This, according to Martin Gilbert’s ‘The Second World War’, is the farthest German advance in 1941.
On December 4, the Germans made an attempt to breakthrough from the south, where they were some 200 km from the capital. This attack on the industrial city of Tula was broken soon. German soldiers could no longer stand the conditions. They had to bear them while advancing. On December 5, the Germans made one final desperate attempt to capture Moscow by attacking northwest of the city. After a few hours, it was clear that it was broken. The next day, Stalin launched a massive counterattack along the whole front from Leningrad to the Black Sea. Most of the counterattack was concentrated on the West Front, where Moscow was. The Germans, for the first time in the war, were in retreat.
The Soviet counterattack to relieve Moscow was to consist a pincer attack. It was identical to the German assault on Moscow earlier, but only that the arrows pointed westward instead of eastward.
Richard SorgeRichard Sorge, the German ambassador to Japan, was a spy. Leaking out secret information that the Japanese were not intending to attack the USSR but planned to take Indochina and Southeast Asia, he enabled Stalin to withdraw reserves from Siberia and Outer Mongolia to the Moscow front. Some credit him with the defence of the Soviet capital. 15 rifle, 3 cavalry divisions and 8 tank brigades were transferred hastily and started to reach the front in early November. Sorge was executed in August 1942 by the Japanese after he was found guilty of espionage |
Upon knowledge of the Soviet counterattack, Hitler ordered his troops to hold the line. No ‘cowardly retreats’ would be permitted. Throughout the offensive, Germans troops held tight. However, they were slowly driven back two or three miles a week. One week after the attack, the Red Army had liberated 400 villages and small towns. On December 16, the first major town of Kalinin fell to the Germans. It was clear that Germany had overextended herself. In Britain and the rest of occupied Europe, people rejoiced (and tried hard to keep their expression from their captors).
That day, Field-Marshal von Bock, commander of Army Group Centre, resigned ostensibly ‘for health reasons’. He and Hitler were having an argument over whether to retreat. He was replaced by Kluge. In Army Group North, Field Marshal von Leeb asked to retire and was duly replaced by General Lindemann. He, unlike von Bock, had no dispute with Hitler. On December 20, Guderian requested Hitler to stop all operations with immediate effect. Hitler responded with a ‘no’. He had no idea of the situation on the front, how cold it was, how disorganized the Germans were. Throughout the entire counterattack, the Germans resisted bravely, albeit at a high cost.
By the end of 1941, the Germans had lost 830 903 officers and men. This was 26% of their total strength on the eastern front. They had however, captured some 2.9 million Russians. Soviet casualties are also great but are a military secret until today. Lowest Temperature The lowest temperature at the Eastern Front in the entire war was recorded on Jan. 24 1942, -56 deg C. (Mercury thermometers can only record temperatures of up to –40 deg C.) The Germans had overrun the Ukraine, had come to the gates of Leningrad and Moscow. However, they were still far from their objective: the winter line Archangel—Volga. Indeed, the door had been kicked, but the whole rotten structure had not come crashing down. If there was any success on the Russian part, it was turning Barbarossa in to a long war instead of a blitzkrieg since the Red Army was a steamroller rather than a motorcycle.
Previous - The Encirclement of Leningrad, Kiev falls