Battle of Moscow

The Battle of Moscow was a battle on the German-Soviet front in World War II. It began on 2 October 1941 with the resumption of the offensive of Army Group Center against the Western, Reserve and Bryansk Fronts. The objective of the operation was to exploit the favorable conditions created by the Double Battle of Vyazma and Bryansk to capture the Soviet capital, Moscow. After the advance in the Double Battle had stalled by 30 October 1941 due to autumn mud and increased Soviet resistance, the offensive was able to resume about two weeks later. The second offensive failed, however, after the Red Army undertook a large-scale counteroffensive on 5 December 1941, leading to an order from Hitler to withdraw on 15 January 1942. In the Moscow offensive operation (5 December 1941 to 7 January 1942), the Red Army advanced as far as 250 km west on a front some 1000 km wide. For the first time since 1939, the Wehrmacht, accustomed to victory, suffered a heavy defeat that destroyed the myth of its invincibility.

Background

Course of the war so far

In the course of the war against the Soviet Union, the three army groups of the German Wehrmacht as well as the armed forces of the states allied with the German Reich had advanced far into Soviet territory since 22 June 1941. In the Kesselschlacht near Smolensk a first Soviet defensive position in front of Moscow had been penetrated. Hitler, however, prevented an immediate advance on Moscow by having Panzer Group 3 under Colonel General Hermann Hoth turn north on Friday, July 28, and Panzer Group 2 under Colonel General Heinz Guderian turn south with the 2nd Army under the command of Colonel General Maximilian von Weichs, since in his opinion the conquest of the economically important areas of Ukraine and the capture of Leningrad had a higher priority. Panzer Group 4 took part in the advance on Leningrad, while Panzer Group 2 and the 2nd Army took part in the battle for Kiev.

Disagreements in the run-up to the offensive

According to Hitler's plans, the Soviet military defense force was to be largely eliminated before the conquest of Moscow, and at the same time the economically most important areas in the north and south of Russia as well as the Ukraine were to be taken possession of. In addition, Hitler desired the capture of the Crimea in order to eliminate the threat to the Romanian oil fields from air attacks by the Red Air Fleet. The German generals, on the contrary, saw the primary objective solely in the immediate capture of Moscow. Moscow was of great importance not only from a geographical point of view, but also as a transportation and intelligence center, as a political hub, and as an important industrial area.

German plans

According to the directive of the General Staff of the Army of 18 August 1941, two wings were to be formed to surround and encircle the Soviet capital north and south. The southern wing was to run across the Bryansk-Roslavl and Kaluga-Medyn lines, while the northern wing was to have two approaches. The first was planned from the Bjeloj area and the second from the Toropez area. In general, eastward attack was to be made via Rzhev. According to this planning, the middle section was to remain mainly defensive with ten infantry divisions. According to the opinion of the General Staff of the Army, the decision should be brought about the two offensively oriented wings. Further action after a successful breakthrough was made dependent on the situation at the front. In his directive of September 6, 1941, Adolf Hitler gave orders to prepare the decisive operation against the "Army Group Timoshenko, pinned down in offensive battles in front of the Army Center."

Hitler's operational order initially provided only for the encirclement of "Army Group Timoshenko" in the "general direction of Vyazma" by strong panzer units, which were combined for this purpose. Hitler limited the forces on the south wing to the 2nd and 5th Panzer Divisions, the north wing was to consist of the 9th Army including units from the area of Army Group North.

The second part provided for the pursuit of the Soviet troops in the direction of Moscow after the destruction of most of the Western Front in the "sharply held together annihilation operation". The Oka River on the right and the upper Volga River on the left were to serve as operational boundaries. The attack was to be covered by Army Group South troops released from the Kiev area in the south and by advances along both sides of Lake Ilmen in the north.

On September 10, 1941, on the basis of Hitler's directive, the Army High Command issued the "Instruction to Continue Operations". The Chief of Staff of the OKH, Franz Halder, gave himself room to maneuver by changing the combat mission while keeping the wording apparently the same. Halder thus went far beyond his duties and interpreted Hitler's directive in favor of his plans, which coincided with those of the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock.

Halder's plans narrowed the clear priority Hitler had set for the destruction of the Western Front. Literally, he noted:

Expanding on Hitler's directive, Halder's plan envisaged a frontal attack by rapid formations and infantry divisions directly on Moscow, which had been left out by the dictator. In doing so, he specified the forces released from the area of Army Group South with the 2nd Army under Colonel General Maximilian von Weichs and Panzer Group 2 under the command of Colonel General Heinz Guderian. These two units were in all probability to lead the attack on the right wing against Orjol from the Romny area in a northeasterly direction in order to roll up the Soviet troops in front of the newly formed 2nd Army from the south.

Other major differences from the original planning were the removal of the bulk of the 2nd Army from the encirclement approach east of Kiev and the probable formation of a third group that was to advance directly against the Soviet capital and was independent of the operations around Vyazma. For this reason, Halder was also very interested in freeing the forces from the area of Army Group South mentioned by Hitler in his directive from the Kiev operation in maximum numbers within the shortest possible period of time. The Army Chief of Staff did not include the 6th Army, which was directly adjacent to the 2nd Army, in his planning. Panzer Group 1, under the command of Colonel General Ewald von Kleist, was to attack with its main focus against the Romny-Sula line following Panzer Group 2. To protect the eastern flank, the bulk of the 17th Army was to advance in the Kharkov-Poltava direction of attack. Contrary to Hitler's directive, which stated that rapid forces were to be cleared "from the area of Army Group South" (presumably Panzer Group 1), Halder ordered Panzer Group 2 and 2nd Army to cover the attack in a staggered advance. In doing so, the Army General Staff issued the following restriction:

Meanwhile, Army Group Center began to pull together the formations and general staffs, since 19 September 1941 under the ordered code name Unternehmen Taifun. In addition to the advance on Moscow, the troops were to improve the starting position for the attack on the northern wing in cooperation with Army Group North - as already ordered by Halder on 30 August.

Problems before the start of the attack

The transport of tanks to form the planned concentrated centers of gravity placed a heavy strain on the entire traffic routes, since, in addition to the transport of distant units of Panzer Groups 1 and 2 on the north wing, the transfer of the fast troops from the area of Army Group North as well as supplies from home had to be handled. This caused delays compounded by the unscheduled longer duration of operations east of Kiev and the slower than expected advance on Leningrad. In the case of the 8th Panzer Division, this resulted in the cancellation of the deployment order for Army Group Center.

Even during the planning phase, Halder took into account the further reduction in the strength of the panzer divisions due to the permanent operations without replenishments. As of 4 September 1941, 30% of the tanks were completely out of action, and in addition 23% were being repaired. Altogether, half of the armored divisions included in the operational plans had an average of about 34% of their target strength of tanks. This percentage improved only marginally as a result of the 125 newly supplied tanks. The permanently stressed repair of the tanks, which were mainly carried out in the homeland and were expected to have a weak resistance, also proved to be problematic. Due to this fact Halder asked the OKW for another 181 tanks, which together with the new 125 already standing at Orscha and Dünaburg would have meant a refreshment of the most weakened Panzer divisions by 10% of their inventory. All in all, the numbers seem rather minor when put in perspective with the two operations still in progress and the term "campaign-decisive battle".

Another problem was the acute shortage of motor vehicles, which was estimated at more than 22% at the beginning of the offensive. The majority of the vehicles remaining in service were only provisionally repaired types, most of which had been in continuous use since June and for which a high failure rate was to be expected. The result would have been that the Army's mobility would have been considerably reduced because of the weather, the fighting, and the road conditions, and this problem could only have been solved by an immediate authorization for the production of new motor vehicles by Hitler himself. According to calculations made by the General Plenipotentiary for Motor Vehicles, Major General Adolf von Schell, there would then be enough motor vehicles left to equip a panzer division capable of the tropics. In his opinion, leaving troops stranded "on a broad front in deep Russian space at the onset of winter" would have far more serious consequences than releasing them, although this never happened.

The supply of fuel was also problematic, since the supplies of the supply bases of Army Groups Central and South were largely exhausted. Only Army Group North still had stockpiles in its supply base, since supplies benefited from the more expanded and rehabilitated rail network there and the supply via the Baltic Sea. Largely because of the rail supply network, only Army Group North and, to a limited extent, Army Group Center were able to accumulate supplies. With four sets of supplies in reserve, preparations for the attack on Moscow required 27 trains daily, of which the High Command of the Wehrmacht was able to commit 22 by 16 September and 27 from 30 September. For the period of operations in October a requirement of 29 trains was calculated, but only 20 could be promised. In November the OKW's pledges were three platoons a day, as it was assumed that the operation would be completed and used for equipping and stocking for the winter. The infrastructure destroyed in the Red Army withdrawal had to be rebuilt first, but even then it was rather inadequate. There were hardly any paved roads and the railway could not simply be rebuilt either, as the Russian broad gauge could not be used by European standard gauge vehicles.

It was generally not possible to compensate for the losses from the previous battles.

Final decision to attack Moscow

After a presentation of the situation by the Chief of Staff of the Army, Colonel General Franz Halder, Hitler issued Instruction No. 34 on 12 August 1941, which stated that "Moscow as a centre of state, armaments and transport is to be withdrawn from the enemy before the onset of winter". This, however, represented only a partial success for the Army Chief of Staff, since Hitler, while recognizing the importance of Moscow as vigorously advocated by Halder, remained unchanged in his opinion that Moscow should be taken out of the hands of the enemy. However, he remained unchanged in his view that the order of attack operations was determined by the destruction of enemy formations and the conquest of areas important to the war economy. Hitler also argued against the advance on Moscow, taking up the thesis of his generals that the bulk of the Red Army was concentrated in front of the Soviet capital and that it was so severely weakened on the other fronts that, in his understanding, these weakened sections of the front had priority.

After the decision of 22 August 1941, justified by a study of the dictator, which said to stop operations against Moscow until further notice, the final act of the debate on the campaign decisive "last battle" was in the offing. In Hitler's view, all armies standing west of Moscow should be finally defeated before the attack was continued. This line of thinking, already advocated by Hitler in the early stages, stood in stark contrast to Halder's strategic concept of wide-ranging encirclement, since the former inevitably left the initiative to the enemy.

In a memorandum submitted to Hitler, the OKW concluded on 26 August 1941 that it was impossible to complete the campaign in the East that year. This statement finally met with Hitler's approval. After the looming fiasco of the Red Army in the Kiev area in early September, however, Hitler surprisingly changed his mind, and on 6 September 1941, with Führer Instruction No. 35, he issued an order to Army Group Center to complete preparations for an attack on Moscow by the end of September. Literally it reads:

Field Marshal von Bock, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Central (October 1941)

Defense preparations in Moscow

At the end of July 1941, after the first German air raids, Moscow slowly took on the appearance of a frontline city. Shop windows were barricaded with sandbags or boards, some of which were hung with huge propaganda posters. At night there was strict blackout and street traffic was minimized to the bare minimum. No effort was spared in camouflaging efforts from the German Luftwaffe. The outlines of almost the entire city were altered in minute detail. For example, Sverdlov Square and the Bolshoi Theater looked like a group of small houses when viewed from the air. The walls of the Kremlin were painted to look like terraced houses, the golden domes of the churches were painted green. Zigzag lines were painted on all the major streets, which looked like house roofs from above. All large squares were painted with house roofs and open spaces like sports stadiums were covered with dummies of house roofs made of wood. Even some loops of the Moskva River were completely covered with wood to make it difficult for German airmen to find their way. Hundreds of anti-aircraft searchlights and heavy anti-aircraft batteries were set up in the forests of the suburbs, and tethered balloons went up along Moscow's arterial roads to keep out low-flying aircraft. Moscow's air defenses were more developed than those of Berlin and London combined.

Moscow metro operations continued as scheduled only on a few key lines. Wooden boards were placed along the tracks and the underground stations and train shafts were turned into a huge air raid shelter for Moscow's civilian population. Every Muscovite who was not somehow involved in air defense had to go into a cellar. Violators were punished by fines or imprisonment. During the first night attack of the Germans, exactly one month after the beginning of the war, the German planes flew over Moscow for the first and only time at a very low altitude. The first night they usually came in at an altitude of 300 meters. After that the Germans changed their tactics and bombed Moscow from a great height. However, the number of incoming German bombers became smaller from raid to raid. While in the night of 21/22 July 1941 there were 127 machines attacking Moscow, already one night later there were 115, and in the night of 24 July then 100 machines. Up to the end of the year 1941 in 59 of 76 attacks on Moscow less than ten German airplanes of the type He 111 and Ju 88 were used.

In Moscow, preparations were made for the possibility of a sudden collapse of the front or the landing of paratroops. For this purpose, Soviet fighter battalions and Komsomol brigades were assembled in individual barracks. The entire defense system, the so-called Moscow Defense Zone, was placed under the command of the Moscow Military District (Lieutenant General Pavel Artemyevich Artemyev), to whom the mobilization of the population for entrenchment and fortification work, as well as the formation and arming of workers' battalions, was subordinate. Artemyev was also responsible for industrial production, transportation, communications, and food supplies for the population. Thus, the main vital functions of the capital were in the hands of the military, more precisely, the NKVD.

Women digging a tank ditch outside Moscow (1941)


Barricades in a street in Moscow (October 1941)


Soviet anti-aircraft gunners on the roof of the Moskva Hotel in the immediate vicinity of the Kremlin (August 1941)