Battle of Moscow (1941–1942): The Red Army Saves the Capital

The Battle of Moscow was fought between October 1941 and January 1942 as German forces tried to capture the Soviet capital and the Red Army fought to save it. The German offensive, codenamed Operation Typhoon, came within about 30 kilometres of the Kremlin before it stalled, and a Soviet counteroffensive from 5 December pushed the invaders back. It was the first major defeat suffered by the German army in the Second World War.

Background: Barbarossa runs out of time

Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 in Operation Barbarossa. Its armies won enormous victories in the summer, encircling and capturing hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers. But Soviet resistance was stronger than expected, and German losses in men and vehicles mounted.

In August Hitler diverted armoured forces from Army Group Centre to the south, which led to the vast encirclement at Kyiv in September. Only then did he approve a final drive on Moscow. The German command hoped to take the city before winter and believed the Red Army was close to collapse.

Operation Typhoon

Army Group Centre under Field Marshal Fedor von Bock had around 1.9 million men, three panzer groups and the support of the Luftwaffe. Heinz Guderian’s Panzer Group 2 attacked on 30 September, and the main offensive began on 2 October 1941.

The early results were spectacular. German pincers closed around large Soviet forces at Vyazma and Bryansk, and by late October the Germans claimed around 600,000 or more prisoners. The road to Moscow seemed open, and on 16 October panic broke out in the city as rumours spread that the government was leaving.

Many government offices and foreign embassies were indeed evacuated to Kuibyshev (today Samara) on the Volga. Stalin, however, stayed in Moscow, and on 19 October a state of siege was declared. On 10 October General Georgy Zhukov had been placed in command of the Western Front, defending the capital.

Mud, the November parade and the last German push

From mid-October autumn rains turned unpaved Russian roads into deep mud, a season known as the rasputitsa. German supply columns and tanks slowed to a crawl. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Moscow civilians, many of them women, dug anti-tank ditches and trenches around the city.

On 7 November, the anniversary of the October Revolution, Stalin held the traditional military parade on Red Square. Troops marched past the Lenin Mausoleum and then went directly to the front. The event was filmed and widely publicised as a sign that the capital would not fall.

Inside the city, life was harsh. Food was rationed, factories were dismantled and shipped east, and volunteer “people’s militia” divisions of poorly trained workers and students were sent to the front, where many were destroyed in the October fighting. Air raids hit Moscow repeatedly, although its anti-aircraft defences and fighter cover limited the damage compared with cities such as London.

When the ground froze in mid-November, the Germans resumed the attack. Panzer forces advanced to the north-west of Moscow, crossed the Moscow–Volga Canal at Yakhroma and reached Krasnaya Polyana, roughly 30 km from the Kremlin. In the south Guderian’s army failed to take the city of Tula, which held out against repeated assaults.

German soldiers later reported seeing the towers of the Kremlin through field glasses, but such stories are hard to verify. What is clear is that the attacking divisions had lost much of their strength since June. Many infantry companies were down to a fraction of their normal size, and the panzer divisions had only a small number of working tanks left.

By early December the German divisions were exhausted. Temperatures fell well below minus 20 °C, and many units lacked winter clothing, antifreeze and fuel. Bock reported that his forces had reached the limit of their strength.

The Soviet counteroffensive

The Soviet high command had quietly gathered fresh reserve armies east of Moscow. Some divisions came from Siberia and the Far East, released after intelligence, including reports from the spy Richard Sorge, suggested that Japan would attack south rather than against the Soviet Union. Many other reserves were newly raised in the interior.

On 5 and 6 December 1941 the Kalinin Front under Ivan Konev, the Western Front under Zhukov and the right wing of the Southwestern Front went on the attack. Surprised and overextended, German units fell back, abandoning heavy equipment in the snow. Kalinin was retaken on 16 December and Kaluga on 30 December.

Hitler issued a “stand fast” order forbidding large retreats and dismissed senior commanders. Walther von Brauchitsch, the army’s commander-in-chief, was removed and Hitler took over the post himself; Bock and Guderian were replaced. By 7 January 1942 the first phase of the counteroffensive was over, with the Germans pushed back between about 100 and 250 km. Fighting continued into the spring around Rzhev and Vyazma.

Key people

• Georgy Zhukov – commander of the Western Front, who organised the defence and the counteroffensive.
• Joseph Stalin – Soviet leader, whose decision to remain in Moscow became a symbol of resistance.
• Fedor von Bock – commander of Army Group Centre until December 1941.
• Heinz Guderian – commander of the 2nd Panzer Army, dismissed after his forces retreated.
• Ivan Konev – commander of the Western Front in early October and then of the Kalinin Front.

By the numbers

Myths and facts

Myth: “General Winter” alone saved Moscow. The cold hurt the poorly equipped Germans badly, but mud and frost affected both armies. German failure also came from long supply lines, earlier losses and the arrival of large Soviet reserves.

Myth: the 28 Panfilov Guardsmen all died stopping German tanks. The story of 28 soldiers of General Ivan Panfilov’s division who fought to the death near Dubosekovo became a Soviet legend. A Soviet military prosecutor’s investigation in 1948 concluded that the account had been largely invented by journalists, though the division did fight hard in the area.

Consequences

The battle ended Germany’s plan to defeat the Soviet Union in a single campaign. It came in the same week as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and on 11 December Germany declared war on the United States, turning the conflict into a truly global war.

Soviet forces could not yet destroy Army Group Centre, and a general offensive ordered by Stalin in January 1942 overstretched the Red Army. In 1942 Germany turned its main effort south, towards the Caucasus and the Battle of Stalingrad.

Timeline

• 1941, 30 September: Guderian’s Panzer Group 2 opens the attack.
• 1941, 2 October: Operation Typhoon begins along the main front.
• 1941, 10 October: Zhukov takes command of the Western Front.
• 1941, 16 October: Panic in Moscow; evacuation of government offices to Kuibyshev.
• 1941, 7 November: Revolution Day parade on Red Square.
• 1941, 15–17 November: Germans resume the offensive after the ground freezes.
• 1941, 5–6 December: Soviet counteroffensive begins.
• 1941, 19 December: Hitler takes personal command of the German army.
• 1942, 7 January: First phase of the counteroffensive ends.

Why it matters

Moscow proved that the German army could be stopped and beaten. Its failure to take the capital meant a long war of attrition in the East that Germany was poorly equipped to win, and the battle remains one of the most important turning points of the Second World War.