The Push to Moscow - German Perspective

The Push to Moscow- German Perspective

The battle for Moscow, code named ‘Operation Typhoon' (October 1941) by the German's was the final push into Moscow. Taking the city was seen as vital in achieving success through Operation Barbossa as Moscow was considered the heart of Russia. If Moscow fell, Russia would crumble. Initially, Barbossa was extremely successful in progression within Russia. Blitzkrieg hammered through the Russian lines and eradicated defence after defence after defence. Hitler however made a very ignorant mistake in thinking Russia would fall so easily. After a month into the operation the German army had lost over 50% of their tanks, 100.000 men and 1,200 planes. The Germans were also ill prepared for the Russian winter; they did not have the appropriate clothing to withstand the extreme cold that is a regular occurrence in Russia.

The man in charge of the attack was Field Marshall von Bock. For the attack, Bock had at his disposal 1 million men, 1,700 tanks, 19,500 artillery guns and 950 combat aircraft - 50% of all the German men in Russia, 75% of all the tanks and 33% of all the planes. It was made quite clear by the Fuhrer that Surrender would not be accepted, the city was to be eradicated from the face of the earth. The german army did not want to have to feed and look after Russian citizens in a city which was worthless to them- "It is the Führer's unshakable decision to raze Moscow and Leningrad to the ground, so as to be completely relieved of the population of these cities, which we would otherwise have to feed through the winter. The task of destroying the cities is to be carried out by aircraft."

During the push to Moscow, the german forces encircled Vyazma and six Red Army regiments (the 19th, 24th, 29th, 30th, 32nd and 43rd armies). This however, caused the first major problem in Operation Typhoon as the Germans couldn't simply leave behind 6 regiments of enemy soldiers as they continued eastwards. This therefore meant that they would have to take on the enemy and by doing so halted their advancement so much that the Russians had time to re-organize themselves under the command of Marshall Georgy Zhukov - the man who 'never lost a battle'. The german advance had to come up against Zhukov's 'Mozhaysk Line', which was a line of defence meant to slow the german assault. In some ways it succeeded as after a few headways in the line, the germans failed to break through effectively enough to gain any ground and so a sort of stale mate developed with little movement from either side.

The second push on to Moscow started November 13th when senior German commanders met at Orsha to decide appropriate actions. The second assault narrowed its target area so that as much fire power could be concentrated in one area as possible. The belief that was held was that if one small part of the