On September 6, 1941, with Leningrad besieged and Ukraine captured, the German high command issued Fuhrer Directive No. 35, commanding Army Group Center under Field Marshal Fedor von Bock to “destroy the enemy in the region east of Smolensk by a double envelopment by powerful panzer forces concentrated on both flanks.” On September 16, Bock drew up Operation Typhoon for this pursuit of the Soviet forces toward Moscow. Meanwhile, Soviet General Andrey Yeryomenko transferred from the Western Front to the Bryansk Front, named for the city 235 miles southwest of Moscow. In August the Bryansk Front had launched an unsuccessful counterattack against Guderian’s Second Panzer Group around Smolensk. Although the Germans were delayed, the Front was left mostly defenseless to Operation Typhoon.

After the fall of Kiev, Guderian’s Second Panzer Group rejoined Army Group Center and on September 30, plunging deep into Soviet territory, capturing Orel on October 3 and Bryansk on October 6. According to Guderian, the electric trains were still working in Orel when the panzers drove in. The Wehrmacht’s 7th Panzer Division almost captured Yeryomenko and his staff, but they escaped. Meanwhile, General Georg-Hans Reinhardt’s Third Panzer Group drove a wedge into the defenses of the Western Front, now under General Ivan Konev. As ever, Soviet resistance could only slow and not immobilize the Germans. By the end of October 4, the 2nd and 10th Panzer Divisions were approaching Vyazma (on the western approaches of Moscow) in the Western Front’s rear areas. It was not until the next day that Stalin finally authorized Konev to begin withdrawing his forces. General Konstantin Rokossovsky attempted to defend Vyazma with the 16th Army but could not hold. Vyazma soon fell, and on October 13 the Germans declared the Soviet forces trapped west of Vyazma destroyed. In reality, encircled Soviet units fought desperately to breakout, usually without success, but kept German divisions tied down. Ecstatic with Typhoon’s early success, Hitler declared that the Soviets “were broken and would never rise again.” All told, the encirclements at Bryansk and Vyazma cost the Soviets seven out of 15 armies, 64 of 95 divisions, 11 of 15 tank brigades, and 50 of 62 attached artillery regiments. Around one million Soviet soldiers were killed or captured; only a quarter of a million escaped. It appeared as though Moscow was even more vulnerable to assault.

As they often did, the German leadership became too ambitious after smelling exploitation. Rather than focusing on a main thrust to the capital, Army Group Center coordinated with Army Group North to capture the Moscow-Leningrad railway while encircling Moscow from the north, west, and south. The Soviets, however, put all effort in defending Moscow, even enlisting 440,000 citizens from the region to build massive trenches in less than a month. By October 15 most of the important government offices and major factories had relocated to an old city on the Volga river, Kuybyshev. The German offensive soon stalled due to logistical issues, the onset of muddy roads in autumn, and general exhaustion, and by late October, the German armed forces halted to resupply.

Remaining in Moscow and seeking to shore up morale, Stalin went ahead with holding the traditional military parade held every November 7 in Red Square. The men and vehicles went from the parade grounds straight to the nearby front. By late November, around 65,000 troops defended Moscow, including irregular militia and NKVD internal security divisions. Anti-tank units, infantry, engineers, and artillery were concentrated along the major avenues the Germans would have to use to take the city. The Western Front, now under Marshal Georgy Zhukov – fresh from organizing defenses at Leningrad – and other experienced officers, had leadership capable of stopping and countering German tactics.

When the muddy roads froze, the panzers and motorized infantry regiments of the Germans moved with their usual celerity, and by November 27, the 7th Panzer Division captured the Moscow-Volga Canal, 22 miles from the Kremlin. Around the same time, the Germans approached Kashira, a town 71 miles south of Moscow. Soviet and German regiments had been reduced to the size of companies, with only 150 to 200 soldiers left in each. Bock gambled on one last attack on Moscow using the 4th Army under Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, but this crashed against Soviet riflemen to Moscow’s west. Around ten miles from Moscow’s main defense lines, Reinhardt’s Third Panzer Group and General Erich Hoepner’s Fourth Panzer Group ground to a halt. Guderian’s Second Panzer Group also failed to capitalize on an attack on Tula, south of Moscow.

The frozen ground had come at a price; by November 30 it was around -50 degrees Fahrenheit (-45 degrees Celsius). As Operation Barbarossa was always meant to be a fast victory, the Germans were not prepared for the harsh Russian winter; even though the Soviets faced the same conditions, the Soviet had winter-appropriate equipment on hand, while the Germans did not. German soldiers soon reported over 130,000 cases of frostbite. This meant that by December the Germans had no hope of continuing their offensive; despite coming to the very edges of Moscow, the Germans had lost momentum. More than the weather, the Soviets owed their successful defense to the great effort taken to protect the city, to mobilize soldiers and civilians alike, and the resolve to fight tooth and nail against the Germans. The Soviet troops could also draw on reserve units to reinforce their troops, while the German forces were already overstretched and increasingly understrength.

The Soviet 16th Army earned a place of distinction for withstanding the brunt of the German effort to take Moscow. The army was led by Konstantin Rokossovsky, who himself was accused, arrested, and tortured during Stalin’s purge of the armed forces in the 1930s. Despite his treatment, Rokossovsky never confessed to any crimes and continued to serve Stalin and the Soviet regime. He molded the battle-scarred veterans, Moscow militia members, and Siberian reservists into a cohesive fighting unit that kept the Germans from entering Moscow. In a famous incident, he attempted to overrule the Western Front commander, Zhukov, by appealing for a retreat order from the Soviet Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov. After Shaposhnikov agreed, Zhukov interjected and asserted that he had ultimate authority over Rokossovsky. This clear (if somewhat draconian) chain of command contributed greatly to the Soviet defense.

One unit within the 16th Army, the 316th Rifle Division, was involved in an infamous case of fictional Soviet propaganda. Moscow claimed that 28 soldiers belonging to the 316th Rifle Division destroyed 18 German tanks with the newly issued PTRD-41 anti-tank rifles before being killed themselves. After a post-war inquiry, no evidence could be found to corroborate the claimed casualties and, indeed, several of the “killed” Soviet soldiers still lived. Despite this deceitful propaganda, the sacrifices of the division were no less impressive: it suffered 9,920 casualties by November 17. Its commander, General Ivan Panfilov, received a third Order of the Red Banner for his valor. Panfilov was killed on November 18, a day after Stalin ordered the division elevated to a Guards formation, a status reserved for units that distinguished themselves in combat. The new “Guards” title was a direct reference to invoke the prestigious Imperial Guard units of the pre-communist Russian Empire.

Sources

Bellamy, Chris. 2007. Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Glantz, David. 2011. Operation Barbarossa: Hitler’s Invasion of Russia. Stroud, UK: The History Press.

Glantz, David and Jonathan House. 1995. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.

Stahel, David. 2013. Operation Typhoon: Hitler’s March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Woff, Richard. 1993. “Konstantin Rokossovsky.” In Stalin’s Generals, ed. Harold Shukman. New York: Grove Press.