Exactly 75 years ago, on April 20, 1942, the months-long battle for Moscow ended. Before and during this grandiose, almost seven-month battle of the Second World War, in which the fate of the USSR was being decided, the opponents made a number of miscalculations, underestimating each other. But if the leadership of the Red Army made operational and tactical blunders, then the command of the Wehrmacht made strategic mistakes.
Three reasons not to attack Russia
The Germans were the first to make a mistake, having laid in the plan of the attack on the Soviet Union "Barbarossa" completely unrealistic terms for the defeat of the enemy's armed forces and the capture of its main cities. The Wehrmacht was tasked with destroying the Red Army and capturing Kiev, Leningrad and Moscow during one "short campaign", ending the war somewhere on the Arkhangelsk - Volgograd - Astrakhan line. All this was given four to five months.
In other words, the Nazi soldiers were presented as a kind of iron stream, which in a short time would sweep away all living things in its path and win the Third Reich. While planning a lightning war in the East, similar to the previous campaign against France, the German generals forgot Otto von Bismarck's statement that Russia cannot be conquered for at least three reasons. Because of the harsh climate, vast spaces and the resilience of the people.
It soon became clear that an attack in different directions was like a blow not with a fist, but with spread fingers. Having captured the capital of Ukraine in September 1941, the Wehrmacht was unable to take even such a huge and fortified city like Leningrad.
Waiting for the German strike
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The main goal of the war is Moscow, against which the German General Staff had to pull together three tank armies and three field armies at once, taking part of the troops from Army Group North, which was forced to begin a blockade of the northern capital of the USSR. That is, to passive actions, the main "weapon" of which was hunger.
By the end of September 1941, in the central direction, which was defended by the Soviet fronts (Western, Bryansk and behind them the Reserve), there was a pause in hostilities - the sides fought mainly local battles.
The Red Army command understood that an attack on Moscow was about to follow, but made a mistake in its definition. It was assumed that Army Group Center, in the conditions of the approaching autumn thaw, would try to advance along the highway running along the Smolensk-Yartsevo-Vyazma line.
At the same time, the General Staff of the Red Army did not pay attention to the weather, but these days it was dry and sunny, which allowed the enemy tank units to move outside the paved roads and attack from unexpected directions. The flight weather also contributed to the active support of the actions of their ground forces from the 2nd Air Fleet of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring.
The main German efforts were expected on the right flank of the Western Front under the command of General Ivan Konev. It was in this direction that a powerful Soviet defense was erected and the greatest density of troops was created per one kilometer occupied. The enemy was awaited by numerous artillery, including naval guns on concrete sites.
Army intelligence of the Red Army also missed the transfer of the 4th tank group from Leningrad to the Moscow direction, believing that it was in the same place. Whereas in reality only the radio operator of the headquarters of the German tank army was left, whose characteristic handwriting indicated that the headquarters were supposedly in place.
Bypassing the nodes of resistance
They also misjudged the intentions of the enemy on the neighboring Bryansk front, where it was supposed to attack directly on Bryansk, near which the front commander General Andrei Eremenko held the main reserves. And when on September 30, 1941, the commander of the 2nd tank group, General Heinz Guderian, struck on the Bryansk front 120-150 kilometers south of the expected, he immediately broke through the Soviet defenses.
Eremenko initially underestimated the scale of what had happened, informing Headquarters that the enemy who had broken through was attacking only with the forces of one tank and one infantry divisions. Then Moscow realized the scale of the breakthrough, and forces were transferred from other directions to eliminate it. But on October 2, the main blow of Operation Typhoon followed by the forces of two tank groups - the 3rd and 4th, which bypassed the Minsk highway to the south and north.
As a result, at the beginning of the offensive on Moscow, the Germans swiftly bypassed the nodes of resistance, striking in those places where the Soviet command did not expect an offensive. This allowed the Wehrmacht to encircle the troops of three fronts in the area of Bryansk and Vyazma in a short time. More than 600 thousand soldiers and commanders of the Red Army got into two huge "cauldrons".
Most dramatic moment of battle
The encircled units fiercely resisted, chaining a large number of German divisions to themselves. As a result, about 85 thousand Red Army men escaped from the encirclement, but on October 5, 1941, the way to Moscow was opened, and there was no one to occupy the Mozhaisk defense line at that time. This was perhaps the most dramatic moment for the Red Army during the gigantic battle.
But the Germans, who were going to take the capital of the USSR not head-on, so as not to get bogged down in fierce urban battles, but by encirclement from the south and north, at that moment decided that the main threat from the Red Army came from the northeast, in the Kalinin region, and the efforts of the 3rd and 4th tank armies were concentrated there.
Taking advantage of this, the Soviet command began hastily transferring troops to Moscow from the Leningrad and Southwestern directions, as well as pushing reserves from the country's internal districts.
Time worked against the Wehrmacht
Many rifle divisions stood in the way of the enemy, which covered themselves with unfading glory in the fields near Moscow - for example, the 316th division under the command of General Ivan Panfilov or the 32nd division of Colonel Viktor Polosukhin.
The first, in fierce battles, held back the enemy on the approaches to Volokolamsk, the second repulsed the enemy's fierce attacks on the Borodino field for six days, retreating only by order of the command, when the Germans broke through in another sector of defense. The energetic and tough General Georgy Zhukov was appointed commander of the reconstituted Western Front.
In addition, from the tenths of October, the weather deteriorated - the rains were charged, and the attackers lost the latitude of maneuvering with their tank forces and motorized infantry. The Wehrmacht moved mainly along the highways and roads, where numerous ambushes and defense centers awaited it, abundantly saturated with artillery of various calibers.
All three factors, which the "iron" chancellor had warned about, began to affect - bad weather, stretched communications and increased resistance. The pace of the blitzkrieg dropped. And by November it had completely slowed down.
To continue the offensive, the Germans needed two weeks to regroup and pull up reserves. And time worked against them.
No chance of inflicting heavy losses on the Red Army
In November, the second - and last - phase of Operation Typhoon began, during which German troops, overcoming fierce resistance from the Red Army, reached the closest approaches to Moscow. However, only the northern part of the tank "ticks" approached its outskirts - the southern, represented by Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army, got bogged down in hopeless battles near Tula.
By the beginning of December, according to the German generals, a stalemate had developed when both sides were exhausted and could no longer continue to fight. In his personal diary, the chief of the Wehrmacht's ground staff, General Franz Halder, wrote on December 4, 1941 that the commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Fyodor von Bock, believes that there is no chance of inflicting heavy losses on the enemy during the offensive northwest of Moscow.
The Germans once again underestimated the enemy, and German intelligence missed the concentration of fresh Soviet reserves, which the next day launched a powerful counteroffensive, in the difficult conditions of a fierce winter and desperate enemy resistance, throwing parts of the Wehrmacht to the west.
Panic in the camp of the enemy
The father of the German Panzerwaffe, General Guderian, who started the Typhoon, nervously informed the Wehrmacht command that the state of his troops inspired great fears, they were losing confidence in their commanders and were unable to repel the attacks of a well-equipped and numerous enemy. Panic messages were also sent by other Nazi generals, whose troops were retreating from the walls of Moscow.
In December 1941 - January 1942, German troops suffered a serious defeat, which put an end to the Barbarossa plan and lightning war. They were thrown back by the Red Army 100-250 kilometers. The Tula, Ryazan and Moscow regions, many areas of the Kalinin, Smolensk and Oryol regions were completely cleared of the Nazis.
The victory near Moscow was not an isolated one: near Leningrad, Soviet troops liberated Tikhvin, in the south - Rostov-on-Don.
The collapse of the lightning war
On December 8, 1941, Hitler ordered his troops to go over to the defensive along the entire length of the Eastern Front. All this prompted the leadership of the country and the Red Army to think about a broad offensive on all fronts - primarily on the West, in order to defeat Army Group Center.
At the same time, Stalin overestimated the strength of the troops, many of which were exhausted by months of fighting. In addition, strikes in many directions led to the fragmentation of forces - and at best they could only push the enemy out of their positions, but not surround him.
As a result, on April 20, 1942, the gigantic battle ended. The Germans managed to defend the Rzhev-Vyazemsky bridgehead and prevent the collapse of their front. But they could no longer attack Moscow either.
To avoid senseless positional warfare in the style of the First World War, the Wehrmacht had to advance in other directions. For example, in the south, aiming at the Caucasus and Stalingrad, to cut the USSR's path to oil fields. But this is already another chapter of the war.
Sergey Varshavchik