On 2 October 1941 Germany's Army Group Center opened Operation Typhoon, the offensive meant to take the Soviet capital before winter. Within days German armor had closed great pockets around Soviet armies at Vyazma and Bryansk. Then autumn mud, stiffening resistance and the winter brought the advance to a halt within sight of the city, and on 5 December the Red Army struck back. The Battle of Moscow ended Germany's hope of a quick victory over the Soviet Union.
The opening blow
Sources date the start a little differently. Britannica dates the Battle of Moscow from 30 September 1941, while Defense Media Network and the historian Russel Stolfi, writing in <em>World War II</em> magazine, give 2 October as the day Operation Typhoon began.1
Stolfi describes how the panzers broke through and encircled 55 Soviet divisions at Vyazma, while 33 more were trapped around Bryansk to the south, and he gives the German count of 663,000 Soviet prisoners from the double battle. Britannica notes that even the encircled Soviet forces kept fighting, which cost the Germans time.2
Mud, frost and the counterblow
Then the weather turned. Britannica and Defense Media Network both describe how the autumn rains turned the unpaved roads into quagmires that held up German armor and supply columns. Britannica adds that the Soviets kept bringing forward fresh reserves, some 75 new divisions over the course of the battle, while the German attackers received none. By early November the Germans, without winter clothing, were suffering frostbite. They pushed on when the ground froze and came within about 15 miles (24 km) of the city, but the advance halted on 4 December.3
Before dawn on 5 December the Red Army counterattacked along the Moscow front. It did not destroy the German armies, but Britannica says it drove them back by up to 155 miles (250 km) in places, and Germany had lost its chance of a quick victory. Britannica gives the losses of the whole battle as 250,000 to 400,000 German dead or wounded and 600,000 to 1,300,000 Soviet dead, wounded or captured; the wide ranges show how uncertain the figures are.4
The full story, from the plan to the winter offensive, is in our article on the Battle of Moscow, and the Soviet commander who led the defense in our biography of Georgy Zhukov.5
Also on this day
- 1944: Battle of the Scheldt. The First Canadian Army, with British and Polish units, fought to clear the Scheldt estuary so the port of Antwerp could serve the Allied armies.
