Harrison, Richard (Hrsg.) The Battle of Moscow 1941-1942

The Red Army's Defensive Operations and Counter-Offensive along the Moscow Strategic Direction

This is a detailed examination of one of the most important turning points of the Second World War from the Soviet perspective. The Battle of Moscow marked the climax of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa, which was intended to destroy the Soviet Union in a single campaign and secure German supremacy in Europe. The failure of this endeavour condemned Germany to a protracted war that it could not win. This work was originally published in 1943 under the title Razgrom Nemetskikh Voisk pod Moskvoi (The Defeat of German Forces around Moscow). It was written by the military history department of the Red Army General Staff, whose task was to collect and analyse experiences from the war and pass them on to the higher echelons of the army. It was a collaborative effort by many different contributors, edited by Marshal Boris Mikhailovich Shaposhnikov, former Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army and then head of the General Staff Academy. The book is divided into three parts, each dealing with a specific phase of the battle. The first part traces the defensive operations of the Western Front along the Moscow direction during the last advance of Army Group Centre on the capital in November and December 1941. The study focuses in particular on the Red Army's resistance to German attempts to bypass Moscow from the north. Equally important were the defensive operations south of Moscow, where the Germans attempted to advance their other flank. The second part deals with the first phase of the Red Army's counteroffensive, which aimed to repel the German pincer movements and eliminate the immediate threat to Moscow. Here, the Soviets succeeded in pushing back the Germans and crushing both advances, especially in the south, where they were able to penetrate deep into the enemy front in the west and northwest. The final section examines the further development of the counteroffensive until the end of January 1942. This section highlights the Soviet advance along the entire front and their determined but unsuccessful attempts to cut off the German advance at Rzhev-Vyaz'ma. From this point on, the front essentially stabilised, whereupon events shifted to the south. This new translation into English makes this valuable study accessible to a wider readership.