The Battle of Moscow is often relegated to history as some sort of fuzzy gap between the lightning fast warfare of Operation Barbarossa, the initial invasion of the USSR, and the Battle of Stalingrad. Even later 1942 offensives in the Rzhev salient are obscured in history, vanished from Soviet historical chronology. This is even further confirmed by the lack of videos covering the decisive battle and the horrendous inaccuracies portraying late 1941 and early 1942 in world war 2 mapping videos. Even with such lack of coverage this could be further from the truth, as Moscow was evidently the most decisive battle the entire war, even eclipsing the magnitude of the later Battles in Stalingrad and Kursk.
With the full brunt of the chillingly cold winter, this video will take you from start to finish. It starts by describing the dilemma often created by the myth that Hitler always made poor strategic decisions, and how German Generals could have won the war had he not intervened. I know there are many other examples other than Moscow, but this video will cover this decisive engagement.
The next portion of the video covers the general Soviet defense via the Mozhaysk line and echelon style defense system around Moscow. Little do people know that the German attack on Moscow (Operation Typhoon) occurred in two phases primarily because of the rasputitsa: in October and November. Equally so, the Soviet Winter Counter-offensive occurred in two stages, with the second being somewhat improvised. Initially the December offensive was responsible for pushing back the German pincers at Tula and Klin, however this spread into a second more ambitious January offensive, along the entire Eastern Front.
It is in the second offensive that started in January, where we see the creation of the famed Rzhev salient and the formation of the Demyansk and Kholm pockets. This was mainly due to efforts by the Kalinin Front to attack via Toropets. The documentary as a result is primarily focused oh the Western Front, commanded by Georgy Zhukov, although it also includes the Bryansk and Southwestern Fronts. I do not cover the fronts parallel Army Group North and Army Group South.
What I hope viewers can take away from this video is that Hitler was not always irrational and impulsive although he was by no means a Napoleon. It is also meant to show that German commanders were just infallible to ill-thought out judgement just like their Soviet counterparts.
Although the music I include may seem cheery compared to other videos, it follows the theme of Russian invasion highlighted by Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture. I thought it was the most appropriate historic music.
