The Soviet Union's offensive and defensive reversals in the Battle of Moscow were classic. In this battle, millions of German troops suffered heavy losses. In the winter of 1941, the temperature was very low, the temperature in the area around Moscow dropped to about minus 40 degrees Celsius, the minimum temperature reached minus 52 degrees Celsius, which was very rare in the past, and the rain for several days made the road of the German army very muddy, the speed of the mobile troops was greatly reduced, and the soldiers complained, so why did Hitler resolutely refuse to retreat?
First of all, for the Germans in Moscow, the war began in the Battle of Vyazma-Bryansk, which encircled eight armies of the three Soviet fronts, annihilated at least 300,000 Soviet troops, and destroyed Moscow's defensive posture. The valuable troops defending Moscow suffered heavy losses, and the technical weapons also suffered great losses. The battle convinced Germany that it would be able to maintain this posture and quickly break through Moscow.
In fact, Hitler thought that the Soviet Union was a broken house, and it collapsed with one kick, and as a result, it was attacked for more than two months and still did not take it. The morale of the army dropped little by little, and the losses suffered by both sides were not much better. In contrast, the situation of the Germans was even worse, and they had to endure more terrible cold while suffering casualties in offensive and defensive battles.
On November 15, Russian soldiers received short coats, felt boots, thick cotton coats and hats with earrings, the Winter Combat Materials prepared by the German Army were only prepared to cope with the temperature of minus thirty degrees, in the low temperature of minus forty to fifty degrees, the weapons, tanks and armored vehicles in the hands of the German army were frozen, and the antifreeze oil and antifreeze not only did not play a role in preventing frost, but destroyed the weapons. After much effort to de-icing, it was soon frozen again, and the Germans stopped at 30 kilometers from Moscow.
Hitler, however, thought moscow was already in his pocket, and he felt that victory would be achieved with a little effort. At this time, the German army was still facing the problem of logistics supply could not keep up, and more than a thousand kilometers of supply lines brought great trouble to the German army. Although the Soviet army on the opposite side was not as strong as the German army, Moscow was the meeting point of the road and railway, and the logistics line was naturally shorter.
When the German high command asked them to continue the offensive, due to lack of clothing and food, the weapons were useless, and the frozen soldiers had no strength to attack, and the fatal thing was that on December 5, the Soviet army launched a counter-offensive, and on December 6, it became a full-line counter-offensive.
At this time, the German army was overwhelmed, and scattered directly at the fastest speed from the 320-kilometer-long front around Moscow, without any resistance, and the German front became fragile with weapons failure, no preset positions, and even the soldiers were frozen.
More and more generals demanded Hitler's retreat, including Guderian and Marshal von Bock, but Hitler thought it was possible to hold on, and there might be a glimmer of life on the front. So Hitler rejected all possibilities for retreat. Even in order to carry out the order, he removed a large number of officers, including Guderian and von Bock.
In the end, Hitler's reason for not being able to retreat was related to Napoleon's battle with Russia in 1812. In the winter of 1812, Napoleon's French army was also subjected to massive cooling and snowfall in the Xiaoice River era, and the French army began to retreat in the absence of supplies and warm clothing, only to be chased and killed by the Russian army led by Kutuzov and collapsed.
Hitler believed that the German army would not only lose more when it retreated at this time, but would be counterattacked by the Soviet army all the way to Germany, which is why he did not agree to any retreat plan. In fact, Hitler had a military superiority. His keen sense of the battle situation and his emphasis on tactical innovation were unmatched by anyone at the time. Most typical examples are the heavy use of tank warfare factions such as Guderian and Manstein at the beginning of the war to launch a blitzkrieg; the non-retreat of the Moscow Campaign minimized losses.
These are decisiveness and courage that are difficult for ordinary military leaders to match. But it was also because of Hitler's success that he was stubborn to the point of absurdity in his intuition and views. The deterioration of relations with the German generals further magnified this shortcoming, resulting in an irreparable defeat. But Lidhart remained impressed by Hitler, even comparing him to Napoleon, pointing out that Napoleon had also been mistaken by his own cleverness.