Since the beginning of the world anti-fascist war, there have been many classic battles of different characteristics, of which the Soviet Union and Germany are the main enemies, such as the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Berlin, etc., which we have learned in history, which are of great significance to World War II, especially the Battle of Stalingrad, which is known as the turning point of World War II, and the defense of Moscow dealt a serious blow to Hitler. But they inevitably have a special feature, that is, the scale of participation in the war is very large, at that time, the number of participants in a small-scale battle may be hundreds of thousands, which shows how fierce and large the battle was at that time. But there was one battle that cost the Soviets and the Allies the most, and that was the Battle of Kiev, also known as the Battle of Kiev.
The largest battle of World War II was the Battle of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine at the confluence of the Jessna and Dnieper rivers, an important step in the German Barbarossa plan, and the Battle of Kiev broke out on the Soviet Southern Defense Line in July 1947. The Soviets were commanded by General Kirponos, but a super-corps of more than 800,000 soldiers, 4,500 tanks, and more than 1,600 aircraft. Surrounded by German forces, nearly 700,000 Soviet troops were captured alive, the commander of the Southwestern Soviet Front, Kilbonos, the chief of staff Tupikov, and the political commissar Bulmishtenko were killed in the breakout, and the commander of the Soviet 5th Army, Potapov, was captured in battle, Adolf Hitler said that this was the biggest battle in history.
Among the major battles of the Soviet Union, the Battle of Kiev was the most seriously damaged, and the main reason why the losses were so severe was that there was not enough armor and mobility. Shortly before the Battle of Kiev, the Soviet Union first fought the German army in Uman, the Soviet army was completely unable to withstand the fierce offensive of the German army, the result was that the German army destroyed almost all of the Soviet army's mechanized troops, so in the subsequent battle of Kiev, the Soviet army lacked the cover of armored troops, and the enemy's artillery was aimed at these Soviet troops who had lost cover and were exposed, and the Soviet army was even more unable to resist the well-equipped German army in this situation. In addition, there is another reason is that Stalin himself was overconfident in this battle, overstepped his command, did not listen to the opinions of the chief of the general staff at that time, and even changed the commander on the spot, the battlefield changed rapidly, the change of commander on the spot was a taboo for soldiers, because of Stalin's dictatorial decision, which led to the complete loss of the Kiev campaign, after that, Stalin rarely commanded the military again, and domestic work became his focus.
It is regrettable that before the Battle of Kiev, Stalin did not listen to the advice of his subordinates and disagreed with several Red Army generals at that time on the matter of war. In Stalin's view, German firepower would be concentrated in Ukraine, mainly because the Germans wanted to occupy the soviet union's large granary and seize possession of Ukrainian grain, donets coal and Caucasian oil. Therefore, Stalin decided to personally cross the command and mobilized a large number of Soviet Red Army to the Kiev area, never thought of taking the initiative to attack in this battle, adopted a passive defensive posture, and saved the Soviet Union's large granary, and oil production areas, but the combat ability of the German army was not taken seriously by Stalin, and when the Soviet army was not completely surrounded by the German army, General Zhukov proposed to Stalin to retreat, but Stalin instead removed Zhukov from his post.
As everyone knows, when the Second World War officially began, the German army quickly launched an attack on european countries and occupied the territory of many European countries, and as the only remaining European country, Britain still resisted the German artillery fire with its innate advantage of the Strait, but at this time, the Soviet Union launched an attack on Finland, in the eyes of the world, Finland is a very weak country, since the Soviet Union launched an attack on it, it should only take a short time to completely destroy Finland's defensive line.
But the development of things was unexpected, the Finnish defense line seemed to be unbreakable, the Soviet army's attack seemed to lose its due effect, and after several months of baptism of fire, the Finnish army gradually could not resist, first all the Finnish troops began to retreat, and then forced by the pressure of the war situation to take peace, and finally due to the disparity between strength and weakness, had to sign a truce with the Soviet Union, and agreed to all the requirements previously proposed by the Soviet Union to Finland. This incident also laid a foreshadowing for the subsequent German attack on the Soviet Union, and it was precisely because of this foreshadowing that the German Supreme Commander at the time had a wrong understanding of the war situation, thinking that if the German army attacked the Soviet Union easily, it would be victorious, so for the German army, the development of the "Barbarossa Plan" was imminent.
In World War II, the Soviet-German war can be said to be the first of the fierce battles. From 1941 onwards, the Red Army was defeated in successive battles, and soon withdrew its troops to the Kiev area, and the Barbarossa Project also took this opportunity to begin to operate vigorously, so the German army sent three army groups and two armored groups to form a circle of encirclement of the Soviet Red Army in Kiev. The commander-in-chief of the Soviet army had missed the best time when he realized that something was wrong, and when he proposed to Stalin to withdraw from Kiev, he was dismissed, Stalin's self-sufficiency was the main reason for the predicament of nearly 700,000 Soviet Red Army, and several Soviet top brass at the front line in Kiev also left the army to escape, and only a very small part of the team highlighted the siege, after which the overall strength of the Soviet army was seriously reduced.
In fact, the Battle of Kiev was the Waterloo of Stalin's war career, and the Battle of Kiev was the biggest defeat of the Red Army, in which Stalin's command played a great role. On 29 July 1941, Marshal Zhukov proposed that Stalin change his plan and temporarily cede Kiev to the Germans, especially the Southwestern Army, which could first retreat on the east bank of the Dnieper River to avoid soviet attack. Zhukov took out a map of military deployment, carefully analyzed the situation of the two sides to Stalin, and also marked the place where the enemy forces of the German army were concentrated, and once again analyzed the possibility that the German army would launch an attack on Moscow. Therefore, he proposed that, in order to preserve strength, concentrate forces in Moscow so that the German army could respond freely when it came to attack, and suggested that the Soviet army trapped in the Battle of Kiev be withdrawn and assembled in Moscow. However, Stalin only believed in himself, did not listen to General Zhukov at all, and let 700,000 soldiers be captured, and only some of them broke out, which was simply a shame for the Soviet soldiers.
You might think that if Stalin had not insisted on defending Kiev, but had agreed with Marshal Budyonny and Zhukov about retreating, would the Soviets have changed in terms of losses? In fact, this decision will make the Soviet army suffer a very heavy blow, the Soviet army has been strictly observing the direction of Ukraine, and regard it as a key defensive place, the German army is very optimistic about the strength of Ukraine, the Soviet-German war will happen sooner or later, if the Soviet Union retreats at this time, then they may face a situation of total annihilation, the losses caused must be greater than the Battle of Kiev, so that it will affect the inevitable Soviet-German war, this battle may usher in a completely different outcome.
In fact, it was precisely because of the early defeat of the Soviet army in the Battle of Kiev that the Soviet army summed up the German blitzkrieg combat method when exchanging fire with the German army, so that when the Soviet-German war broke out, it could win the war with ingenious tactics. Of course, this is only our imagination to analyze, if in the current war-torn and difficult situation, who would summarize and analyze these problems?
The defeat of the Battle of Kiev in Ukraine gave the Soviet military a lot of experience and lessons, especially for the leaders of the Soviet military to see the situation of the war, Stalin after experiencing the defeat of this battle, still wanted not to show timidity in front of others, but then Stalin's international request for support from other countries reflected his uneasiness at this time, which shows how great stalin was under pressure at this time, after this battle Stalin did not pursue the faults of generals of all walks of life, on the contrary, The Germans can only be described as radiant after winning the Battle of Kiev, and the fame of the Battle of Kiev in the world also made it successfully elected as one of the most representative blitzkriegs. This battle made the German army more and more courageous, after all, there are not many countries in the history of the world that can capture 700,000 prisoners alive, which is also the most representative battle in German history.
In fact, we can not only pay attention to the Battle of Kiev, or only observe and analyze the Soviet-German war, we should broaden our horizons, observe the entire second battlefield in Europe, the North African battlefield, and need to carry out a certain summary analysis, it is Germany in the Battle of Kiev very casually won the victory of the battle, will make Hitler think of himself as high, the generals under his hands are unqualified in his heart. In the end, even the generals below were not allowed to take command, so that the command of the Eastern Front was in their own hands, which showed that Hitler's ultimate defeat was inseparable from his inflated ambitions and inflated self-confidence. But Stalin was well aware of the principle of a degree of retreat, and he had learned a lot in terms of lessons learned from the defeat in the Battle of Kiev, and then returned to work at home, so that the command ability could be improved and the famous generals could go to the army to conduct command work, thus promoting the development of the military strength of the Soviet Army and establishing a huge ground force.