Sasha today in its history.
Author: Sasha
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Heavy snow and cold were the decisive factors in the defeat of the German army? September 30, 1941: World War II: The Defense of Moscow begins.
Was the German army defending Moscow really defeated in the winter?
Yes, and neither.
Indeed, the cold winter caused great trouble for the Germans.
In the Soviet-Finnish War, the Soviet army suffered a crushing defeat, and Hitler and the German top brass had a lot of contempt for the Soviet Union.
A series of glorious victories in the early stages of the Soviet-German war reinforced their belief that the Soviet army was a ragtag group with low combat effectiveness.
At the Battle of Kiev in September, the Germans lost only 150,000 men, annihilating the Soviet Southwestern Front, with Soviet losses of up to 650,000.
By this time, the Germans had no longer threatened to attack Moscow, and could concentrate 70 divisions totaling 2 million men, nearly 33 percent mechanized, the highest proportion in the war. On the contrary, due to the continuous loss of millions of troops, the Soviet army could only use 83 divisions with a total of 800,000 people to be responsible for defense, only 25 divisions were generally intact, and the rest were mostly damaged or rushed to the battlefield, with a serious shortage of soldiers and equipment.
Apparently, the German top brass believed that the Battle of Moscow was in a position to be won and that the battle would end before winter arrived.
As far as the situation on the battlefield is concerned, the Germans' views are entirely well founded.
Then the weather changed. The Germans finally knew the reason for Napoleon's defeat, and the Soviet union was too terrible in the wilderness.
Autumn arrived, the Soviet Union began to rain heavily, the first snow fell on October 7, and it quickly melted again.
In an instant, the road became a myriad of mud swamps, and the grassy airport became a swamp. German cars, armored vehicles and horses were all stuck in mud and could not extricate themselves, and in some places the mud was even waist-high.
The blocking effect of these mud is much better than the Soviet defense line.
The Germans still struggled to advance and inflicted heavy losses on the Soviets.
At this time, Soviet reinforcements continued to rush to the battlefield, and were quickly defeated by the Germans. In October, the Germans believed that more than 500,000 Soviet troops had been captured and that the number of casualties was high, resulting in the loss of 41% of the Soviet troops.
The Germans also suffered heavy casualties, with many units slashed to fifty percent.
Around November 15, moscow ushered in a severe cold, and the Germans unexpectedly found that the dirt roads had been frozen and vehicles could pass smoothly.
As a result, the German offensive accelerated.
On 30 November, the German Panzer Army, led by the Army, advanced to Khimki, less than 23 kilometers from the Kremlin. German officers could use binoculars to see some buildings in Moscow.
At this time, the area around Moscow began to cool sharply and heavy snow began to fall.
Many German troops had not yet received winter equipment, and German tanks and cars were not designed according to winter.
In an instant, the German armored forces were almost paralyzed, and the vehicle had to be hot for several hours before it was used.
Even so, some of the snow in the wild was as deep as 1 meter, and German tanks could not pass through at all.
The Germans quickly produced 130,000 severe frostbite patients, many of whom needed amputations, which was more casualties than the Soviet defenses caused.
The Axis offensive in Moscow stopped, and Guderian wrote in his diary: "The offensive against Moscow failed, and we underestimated the advantages of the enemy, including his size and weather. Fortunately, on December 5 I ordered the troops to stop advancing, otherwise a catastrophe would be inevitable."
The Germans thus turned to defense, which gave time for Soviet reinforcements.
During the Battle of Moscow, the Soviet army soared to 2.7 million, completely overwhelmed the German army, and began to reverse the defeat.
Zhukov recalled the plight of the Germans: Hitler's robbers were dressed in warm clothes stolen from the residents and wore rudimentary homemade straw boots on their feet. The enemy had no experience in harsh winter combat, they did not know that short fur coats, felt boots, cotton vests, cold shirts, all of which were weapons.
However, the defeat of the German army at the Battle of Moscow was not determined by the weather, and the German army was not destroyed by freezing to death.
In November, during the German onslaught, on November 4, the minimum temperature on the outskirts of Moscow was minus 7 degrees Celsius (after several rains in October, the roads were muddy), compared with zero on November 8. Temperatures plummeted to minus 15 degrees Celsius from November 11 to 13 and soon returned to minus 3 degrees.
This temperature, unlikely to cause devastating frostbite, has severely damaged roads, turned them into swamps and prevented tanks from leaving them.
This greatly delayed the German offensive.
The continuous autumn rains outside Moscow in October had the same devastating effect.
And these weathers did not happen suddenly, and the German top brass should be able to anticipate this.
The freezing cold of minus 25 degrees Celsius in December forced the exhausted Germans to completely lose their offensive capabilities.
If the Germans had been better prepared for winter combat, the cold and snow would not have caused devastating trouble, after all, they were fighting in this environment like the Soviets.
In fact, the Soviet army had also suffered a heavy loss in the cold before.
In the Soviet-Finnish War, many of the main forces of the Soviet army were soldiers living in relatively warm areas, such as Ukraine.
They simply can't withstand the temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius in the Finnish wild, and they have suffered countless frostbite injuries.
Most of the Soviet Union was not as far north as Finland's latitude, so there was no preparation for such extreme temperatures.
In actual combat, the Finns surrounded the Soviet forces without even having to annihilate them, and as long as they were besieged for a few days, the other side would freeze alive due to the lack of heating fuel.
However, the Soviet Union learned from being beaten by fat, and instead used the cold fat to beat the Germans.
Therefore, the conclusion is that the weather effect is not decisive for the defense of Moscow, and it has only 30% of the influence at most.
That is, the German army weakened thirty percent, and the Soviet army increased its strength by thirty percent.
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