The Soviet-German battlefield was the most unattractive part of World War II, and in this vast Russian land, the Soviet Red Army and the German Army composed one of the most majestic and magnificent epics in the history of human warfare.
The casualties in both countries were tens of millions, and the number of Soviet casualties exceeded 29 million (including captured, missing, wounded and sick).
The contest between two "industrial countries" is like two "killing machines", once activated, "death" will follow.
The Battle of Moscow was the first time that the Soviet army broke the myth of the invincibility of "blitzkrieg" and was a major victory for the Soviet military and people against the invaders.
Today we will not talk about the defense of Moscow, but mainly about the Battle of Kiev, which took place two months before the defense of Moscow, an important battle of equal magnitude and which ended in the victory of the German army.
In the summer of 1941, the Germans launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, divided into three routes, pointing to Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, and the Caucasus. These are the three strategic objectives of the Barbarossa Plan.
But in the end, we all know that these three goals can only be said to be "barely completed".
The Capture of Kiev by the Germans in September 1941 was an important sign of "achieving the goal", but how did the time and price they paid affect the entire war situation?
The three major armies of the German army were "Army Group North" led by Loeb, "Army Group Center" commanded by Bork, and "Army Group South" commanded by Lundstedt.
Due to the "successful sneak attack", only four days after the start of the battle, Guderian's armored group and Hoth's armored group reached a siege in Minsk, 300,000 Soviet troops were captured, and the remaining troops fought hard, broke through the siege, and then withdrew to Smolensk to form a new defensive line.
In July, the German "Army Group Center" continued to advance, and Guderian took advantage of the unstable foothold of the retreating Soviet army, successively crossing the Berezina River and the Dnieper River, and forming a joint with the Hoss cluster that came from the north to encircle the Soviet army against the Soviet army at Smolensk.
Under the command of the new commander, Timoshenko, the two armies fought until August 8, when the Soviets were again defeated and retreated to the vicinity of Moscow.
By this time, the German "Army Group Center" had clearly become a "salient" on the battlefield, threatening the rear of the flank of the Soviet Southwestern Front, which was still holding out in Ukraine and fighting tenaciously and witly.
The Germans were also faced with either continuing to march eastward and quickly taking Moscow, or the main force of Army Group Center going south, in cooperation with Lundstedt's "Army Group South" in the north, to defend the Soviet Southwestern Front commanded by Kirponos. The multiple choice of "fish and bear paws" is about the future fate of Germany.
That's when the worst happened. The High Command of the German Army not only failed to reach an agreement in a short period of time, but also quarreled for a time, and there was a tendency to engage in political struggle.
German generals, led by Guderian, Brauchitsch, Halder, and others, advocated giving priority to Moscow, but Hitler, Keitel, Lundstedt, and others believed that they should turn around and go south to encircle Kiev with Army Group South.
In the end, Hitler first successfully "fooled" Guderian on his side, and then defeated the other senior generals one by one. And this controversy lasted for nearly a month.
But then again, the Soviets were no better than the Germans. Although General Zhukov had already seen in late July that the Southwestern Front was likely to be completely annihilated, he advocated an early retreat.
But Stalin, out of the fact that "Kiev is an important industrial town and the red bastion of the revolution," blindly demanded "perseverance." As a result, in the end, it ended up with a "loss of everyone and land".
Now, let's look at how the Germans launched an "assault" on the Soviets in the Kiev area.
At first, the Germans intended to attack the Soviet Southwestern Front in the Ukrainian region at the same time from Poland and Romania, but when the war began, they feared that the Soviet Union would attack the Romanian Ploieşti oil fields, so they decided to take a unilateral detour from Poland, with the Kleist Panzer Group of Army Group South as the forward.
On 10 July, the Soviet Fifth Army of Potapov, together with other forces, launched an attack on Kleist's flank, temporarily cutting off the supply line of the ministry, and Potapov always maintained a threat to the German flank, preventing the Reichnau VI Corps from carrying out the dual task of supporting the armored forces and consolidating the results, which made Hitler and his command nervous.
However, the combat effectiveness of the German army on the battlefield still allowed them to achieve "soldiers in the city", and Kiev seemed to be within reach.
But at this time, Hitler considered that "Kiev was a decoy to attract Soviet troops to stay in Ukraine", so he decided to order a "suspension of the siege" to attract Soviet reinforcements and wrap a larger plate of dumplings.
Now if we look at the Soviet Southwestern Front, we will find that they are almost in a desperate situation: the Gudri armor group of the German "Army Group Center" and the Kleist panzer group of the "Army Group South" have threatened its rear in both the north and the south.
Correspondingly, the Soviet high command was not without foresight, and they understood very well that the key to holding on to Kiev was to prevent the installation of armor in Jamdriya from going south.
On 14 August, the Soviets hastily formed the Bryansk Front, with Yelyommenko as commander, to intercept the Guderian cluster to the east to ensure the safety of the rear of the Southwestern Front.
On 25 August, the German Second Army and Gudri's armored group began to cross the Jessna River, quickly breaking the interception of the Bryansk Front and plunging deep into the rear of the Southwestern Front.
Marshal Budyonny hastened to call The Chief of the General Staff, Shaposhnikov, to hurry: "I draw your attention to Yelyomenko's actions, and he should have eliminated this enemy, but in fact he has achieved nothing."
Yes, the fate of the Southwestern Front was entirely pinned on Yeliamenko's "assurances" before the war began. Earlier he had assured Comrade Stalin that he would be able to defeat Guderian.
Obviously, he overestimated himself, and Stalin overestimated Yelyommenko. At this moment, the Kleist Armored Group in the south crossed the Dnieper River and began to move north.
In this way, the two armored units of the German army formed an "unstoppable" offensive posture in the empty rear of the Southwest Front.
Up to this point, the Soviet army is basically "defeated", and the subsequent decision of the Soviet high-level can only affect the size of the loss. Unfortunately, they failed to seize the last chance to withdraw more living forces from Kiev.
Commander-in-Chief Budyonny and Commander-in-Chief Kirponos of the Southwestern Front were calmer, believing that the Situation was already critical, given that Guderian's armored group had penetrated the rear, the Southwestern Front was about to be encircled.
On 11 September, the two asked the High Command to "abandon Kiev" and retreat eastward. Kirponos even flew specifically to Moscow to express his opinion. However, stalin and Shaposhnikov ruthlessly refused.
At the same time, Zhukov, who was about to become commander of the Leningrad Front, was summoned by Stalin on September 9 and said that "the Southwestern Front must abandon Kiev and withdraw across the Dnieper River." But his proposal was equally unannounced.
On 14 September, Guderian's Second Panzer Group and Kleist's First Panzer Group met at Lokhvica, 240 km east of Kiev.
The Southwestern Front was completely packed into the "pockets." On 17 September, the Soviet command finally relented and ordered a retreat to the east, but it was too late.
From September 16 to 26, the German army turned the Kiev region into a "meat grinder", and the worst thing was that in this meat grinder, only the Soviet army was "meat".
When the Battle of Kiev ended, four Soviet armies were annihilated, two armies lost nearly half, and General Kilbonos, his political commissar Bulmistenko and chief of staff Tupikov, the three top commanders of the front, were all killed in the process of breaking through! General Potapov, commander of the Soviet Fifth Army, was captured.
In this battle, the Germans captured more than 600,000 Soviet troops, captured more than 800 tanks and more than 3,000 artillery pieces. For the Germans, it was a great victory, but it was an extremely painful experience for the Soviet Union.
Next, according to the common saying in historians, it is inevitable to point out that the Battle of Kiev objectively delayed the German advance to Moscow, thus trapping the German army in the rainy season and the harsh winter that came early.
The Soviet command used the Battle of Kiev to mobilize enough reserves from the Far East and other places, and finally launched a counterattack under moscow, severely damaging the Germans. Thus some scholars have concluded that the Battle of Kiev was a "tactical victory" and a "strategic defeat" for the Germans. Is this really the case?
Kiev was the third largest city in the Soviet Union, an important political, scientific, technological, industrial and cultural center, with extensive land, water and air transport, and one of the important "granaries" of the Soviet Union.
In addition, Kiev was both a major transportation hub in the southwestern part of the Soviet Union and a necessary route for the Germans to seize the Donets industrial zone and the Caucasus oil fields. Attacking Kiev is therefore not only necessary, but also "as soon as possible".
In the Battle of Kiev, the Germans annihilated nearly 700,000 living forces of the Soviet Southwestern Front, eliminating the great threat of the southern flank of Army Group Center. According to Clausewitz's law, annihilating enemy forces is more important than occupying enemy land.
And if Army Group Center had directly rushed to Moscow alone at that time, the Soviet Southwestern Front could not sit idly by, and General Kilbonos would have desperately attacked the supply line of the German middle road, and the German army would have faced the danger of "running out of water and food" at any time.
Finally, once the war was in a state of stalemate, the Soviets in the direction of Moscow and Ukraine would attack the Germans on both sides, and Army Group Center would probably never survive.
Taking 10,000 steps back, even if the German army did not divide the troops in August and concentrated its forces directly to Take Moscow, the backward railway and road system in most parts of the Soviet Union could not support the movement of hundreds of division-level units in the same area, so it was "inappropriate" to attack Moscow's brainless "accumulated troops" at this time.
Therefore, the "delayed time" of the Battle of Kiev and the loss of the Opportunity for the German Army to "take Moscow" make logical sense. But from the actual situation, the German army did not have the possibility of victory in the Soviet-German war, there was no possibility at all.