Battle of Moscow: a summary of the operation. Heroes of the Battle of Moscow

The famous battle near Moscow, the brief content of which includes the bloodiest episodes of the Great Patriotic War, was a turning point in the whole armed conflict. Before that, the German divisions, according to the plan of the blitzkrieg, were rapidly marching east, almost without resistance. In the suburbs of the Soviet capital, the Reich army was stopped.

Plan of the Fuhrer

Even before the attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler at secret meetings stressed that to take Moscow for him is the most important task of the entire campaign. The fall of the capital would be a deadly blow to the socialist state. The Fuhrer hoped that in three months the battle near Moscow would take place. The summary of his "Barbarossa" plan was reported to the heads of all armies on the eve of the border crossing.

The Germans set foot on Soviet soil on June 22. The rapid seizure of Moscow was also necessary in order to avoid war in the frigid cold of the central Russian belt. As you know, in the XIX century the army of Napoleon was badly damaged precisely because of unpreparedness for someone else's climate. The French soldiers, wrapped in thin overcoats, froze and died right on the roads.

Hitler did not want to repeat the fate of Bonaparte, so he thoroughly prepared himself for the attack. In 1941, he already owned the entire continental Europe, except for countries that declared their neutrality. Therefore, the Fuehrer sent all his armies to the east, hoping for a successful march-throw. He was stopped by the battle near Moscow. The summary of this operation became a classic example of the complete failure of the offensive war plan.

The delay of the German offensive

Despite the surprise of the attack, the German armies were detained near Smolensk, where they lost two months, surrounding Soviet divisions. Serious resistance arose in Leningrad and Kiev. Because of this, the staff had to stretch their own communications, shifting armies from one front to the other.

Finally, on September 30, the planned offensive of the Germans against Moscow began. It was a close-knit operation of several armies, armed with the latest technology. According to the calculations of the Wehrmacht, the Soviet divisions guarding the capital were to be surrounded in boilers and defeated in the area of Vyazma and Bryansk. After that, Moscow would remain defenseless, and with it you could do anything.

The forces of the parties

By the time the operation began, the balance of forces of the opponents was as follows. On the way of the German army (almost 2 million people) were Soviet troops numbering about 1.2 million people. The defense was led mostly by young generals, who escaped Stalin's repressions during the Great Terror. They were Boris Shaposhnikov, Ivan Konev, Georgy Zhukov, Andrei Eremenko and Yakov Cherevychenko. Particularly stood out the figure of the hero of the civil war, Semyon Budyonny.

Of course, the last word in the decisions of the headquarters was for Joseph Stalin, who stayed in Moscow, despite the mass evacuation of the state and economic institutions of the capital.

The beginning of the battle

A bloody battle near Moscow, a brief summary of which is in any textbook on the history of the twentieth century, the German command was called Operation Typhoon. Such a label underscored the ambitious plans of the Reich - swift and merciless blow to sweep away the last defensive line, which stood on the way to the capital of the USSR.

The first attack (September 30) occurred on the Bryansk Front. Two days later the Wehrmacht groupings in the region of Roslavl joined the offensive. This operation was successful. Several Soviet armies (19th, 20th, 24th and 32nd) were surrounded.

Life in the capital

Then in Moscow the next wave of mobilization began. Private soldiers who received weapons in their hands immediately went to the front, where for the most part they died in a meat grinder with the Wehrmacht. Many heroes of the battle of Moscow remained unnamed. Often the soldiers vanished without a trace, and their bodies were not even in peacetime. The huge mass graves, in which all of them were hurriedly buried indiscriminately, became commonplace. Numerous monuments to an unknown soldier and eternal lights were erected in honor of these victims of a brutal war.

In Moscow, there were no existing enterprises. All of them were evacuated to the east - in the Volga region or in the Urals. The Party leadership tried to establish a stable supply of everything needed for soldiers at the front. There was no one left in the country who would live a peaceful life. Even people in the deep rear worked in several shifts for the success of the Red Army.

Parade on November 7

The most critical moment of defense on the calendar fell on days when traditionally the whole country celebrated the anniversary of the October Revolution. The Battle of Moscow in 1941 was the same fateful episode as the events in Petrograd, twenty-four years ago. Stalin understood this, so he ordered in advance to prepare the capital for the celebration of the anniversary.

On the night of November 7, the commanders of the Moscow garrisons received orders to bring their troops to Red Square. Private soldiers waited for the solemn parade. The battle near Moscow in 1941 sucked in all the battle-worthy men, so the young boys who had just marched through the Kremlin pavement immediately went to the front. At this time he ran a few dozen kilometers from the capital.

The defeat of the Germans

Again and again, the heroes of the battle near Moscow repulsed the attacks of tanks and infantry, covered by air strikes and artillery bursts. At the end of November, the fascist divisions were as close to the capital as possible. They captured Krasnaya Polyana, where the shelling began. For Hitler, this was an important propaganda move.

However, December 5 marked the beginning of a Soviet counter-offensive in the battle near Moscow. The Germans drowned in their months-long march and, finally, began to retreat. Deadly tired soldiers froze or surrendered before the soldiers of the Red Army. A few weeks later the Wehrmacht was thrown back for dozens of kilometers. The most terrible days of the war were left behind. The following year there were stubborn battles, but the German car had already failed. The beginning of the battle near Moscow did not foreshadow such a fiasco.

The names of some of the heroes of this confrontation have become firmly established in history. It:

• Zoe Kosmodemyanskaya;
• Timothy Lavrishchev;
• Victor Talalikhin;
• 28 Panfilov heroes led by V.G. Klochkov and others.

This victory of the Soviet troops (along with the Battle of Stalingrad) was a turning point in the Second World War.