Before the battle of Moscow, Stalin had the last word on everything. He over ruled not just Zhukov's advise but many other's as well. Explain to me how Zhukov is responsivle for Kiev if everything was done against he's wishes and only on the orders of Stalin?

Nothing to defend in Leningrad you say? Do you forget the fact that over 500,000 Germans were present there? Or the fact that the decision to starve Leningrad was made only after Leeb advance was halted after Pushkin by Zhukov and his counter attacks which stabilized the front?

As for Minsk and Smolenks, Zhukov warned Stalin of encirclment and Stalin refused to retreat and hand over the cities thus sealing the fate of the troops... This is also Zhukov's fault? As for their large numbers, they were only that. They lacked everything else including ammunition, armor and air support. In fact I remeber readint that Timoshenko stated that some units had not more the 15 tanks 8 of which were the BT-series.

As for the Pripet Marshes you are incorrect, Zhukov was against this STRONGLY as it was soleley Stalin who believed that the main force would come through Ukraine and the theory of attacking Romania is unsubstantiated there is absolutely no shread of evidence which would support this.

Just out of curiousity, if Zhukov was to blame for all of this, then what does Stalin deserve credit for?

I mean no disrespect, but you sound like a conspiracy theorist to me. Perhaps this is why there are so many "maybe's" in you previous posts?

I wouldnt buy into Suvorov's novels too much

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I picked only this, because searching for everything should be too long.
500,000 Germans present by Leningrad you say? Wooow, thats a fantastic number, where you got this information?
Here are all German units, that were atacking Leningrad:
Infantry divisions No.: 291, 51, 269, 121, 86, 122
Motorized infantryNo.: 20, 36
Panzer divisions No.: 1, 6.
And the SS-Polizei division
German division had about 17,000 soldiers
If all of these divisons were on full numbers (though its not very likely to be truth, after all those fights), there were only max. 187,000 Germans there, not 500,000. (I think, that about 150,000, if not only 120,000 is more accurate)
Which day was that Zhukovs counter attack, you mentioned above?
My sources says, that Hitlers "Stop" order (stop to attack Leningrad, there were other battles i.e. on the east of the city, Tchivin etc., but not any other attempt to attack directly to Leningrad ) was given to Germans troops here in 12th September 1941. And the point is, that Zhukov was demonstrably in Moscow in 11th September, because in time between 17:10 and 21:15 he was in Stalins office. I cannot belive, that he should to get himself to Leningrad, to take command, to observe situation, to plan counter attack, and even to win it in only one day. In his "Memories and Thoughts" he was in Leningrad much earlier, even in 9th September, but it is not true, as many other informations there.

And no one of informations in this post is from Suvorov, ok?
Here are very interesting pages, i.e. there is a Stalins notepad here, where all his visitors are written out, with exact time of their visit.
And here is the situation of Leningrad (see the map, other is in Czech):
I verified these informations elsewhere too, so I think its true.

Hey what are a few hundred thousand troops more or less between friends, eh?

__________________
Everly Brothers - What I Have To Do Is Dream
"Never wrestle with pigs, you both end up getting dirty and the pig likes it."

Well, by this way ok
But I tried to bring some serious information here.
You know, I believed for long time, that Zhukov was the best army-leader of all times. He was presented this way and still is. Some stuff like: the only commander, who never lost but a one battle, allways won everything, wow, thats something! He save Soviet Union (SU) many many times, he has been "as infallible as a Pope", he was genius, etc. etc. etc.
You cannot even imagine, what kind of information was avaiable here only a few years ago, behind the "Iron Curtain" (I was only 13, when it falls, but I remember this times very good).
And now? I started some serious searching only some months ago, and results? Realy some kind of the Mythbusters, as was mentioned above.
I realized, to my disillusion, something stinks here. Not only Zhukov lost some battles, even some major battles, but he had quite serious part in the greatest defeat ever (which will never be overcome, I hope). This defeat is, of course the time of first months of "the Great Patriotic War", because to lose about 17,000 tanks in such a short period is indeed somehow unusual.
I know, the greatest part of this played Stalin, but not as big, as a most of people believes. Interesting is, that especialy Zhukov was very busy with blemishing of Stalin, maybe he just tried to hide something about his own actions?
There are troubles with such a searching, because most of all data avaiable are coming out of his memories and those memories realy are not very trustworthy. I.e. on Wikipedia is, that Zhukov was in Leningrad in September 9th and this is realy not possible, as he was in Moscow at least to September 11th, if not 12th, and arrived to Leningrad 13th or 12th late.
Well, you can say again, what are 3 or 4 days between friends, but in this case even a single day matters, like in some police investigation.
Btw., 150,000 and 500,000 is rather a big difference, I think.

OK Jean,

who would have been a better pick to lead the troops than Zhukov? I trust you have a replacement?

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Well, of course I have some favourite leaders, but it seems to me little off-topic this time and in this thread.
But if you really want to see here some names, here they are (WW2 only):
Germans: von Runstedt, von Manstein and Rommel.
Soviet: A.A. Vlasov, Rokossovskiy and Dmitry Grigorevich Pavlov, but about Pavlov I do not know much...
I wonder why you need this?

Simple. If you don´t have better alternatives then you really cannot say the general in charge was not up to his job,really.

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Ok, if you think, but that (to compare or replace him with someone other) was not my idea in this thread.
I just want to show, that not all of his glorious victories are realy his, that he often claims credits of others and that his Memories etc are nearly worthless.
Btw., he often negated his own stories with another ones, even in those Memories.
If you want to compare him with someone, lets try it, good example is Stalingrad an Rzhev. In simillar operations his forces had allways much greater loses, sometimes even three or four times greater. By this way I should consider him as a ruthless mindless butcher, rather as a great strategist. (A strong words, I know, but I cannot express myself better in English, its first time from high school I am using it, except of reading, I even did not found, how to write an "apostroph" on Czech keyboard)
Can you only to imagine some US leader, and his units suffering 100,000 killed and more than 200,000 wounded in only one month and in only one particular operation and even without success?

150,00 you say? Try this
Siege of Leningrad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Seems that you are missing a few?

where are the 8th and 12th Panzer Divisions or the 18th motorized division?
Where is the 18th army which consisted of XXVI, XXXVIII, L and XXVIII Army corps?

( Yes I am aware that on the 15th of Sept. Hitler made a decision to transfer the XXXXI, LVI and LVII Motorized and VIII Air Corps to AGC leaving Leeb only with the 19 panzer corps and later making concessions to the 8th Panzer div.)

A German directive issued on the 22nd of Septermber read:

The Fuhrer has decided to erase the city of St. Petersburg from the face of the earth. I have no interest in the further of existence of this large city after the defeat of the Soviet Russia... We propose to blockade the city tightly and erase it from earth by means of artillery fire and continuous bombardment from the air.

This message came only after desperate Soviet counter attacks at Sol'tsy, Staraia Russa, Krasnoe Selo and Siniavino. While these counter attacks achieved little, they did manage to inflict Irreplaceable casualties and eventually managed to slow the Germans to a halt at Leningrads doorsteps.

As for Zhukov. On Zhukovs recomendation, the Stavka ordered Kulik's 54th Army, still opperating under its direct control, and Zhukov's Neva Operational Group (NOG) to launch converging attacks toward Siniaviano. While progress was small and an advance of only 10km in 16 days, Schmidts XXXIX motorized corps forced a retreat. Forcing Zhukov to replace Kulik with Khozin. These were the thorns at the Germans side which eroded their forces little by little, forcing them to stop in front of Leningrad. Zhukov's main goal was to defend the city, NOT destroy the army.


On Sept 11th 41' Zhukov was assigned the task of defending Leningrad and to take over Marshal Veroshilov who was not up to the task. It was only on the evening of October 6th that Stalin called Zhukov IN Leningrad and oredered him to fly back for the defense of Moscow at once.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

This statement is very misleading. Zhukov was NOT in charge of these tanks nor did he or any other Russian leader other then Stalin had ANY say in military opperations at this time unless and only unless Stalin approved. These 17,000 tanks ( the BT-7 and the T-26 ) for the most part were nothing more then pee shooters compared to the German Panzers.

Not as big? This once again sounds like nothing more then an opinion, backed by no facts. Could you elaborate please?

This is a big difference indeed

Also could you explain as to why you would have a traitor such as Vlasov, be number 1 in command of the Red Army?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Thanks for many informations. Tomorrow I will try to search more about it all, now I have time only to write something short about Vlasov.
Maybe he was a traitor, I dont want to say neither yes or not, it is not easy to judge up. For Soviets is he indeed traitor, but for Russians? Who knows? But before he was captured, he was undoubtebly one of the best soviet officers. He proved his skills in many combats, i.e. defend of Kiev and Moscow. He did not surrender and was not even "normally" captured, as I know, some Russian civilians gave him to Germans, while he tried to escape from encirclement.

Yes Jean you are correct, Vlasov did indeed due his part in the Battle of Moscow.

however he switched sides to fight with the Germans and shot at his own people ( Russians )
For this reason, it is the Russians who consider him ( and rightfully so ) a traitor. Other's in other Soviet Republics try to either excuse or lesson his crimes....

~Strik-Strikfeldt, who had been a participant of the White movement during the Russian civil war, persuaded Vlasov to become involved in aiding the German advance. Along with lieutenant colonel Vladimir Boyarsky, Vlasov wrote a memo shortly after his capture to the German military leaders, suggesting a cooperation between the anti-Stalinist Russians and the German Army.


Later in 45' he switched sides again during the Prague uprising and began fighting the Germans.... As you can imagine this did not sit well with Stalin or the people and he was executed in 46'.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I am just startitg to sniff informations about Leningrad (thus I allready got somethig), so for Vlasov again shortly:
There were lots of Russians in german army, not only Vlasovs two divisions. Too many of Russians (not only Russians, all nations of USSR, Germans called them Hiwis or such as?), that, in fact, the Wehrmacht could not work without them.
Shooting to own people is indeed bad, but maybe he considers himself as a kind of rebel against Stalin and komunist party? Btw., his army did not fight much against Russians, only once in regular battle (as I remember, maybe more times).
Uprising in Prague is quite an interesting for me, as it is only about 100 km (1 hour by train) to get there. And if there were not those Vlasov forces there just in right time, many of ancient buildings and other sights were gone...
Btw., Vlasov himself did not want to fight Germans, one of his officers gave order to help to Prague.

Well, 150,000 was the maximum number of Germans (my estimation) directly attacking Leningrad. Wikis figure of 725,000 is not specified in time, thus probably mean all Germans, who ever seen Leningrad up to end of its siege. In Sept. 1941 is such a number nonsens.
Missing? Yes, they are missing on those map, because its a map of only Leningrad itself.
8th Panzer Division (PD) I am unable to locate in this time, I know only it was probably somewhere near Luga, along with 96th Infantry Div. (ID)
12th PD was in Schliessenburg (Kirovsk), a bit east of Leningrad. (with some parts of XXVIII Army Corps)
18th ID(mot) is like shadow for me, I only found it was somewhere about Leningrad, but nothing better. /maybe you should help to locate these units too/
18th Army was here too, about half of divisions I mentioned above belonged to 18th Army?!? Other parts of 18th Army were elsewhere, most of them were since 17th Aug. fighting with Soviet 8th Army at Narva.

15th September? My sources (definitely not Suvorov!!) says something else, the order to stop to try capture Leningrad was given to von Leeb 12th Sept. and 17th Sept. was transfered away the 41st Panzer Group.

As for Zhukovs and Kuliks attacks, as Zhukov could not arrive before Sept. 12th and Hitlers "Stop" came 12th too, how should this deter Germans from seizing Leningrad? This attacks indeed could to make situation of Leningrad better, but had nothing to influence Hitler to not capture Leningrad, but only to "erase" it. This decision came before those attacks.

Well, it is surprising for me, that as a chief of the Red Army General Staff (January - July 1941) he had no authority to anything?!? Stalin indeed must have the last word to confirm any major decission, but someone had to make plans etc. and bring them to Stalin, am I wrong? And this is Staffs work to make plans, place units... And the staff worked very hard, about 18-19 hours per day (Zhukovs Memories... page 241)(btw, it was again Zhukov, who wrote on page 110 of his memories, that not the staff, but the Komunist Party Committee was the brain of the RA)(it is very hard for me to expres in English most of informations I want to). One old strategist (Sun Tzu, I think) wrote something like that: "if you place your units bad, at the start of the battle, it is nearly impossible to retrieve it" And, maybe its only my wrong idea, whos signature was on orders and plans of the Red Army in first six months of the 41st year? After all, if ignoring commands from the General staff (and who was in charge, if not the staff??), only this dislocation of army and first days orders (signed by Zhukov, of course) did make him responsible at least of a part of those defeats.
It was allways Zhukov, who said: I couldt do anything, I did not know about.., I had not authority.., I disagreed with Stalin etc.. Interesting is, that after war he claimed he predicted this and that (and where is some evidence of it and some evidence about his disagreeing with Stalin is missing too, except Zhukovs statements) and simultaneously he did not know, his own inteligence officer "was not under his command"... This seems to me as a great pile of excuses or evasions. In addition, if I consider all of these Zhukovs exclamations, Zhukov looks like either dumb, or incapable. (I am sorry for such a sharp judging, but I dont know how to write it other way)
T-26 and BTs are another story for another topic, because I dont think these were as inferior as you wrote here.

Yes, Zhukov had no authority over Stalin. He only had authority over the other comanders. Zhukov is the one who pleaded with Stalin to withdraw the Red Army from Kiev over the Dneper. Stalin called him a insane and threw his argument out the window. Zhukov warned him about the Vyazma offensive and was completely against it. Again Stalin told Zhukov to to attack, which led to catastrophic results. This information is listed in many books and many sites. Historian such as David Glants and Erickson back this claim and so do other Soviet Gernerals such a Rokkosovsky and Saposhnikov. During the 1st 6 months of the war, it was Stalin and ONLY stalin who made military decisions. His generals only followed what Stalin had instructed them to do. It was only after the Battle of Moscow that Stalin started to hand over more and more control to his generals.

All of this is backed by countless of historians, I am only the messenger

Read: THE GREATEST BATTLE by Andrew Nagorski

You will be surprised as to what Russian soldiers, officers and Generals claim about Stalin's participation.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Just something on the battle of Moscow 1941 from Robert Forczyk " Moscow 1941 "

At the start of Typhoon, the Reserve of the Supreme High Command ( RVGK) was virtually depleted, since three new armies has just been formed on the Volkhov Front near Leningrad and many other divisions were sent to Ukraine to rebuild the shattered Southern Front.At the start of October 1941, Stalin and Stavka felt that Moscow was well protected and kept few regular units actually near the capital. However once the front fell apart in a matter of days, the Stavka had to scramble to find stable reinforcements that would not merely join the stampede to the rear.

Zhukov arrived in Moscow at dusk on 7 October and met with Stalin. The mood was grim. Stalin said " ..just like Pavlov at the beginning of war, Konev has opened up the front to the enemy".

By 15 October, when AGC finally had sufficient forces to begin its assault on the Volokolamsk-Mozhaisk-Maloyaroslavets fortified areas, Zhukov had been able to assemble elements of 18 rifle divisions and 11 tank brigades along the 50 km front- an amazing achievement in only five days. However, most of these units were either decimated remnants or partly equipped and their actual combat strength was only about 90,000.