what if........Hitler captured Moscow???

I always wondered what the reaction would have been to those on the front line if they heard that Stalin had left Moscow.

 

Yes Chaos might very well have occured with Stalin's death......But what do you think might have happend to the resistance??

Belarus lost everything. Millions of people, capital, leaders, military, but hundreds of thousands of residents ran and hid into the forests where they would reeve havoc on the invaders, with large success.

Even if Stalin was to be killed, would the generals have given up the fight? or more importantly would have the people given up??
After all more then half of the country was still far away from the occupying force.

This is a great " what if " topic

 

Possibly, but you write as if you were describing a picnic. A.G. North was unable to take Leningrad during or after a long siege, Stalingrad we already know about even if assaulted by the strongest grouping in the Axis + Allies armed forces at the time. Are we sure that with Ukrainian digression or not, A.G. Centre would be physically able to take Moscow?

 

The railsystem alone makes Napoleons campaign entirely different, as does aircraft.

 

Unfortunately Sloniksp forgets that, also in Napoleons time Moscow burned during his occupation of the city as it was a deliberate act of sabotage. Moscow could have been captured and secured and a final push onto Gorky as well thus securing the entire River Volga but one person is to blame for the failure of Operation Barbarossa and that was Adolf Hitler, nothing more or less.

 

Hitler´s plan was based on the fact that the Soviet system collapses from the first push and it did not.

Hitler was not prepared for a long war and it is a miracle the Germans survived the winter 41-42 thus. I guess we must say that yes the Soviets were tough but so were the Germans.

 

Unfortunately Sloniksp forgets that, also in Napoleons time Moscow burned during his occupation of the city as it was a deliberate act of sabotage. Moscow could have been captured and secured and a final push onto Gorky as well thus securing the entire River Volga but one person is to blame for the failure of Operation Barbarossa and that was Adolf Hitler, nothing more or less. </font>[/QUOTE]This I do not forget...but the railsystem ( when it was not sabotaged as it so frequently was ) would not have played a role in the Russian's will to keep on fighting. And who is to say that if the Germans entered Moscow the Russians wouldnt do the same thing and burn it??

 

Unfortunately Sloniksp forgets that, also in Napoleons time Moscow burned during his occupation of the city as it was a deliberate act of sabotage. Moscow could have been captured and secured and a final push onto Gorky as well thus securing the entire River Volga but one person is to blame for the failure of Operation Barbarossa and that was Adolf Hitler, nothing more or less. </font>[/QUOTE]This I do not forget...but the railsystem ( when it was not sabotaged as it so frequently was ) would not have played a role in the Russian's will to keep on fighting. And who is to say that if the Germans entered Moscow the Russians wouldnt do the same thing and burn it?? </font>[/QUOTE]Fact Moscow was the entire universe to the Soviets during the German invasion, the Soviets could have survived without Kiev, Leningrad, Stalingrad, but not Moscow, all the political, military, communication, transport, ecconomic etc.... decisions went through Moscow, no other city could manage that, and you know it.

Fact Moscow in a "what if" is eventually captured at a great cost, the Soviet Union suffers an irreversable disaster, the whole chain of command collapses, i would agree that the Soviets would fight on but you forget that the Soviet System was so centralized situated in Moscow.

I ask you which city in the Soviet Union east of the River Volga can operate as efficiently as Moscow.

 

At least more fuel to the fire (??)

In "Moscow 1941" Robert Forczyk claims that after the annihilation of the Vyazma pocket von Kluge´s Fourth Army accomplished virtually nothing.

Convinced that the Fourth Army was under heavy pressure ( according to Kluge ), von Bock allowed it to shift to a defensive posture. It is apparent now that von Kluge lied to von Bock about the scale of the Soviet attacks in order to gain permission for an operational pause, if not an outright shift to winter quarters.

Von Kluge´s army was the best prepared of any Army Group Centre´s formations to face the winter and the Soviet counteroffensive, but his selfish behaviour contributed to the ultimate failure of Typhoon.

 

Interesting i did not know that, had the forth army as well as the rest of Heers Gruppen Mittel had continued on towards Moscow unabated after Vyazma and without Hitlers meddling i wonder if a good sized proportion, or the entire city could have been captured before the onset of winter. I think Operation Typhoon would have worked.

 

Hey, I think I recognize that road as a US forest service logging road I used last fall to get to a remote campsite!

 

Possibly, but you write as if you were describing a picnic. A.G. North was unable to take Leningrad during or after a long siege, Stalingrad we already know about even if assaulted by the strongest grouping in the Axis + Allies armed forces at the time. Are we sure that with Ukrainian digression or not, A.G. Centre would be physically able to take Moscow? </font>[/QUOTE]Actually you know if the Finns and Army Group North had actually launched an attck on Leningrad and invaded the city proper not lay siege to it i doubt it could have held out.

Hitler divided Army Group South into two groups Heers Gruppen Sud (Stalingrad)und A (Baku Oilfields)had Army Group South had been held together as one Stalingrad would have fallen.

And had Hitler ordered Army Group Centre an allout attack on Moscow it would have capitulated as well.

And in conclusion Za Rodinu, where did i say it would have been a picnic, my senarios would have been costly, i say at least 1 million Germans would have been killed and as many or if not more again wounded, but if that what it took to knock out the Soviets then so be it.

 

As well interesting here is that Hitler´s goal of operation Typhoon by Forczyk was to destroy the bulk of the Soviet Army in front of Moscow and NOT taking Moscow. That is what Hitler said literally in his order....or did he?

 

Roddoss you overestimaste the power and strenght of the German war machine. But whats even more important is that you greatly underestimate the Russians..........

This is exactly what Hitler did!!!

 

By the way the Germans only layed siege to the City after a full out invasion failed and so did the bombardment of the city.

 

Well, in my estimation, capturing Moscow may have led to a collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, let me justify this. I read in a book quite some time ago(the title of which escapes me, I will endeavor to find it in my library again) that Stalin would not leave Moscow, not even under threat of death or capture at the hands of the Germans. Also, the Soviet Army had most of its command and control functions located in Moscow. Now, had the Germans captured Moscow and Stalin not fled, this would have been a large victory for the Germans. Not only would they have Stalin, they would have cut the nervous system out of the Red Army, leaving it in a state of utter chaos.

I would like to state my opinion as to what the Germans should actually have attempted to accomplish. I believe that the idea of either Hitler, or his High Command, that capturing cities or acquiring massive amounts of land was ill advised. The German Army’s operations should have been based upon destroying the Red Army. Only through the destruction of the Red Army could the Germans have hoped to hold their vast tracks of land they wished to have. It would have been important in the opening stages of the war to concentrate on this objective alone. Namely, because if the Red Army was given time to lick it’s wounds at all(as it was), it would gain the numerical strength to overwhelm even the best armed and trained army. Thus, the opening weeks of the war would have to be decisive, otherwise what is happened would only happen again.(Please tell me if that sentence makes sense.) (Also, I read some where that as the war went on the quality of the Soviet infantry went down. Can anybody either confirm or deny this for me? Thanks!)

Bill

 

Bill, I don't quite agree with your premises. "If" the Germans did conquer Moscow I am not sure if they could keep it as if Op. Typhoon succeeded they would be completely exhausted and out on a logistical limb. Historically while the Soviets were struggling to keep the Germans at arms length they were also building up a large force for a what almost was a disastrous conter-attack in Dec. 1941*, so a german victory at Moscow wouldn't guarantee anything as they most likely would be able to keep it. Burn it to the ground, maybe, keep it, I doubt it.

The problem would be "if" the Germans did manage to stick to Moscow, the Soviet railway system would be amputated of a centrally important hub, virtually cutting it in two. But again this is "if" they manage to hang on. Stalin and the High Command would be able to get on a train and continue the war from elsewhere, I can assure you Stalin had no death wish, no suicide in the bunker, this rat had a lot of places to go as compared to the other rat.

As for the decrease in quality of the Soviet infantry, this occurred only very late in the war as the manpower pool was getting a bit shallow, and there were a lot of new recruits with no military training at all, drafted as the Red Army advanced from liberated lands, POWs, guerillas, etc. Given time they could be brought to top notch, but given the accelerated tempo of operations in 1944-45 this was an improvised scheme, therefore imperfect.

* Later on they pulled the same trick at Stalingrad and Kursk, so this is a recurring pattern. The Moscow counter-offensive worked badly in the end because the Sovs were at large operations and ove-reached themselves (Stalin got overconfident as usual), but the doctrine was there already.

 

I agree with Za that simply taking Moscow would not lead to the winning of war as it would not have resulted in the destruction of the Soviet military power. The factories behind the Urals were getting ready to produce huge numbers of planes, tanks etc. while Germans were not making anything in big numbers.

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Just an interesting fact on the winter 1941-42 battles fron General Raus´s " Panzer operations".

The reason why the Germans were able to hold the Soviets back was the fact that the Germans held onto the easy supply areas knowing if they lost them they would be detroyed. The Red Army was allowed to enter areas where supply was hard to deliver where there was no decent roads ( if there were any to call a decent road ) which is the reason why the front at one point looked like a huge puzzle with missing pieces.

So while the Germans did get "enough" supplies the Red Army was in real trouble with troops entering areas where only minimal amounts could be delivered.

 

Thank you Za for the valuable information. A sideline question: What were the approximate amounts of manpower in the German Army Groups on the eastern front at this time?

Thanks,
Bill

 

Bill, these what-if questions tend to be somewhat "iffy" as one has to define very well the underlying premises, otherwise it's very easy to become lost in cloudcuckoo land. I don't very much like to participate in this kind of debates because of this, and because most of the times you can get all your answers through wargaming. Wargames, of which there is a plethora in the market, are exactly what-ifs on the move, you can try your hypothesis, tune up or down your parameters and see what comes out.

Also we have to take into account that What-ifs benefit from our perfect 20/20 hindsight, the commanders at the time had absolutely not a fraction of knowledge of what was going on, and obviously were unaware of the result and afterwaves.

[soapbox mode off]

As for your question, it will take some research as I don't have that kind of data at hand. It's relatively easy finding Orders Of Battle for the time, but as for effective force levels for the units involved it's another matter.

Kai, I wasn't aware of that statement, and I find it somewhat difficult to swallow. Positions with less bad (i.e., I don't believe any German unit had good access) access to supply lines or depots would be more effective in defence than those out on a limb, so the latter would have more difficulty in holding their position. Raus makes it look like this was done on purpose, "I got wet because I decided not to open my umbrella". Teutonic bovine faecal matter