Sadly even historynet.com is becoming trivial

Like the History channel and others, historynet.com is now doing crap pieces with poor depth. Like this.


https://www.historynet.com/what-if-the-germans-had-captured-moscow-in-1941.htm

Pretty lousy.

Is it the hypothetical alternative history aspect that you don't care for or is it more just the writing style?

It is the lack of analysis to support the hypothesis. It was only at the near end that the hypothesis is even addressed. It came down to saying...

historically after failing to take Moscow the Germans were able to hold against Russian counterattacks. If they had taken Moscow they wouldn’t have.

Now how does he reach that ?


Had the German taken Moscow they would have had some advantages they didn’t have historically.

- Their lines would have been straightened from the historical bulges north and south. Improvement in unit frontages.
- They would have had an improved supply base situation. Additionally they would have some advantage in captured supplies, even if small.
-They have benefitted from more cold protection of buildings
-They would have damaged the Soviet units facing them more
-The soviets would have lacked the transportation center and supply base that they used in bringing in the Siberian units and staging the counterattack
-The Soviets would have lacked Moscow’s airfields; there weren’t really others. The Germans would have had use of those fields.
- The Soviets would have had another morale hit which would have depleted their units

-And the Big Possibility - The Soviet government would have had turmoil which just might have paralyzed the counterattack effort.

I failed to see the “why” the Germans would have been worse off had they captured Moscow.


That is just a quick off the head effort.

I think I see what the author is claiming even if he doesn't spell it out very well. He is saying that the capture of Moscow would have obviated holding it, in turn making the forces there vulnerable to the counteroffensive. In my view that's a viable hypothesis, but not a certainty, partly for some of the reasons given by OG.

When the counteroffensive struck, the Germans in many cases reached the bottom of their morale well, and were pushed back, sometimes voluntarily so to speak. Hitler issued a stand fast order, against the wishes of his senior military leadership, and while some may argue against it, this order to hold probably saved the Germans in the winter of 1941. Hitler had many flaws as an operational commander, but here I must say he in fact did save 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies as well as the bulk of 2nd, 9th and 4th Armies. To attempt a retreat in those conditions would have been a gamble at best. And although the men suffered terribly from the enemy and the conditions, in hindsight it was probably the only course of action that would prevent a complete collapse of Army Group Center.

The irony is that since it worked, and Hitler thought himself an operational savant as a result (he famously stated that "this little matter of operational command is something anyone can do") it led him to regard this course of action as the solution to every crisis, and as we know, in turn led to many unnecessary losses in Russia and on other fronts as well.

As to whether Moscow could have been held, it's an interesting discussion. I would say that if Moscow had been captured through a general offensive, and not simply a lunge made for the city itself, the Germans could have held. If a solid fortified line extended from Klin, through Moscow to Tula for example, attempts to encircle Moscow would have been difficult, not least as the Germans would have had the cities. A lunge however (which is what I think the author envisions) would have been vulnerable to a double envelopment, trapping whichever units were tasked with defense of the capital.

This is a scenario that has fascinated me for years. The big mistake to me has always been the failure to go for Moscow in August/September 1941 rather than Kiev. Had they done this the Heer could have been in Moscow well before Winter, probably before the end of September. Instead they sat on their hands for a month at Smolensk before then going for the Soviet armies around Kiev. Altogether at least two months of good campaigning weather was needlessly lost. Had Moscow fallen in late September, early October there is little doubt for all the reasons given by OG that the Soviets would have sued for peace after Stalin was deposed. The USSR would have been decapitated.

Even with the Kiev operation, once they initiated Operation Typhoon there was still good chance for success. Especially given the articles parameter of no rasputitsa. 16 days of good weather would have seen the 30 to 40 miles they would have needed. Once Moscow was seized, the airfields would have allowed some badly needed supply ability. I can’t stress enough that the denial of those fields to the Russian Air Force would have been extremely significant. Bringing in the Siberian reinforcements would have been greatly complicated had the Luftwaffe been operating from the Frunze, Bykovo and Vnukovo airfields. They would have had to detrain many miles away in the winter and then been under air attack for the whole approach by Luftwaffe units operating from good quality airfields with facilities. There would have been virtually no Russian air counter. Without the Moscow railyards turning the trains around to get more Russian units would have been greatly affected. There wouldn’t be the re-coaling at Moscow for the return trip. So the deploying of those 18 Siberian divisions would have been much more strung out. The Siberian units would not have arrived as a concentrated coordinated force.

I am not seeing his assertion that it would have a disaster had the Germans taken Moscow.

I agree with your argument totally OG, but the writer can't just waive away the rasputitsa. Its like saying the Germans have unlimited logistics. The biggest effect to me would be the effect on the Politburo and the Army of the shock and awe inflicted on them up to and including the seizure of Moscow. Remember also that the loss of Moscow also means the fall of Leningrad.

Two outstanding imo books on this subject in terms of alternate history are:

Hitlers Panzers East by RH Stolfi and The Moscow Option by David Downing.

Another brilliant analysis is "Axis Power Could Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have World War Two?: by William Roger Townshend.

I agree Max. That brings us back to my assertion that they are doing crap pieces instead of serious history.

It was just lousy and lacked any worthwhile content. His assertion that it would have been a disaster had the Germans taken Moscow was without merit. Just because he says it doesn’t mean it is so.

They have really dumbed down.

"What if" scenarios, if documentary rather than fictional (e.g. 'SS GB' & 'The Man in the High Castle) are totally baseless with so many variables in place.
If Leningrad could not be broken by siege I doubt Moscow could be, or it would of descended into an earlier 'Stalingrad situation' , thanks to 'General Winter'.

I've read many, many books on WW II over the past 30 years or so and I've come to the conclusion that it was specifically 2 colossal mistakes made by Hitler which sealed the fate of Germany and its eventual defeat.


1. The invasion of the USSR.

2. The declaration of war on the USA.


Once Germany was at war with the British Empire, the USSR and the USA, it was essentially at war with most of the world. The manpower and industrial capacity alone was utterly and completely stacked against Germany.

To be honest, serious historical research and analysis will be almost exclusively found in books and research papers written by military historians and scholars. I wouldn't even bother trying to find stuff on that level on the internet.

Panzer you are correct in a way. These decisions brought down Nazi Germany. The point is though that there is a fairly persuasive school of thought that the war in Russia was in fact winnable, and by the Winter of 1941 Eurasia as a whole could have become a Nazi empire. God must have been listening in August 1941 and this was not to be, but it could so easily.

It might have been winnable had the Germans invaded earlier than June 22. That would have given them enough time to destroy more of the Soviet army and to take Moscow before the dreaded "rasputitsa" arrived.

Having said that, the Soviets lost about 5 million soldiers between KIA, MIA and POW in 1941 and they still managed to hold on long enough to mount the winter counter-offensive. That is truly stunning to me.

The Spring was a real mess weather wise PM. The Germans might have not got as far as you think.

Mandatory meme post:

Taking or not taking Moscow was immaterial IMHO. There were multiple issues that kept the Germans from winning war. Short of a morale collapse caused by the taking of the city (which I doubt would have occurred but it might have) Germany was going to at best force a stalemate with the Soviets, especially after the US entered the war.

The key to the whole war was resources. Hitler knew this. Ideology was just an excuse for his invasion. Hitler was a #%&*$# but he was a smart #%&*$#. He knew that an expansionist Germany was limited by the lack of two major resources: Oil and high quality iron ore. He secured his supply of iron ore with the invasion of Norway but oil was more problematic. There were two potential sources, both had their own issues.

1. The Middle East. This probably was the easiest to capture but the hardest to exploit. There was a lot of oil in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia but the amount wasn't fully known back then. Interestingly all the oil needed for Germany and Italy WAS available in Libya but no one knew it was there until 1955. Thank goodness for small miracles. Had the Germans concentrated their forces they probably could have driven the British out of Egypt, Iraq and Iran and set up sympathetic governments there. There was already some pro-German sympathies there and this would have led to much more friendly deals to maintain oil transport. The biggest issue would have been getting the oil back to Germany and refining capacity. The refineries would have been relatively easy to create but transport across the Med would have been more difficult. Neither Germany nor Italy had much by way of oil transport shipping and these would have had to be made from scratch. Add to this the lack of real knowledge of how much oil really would be available in the Middle East and I can see why Hitler wasn't really willing to take that much of a risk. In hindsight though it probably would have been a better strategy, especially if there had been more of an attempt to actually try to find oil in Libya.

2. The Soviet Union. This ultimately was the reason that Germany went to war with the Soviet Union. Ideology and hatred of the Slavic 'subhumans' certainly played a part but this was more of a propaganda tactic than a real reason to go to war. The biggest reason the Wehrmacht relied on horse drawn transport wasn't because they didn't have the capability to motorize more, it was because there wasn't enough fuel to effectively motorize the majority of German divisions. Simply put, Germany had to win and win this war, and win quickly to secure the oil needed to maintain their economy and war production. It was hoped that the Soviet Union would collapse and allow German forces almost a free run to the Caucuses or at least a peace treaty that would exploit those resources but the Soviet resistance was stiffer than suspected. Once Germany declared war on the US its fate was sealed. Not only did the Soviets stop Germany from taking the oil rich regions of the Southern Caucuses it also got the rolling stock needed to transport that fuel to units that could use it.

Even if Germany had taken the Caucuses it probably would have only prolonged the war. The Soviets would have missed that oil for sure but the US would have made up a fair amount of it via shipping to Vladivostok and Murmansk. Still, the loss of the Iranian route would have been felt. The Germans might have gotten this oil but it would have taken at least a year, probably longer, to exploit it. Some wells the Germans did capture in the Caucuses were fired by the retreating Soviets and I doubt the area of Baku would have been spared. In addition the rail network would have had to be redone completely and I don't know how much rolling stock the Germans would have had to transport all of that oil. Germany had few tankers and even less means to get them there. I doubt Italy had many as well.

That's about the size of it. Hitler had to knock out England first and the uboats were his only hope for that.

Not a July Sealion? UK was virtually helpless and the RN was not certain to kill an invasion given the possibility of para drops in Southern England and a "go-for-broke" invasion.

I think it's true that the Germans could have won the war with Russia, and there are many reasons -- some self-inflicted, some the result of the fortunes and frictions of war -- as to why they did not. I once claimed that the Germans probably would have won if Russia simply had a road network of similar standards to that found in Western Europe at the time. I think, in the end, that logistics was the primary failure that prevented victory, but many more played their part. The Wehrmacht was built to fight to the Dnepr. Once the war was forced beyond this river, the debts started to be repaid and the Germans found their fortunes waning.

The question posed in the OP isn't one of whether it could have been won, but what might have happened had Germany taken Moscow in 1941. Some feel that capturing Moscow would have presented the Germans with no additional difficulties, or even forced capitulation, and I'm not so sure. I think the evidence is in what actually did occur. When the winter counteroffensive struck, the Germans did indeed hold the city of Klin. The Germans were ejected inside a week and sent reeling through the blizzards.

Whether the fall of Moscow would have caused the collapse of the Soviet regime is an interesting question. My view is that it would not have. The reason for this I put down to the Germans' conduct in occupied territory. The brutal policies enacted changed the war on the Soviet side from one of defending the regime to one of defending the motherland, a fact that Stalin exploited to his advantage. Had the Germans pursued a different policy perhaps the war goes very differently from a political point of view.

But back to the question at hand. If we assume everything is the same as historical, and simply add Moscow to the German haul, then you have a situation where Moscow's flanks are each bashed in. Since we know that the Germans were pushed back across the entire region, it seems likely that the Russians would have succeeded in either ejecting the Germans from Moscow, or at the very least encircling the city. Perhaps we assume that Moscow could be held due to inherent advantages in a city this size for the defender. And even that leaves questions, as it would have taken more to hold than Klin which was easily lost. And Moscow would have added another 30 miles minimum to the supply chain which was already stretched to the breaking point, with the nearest railheads still near Smolensk.

But if we assume the Germans both take Moscow and hold it in the face of the counterblow (and the weather), it becomes a besieged city with no hope of relief until spring. In light of what did occur near Moscow in December 1941 I can't see a way the Germans could hope to keep the lines of communication open. Even if they had captured it I see little hope of holding it in the long view. This is what I meant earlier by a "fortified line from Klin, through Moscow to Tula". Without this, Germany had little chance of holding on to Moscow had it been taken in late November in my view.

Great post DBond!

DBond, you are arguing in support of the events as the counterattack as delivered. You may be correct if the counterattack occurred as delivered. My point is that it would not have delivered as it was.

No Russian airsupport as it occurred. Historical reading show the great impact of the Russian air.
Arrival and deployment of those Siberian divisions would not have been the same. They would have been both delayed and not as concentrated. There would have been major changes in where and how they detrained, formed, and deployed. It would not have been as historical. The historical counterattack couldn’t have happened.

The German Luftwaffe would have given air support from those good quality airfields.
The Germans would have benefitted from buildings in the bad weather
The airfields would have given a small measure of improved supply for the Germans.
The Germans would have had a small measure of improved supplies from those captured at Moscow.


It was very close run in the historical event and I think the scales would have tipped in favor of the Germans. I don’t think the Russian counterattack would have done as well as historical.


I am not projecting beyond that. No projection for the progress of the war afterwards.

Valid points OG, and thanks for your viewpoint. Historical military what-if scenarios are endlessly fun to discuss. For years now I've thought about starting a series of what-if threads here at SimHQ, but I never did as I always suspected that once I did we'd have others who would think of a different interesting what-if and soon we'd be deluged and diluted

There is no doubt that Moscow was a vitally important transport, communication and supply hub, and it's loss would have been a hard blow, not only to morale, but to military capability. Of all your points I think the ones regarding concentrating these forces prior to the counteroffensive the most compelling. Without the Moscow hub this is much harder to achieve. In the scenario in the OP however, Moscow is evacuated. And if the Russians do this, they will plan accordingly.

The main weight of the counteroffensive was not due west along the Smolensk-Moscow highway (originating in Moscow), but concentrated on the shoulders. The northern effort was conducted by Konev's Kalinin Front. This is where the Soviets saw the most success. It was so effective in fact that it created a salient all the way to Velikiye Luki and nearly Vitebsk. Would the fall of Moscow have prevented this force from staging in the first place? Perhaps. I think not, but that doesn't mean I am correct. We cannot discount either the cavalry corps which were created at this time. Their mobility in the harshest conditions allowed these formations to outmaneuver the road-bound Germans. The initiative was clearly with the Russians by early December and they could react, with some restrictions, to what the Germans were doing.

I'm not convinced that the airfields in and around Moscow would prove decisive. For supply they would have been useful. But as we saw over and over the fleet of Auntie-Ju's was but a drop in the bucket compared to the needs of panzergruppen and field armies, and would guzzle a fair amount of precious fuel performing this duty, and then only on days with weather fit to fly. And besides, the Ju-52 fleet was committed at Leningrad at the time. I think the atrocious weather would also have limited the effectiveness of any combat aircraft deployed there, if they could turn their engines over. So while possession of these fields would have been a mark in the plus column for the Germans, I wonder how much effect it would have. Of course this is the core of a what-if discussion isn't it?

I see the Germans taking Moscow (or simply walking in after the Russians give it up) as them sticking their necks further in to the noose. The counteroffensive pincers could have been directed more north-south than they were in the event, meeting west of Moscow and trapping the Germans in their own kessel. Beyond this, the Germans would also suddenly be faced with a starving population (those who remained) and an angry, probably armed populace who might take measures to undermine the newly-installed occupation forces. Even under German control, I would imagine it to be a very dangerous place for them to be with their occupation policies perhaps finally coming home to roost.

It doesn't matter too much if the capture of the Soviet airfields was a net zero to German operational activities. The *denial* of the airfields to the Soviets is a significant (if maybe only temporary) setback, equivalent to a full-scale German airoffensive against them similar to the opening days of Barbarossa.

Still doesn't make the over-extended German position comfortable, and by succeeding in taking Moscow (especially if the Kiev pocket escaped), this situation may have been more extended with larger forces caught in Kessels than actually occurred.

It may have resulted in only a concentration at Moscow, rather than second Kharkov and the renewed Barvenkovo/Izium offensive, or if the Germans were also concentrating more on the Moscow axis, such a secondary operation may not have run right into the teeth of the planned German spring offensive, and accomplished more of what it promised.

Good point Lieste, and in most circumstances I'd agree that airfield denial is harmful to the Russian. But if there were one month during the war in the east when air power had the least influence surely it's December of '41? Better to have those airfields than lose them, but I still am unconvinced that it would have a telling effect, for either side. I would expect that the Russians would have found an alternative in short order, and as you say, the effect on them would be only temporary.

Not being able to intercept Ju52 flights means that the few German fighter sorties can be Jabo. Stuka can operate when available unescorted. It still gives more operational flexibility while the influence lasts even if no additional sorties can be flown.

However... huge dynamic and chaotic systems like the Eastern front are highly unpredictable. If the winter of '41 had gone more smoothly, it is still no guarantee that the next winter wouldn't have still been disastrous. Despite the difficulties of '41, they were still inadequately prepared for the Raputsitsa in the spring of 42, autumn of '42, and the following spring, and failed to predict the huge Soviet counter-offensive at the Don bend during the winter. Winter clothing and improved lubricants and operational procedures were still lacking... these would have been as deficient or worse, had the '41 offensive been different in minor ways.

Again, fellas, don't neglect Leningrad. With Moscow in German hands, Leningrad would have fallen, no question, and the Germans delivered an ice-free port to support the Moscow arnies. Also as OG mentioned, the importance of Moscow as a rail nexus cannot be over-emphasized. Without that I doubt if the Soviets could have even contemplated a counter-attack.

Re the decapitation angle, don't neglect the fact that in October 1941 when Typhoon was in its earlier stages, Moscow was in turmoil, with Party symbols being torn down and the NKVD being ordered into harsh measures to retain control of the streets. Later in Typhoon, only a personal decision of Stalin's to stay in Moscow instead of joining the Kuybyshev evacuation prevented the city being lost.

DBond, I understand the point you are making. It was some validity, but I disagree.

But the best thing is that you are making a reasoned argument. Something that wasn’t done in the original article. And it is that lack of reasonable building of of a case that makes me so dismissive of the article.

Right backatcha OG

I agree about the article. Standards are certainly slipping these days aren't they?

Several of you make a compelling case that the fall of Moscow would have made a counteroffensive impossible in the first place. I was thinking about it last night and that argument has merit. I reasoned it might have come down to when Moscow fell. Because by the first of December the counteroffensive forces were already in place. If the argument is that the fall of Moscow would prevent their massing for the attack (which is reasonable), what if it fell after staging was complete? Would the Russians have cancelled it anyway? And where would the forces defending in front of Moscow have gone?

"And where would the forces defending in front of Moscow have gone?"

They would have gone into the starvation POW camps and never be heard from again.

I was approaching this from the assumptions of the OP, and in that case I doubt they would just walk in to cages.

Not Barbarossa but here’s the remnants of Army Group Center being marched into Moscow after the German defeat in Operation Bagration in 1944.