Last time we spoke about the fall of Tikhvin. The German offensive toward Tikhvin stalls against Rasputitsa, ice, and supply failures, while Soviet resilience around Leningrad, Volkhov, and Moscow’s approaches slows the Germans’ advance. By November 9–15, 1941, Hitler’s high command grappled with harsh logistical realities: trains, fuel, and winter clothing are scarce, and many units lack adequate armor and reconnaissance. Stalin reshuffles commanders, appointing Meretskov to command the 4th Army and canceling some attacks due to weak force strength, while pressing others to continue offensives despite dire conditions. At the front, the 4th, 52nd, and 54th Armies attempted to blunt German thrusts and seize critical corridors, but frontal assaults amid brutal cold yield limited gains and heavy casualties. The Shlisselburg corridor, Lake Ladoga, and Volkhov remained focal points as both sides jockey for position and supply routes. Across Kharkiv, Sevastopol, and Crimea, German advances stall or recede amid fierce Soviet defense and attritional warfare. Overall, winter intensified the struggle, highlighting endurance and the limits of operational planning under extreme conditions.

This episode is the battle of Moscow Starts

Well hello there, welcome to the Eastern Front week by week podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.

Even in their depleted state, the Wehrmacht’s officers pressed for a major winter offensive against Moscow and Rostov, and as winter tightens its grip on the USSR, Hitler’s Panzers roll forward again. Kleist pushes toward Rostov, while Army Group Center’s panzers begin the battle for Moscow, and the Red Army responds by stepping up its counteroffensive against Leeb’s overstretched forces. Last week, Klykov’s 52nd Army launched an offensive that failed to achieve its aims. STAVKA pressed him to attack again, but the army needed time to reorganize, until 17 November, when the night brought a sharper tactic: two detachments from the 259th and 111th Rifle Divisions slipped behind German lines, and in the morning those two divisions struck Malaia Vishera. The defenders were outflanked and overwhelmed, creating a breach in the German 126th Infantry Division’s line, which was forced to retreat west toward Bolshaia Vishera and the Volkhov River. Yet Klykov’s pursuit slowed, because the 215th Division was hurried into the line to reinforce the 126th after its redeployment from France. Despite this progress, Leeb managed to reinforce the besieged 39th Panzer Corps at Tikhvin with the 61st Infantry Division, a move made necessary as the German 4th Army opened its offensive on 19 November. Deep snow slowed the Northern Shock Group as it pressed toward Tikhvin, crawling through heavy resistance, while the Eastern Shock Group stalled at the Tikhvinka River and along the Tikhvin–Taltsy road, clashing with the 20th Motorised and the 61st Infantry Divisions. Meanwhile, the Southern Shock Group targeted the supply routes to Tikhvin, making steady progress against the layered battlegroups defending the extended southern flank of the Panzer Corps. Although the Soviet attack had stalled, the German positions around Tikhvin remained under constant pressure, with the 8th Panzer Force even breaching its line on 20 November. These clashes set the stage for a brutal winter campaign across multiple axes, as the push toward Moscow and Rostov competed with tense defensive holds around Tikhvin and both sides stretched their resources to the limit.

Trapped in a three-sided vice and poorly supplied, the 39th Panzer Corps took heavy losses from the fierce fighting and the cold. Leeb still believed Tikhvin could be held but concluded he would need two more infantry divisions to help shield the line from Ostashkov to Lake Viyele and the southern shore of Lake Ladoga. He thus sought ways to crush forces west of the Volkhov River, hoping to free up five more divisions. However, rumours reached him that the 39th Mobile Corps might be withdrawn from Army Group North. On the 20th, he informed OKH that he would need four or five fresh divisions to replace the mobile corps, and if he could obtain permission to abandon Tikhvin, that requirement might be reduced by one. Everyone knew that achieving such a transfer was impossible, so talk of withdrawing the corps ceased. Yet Halder insisted that Tikhvin be held at all costs. Any hope for a link-up with the Finns now rested on the Finns launching their own offensive, but they remained fully employed in East Karelia. Kondopoga had fallen, with both offensive prongs meeting north of Lake Lizhma; since then, extreme snow and cold had slowed the Army of Karelia to a crawl. Leeb’s problems could have been worse, but the 54th Army was still not in a position to launch its own offensive. It remained preoccupied with the latest push by reinforced Group Boeckmann. On the 18th, Leeb detached a battlegroup from the 12th Panzer to bolster their drive toward Lake Ladoga. Random fact, this is the same day Operation Crusader would start in North Africa with British forces surprising Rommel and his Italian allies. Overall the north africa campaign effected the Eastern Front as Germany had to divert more and more forces to remedy one of Italy’s numerous fuck up’s. If you want to learn more about that, please check outs my ten part series over on Echoes of War Podcast. Heavy fighting also raged outside Volkov and Voibokalo stations, even as the German advance began to slow despite additional reinforcements.

Meanwhile, assaults from Leningrad and operations by the 8th Army continued all week with little to show for them, the repeated efforts yielding the same lack of success. The persistent failures prompted STAVKA to replace Shevaldin with Bondarev as commander of the 8th Army, and Lazarov was replaced by Sviridov as the commander of the 55th Army. Despite the heavy losses, STAVKA insisted that the attacks go on, aiming to keep German divisions tied down around Leningrad and thereby prevent them from aiding the forces at Tikhvin and Volkhov. With the ice of Lake Ladoga hindering boat movement but not yet thick enough to support vehicles, an emergency airbridge was established to sustain Leningrad. However, between 14 and 28 November, only about 1,200 tons of high‑calorie food could be flown in, far short of the city’s needs. Food was growing scarce, and rationing tightened further. From 20 November, workers in priority jobs received only 375 grams of bread per day, while dependents were reduced to 125 grams. This was down from an initial ration of 250g a day or 300 for children under 12. Soldiers in Leningrad had access to just 500 grams of bread daily, yet the city required about 510 tons of bread each day to meet demand. To stretch supplies, edible cellulose was added to the bread mixture, along with other additives such as malt, soybeans, and oatmeal. The percentage of Cellulose ranged from 20 to 50% of bread while the additives could make up to 40% of the bread.

Even with measures like this, the city still needed more than 1,000 tons of supplies a day to sustain everyone, which could not be transported properly, and a famine began in November, followed by disease as the city’s health system strained to cope. About 10,000 people died in the city during November, a figure that would rapidly rise as shortages deepened. In an effort to counter this, on 19 November the Leningrad Front ordered the construction of a military vehicle road between Kobona and Vaganovo across the frozen Lake Ladoga. Yet the rail link between Kobona and Vologa ran through the besieged Volkhov and the occupied Tikhvin, so until Tikhvin could be reclaimed a second road was forged to bypass the German forces. Light horse carts had already begun crossing the Shlisselburg Bay from 19 November, though the 100 millimeter thick ice was not yet sufficient to support supply trucks. This situation would change by 22 November, when the first major vehicle column, carrying 33 tons of flour, crossed the ice amid a heavy snowstorm. Thus began the Road of Life.

Gone were the Rasputitsa thaws and freezes around Moscow; the weather had settled into a regime of permanent snow and ice. With hopes of restored mobility, Operation Typhoon resumed on 15 November. In previous seasons the Red Army clung stubbornly to every meter of ground, but this time the 27th Corps’ opening offensive met only thinly dispersed screening troops, as the main Soviet forces had already withdrawn behind the Volga and all bridges across the river had been blown before the 27th Corps could reach them. On 16 November, the 16th Army committed the 126th Rifle, the 17th and 24th Cavalry, and the 58th Tank divisions to an offensive at the boundary between the 27th Army and the 56th Panzer Corps. The attack pressed against the 7th Panzer and the 14th Motorised earlier that day, but bogged down after only about 4 kilometers, suffering heavy losses. In an attempt to exploit the minor opening between the 56th Panzer and the 27th Army Corps, the 20th and 44th Cavalry divisions were sent in next. This proved a poor decision, as they charged straight into waiting German infantry across an open field, yielding the predictable results.

The 56th Panzer Corps would counterattack, aiming to push the boundary between the Soviet 30th and 16th Armies. The 7th Panzer made little progress, but its accompanying 14th Motorised division managed to cross the Lama River at Gribanovo and Kussowa. The earlier losses meant Roscosovsky could not hold the Lama river line and was compelled to retreat to new defenses on the 17th, with not all of his forward formations able to escape the faster-moving German units, resulting in further losses. The Soviet 49th Army had launched spoiling attacks against the right flank of the 4th Army, gaining little ground but forcing Kluge to adopt an extreme caution. At the same time, the 49th Army, together with the 50th Army, remained engaged in a running battle against Guderian’s forces around Tula, though their casualties were not immediately exploited. There had been more planned attacks against the German forces, one of which had diverted some reserves away from the 30th and 16th Armies to assemble a force around Volokolamsk for an assault on Kalinin.

On Kluge’s left flank, the 2nd Panzer Division would open their offensive on the 16th as well, aiming to secure better positions for the 5th Army Corps. The clash with the 316th Rifle Division to this attack would give rise to a legend intended to boost morale. To be more specific, the Soviets later promoted a myth, Panfilov’s Twenty-Eighters, portraying twenty-eight heroes who supposedly sacrificed themselves to destroy dozens of tanks as a propaganda boast. A declassified Soviet report later revealed that the story had been fabricated. The commissar’s rallying cry,“Russia is vast, but there is nowhere to retreat, we have our backs to Moscow!”, became immortalized. Such appeals to patriotism helped sustain the Red Army’s morale alongside its iron discipline. These offensives effectively split the 16th Army from the 30th Army. The Volga north of the Volga Reservoir was used to anchor a flank of the 30th Army’s defenses, while elements of the 9th Army pursued, ordered to secure bridgeheads across the river and protect the flank of the Moscow drive. The 16th Army anchored its northern approach to Moscow at Klin. The divergent aims of the 3rd Panzer Group and the 9th Army would lead to the Panzer Group being shifted to the direct command of Army Group Center by the 19th.

David Stahel and David Glantz both note that the Western Front had about 240,000 men, 1,254 guns, 502 tanks, and between 600 and 700 aircraft to oppose the renewed offensive, including Kalinin’s Front and the 30th Army. On the 17th, this Army was transferred to the Western Front, a move driven by logic: it was now assigned to protect Zhukov’s flank from the oncoming offensive rather than participate in the Kalinin assaults. Moreover, out of the 502 tanks available, only 200 were T-34 or KV-1 models, underscoring the material constraints that shaped the fighting. Although numerically weaker than the forces arrayed against them, this tally does not include the 68,000-strong Moscow garrison or any of the STAVKA reserves waiting behind the lines. Glantz estimates Bock’s Army Group at roughly 233,000 men, 1,880 guns, 1,300 tanks, and between 60 and 800 aircraft. Zetterling provides separate figures for November: the 2nd Army at 124,520 men, the 4th Army at 287,732, the 9th Army at 213,608, the 2nd Panzer Army at 182,321, the 3rd Panzer Group at 91,726, and the 4th Panzer at 249,294. It is important to note that not all of these forces were necessarily facing the Western Front at the same time. In addition, some sources claim the Western Front held around 700 tanks and 1,138 aircraft. As with many wartime statistics, these numbers vary by source and methodology, which can be frustrating for researchers.Zhukov’s forces were deeply entrenched, with bunker after bunker protecting their positions. Vast minefields also shielded Soviet lines and constrained the German attack, while roads were clogged with mines and fallen trees. The 9th Corp would report removing 5,000 mines in just two days. Every town and village stood as a strongpoint that had to be fought over, and dealing with these obstacles required extensive infantry work, a demand the Panzer Groups, now heavy with tanks, could not meet without infantry support. This gap forced Panzer Group 3 to urgently request infantry reinforcements on the 17th.

On the 17th, Kluge, still in command of the Panzer Group, delayed the 4th Panzer Group’s main offensive to the 18th, allowing only two regiments from the 5th Army Corps to attack in order to maintain contact with the flank of the advancing 9th Army. ‘As far as the number of divisions in relation to width of front is concerned, the Fourth Army is better off than all the other armies of the army group. In spite of the extraordinary drop in strength, on the whole the state of its forces is in no way worse than that of other fronts.’He justified the delay by citing the need to counter constant Soviet offensives against the 7th and 20th Army Corps to the south. Bock responded with a blistering critique, arguing that Kluge’s inaction endangered the 9th Army and pointing out that delaying due to the lack of action from the weaker 2nd Panzer Army was hypocritical. Kluge then claimed the entire 4th Army would attack on the 18th, but fifteen minutes later a new message stated that only the 5th Army Corps and portions of the 46th Panzer Corps would initiate the assault, with the remainder of the Army and Panzer Group held back for a delay until the 19th. Bock pressed Halder to pressure Kluge into a full commitment to the attack, yet stopped short of asking Halder to order it outright. Bock admitted to Halder that Kluge’s right wing was struggling and likely needed reinforcements to shore them up. The 4th Army’s war diary reflected this with one infantry regiment down to 400 effectives and many divisions were at the limit of their endurance. Halder countered, insisting that, regardless of how dire the situation looked for any German formation, it would be far worse for the Soviets opposing them. “we must understand that things are going much worse for the enemy than for us and that these battles are less a question of strategic command than a question of energy’”

The 5th Army Corps had been reinforced with the 2nd Panzer Division and two additional infantry divisions, and they attacked on the 18th to bolster the struggling Panzer Group 3. The infantry’s arrival broke through the Soviet defenses, and Buygorod fell, with about 1,550 taken prisoner. Tank losses were heavy on both sides, but considerably worse for the Soviets. German tankers once again complained about their inability to damage the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks, noting that unless they scored a lucky hit on a critical point, their rounds simply bounced off. German tanker’s diary on the 20th after closing to ,point blank against a crippled KV-1. “we fired thirty shots into him. Nothing got through. There weren’t 10 cm without a direct hit. We’d never experienced any- thing like it.” The infantry divisions likewise pressed for immediate deployment of a 75mm anti-tank gun, as they faced challenges even greater than the Panzers. Both formations grew increasingly dependent on the cumbersome Flak 88s to counter the modern Soviet armor, a vulnerability intensified by winter conditions that limited mobility and undermined their former tactical approach. The 41st Panzer Corps at Kalinin was ordered to attack despite having no fuel to move and no expected supply until the 24th or 28th, a constraint that loomed as a critical bottleneck. Supply shortages threatened to halt the advance of the formations already in motion, with fuel deficits reported across all Panzer and Motorised formations.

Supply shortages also hampered Luftwaffe operations before the full impact of cold and weather set in. On many days they could not even mount a single sortie; one Stuka wing managed only a single mission on the 13th and 18th, and four on the 26th and 28th, with no flights on the remaining days in November. Between November 15 and December 5, Soviet sources claim the Luftwaffe in front of Moscow managed about 3,500 sorties, while the VVS flew roughly 15,840 times. German sources themselves lament an onslaught of Soviet air attacks and an apparent sobering absence of their own air power. On the 19th, Hoepner believed the Soviet 16th Army was in flight and pressed for relentless pursuit from all formations, brushing aside Kluge’s reservations. Many of Hoepner’s divisions had to push motorised infantry forward on foot, and fuel shortages prevented all tanks from advancing. Which kinda makes a mockery of the frantic efforts of the previous weeks to restore panzer numbers at the expense of so much else. They lacked the fuel to use just over half their tanks with the 20th division only able to send 49 of their 75 tanks into battle. This conviction clashed with numerous reports and diary entries detailing heavy resistance on the front. There were also several local reverses, with captured Germans subjected to massacres in some counterattacks. Hearing of one such incident, Hoepner urged that no prisoners be taken and that mercy be dispensed to the Soviet soldiers.

Rokossovsky, now under extreme pressure, begged for permission to withdraw to the Istra river, his army depleted of reserves as the Panzer Groups closed in, threatening to encircle him. Zhukov rejected the retreat, but Rokossovsky pressed on, appealing to Marshal Shaposhnikov, who assented. Crisis hit when Shaposhnikov, unaware that Zhukov had already forbidden retreat seemed to sanction a withdrawal; Zhukov exploded with fury at this bypass of his authority.“ I am the Front Commander! I countermand the order to withdraw to the Istra Reservoir and order you to defend the lines you occupy without retreating one step”. In retaliation, Rokossovsky was ordered to take no step back. Unable to withstand the mounting pressure, his frontline collapsed on the 20th. In a dramatic shift, Hoepner’s Panzers surged forward, advancing 23 kilometers in a single day after previously averaging only about 5 kilometers daily. By week’s end, they stood a mere 48 kilometers north of Moscow.

The specter of encircling the 16th Army buoyed the German generals, even as mounting cold began to weigh on their nerves. Nighttime security grew lax as soldiers sought shelter from the shrinking temperatures, and sporadic Red Army raids began to exact greater damage under the cover of darkness. Attacks became increasingly hard to mount, with warm quarters and comfort tempting soldiers to resist the effort to push forward. Many soldiers and junior officers doubted their ability to fight in the heavy snow, expecting to retreat to barracks to endure the winter. They showed little appetite for more fighting in these frozen conditions. Halder dismissed these concerns as the Red Army being worse off, framing the cold as merely a test of will for the average soldier to endure. Meanwhile, Bock’s infantry divisions were bleeding manpower, taking position after position and leaving regiments reduced to company strength.

To the south, Guderian’s offensive began on the 16th with a preliminary strike that captured Bogoroditsk. Two days later, the main assault launched, targeting Kolomna, a mere 125 kilometers from Tula, though the Army could travel only about 80 kilometers due to fuel shortages. In a costly reallocation, the three motorised divisions were stripped of fuel to support the Panzer divisions, but even that was not enough to reach Kolomna. This was even with the army’s massively reduced panzer numbers. The 3rd Panzer had 60 tanks, 4th Panzer had 25 tanks, 17th panzer had only 15 operational tanks. The 18th Panzer had 50 tanks. The Second Panzer Army had started the war with 1,000 tanks but now only had 150. Ironically the same amount they had received in reinforcement in the build up to Operation Typhoon. Bock judged that fuel constraints would limit the operation more than Soviet resistance. The spearhead was the 24th Panzer Corps. Instead of punching straight through the entrenched garrison at Tula, the plan called for the 3rd and 4th Panzer divisions to encircle the city from the east. The 17th Panzer Division was ordered to seize Kasheria, with 15 tanks in hand. The 18th Panzer Division was tasked with taking Efremov, 120 kilometers south of Tula, while the rest of the 47th Panzer Corps moved to take Mikhaylov, keeping contact with the 2nd Army. The 53rd Army Corps would maintain liaison between the two Panzer formations while also capturing Venev. The 43rd Army, positioned between Lichvin and Kaluga, was ordered to march northwest of Tula to meet the encircling 24th Corps and to stay in contact with Kluge’s Army. With his divisions already stretched thin and widely dispersed, Guderian admitted doubts about the operation’s success even before it began.

Guderian did not know that the Bryansk Front had been dissolved on the 10th, with its armies redistributed to the Western and Southwestern Fronts. Those Fronts repositioned their forces toward their respective bodies, which left a fragile and weakened boundary where Guderian planned to strike. The Southwestern Front, additionally, lacked sufficient staff officers to effectively command all its armies. Proposals to create an independent Orlov front to shore up this weakness lingered too long without decision. It was precisely this vulnerability that Guderian aimed to exploit. In the brutal -18 °C weather, Guderian’s offensive began at a crawl. Many Germans had started to use propaganda leaflets and newspapers in an attempt to improve the insulation of their uniforms. By the 19th, the 4th Panzer Division reported it did not have the strength required to fulfill its directives. On the 20th, all three Panzer divisions suffered a massive drop in fighting capability due to the bitter cold and fuel shortages. Meanwhile, the 43rd Army Corps had to assume a defensive posture as it came under heavy attack from the 49th Army. Guderian admitted to Bock that his army was too weak to reach its objectives. Bock demanded confirmation before conveying it to OKH, but the information was ignored. This pattern repeated on the 21st, with Guderian pleading to shift to the defensive. Yet the day’s events, the 53rd Army’s victory at Uslovaia and the 4th Panzer’s repulsion of a Soviet counterattack launched by two Siberian divisions, prompted a dramatic reversal in mood. On the 22nd, Guderian claimed he could reach the Kolomna-to-Ryazan rail line, a declaration that severely undermined his credibility with Bock and Halder.

In the side-show offensive, the 18th Panzer Division captured Efremov on the 20th after pushing more than 50 kilometers. From their divisional war diary. “Under the worst circumstances the division took the important industrial city of Efremov without tank, without anti-aircraft gun, without assault gun, without support from our own planes, with only two engineer companies.” Yet the rapid advance stretched the division thin, and Soviet forces were reported to be massing for a counterattack. To the south, Schmidt’s Second Army had attempted to seize Voronezh after taking Kursk, but the effort collapsed. A second assault on Voronezh was planned for the 16th, was postponed to the 18th, and then delayed again to the 20th due to supply shortages. There was real fear that the Army’s flank would be exposed if the sluggish 6th Army did not advance. When the 6th Army finally moved, it met little resistance and only made minor gains.

As German troops were forced out of the relative warmth of prepared positions into the cold, their looting of the civilian population intensified. Curtains, towels, tablecloths, and more were stolen to protect against the elements. Trade with locals was rare; more often, civilians were murdered to seize what they needed. Prisoners of war and the dead were stripped of nearly everything, save for their distinctive jackets, for fear of misidentification as Soviets and swift execution. In the words of propaganda writer Ilya Ehrenburg: “They are rushing towards Moscow like frozen men rushing to the fire... They are ready to come under fire for a pair of felt boots or a woman’s warm jacket. That’s why they are now doubly dangerous... In terror, they say to each other: ‘This is only November.’” Kleist renewed his offensive against Rostov on the 17th, in -22 °C temperatures. The 3rd Panzer Corps pushed forward and reached Nakhichevan-on-Don on the 19th, just short of Rostov despite relentless assaults from the 9th Army. Instead of assaulting directly through the heavy fortifications on the main route, Mackensen maneuvered north of Rostov to strike from the east. The following day Rostov fell to the LeibstandarteSS, securing an intact railroad bridge and establishing a small bridgehead across the Don River. The overall Rostov operation had cost the Panzer army around 6,000 casualties and half of its remaining tanks. Yet Runstead already wanted to abandon the city, and Kleist contemplated withdrawing to the Mius.

Timoshenko planned a substantial counteroffensive against the extended northern flank of Kleist’s first Panzer Army. The objective was bold: reach Taganrog and, if possible, encircle the 1st Panzer Army. To that end, Rostov would be held by the 56th Army, while the rebuilt 9th and 18th Armies would man the flanks. The 37th Army would spearhead the main effort, reinforced by four rifle divisions and four armoured brigades. The 12th Army would provide support to the 37th. In total, the Soviet plan enlisted 40 rifle divisions, 13 cavalry divisions, 7 tank brigades, and an airborne corps. This ambitious offensive stretched the Southern Front’s command and control to its limits, diminishing its ability to respond quickly to Kleist’s drive on Rostov. It’s possible the 56th Army’s role was more delaying defense than a genuine attempt to stop the Germans, designed to lure Kleist in and anchor him for the Southern Front’s own attack. Timoshenko’s counteroffensive began on the 17th, concurrent with Kleist’s assault.

The 37th Army’s assault struck the flank of the 17th Army, the Italian CSIR, the 49th Mountain Division, and the left flank of the 14th Panzer Corps. A breach opened between the 1st Mountain Division and the SS Wiking. The only local reserve available was the brigade-sized Slovakian Mobile Division. Fuel shortages further hampered the Germans’ mobile divisions from employing their usual mobile-defensive tactics. While Kleist begged Runstedt for reserves to avert disaster, OKH insisted, with dangerous optimism, that Kleist press on immediately to seize Mykop and Stalingrad. Interestingly in his diary Halder would write on the 21st “Rostov is in our hands… “North of Rostov, First Panzer Army was forced into the defense by the Russian attack with superior forces, and will have a hard time seeing it through.”There were no reserves to spare, and mounting Soviet pressure from the 9th and 56th Armies hammered Rostov, threatening to push out the 3rd Panzer Corps. These attacks managed to force the Leibstandarte back across the Don by the 21st, while a second attempt to establish a bridgehead across the Don was crushed. It is worth noting that the Don had frozen solid, allowing tanks to cross, but its width meant any crossing would have to cover up to 1 km of exposed, open terrain.

With Crimea conquered except for Sevastopol, Manstein’s task boiled down to preventing Soviet reinforcements from arriving while continuing the siege of the fortress. His other objectives—opening a route through the Kerch Strait and pushing toward Mykop—remained impossible until the 1st Panzer Army had advanced further. As a result, Manstein faced pressure beginning on the 20th to shift divisions to the more urgent sectors. Yet the main events of this phase would unfold the following week and are reserved for coverage then. At Sevastopol, the 22nd Infantry Division had arrived from the north, spurring a renewed assault on the outer defences. The four German divisions pressed the offensive for five days before it was halted, having sustained roughly 3,000 casualties for little to show in close-quarters fighting. Soviet counterattacks to improve their positions also failed. Manstein abandoned his plan to rush into the port and instead adopted a more methodical, deliberate offensive. The near-ubiquitous air superiority hindered the German effort in the local area, despite the overall dominance. German air assets could base only a single fighter group and a single Stuka group at Evpatoria; the remainder of the 4th Fliegerkorps operated far away in Ukraine, tasked with several missions beyond supporting the 11th Army at Sevastopol.

On the 20th, Mainstein issued an order grounded in the Reichenau severity doctrine, directing measures that targeted the extermination of Jews. Not surprisingly this is absent from his memoirs which also claim the German troops never looted and had a good relationship with the local Soviet civilians … “Jewish Bolshevik system must be wiped out once and for all and should never again be allowed to invade our European living space ... It is the same Jewish class of beings who have done so much damage to our own Fatherland by virtue of their activities against the nation and civilisation, and who promote anti-German tendencies throughout the world, and who will be the harbingers of revenge. Their extermination is a dictate of our own survival”. While he did not actively collaborate with SS Einsatzgruppe D to carry out such killings across Crimea, he did request their presence, apparently to free up housing for his troops. In non-battlefield matters, on the 22nd, Churchill began pressing the governments of Hungary, Romania, and Finland to withdraw from hostilities against the USSR. Churchill had feared a war declaration would drive these nations into the German camp permanently but in the end succumbed to pressure from Stalin for greater support. He set a deadline of December 5 for their replies; if they did not respond positively, the United Kingdom would have no choice but to declare war on those nations. Churchill also proposed that Antony Eden travel to Moscow to confer with Stalin on the postwar settlement, de-emphasize ideological rifts, and ease tensions between the allies. Stalin accepted this proposal.

As convoys continued to arrive in the USSR, German formations reported facing Soviet units equipped with American and British weapons. Several tank duels erupted between German Panzers and British-made tanks. The medium-caliber weapons mounted on the Matilda and Valentine tanks were a frequent complaint among Soviet tankers, but despite these flaws, the Western-equipped tanks remained competitive with the majority of German armor, especially given the depletion of Germany’s own tank forces. The influx of Allied-supplied matériel also contributed to a political challenge in the UK, where war production intended to aid the USSR was popular among factory workers and strained labor relations. Lord Hankey the paymaster general complaining about Lord Beaverbrook the supply master general “Now I have to bring to light the fact that he is building nothing but dud tanks when he is vociferously appealing to the workers to work all day and night to produce for Russia innumerable tanks - all dud tanks.” Meanwhile, more squadrons flying Western-designed aircraft were being activated around Moscow. An ironic moment occurred when a German bomber, tasked with dropping propaganda leaflets over Moscow proclaiming that “Your allies are not helping you and will not help,” was shot down by a Western fighter. This encounter fed anxiety among some Germans who encountered Western equipment in Soviet hands, fueling fears that the war might last much longer than anticipated. An unidentified German soldier’s letter home“The war with Russia will last a long time yet. The enemy is offering tremendous resistance and the fanaticism that lies behind this obstinacy knows no bounds. To this must be added absolutely inexhaustible reserves of manpower and equipment, the latter even being augmented by deliveries from America.”

On November 21st, Marshal Shaposhnikov and the General Staff began planning their response. Twenty-two armies, totaling 58 divisions, remained uncommitted and undetected deep within the interior of the USSR. Some of these formations were newly raised, while others were transferred from the Far East. It is a myth to claim that every one of these divisions was an elite Siberian unit. In reality, Siberian divisions varied, often they had more training, yet many still adhered to the larger pre-war division. And if your curious to learn more about the movement of these units, please go over to the pacific war week by week podcast and check out my special episode titled “what if Japan invaded the USSR instead”.

I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.

Hitler’s forces push toward Rostov and Moscow despite fuel shortages, snow, and deteriorating supply lines; the 4th and 2nd Panzer Groups encounter fierce Soviet defense, command reshuffles, and mounting casualties. The Red Army holds key corridors. The Luftwaffe falters due to weather, and the Soviets establish the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga. Allied matériel arrives for the Soviets, while German morale and armor suffer under extreme winter conditions.