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6 Disaster at the Don In October 1941 Hitler was jubilant; he believed the war was over! He had planned on wiping Moscow from the face of the earth and replacing it with an artificial lake. In a routine speech at the Berlin Sportpalast on October 4 he announced the ‘‘greatest battle in the history of the world; that the Soviet enemy had been beaten and would never rise again.’’1 He still believed that the Soviet Union was a rotten structure that would collapse as the suppressed citizens turned against the Russian tyrant. But by the end of November the situation had changed. The Germans were almost at Moscow but the army was expiring on its feet, the soldiers almost incapable of movement. The German army had suffered serious losses; death, wounds and sickness had reduced its strength by half a million. The losses had convinced Hitler that he would need to rely more on his minor allies, primarily Romania and Hungary. For the first time he asked directly for Hungarian participation. German military leaders had seriously underestimated the Soviets, not counting on the stubborn Soviet resistance. Their weapons were not effective against the new Russian tanks, the T-34 and the KV, nor were they prepared to fight in the bitter Russian winter, which had started early, when temperatures started to fall below minus 20 degrees Celsius. Although the advancing German troops were approaching Moscow, the 650-kilometer march at 45 to 50 kilometers per day had been excruciating and morale was low; medical reports showed that twenty-year-old youth looked like old men. General Alfred Jodl, the OKW operations officer, had refused to allow the public collection of winter clothing fearing it might cast doubt on assurances that Russia would collapse before winter. Soldiers stuffed newspaper inside their uniforms to repel the cold, while their iron-nailed soles accelerated the onset of frostbite—100,000 cases of frostbite were recorded, 2,000 required amputations. The Russians were used to and equipped for the cold; every Russian, military or civilian, had a pair of felt boots, which best protected feet against frostbite.2 Disaster at the Don | 183 Refusing suggestions to postpone the final stage of the drive on Moscow and dig in for the winter, Hitler was determined to carry on. The German commanders urged a general withdrawal that would enable regrouping for the spring offensive, but Hitler flatly refused. Realizing that a withdrawal would cost time and might lead to a general disintegration of the battle line, he had no sympathy for the ill-clad and over-committed frontline troops. A desperate attempt was made to reach Moscow and beat the winter, but on November 25 Guderian’s Panzer Group Two ordered a halt. The Russians, under Marshal S. K. Timoshenko, recaptured Rostov-on-Don a week after it had been taken, Rundstedt’s tanks were forced back 80 kilometers behind Rostov where they dug in for the winter , and Army Group North halted outside Leningrad. At first there had been panic in Moscow. On October 13, with the German army approaching, Stalin ordered the evacuation of the bulk of the Communist Party, the Supreme High Command (Stavka), and civil government offices to be evacuated to the east. Factories and offices were closed down and desperate people swamped the trains. There were riots and looting, but then Stalin made the historic decision to stay in the capital, halting the evacuation and setting the NKVD to shoot looters and restore order—a state of siege was declared on October 19. A flood of people from all walks of life volunteered to join the army, intelligentsia, factory workers, and a substantial number of women who served in a variety of roles. Against the advice of his generals Stalin celebrated the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution with a military parade in Red Square, making a tremendous impact on Russian morale.3 The Red Army had also been reinforced by Siberian divisions, which Stalin had been holding in reserve, fearing a Japanese attack. The Russian counteroffensive began on December 7 and by Christmas Day 1941 they had retaken almost all the territory won by the Germans in the last stages of the drive on Moscow. Hitler went into a rage, accusing the high command for the failure to take Moscow. He dismissed Guderian, accepted Rundstedt’s resignation, and relieved Brauchitsch as commander-in-chief of the army. In an ominous decision he announced that he...

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