The Battle for Moscow

David Stahel

Jan 2015 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

In November 1941 Hitler ordered German forces to complete the final drive on the Soviet capital, now less than 100 kilometres away. Army Group Centre was pressed into the attack for one last attempt to break Soviet resistance before the onset of winter. From the German perspective the final drive on Moscow had all the ingredients of a dramatic final battle in the east, which, according to previous accounts, only failed at the gates of Moscow. David Stahel challenges this well-established narrative by demonstrating that the last German offensive of 1941 was a forlorn effort, undermined by operational weakness and poor logistics and driven forward by what he identifies as National Socialist military thinking. With unparalleled research from previously undocumented army files and soldiers' letters, Stahel takes a fresh look at the battle for Moscow, which even before the Soviet winter offensive, threatened disaster for Germany's war in the east.

About the author

David Stahel is the author of four previous books on Nazi Germany's war against the Soviet Union. He completed an MA in War Studies at King's College London in 2000 and a PhD at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2007. His research focus has concentrated primarily on the German military in World War II. Dr Stahel is a lecturer in European history at the University of New South Wales, and is currently working on a follow-up book to The Battle for Moscow looking at the German retreat in the winter of 1941–2.