Moscow, Battle for

In World War II, a failed German attack on Moscow, October 1941–January 1942. The Soviet capital was a prime objective of the German invasion plan, Operation Barbarossa, and the failure to capture the city was a severe setback for the German strategy.

German advance After overwhelming a series of hastily assembled defensive lines, the German 2nd Panzer Group approached from the south, while the 3rd Panzer Group and 9th Army outflanked the last defensive line and swung round to the north. The advance was sustained by the rapid movement of German forces and the constant threat that the Soviets would be outflanked; it only slowed mid-October owing to the onset of winter weather and the stretched German supply lines. By this time most of the city's civilian population had been evacuated, and the remains were formed into citizen's groups, which were armed, hastily trained, and organized into a last-ditch defence line.

Battle Meanwhile, limited Soviet counterattacks kept the Germans stalled, until the Germans got their supply system functioning again and mounted a sudden attack on 16 November 1941. Within a week, they advanced within 24 km/15 mi of the city centre but the bitter cold and a fuel shortage halted them again on 5 December, with advance patrols actually on the edge of the city suburbs. By this time, Marshal Georgi Zhukov had been appointed commander-in-chief of the defence of Moscow, and, reinforced with several thousand Siberian troops, he mounted a powerful counterattack on 6 December. By 15 January 1942, the Soviet forces had pushed the Germans back to a line about 160 km/100 mi west of Moscow and the city was safe.