As I finish Jonathan Dimbleby’s excellent book, Operation Barbarossa: The History of a Cataclysm, I am once again struck by all the what-if questions that arise when considering Adolf Hitler’s decision to attack the Soviet Union in 1941. For those of us fascinated with the history of human conflict Barbarossa offers a multitude of layers for thought. From the merciless nature of the German invasion to the stunning early success of das Ostheer, Barbarossa truly was cataclysmic.
Given the vast arena, it is important to focus on one section at a time in order to comprehend the horror of Barbarossa. For the sake of clarity, Barbarossa refers to the first six months of the Wehrmacht’s campaign in the Soviet Union. In this piece I’ll address a question that often arises when discussing Barbarossa: What if Hitler had listened to the advice of the army high command and focused on Moscow? What if the Ostheer had invested Moscow, or in fact occupied it? What would have happened?
To say that pondering this hypothetical situation is complicated would be a grandiose understatement. But the possibility that the Soviet government would have collapsed is a monumental question that would have had immeasurable consequences for the rest of the world.
Even Soviet leader Joseph Stalin has admitted that surrounding or taking Moscow was probable for the Germans had Hitler focused on it as a goal in mid-July 1941. By concentrating his forces in Army Group Center, the combined might of four panzer groups would have been too much for the staggering Red Army to withstand. At that time, the Ostheer was still relatively fresh and infused with the rush of victory. The skill and morale of the Ostheer, men and officers, was never higher. Even after the vicious and costly fighting around Smolensk, the soldiers and officers of the Ostheer could sense the imminent collapse of the defenses in front of Moscow.
Hitler had foolishly begun Barbarossa with nebulous goals, his forces distributed across a massively long front and advancing simultaneously. This was a horrendous violation of the “klotzen nicht kleckern” doctrine on a grand scale. In spite of this obvious mistake, and the German General Staff understood this, the incredible success of the Ostheer in the first six weeks of the campaign meant that Hitler could still cover himself by concentrating and pushing on to Moscow. A massive and deadly double envelopment of Moscow was achievable and could possibly have toppled the Soviet government.
Instead, Hitler again diffused his goals and operations, choosing instead to strip Army Group Center of Heinz Guderian’s Panzer Group 2 to complete a double envelopment of Red Army forces in Ukraine. Also, he sent other strong units north to pursue the investment of Leningrad. Operationally the moves were staggeringly successful; the fall of Kiev in Ukraine cost the Red Army hundreds of thousands of troops and Army Group North, with the help of Finland, successfully besieged Leningrad.
Despite the fabulously successful operations, the diversion cost the German army time and further expended the morale and combat power of what was the finest land army the world had ever seen. Even when Hitler finally agreed to target Moscow it was too late. Operation Typhoon began in final days of September when Guderian’s second panzer group began its belated push toward the Soviet capital. Typhoon was the final phase of Barbarossa and ended on December 5 only a few kilometers short of Moscow when the exhausted Ostheer was forced onto the defensive.
Militarily I don’t think there is any doubt that Moscow would have fallen had Hitler concentrated his forces in midsummer. The big question is political: Would it have mattered?
Stalin bragged that he would have abandoned Moscow and continued the fight from a location farther East. It’s certain that the government would have left Moscow. Many agencies already had abandoned Moscow during the frightful days of mid-October, but whether the Soviet government would have been able to control a war on such a massive scale from beyond the Ural Mountains is questionable at best.
Still, it is more than likely given the nature of the German occupation that the citizens of the Soviet Union would have continued to fight rather than submit and be treated as slaves for the master race. Soviet citizens had by that time learned the nature of Nazi occupation, and they would certainly have made life miserable for the murderous German occupiers if nothing else.
The question of what-if is of course unanswerable. The world will never know what would have happened had Hitler taken Moscow. He didn’t; and the Red Army recuperated, learned from the hated Ostheer, eventually eviscerated it and occupied Berlin, the Reich’s battered capital. We know what happened after that.
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