Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941

In this book, Stahel continues his narrative of the German Ostheer’s failure in Operation Barbarossa. Now, in October 1941, the Germans are attempting to break Soviet resistance around Moscow.He also continues his historical revisionism of the Eastern Front, which he did well in “Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East.” That term (“revisionism”) has a bad reputation, but here it works in its truest sense: he looks at the same body of historical evidence and comes away with different conclusions. In brief, he challenges the long-standing historical narrative about this campaign that blamed the weather or indecision in the high command, chiefly Hitler.Stahel alters that old narrative by showing that there was a serious disconnect between the front-line reality as experienced by German soldiers, and how it was perceived in the rear. Those at the front realized that the Soviets were tough fighters, and that the mud made forward progress impossible. Meanwhile, they kept getting senseless orders to advance all over the place, and their operational strength became dispersed as a result. Stahel shows that these unrealistic expectations tended to start with Bock, head of Army Group Center, and grew stronger upwards from there.Stahel relies on war diaries, personal diaries, and memoirs as his primary sources for this part of the story, and it again succeeds. Stahel impresses with his dedication to historical method and careful connecting of these various sources and viewpoints. In doing so, he builds upon the new interpretations of the Eastern Front by focusing on combat records, an approach taken by Robert Kershaw in “War Without Garlands,” among others.The fundamental problem for the Germans was perceptual: They thought that they could win a rapid campaign and knock out the Soviet Union military before the winter. These misperceptions continued in other ways. Their intelligence greatly underestimated the number of armies that the Soviets could field. Everyone seems to have ignored the possibility of bad weather; the mud caused serious problems for the Germans, who essentially fought what Stahel calls a de-modernized war by this point. At times, the infantry marched forward and the tanks were left behind.The mud also compounded German supply difficulties. Supply trucks would take longer to move from the railheads to the front because of the mud, which in turn caused the supply trucks to use more fuel and more time getting back and forth. Amazingly, the Germans started Typhoon with only enough supplies to cover the early breakout and encirclement battles; after this brief period, their units were living a hand-to-mouth existence. The mud also forced the German units to attack up the roads, which the Soviets defended well, and at several points had previously prepared defense networks. The Germans weren’t ready for any of this, and their attack on Moscow stalled.The Germans pocketed huge amounts of Soviet soldiers, but these achievements proved to be problematic in their own way. The German infantry was stretched thin, and many times the panzer divisions had to stay behind on pocket duty to prevent breakouts. Stahel relates harrowing break out attempts by the Soviet units, as told from the German perspective. What’s important to note is that the Germans themselves were fought out just trying to maintain these rings. Meanwhile, higher commanders tended to draw the wrong conclusions from their maps.As Stahel points out several times, many of them read about Napoleon’s Russian campaign, but learned nothing from it, it seems. The parallels are indeed eerie. Voices of dissent seemed to be ignored; Goebbels, for example, ignored his inner one, as recorded in his diaries. He had reason to worry, because he realized that announcing victory before the battle was truly won could negatively affect public perceptions and war support.Stahel does his best work when he focuses on the German side, and in many ways he follows a long tradition of Eastern Front story telling that does so. In this sense, he’s sort of like Paul Carrell’s doppelganger, or maybe this century’s Albert Seaton (whose book “The Battle for Moscow” reflects an older, German-focused narrative about this battle).Less impressive were Stahel’s detours from this central German story. He includes chapters on the Soviet perspective, and tries to work in their accounts throughout. However, he seems to rely on English language narratives, and Soviet sources are not his strength (if he even knows Russian). There’s also a chapter on Germany’s Axis allies, which is interesting but weaker than his focus on the German side. He includes these participants as a counterpoint to the German one.In short, the Soviets were prepared for all eventualities; Stalin’s steely determination to remain in Moscow may have helped rally the defenders, and yet the government was ready to move to an alternate capitol if necessary. The takeaway is that the Germans underestimated Soviet resolve and capacity to wage a long war.Germany’s allies had mixed reactions, and yet they continued in the fighting, albeit reluctantly. Even so, I don’t see any of these allies in the Army Group Center order of battle (prominently, if at all). Therefore, I’m not sure why Stahel included their perspectives here, which felt out of place and led me to suspect that he was padding this book a bit.Stahel may have been trying to tell a comprehensive story, like what Antony Beevor or Max Hastings do for other battles, but their style of storytelling doesn’t work for Stahel, or doesn’t work for him here. “Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East,” by keeping a tight focus on the German side, worked better. Too, I would have liked this book to cover the winter fighting, which Stahel apparently covers in a follow-up volume—perhaps taking a page, or several hundred, from David Glantz’s more recent approaches to similar Eastern Front battles. That said, one has to wonder if the Germans lost the battle for Moscow by this point anyway.I read this on a Kindle White, and there were some formatting issues (not reflected in my star rating, but which you should know nonetheless). The maps were detailed but tiny and hard to read. (This was also true on the Cloud Reader). The tables were useless, as they were formatted as text, not images. A non-Kindle-related typo appeared, “duel tasks,” which is the exact same error I noted in his other book. In any event, be prepared for some editorial frustrations.

The author extends his strategic coverage of his two previous books by covering Operation Typhoon with the same logic, flair and extensive research of those books.To my surprise this book covers only the fighting and command decisions of October which primarily included the pocket battles of Vyazma and Bryansk while the next book will be devoted to the final advance on Moscow, ending on December 5th.(I'm hoping Mr Stahel will then write about the German defense of Zhukov's counter offensive.)As a prelude to the main story, a recap of Operation Barbarossa and Guderian's run to Kiev is presented to bring the reader up to speed. A brief historical military summary of Germany going back to the 12th century is also given that includes the influence of Clausewitz Theory has on German commanders. Napoleon's attempts to conquer Russia also plays heavy on Hitler and other key officers. As usual the German perspective concerning operational, strategic and political aspects drive the narrative.Also as usual, the author has performed a tremendous amount of research for he covers Operation Typhoon on a daily basis and include many battle facts on individual corps and divisions along with their respective commanders as they struggle to close and eliminate the pockets at Vyazma and Bryansk while 3rd PzA heads for Kalinin. In addition to showing the fanatical resistance of the Soviets in trying to escape their doom, Mr Stahel also clearly shows how disgruntled German commanders fought among themselves, a delusional OKH that wouldn't see the severity of fighting for what it was, rainy weather, impossible muddy roads, terrible logistics and lack of fuel would bring the German Army to an abrupt halt by the end of October. The AGC had not fully recovered from the fighting in August and September and with the casualties of October was in no position to tackle Moscow in 1941, especially in the disposition OKH had ordered. Forging a salient from Kalinin to Tula all the way to Moscow was just too unreasonable.Once again it is shown that regardless of "winning battles", the German Army with its own problems and its inability to see the true cost of those victories were over extending themselves, suffering too many casualties and making too many strategic errors that would prevent the capture of Moscow in 1941 or ever. On the other side of the ledger, its shown how thousands of Russians escaped the pockets to fight another day as well as the stubborn resistance within the pockets that caused the Germans until almost the end of October to eliminate the pockets and devote their full attention on moving on Moscow. This resistance gave Zhukov time to improve defenses and bring reserves up to the line in sufficient levels to stop the Germans in early December. Though the coverage is predominately German, there is still sufficient coverage of Soviet responses, especially when Zhukov is in sector for the reader to have a good understanding of the overall campaign. It is clearly shown that in many local battles at the pockets and at Kalinin that the Soviets actually halted the German advance while causing massive casualties.I believe the book is further enhanced in describing the operation and the positional stance of the author that the Germans were bleeding themselves white while advancing toward Moscow by the careful selection of excerpts from primary documents and the hundreds of first hand accounts chosen to back up his positions.In addition to the excellent overview, the author presents 15 detailed maps drawn by David Glantz that show divisional deployments and progress. The series of maps clearly show the quick envelopment of Vyazma and Bryansk in the first week of the operation and then the subsequent slowing of the advance due to a myriad of reasons. The maps will definitely aid the reader in following the narrative and Mr Stahel includes map references on some of the key battles, letting the reader move quickly to the proper map. The book also includes a few tables and photos, a 67 page Notes Section and an impressive Bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The book closes with an Index. This material is invaluable if further study is desired.Operation Typhoon dovetails logically with the author's two earlier books in both battlefield strategy as well as the economic and political arenas and if you enjoyed those books, you'll definitely enjoy this book. And if you haven't read those earlier books, the first chapter summarizes and will give you sufficient background knowledge so you won't miss a beat reading this book.I find Mr Stahel's writing style interesting and effective; I find the story development and premise logical and hard to dispute. This book along with the author's earlier books provide key insight into the war and I highly recommend this book to all students of the Russo-German War.

When ever we talk about second world war, I always comes down to "D-day, Normandy, Market garden, Bulge. Most people dont realise that all the way in 1941 a much larger offensive against the USSR took place. This book and its "prequels" and "sequels" tells us about those offensives.This books tells us that the whole notion that it was the weather was the decisive factor is utter non-sense. Long before the Winter started the replacement army already informed the German army Chief of Staff that replacements cannot keep up. Also the replacements had less combat experience and was such less combat effective. It also shows that the Panzer generals wanted to fight their own seperate war and contributed to the Red Army's Survival. Most importantly It showed us that the Red Army did not take things lying down.Fantastic book, but in order to understand this, I believe you have to read the Prequels and Sequels and considering the price of the prequels and sequels, it might not always be easy.

This is the third of David Stahel's books that I've reviewed (following "Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East" and "Kiev - 1941"), and I am as impressed with this as with his earlier works. His understanding of the German-Soviet War is not unique, but he kicks it up a notch and makes clear, through detailed understanding of military realities, just how far away from final victory the German forces were even after their victories around Vyasma and Bryansk. One little quote he cited, from the German side, has inspired me to write a novel.I'm very much looking forward to his next book on the November campaign and (hopefully) the German retreat.

Another well written and researched book. I've found David Stahel to be a very good author!

A masterpiece. Stahel is amazing.

The first three months of Nazi Germany’s war against the Soviet Union were by far the bloodiest three months of Hitler’s war to date with 185,000 Germans dead and some 366,000 injured.“Far from waging a seamless blitzkrieg wreaking havoc on the Red Army, the German panzer groups in the conduct of their advance suffered debilitating losses, which, in the first three months of the campaign, had already undercut Germany’s whole war effort.” “Operation Barbarossa … was a strategic failure with disastrous implication for Nazi Germany’s war effort.”“Clearly, Hitler and the Army General Staff had dramatically underestimated the Soviet Union.”To beat the Nazi invasion, the Soviet Union did not have to destroy an enemy force or reach a distant objective. It needed only to prevent the invaders from obtaining their prize and thereby secure a victory by default.From early October to early December the Soviet high command transferred enough men to the central part of the front to staff 99 new divisions.Army Group Centre alone recorded killing around 80,000 ‘partisans’ between July 1941 and May 1942. The 707th Infantry Division reported taking 10,940 prisoners in anti-partisan operations in just four weeks starting on 11 October 1941. Of these prisoners, 10,431 were shot, although only 90 rifles had been found.Almost two million Soviet POWs had died by February 1942.After Romanian forces captured Odessa, they shot 19,000 of the city’s Jews. In the course of World War Two, some 300,000 Jews died under Romanian occupation.