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

by David Stahel

In October 1941 Hitler launched Operation Typhoon the German drive to capture Moscow and knock the Soviet Union out of the war. As the last chance to escape the dire implications of a winter campaign, Hitler directed seventy-five German divisions, almost two million men and three of Germany's four panzer groups into the offensive, resulting in huge victories at Viaz'ma and Briansk - among the biggest battles of the Second World War. David Stahel's groundbreaking new account of Operation Typhoon captures the perspectives of both the German high command and individual soldiers, revealing that despite success on the battlefield the wider German war effort was in far greater trouble than is often acknowledged. Germany's hopes of final victory depended on the success of the October offensive but the autumn conditions and the stubborn resistance of the Red Army ensured that the capture of Moscow was anything but certain.

Genres: History, World War II, Military History, Nonfiction, Germany, Russia, Military Fiction

431 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2013

About the author

David Stahel was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1975, but grew up in Melbourne, Australia. He completed an honours degree in history at Monash University (1998), an MA in War Studies at King's College London (2000) and a PhD at the Humboldt University in Berlin (2007). His research focus has centered primarily on the German military in World War II and particularly Hitler's war against the Soviet Union. Dr. Stahel's latest book Operation Typhoon was released by Cambridge University Press in March 2013 and will be followed by another book focusing on German operations on the eastern front in November and early December 1941.

David Stahel completed his undergraduate studies at Monash University and Boston College. He has an MA in War Studies from King's College London and a PhD in 2007 from the Humboldt University in Berlin. His dissertation has been published by Cambridge Military Histories as Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. He joined the University of New South Wales Canberra in 2012.

Books:

Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (Cambridge, 2009).

Kiev 1941. Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East (Cambridge, 2012).

(Together with Alex J. Kay and Jeff Rutherford) Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941. Total War, Genocide and Radicalization (Rochester, 2012).

Operation Typhoon. Hitler's March on Moscow (Cambridge, 2013).

Moscow 1941. Hitler's Battle for the Soviet Capital (forthcoming).

Reviews

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 5 out of 5]

By the start of October 1941, Germany’s war with the Soviet Union had been in progress for more than three months, which proved to be the bloodiest of Hitler’s whole war. At this point, the Führer desperately wanted to close the Eastern front, so together with his generals he settled on a plan, codenamed Operation Typhoon, for a massive new offensive in the center of the front to seize Moscow. Typhoon’s aim was to tear a hole in the middle of the Soviet front, destroy the mass of the Red Army before Moscow, seize control of the Soviet capital, and put an end to major operations on the Eastern front, all of this before the onset of the Russian winter. For the purpose, the Army Group Centre was reinforced to some 1.9 million soldiers and received a very high concentration of motorized, panzer, and infantry divisions. Operation Typhoon, Nazi headquarters reasoned, had to create conditions for a definitive victory and thus demanded all available resources for one last vital offensive. Remarkably, Typhoon would be directed by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock alone, making it the largest German field command of the war, with almost two million men taking orders from a single commander.
The one thing in Bock’s favor, Stahel asserts, was the professionalism of his forces – in 1941 the Wehrmacht was second to none. However, as the battles of Minsk, Smolensk, and Kiev had demonstrated, successful offensive can also be very costly, and none of those battles had even come close to forcing the Soviet Union to negotiate for peace or capitulate. Meanwhile, as Stahel narrates in Kiev 1941, the longer the war lasted, the more it degraded German ability to defeat its enemy with a single blow. Therefore, Operation Typhoon was a final effort to avoid a winter campaign. Destroying more than a million Red Army soldiers and capturing Moscow was a highly ambitious plan, but in October 1941 the strategic situation had convinced German high command that they were set for victory against the Soviet Union. Actually, even the Soviet government was discussing choosing another capital some 800 kilometers further east.

David Stahel acknowledges that Bock’s reinforced army group constituted a potent force. Yet, regardless of all the power concentrated in the middle of the Eastern front, Typhoon was about to face a formidable enemy – Russian rasputitsa. The “dust, mud, dust, mud” combination had messed up German supply and transportation even in summer. “Now, the rasputitsa”, Stahel explains, “not only confronted Bock’s motorised columns with an unprecedented topographical challenge, but also denied his panzer forces their much prized ‘shock’ and rapid manoeuvre.”

As Stahel argues, however, while the seasonal difficulties are considered the main hindrance to Block’s offensive, they were by far not the only one. He draws upon German military files, which show that the rasputitsa alone would most likely not have stopped the German offensive from advancing, albeit at a slower pace. In fact, Stahel explains, even after the initial battles at Viaz’ma and Briansk, Army Group Center was still furiously opposed by the Red Army on the Mozhaisk line, as well as around Kalinin and Tula. The road to Moscow was never open and the Soviet forces never absent.
The war was also taking place in increasing darkness as the days shortened and night fell by five o’clock in the afternoon. By the middle of October, there were only ten hours of daylight a day, hampering offensive operations and aiding the clandestine work of partisans, who were becoming increasingly bold.

Soon, Stahel narrates, Operation Typhoon was drawing to a halt and in danger of becoming, like Operation Barbarossa, an offensive only in name. By the end of the month, the constant flow of orders to press forward ceased, and static positions were adopted almost everywhere along the vast front. Officially, this was only a ‘pause’ in operations, but getting the front moving again would prove harder and take longer than Bock had anticipated. Furthermore, the strength that he hoped to gain by halting Typhoon was taking him dangerously close to the Russian winter, while his army group still had no prepared positions or winter equipment. Meanwhile, Chief of Soviet General Staff, Zhukov, “benefited from Moscow’s expansive logistic infrastructure to prepare for the November offensive he knew to expect.”
The 1941 German offensive in the east was not yet over, Stahel narrates, but October was the last month of great victories and deep advances. As he explains, all the preparations conducted in the end of month were tragically inadequate to sustain three million men of the Ostheer in the field. Yet, Stahel argues, the “consistent pattern of response seen again and again throughout the Eastern campaign” displayed itself in the drive for Moscow, as well as in Kiev, Minsk, and Smolensk – adversity only reinforced German resolution to press forward for another “final” blow, ignoring the failure to break Soviet resistance. While Stahel confirms that the victories at Viaz’ma and Briansk netted great numbers of Soviet POWs and destroyed huge amounts of the enemy’s equipment, he emphasizes that “one can, however, win battles and lose a war”, which was perfectly illustrated on the Eastern front in 1941.
In spite of the offensives launched by the Western and Kalinin (Soviet) Fronts in the second half of October, the Nazi high command still gave no serious thought to the Red Army’s capability of launching an offensive of its own. The only question the German commanders concerned themselves with was how far a renewed German offensive could penetrate. However, at the end of October, Stahel narrates, it was obvious that a new operation had an even smaller chance for success than the overly ambitious Typhoon. In the race to build up for the battle of Moscow, the author argues, Zhukov enjoyed many advantages over Bock. “Army Group Centre,” describes Stahel, “was overstretched, underresourced and at the end of long and tenuous supply lines.” Lieutenant-Colonel Henning von Tresckow, the first general-staff officer at Army Group Centre, stated that in his opinion “the troops were in a worse state than the German western army in September 1918”, and it was therefore “high time to end the mobile operations in the east for this year and commit the troops to building winter positions.” Yet, as Stahel’s study demonstrates, most German generals didn’t think in such terms. In their minds, it was the fate of the Soviet Union that was now decided. Few, like Tresckow, who wondered “whose fate was actually being decided”, or Lieutenant-Colonel Oskar Munzel, who believed that “the culminating point of the [German] campaign in the east had already been surpassed”, were perceptive enough to see the truth.

David Stahel has created a brilliant history of Operation Typhoon, which gives us economical and ideological, as well as tactical overview. For example, he draws attention to the Grosstransportraum, the truck-based logistical organizations that vainly attempted to make up for the Soviet Union’s poor railway system. Aside from the Panzer groups, which are the focus of the book, he also covers the campaign’s aerial dimensions, showing that while the Luftwaffe displayed operational superiority in the first weeks of the campaign, the Red Air Force reclaimed it afterwards. The work’s reliance on war letters and diaries makes the narrative lively and engaging.
In summary, David Stahel explains with remarkable clarity why the German offensive failed. Operation Typhoon is meticulously researched, well-written, and supplied with helpful maps. In my opinion, the book will appeal to any WWII buff.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Operation Typhoon was the final German offensive towards Moscow by Army Group Center in October 1941. Although it started off with shattering German operational victories at Viazma and Briansk (encircling over 750,000 Soviet troops), the onset of bad weather, the autumn mud period, bad roads, inadequate logistical resources and, most important, bitter Soviet resistance, meant that the offensive would play itself out short of Moscow and victory. This, the 3rd volume in Dr. Stahel's series on Army Group Center and the invasion of Russia, places the vast campaigns in the Soviet Union in their strategic contexts, covers closely the internal conflicts of the German high command regarding Barbarossa, and also portrays the conditions of the fighting soldiers as they coped (or didn't) with the unspeakable conditions under which they were expected to live, fight and die. The maps are excellent, the photographs helpful, and Stahel's smooth prose makes the entire series a surprisingly easy read.

[Doubledf99.99 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Stahel does not disappoint with this book on the March to Moscow, as the blitzkrieg comes to a grinding halt. What still gets to me even on this second read is how the German high command OKH didn't properly prepare and had so little disregard for the commanders and soldiers doing the actual day day fighting and surviving. Meanwhile the Russian army going thru the same weather conditions, mud and winter where able to manuever. A fine and excellent book.

[Steven Mercatante · Rating 1 out of 5]

Review reprinted from my review as published at the Michigan War Studies Review:

Operation Typhoon is the third in a series of books by David Stahel (Univ. of New South Wales), each exploring the operations of the panzer and motorized formations of German Army Group Center (AGC). It aims, first, to show that "despite success on the battlefield, the wider German war effort was in far greater trouble than is often acknowledged …. Germany's hopes of final victory depended on the success of the October offensive" (dust jacket blurb), seeking to "eliminate the bulk of the Red Army before Moscow, seize control of the Soviet capital and force an end to major operations on the eastern front before the onset of winter" (2). Secondly, as in his previous volumes, Stahel argues that "the turning point in Germany's war occurred as early as August 1941" (305). "Allied economic resources were being amassed on an unprecedented scale …. [T]he gap in manpower and material between the Allies and Axis had become desperately large,"[1] thus "dooming Germany to eventual defeat by sheer weight of arms."[2] For reasons such as this, Stahel is fast becoming this generation's foremost proponent of the discredited idea that mass and material are the most important variables in determining victory in modern warfare.[3]

Operation Typhoon nonetheless comprises some of Stahel's best work to date. Several chapters are devoted to a clear and engaging narrative of AGC's struggles on the ostensible road to Moscow. However, he does not prove that German "hopes of final victory depended on the success of the October offensive," instead managing to undermine the larger argument of his three books—that quantitative measures were more important than qualitative measures in determining the outcome of World War II.

The book is rife with inconsistencies. For instance, Stahel asserts that the Germans' failure to take Moscow doomed their larger war effort, then proceeds to write that "Moscow was not the key to Germany's final victory in the east" (17). He underrates the options available to the German command before and during Typhoon, likely because a discussion of these would diminish the importance of the drive on Moscow and point up the inconvenient truth that the Ostheer's potential to break Soviet resistance in September 1941 means the war had not turned decisively against Germany in August 1941. To his credit, Stahel attributes Typhoon's shortfalls to German command failures, but in so doing vitiates the entire quantitative basis of his body of work. The failure to seize Moscow is regarded by many as the critical turning point in Germany's war. Stahel, preoccupied with statistics, overlooks the reality that Germany's wrap-up of operations prior to the onset of winter 1941 affected the Third Reich's war effort far more than whether Moscow fell or not.

Stahel correctly states that the Red Army would have fought on even had Moscow fallen (17), but never recognizes that Soviet loss of critical resources in Southern Russia would have crippled the Red Army, since, as he himself puts it, "Only a long series of sustained, resource-intensive offensives, separated by temporary halts to rebuild armies and bring up supplies, could lead to outright victory on the eastern front" (17).

Though he touches (lightly) on critical strategic-economic aspects of the war, Stahel never proves his primary thesis. Despite the litany of German weaknesses and losses he documents,[4] the fact remains that in 1942 the supposedly mortally weakened Wehrmacht came within a whisker of seizing the Soviet Union's primary sources of petroleum and other critical resources necessary to fuel an army capable of winning the war. Indeed, by the late fall of 1941, "the Germans had seized or destroyed 47 percent of the Soviet Union's prewar agricultural land, 41 percent of its railroad network and the sources of 62.5 percent of prewar coal output, 68 percent of prewar steel output, and 60 percent of its aluminum output."[5] In the last decade, historians have often stressed that the Soviet economy relied on natural resources perilously within Germany's potential reach. Stahel nevertheless ignores this existing scholarship and concentrates on the USSR's sheer size, even as he ignores the actual value of the land closest to the eastern front. For example, he prominently quotes a German soldier educating a new replacement: "Have a look at the map of Russia. The land is immense. And how far did we advance? Not even as far as Napoleon in 1812—our conquest is only a thin strip on the map" (19). Does the author actually believe that the empty and nearly completely undeveloped lands making up the vast majority of the Soviet Union provided a sound basis for waging an effective war against a German state that, if it captured Southern Russia's resources, could effectively harness the economic and demographic power of Europe?

Stahel emphasizes that Germany, from 1942 on, "never came close to matching the tremendous, and ever-increasing, figures for military production within the Allied powers" (23). In fact, the Allies had outstripped German production from the first days of the war—as illustrated in the author's own Table 1 (29), which shows a 1939–41 production deficit versus the Allies in crucial categories such as aircraft, major naval vessels, and tanks. Nor does he factor in the 1939–40 French contribution to the Allied cause or the impact of US Lend-Lease aid in further tilting the early-war playing field against Germany. And, too, Germany nonetheless engineered some of the greatest victories in modern military history in 1939–41. So mesmerized is Stahel by the effect of superior numbers on battlefield outcomes that one detects a distinct tone of surprise when he writes of one Soviet counterstroke that "Not only was the Soviet attack successful in forcing a German panzer division into retreat but also, even according to German sources, the Soviets did not achieve this through numerical superiority" (66).

In four chapters (2–5), Stahel correctly and repeatedly stresses the dire effects of bad command decisions on the German armies, but again at the expense of his main thesis (259, 262, 288). These chapters also clarify just how tough an opponent the Red Army really was, even early in Operation Barbarossa (35–39, and passim). But that point is obscured by Stahel's fixation on sheer numbers to explain the war's outcome, and his belaboring of weather conditions in accounting for Operation Typhoon's ultimate breakdown.[6] This attribution of German failures overwhelmingly to natural forces is reminiscent of many a self-exculpating postwar memoir by Wehrmacht officers. Although Stahel meticulously documents AGC's tank and manpower losses (41–44) and consequent unreadiness on the eve of Typhoon (134–38), he yet identifies weather as the primary cause of the army's loss of speed and shock force.[7] For that matter, describing the thinly stretched German forces on the defensive, he spotlights the breadth of the front (26), while disregarding the army's shortage of sufficient troops to man positions in depth. Even the late-war Red Army, for all its size, was notorious for stripping bare quiet sectors of the front to provide numbers at the point of attack. The fact that, during World War II, victory almost always came to the army that better deployed its mobile reserves for defensive or offensive purposes gets no mention in this book.

In his latest book, David Stahel furnishes the casual World War II enthusiast with an engrossing if rather conventional distillation of Operation Typhoon. He does not, however, much advance his career-long argument that "the turning point in Germany's war occurred as early as August of 1941" (305) or that Typhoon was ultimately irrelevant to the German war effort. In this regard, Operation Typhoon obscures just why and how the Second World War reached the conclusion it did.

[1] Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East (NY: Cambridge U Pr, 2012) 10, 349.

[2] Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (NY: Cambridge U Pr, 2009) 442.

[3] See Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton: Princeton U Pr, 2006), and Steven D. Mercatante, Why Germany Nearly Won: A New History of the Second World War in Europe (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012).

[4] Previously explored in detail by, e.g., Robert J. Kershaw, War without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941–1942 (Shepperton, UK: Ian Allan, 2000).

[5] Mercatante (note 3 above) 111.

[6] See 4, 7, 8, 78–81, 92–97, 127–30, 165–66, 174–75, 188, 190, 193–95, 239–46, 250–55, 260, 266–67, 283, 290–92.

[7] See 250, "[it was] not for want of raw firepower that Hoepner's panzer group could not drive forward," and 257, "As Guderian recalled: 'The strength of the advancing units was less dependent on the number of men than on the amount of petrol on hand to keep them going.'"

[Perato · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, the problem continues. 3,5 stars rounded down.

This book is about Operation Typhoon, but as he admits it in first few pages, this book continues in his Battle of Moscow and this covers only the fighting in October. So mind if are looking for a one book "Typhoon to Moscow" book, this is not it.

In his previous book about the battle of Kiev, I thought Stahel ended up repeating his previous statements a bit too many times and this is somewhat true still. This time it also feels like he's repeating his arguments every few pages and sometimes I feel he doesn't even try to explain them properly. Or maybe he did it in his previous book and now it's just repeating the same record.

Again the book would've probably been better without visiting the other army groups and fronts, as was in case with the Kiev book, where he jumped to AG Centre every now and then. It repeats his older thesis but also jumps to Allied Lend Lease efforts, anti spy activities and all such that could've been explained in foot notes. I got the feeling that the book was aiming for a page number instead of trying to explain what was necessary and be done with it. And I still wish these would come up with somewhat better maps. Too much detail in maps for this kind of work that doesn't go through with every divisions location.

Still it's probably the only book I will need about the battles of Vyazma and Bryansk which was basically it's main focus area. Not a bad book in general, just something that feels so far away from his first one in the series. I will most definitely re-read all of these in a row some day to get better grasp of the continuity.

[Jesse Callaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who would have thought that a Kiwi would turn out to be the best Eastern Front historian of the modern era. Superb analysis presented in a very lucid manner.

[C. G. Telcontar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stahel specializes in the first year of the Eastern Front and straddles the line between rivet counter and popular history. This is a typical entry for him, sometimes grinding on the repetition and qualifications for summations and takeaways at particular moments, sometimes throwing in Johnny on the spot quotes from soldiers on the ground that are hit or miss as to pertinence. He has one standout chapter on conditions in Moscow in October and its preparations to resist German assault and potential occupation, but the bulk of the text is his standard fare, readable enough but lacking oomph and suffering from his desire to keep up the mystery of "Can they do it?" mixed with heavy foreboding of "There's no way in hell they can do it!". This results in a seesaw tone throughout the book that ill serves it. Anyone picking up this book I guarantee is not a newbie to the Eastern Front or WW2 in general -- these readers know the score and are looking for the nitty gritty details of what happened and why, not a suspense novel with thrills and chills.

This seems to echo a trend in WW2 writing I've been catching on to in the past year or more, that authors are simply not considering their potential audience and at times are very, very pedantic in their approach to what is essentially specialist historical material that casuals and newbies are not interested in. I gave it 3 stars; it's solid but could have used some trimming and some awareness on Stahel's part (example -- you need not remind the audience again and again that the invasion date was 6/22/41 -- I absolutely guarantee everyone reading this book knows that date by heart. It feels juvenile to harp on it again and again.) So far of his eastern front sojourn I think the book on the retreat from Moscow is the best. His in house editor just needs to poke him in the chest a few times to sharpen things up.

[Chase Metcalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid history of Operation Typhoon at the operational and strategic level. Author clearly highlights the immense scale of the operation (over 3 million men from both sides engaged) and the German operational challenges that when amplified by Soviet tenacity and General Winter resulted in failure to achieve operational or strategic objectives. Despite having read multiple books on WWII and the Eastern Front this book surprised me with some of the details and the cogent analysis. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the Eastern Front during WWII.

[H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great material and sometimes great presentation of it. The writer needs assistance with story telling as the book oftentimes felt like a circle of observations making the same point over and over. Not sure I’m willing to go through same thing for his other books. Wish the whole series was crammed into one big book. Glad I read it; don’t recommend it to anyone but the committed and serious student of eastern front.

[jim bowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Informative.

The author digs into the long forgotten battles and the minds of those making the decisions during the fateful first days, weeks and months of the Great Patriotic War. 1941 was the decider for the entire war in the bloody east.

[Troyj84 · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Stahel writes incredible books on the Eastern Front of WW2 that goes a long way to build on the work of modern historians of further erasing the common myths of this horrendous moment in history.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another superb book from one of the best world war 2 historians. I was so impressed with the first book I read by David Stahel that I resolved to read all of his works. This is the second book and I can't wait to read the others. Well written and thoroughly researched.

[Lyle Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and informative. A great account for the truly interested history fan.

[Raime · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very similar to previous volumes this one is a bit less revealing. I still don't buy the main thesis of the whole author's work, that the germans couldn't have won.

[Iida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still good, still interesting and in-depth (hard not to be in a book that spans a month). Same gripes as the last book (Kiev).

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The third book in David Stahel’s excellent narrative history of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union continues where Kiev and Barbarossa finish: the German army might be more professional and technologically advanced than the Soviets but their defeat has already been foretold, the Blitzkrieg bogged down in the mud and mire of the autumn rains.

Stahel is an excellent writer of military history and yet doesn’t dizzy the reader with just placements and advancements of divisions and armies. He incorporates the letters, diaries and private messages of not only the generals but also the everyday soldier, the men traipsing through the mud towards Moscow, that gives this book (and the others) a much-valued narrative boost.

According to Stahel, the Nazis were defeated basically by August 1941 when Operation Barbarossa failed to knock the Soviets out of the war. Now as Operation Typhoon grinds to a halt outside Moscow, Stahel continues to expertly outline just how outmatched the Wehrmacht was in every aspect from manpower to machines; the Soviets able to out-produce and out-man the Nazis despite suffering catastrophic losses again at Briansk and Viaz’ma. Poor logistics, poor planning, and a high command utterly unable to assess the situation compounded the Nazi defeat even if, at a tactical level, Operation Typhoon granted the Nazis some of their biggest victories of the campaign in the encirclements at Briansk and Viaz’ma. Army Group Centre’s high command looked longingly at Army Group South’s stunning victories in Crimea and on the Sea of Azov and lamented that if it were not the muddy autumn season, they too would enjoy such success while completing failing to plan for an autumn campaign in central Russia.

Stahel takes both a strategic and operational approach to the war in the East and yet never lose sight of the inhumanity of the conflict. He is a superior military historian and this is the standard of writing on the Eastern front.

[Tdr85 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Typhoon never had a chance

This is an excellent operational history of the first phase of Operation Typhoon, the Nazi attempt to take Moscow. It is told primarily from the German point of view and is a follow-up to Stahel's excellent book on the battle of Kiev. He has also written books on the opening months of Barbarossa and on the final phase of Typhoon. Most of the action takes place during Oct 1941 and despite massive victories in the first 2 weeks at Viazma and Briansk, which may have cost the Soviets nearly 2 million casualties, by the end of October the German attack was in real difficulty. The bulk of the book details why, but also includes plenty of commentary from the German soldier on the ground. And what a brutal lot they were. One Sergeant enters a peasant hut on a bitterly cold night and orders the mother and her 3 young children out without winter clothing to almost certain death. A daily occurrence in the east. Of course the sergeant probably lacked winter clothing himself and Stahel describes in detail why that was.

This is not a dry book and can be read by a novice to the eastern front but it would be better to read Stahel's first book on Operation Barbarossa.

[Gary Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Kiev 1941 before it, this book is part operational history, part defense of Stahel's thesis about the causes of Germany's defeat in Russia, rejecting the traditional Western view that Germany's defeat in Russia was the result of Hitler's meddling, the weather, and inexhaustible Russian manpower resources. Stahel contends (among other things) that Germany had no overall strategic concept of how to defeat Russia, and was totally unprepared for the logistic demands that fighting in Russia would entail. Continuing operational successes through the first half of October blinded the German High Command to how perilous their situation had actually become by the time that rain shut down all forward progress in the last half of October.
There is a companion volume forthcoming on the last half of Typhoon in November.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stahel continues his history of the war on the Eastern Front and now turns his attention to the German drive to take Moscow. He makes a convincing case that German generals were as much or more at fault for this ill-considered drive that was far too late in the year to succeed as Hitler. Stahel also outlines the foolish over promising of the German propaganda machine that would be forever discredited by the failure to win the war before winter. He also begins to give more attention to the horrific atrocities committed by German forces.

[Philip Kuhn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent book by David Stahel. I absolutely love his work on the German Soviet war and this one is great as well.

Stahel expertly dispels the mythology about Operation Typhoon, that it was an incredible success until derailed by the weather. Stahel details how the Soviets ground down the attack.
He also discusses the extensive preparation and fortification of Moscow, which most books never do.

Highly recommended.

[Jackie Griffin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a long trudge of a book with little to add to Stahel's work. I understand and accept his premise that Germany's lack of preparation and their hubris about their ability defeated them before they ever set foot in the Soviet Union. This book offers little to that premise fully stated in "Operation Barbarossa". Now, on to the Battle for Moscow.

[Thomas Shears · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book, but the last half of the book tended to slow down with a lot of the same information that was already presented being gone over again. Overall, a good overview of Operation Typhoon.

[Lorne Dmitruk · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent end to Stahel's series on the attack on Russia during 1941.

[John Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author does a great job on the German perspective for the fight for Moscow!