On 5 December 1941 the Red Army opened its winter counteroffensive at Moscow, striking German armies halted by cold and exhaustion before the capital. General Georgy Zhukov's West Front joined the attack the next day. Hitler forbade retreat and took command of the army himself, but by January 1942 a general Soviet offensive was under way.
The German advance stops
Field Marshal Fedor von Bock's Army Group Center opened Operation Typhoon, the drive on Moscow, on 2 October 1941. Autumn rain turned the roads to mud, and when the ground froze the cold struck troops who had no proper winter clothing. By 5 December the German armies before Moscow had come to a standstill.1
The Soviet command had meanwhile built up fresh reserves, among them divisions brought west from the Far East and Siberia.2
The counterblow
The Soviet high command set the counteroffensive for 5 and 6 December. Kalinin Front attacked north of Moscow on the 5th, and Zhukov's West Front and Southwest Front joined on the 6th, striking the German flanks north and south of the capital. That is why accounts date the start to either day.3 › Georgy Zhukov
Hitler forbade any general retreat. Bock handed over Army Group Center to Field Marshal Günther von Kluge on 18 December, and on the 19th Hitler removed Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch and took command of the army himself. The first phase of the counteroffensive lasted into early January 1942, when it grew into a general Soviet offensive along the front.4
Loss figures depend on who counts and for which months. Britannica gives 250,000 to 400,000 German dead and wounded for the battle as a whole, and 600,000 to 1,300,000 Soviet dead, wounded and captured. The Russian historian Mikhail Myagkov, working from German records, counts more than 145,000 losses for Army Group Center from October to early December 1941 and 436,900 from December 1941 to March 1942.5 › Battle of Moscow, 1941
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