137TH Infantry division assaults through the Moscow defenses near
Voronino, Noverber 17, 1941
In August and September, Hitler had opted for firming up Barbarossa's
flanks while destroying huge numbers of Red Army forces; Moscow had
to wait. In October, Operation Typhoon began with great promise, but
then bogged down in the autumn rains and mud - the rasputitsa. The
freezing weather of November added new miseries for soldiers of both
sides, but at least it allowed continued German forward movement.
Barbarossa's last lunge would have to fight its way through hand-dug
fortifications, Stavka's last thrown-together reserves, and units
newly arriving from the Soviet Far East. Despite heavy casualties and
sheer exhaustion, neither side showed any sign of letting up. After
marching nearly a thousand kilometers, the long-suffering German
infantry would find the last hundred to Moscow among the hardest.
Hitler, Halder and most of the Reich leadership expected glorious
victory to await them in Stalin's capital; and while the Landser
fought for each new village mostly In hope of finding shelter from the
next freezing night, the thought of Moscow did exert a powerful
attraction. At the far end of a long and poorly-executed logistic
tail, they did find some ammunition trickling forward, but in terms of
food, fodder and clothing it was often a case of every man for
himself.
Defending their capital also motivated the Red Army. The massive
Kessel battles of summer and autumn had swallowed up two whole waves
of armies; the third and last - a combination of militiamen,
barely-trained levies and untried troops from the Far East - would
fight behind three main lines of defenses, mostly built by Moscow's
civilians under the harsh supervision of the Communist Party and
NKVD. Soviet logistic problems eased as the front lines approached
Moscow, with reinforcements and equipment going directly from the
arriving trains to the front lines in a few hours.
This scene shows infantry (1) and engineers (2) of the 137th Infantry
Division negotiating the defenses near Voronino almost due south of
Moscow, between
Maloyaroslavets and Serphukov. The infantry first fought their way
across a steep-sided antitank ditch and then through the primitive
earthen field works beyond, losing many men to mines and machine-gun
fire. The Soviets quickly launched counterattacks, often supported by
tanks (3). Early on November 17, Soviet tanks overran two howitzers;
the divisional commander, General
Bergmann, asked for reinforcements, in this case 8.8cm Flak 36 guns of
Corps Flak Abteilung 707 (4), pulled by their SdKfz prime movers (5)
over a tactical bridge erected by the engineers (6). Overhead,
Nebelwerfer rockets pound the Soviet lines (7).
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