Title is the question.
Whether or not it was possible for Moscow to fall isn’t the question (although I wouldn’t mind discussion of it in the least), but whether Stalin could have survived losing the capital. And if Russia sued for peace, where would that have left the U.K.?
It would have been a blow to morale certainly, but yes I don’t really doubt the resolve of either Stalin or the Russian people, even if they lost their capital. They still had manpower and natural resource reserves that the Germans only dreamed of. Much has been made of Moscow being the hub of a vast supply network but they would have rerouted stuff around the city if it had fallen. On the other hand to take the city the German supply train would have had to have been much more efficient than it was historically, thus indicating perhaps that Hitler had actually done his homework, in which case they might have been able to build on that success and ultimately defeat the Russians, but that may depend on a few too many counterfactuals.
It would probably depend on who survives, and if the remaining soviet leadership wanted to discuss a bilateral armistice. That happens, the germans are free to shift forces to the west, and presumably london enters into peace negotiations.
Expect that hostilities start up again within a decade.
Declan
I seriously doubt that the loss (very probably temporary) of Moscow would have knocked the Soviets out of the war.
Little effect.
Most of the important factories & industrial plants had already been moved out of Moscow, or had plans to move quickly. And the political & military leadership would have moved quickly.
The biggest problem would have been the disruption to the Soviet transportation system, which was very Moscow-centric. But they could have dealt with that. Mostly, they just needed to transport materials to the front lines, wherever they were.
Remember that the Russians abandoned Moscow before - when Napoleon attacked - so it would make not one whit of difference.
I share John DiFool’s assessment. Hitler hadn’t a very good idea of what he’d bitten off.
Loss of Moscow in late 41 would have knocked the Soviet Union out of the war. (And the Napoleon comparison is not an accurate one, 1941 the strategic situation was a lot different from 1812), all the main rail way line went through Moscow and they would have been cut making it impossible to move men and material.
The Russians would have burned their own city first, rather than let the Germans take it.
LIke they did at Kiev, Smolensk, Minsk? Wait a minite…
Kiev, Smolensk, & Minsk were not/are not the capitol.
I concur that it would have been difficult for the Russians to continue anything other than partisan resistance had Moscow fallen. The Soviet propaganda machine had made such a big deal out of the stand at Moscow that the morale disruption would have been difficult to take.
In effect, had Moscow been taken and the Soviet government forced to try to rule from Magnitogorsk or some other place in the Urals I think they would have ended up with wholesale rebellion elsewhere. Stalin’s iron reputation was a big part of what kept the USSR in the War in the first place. With that punctured and him on the run following the fall of the largest Russian symbol elsewhere I think we’d have seen quite a few ‘independent Soviet Republics’ start up and the entire country would have broken up.
If we assume Moscow falls and the SU either sues for peace or breaks up, then the Nazis would face the choice of either occupying what they held, or leaving.
If they occupy, they’ll still need a decent sized force per square mile (sound familiar?), and they have a lot of land area to occupy. So there will not be a huge quantity of troops & materiel freed up to go fight in the West. Some, yes, but not lots.
If they choose instead to abandon the land they just conquered at tremendous cost in blood & treasure, they still need to physically move all the men & equipment out West. That could easily take 3 months to get the first units moved & reconstituted, and 9-12 months to finish the job.
Meanwhile, the Allies know what’s going on.
So now it’s late 1942, the US is in the war (albeit mostly the Pacific so far), the Germans have 20% more Wehrmacht & Luftwaffe assets in France. What happens next?
More or less what did happen. Normandy might have been done 6 months later, and maybe elsewhere. Germany could not possibly win the war given the overwhelming quantity of men, mmateriel, and resources on the other side.
Missed edit window …
When you’re outnumbered 5- or 10 to 1, an extra 20% on your side is not decisive in the long haul.
There may well have been two Battle of the Bulge-type events, where the Germans would have made the '43-'45 ground war more of a seesaw affair, but the end result would be the same.
And if the Pacific war ended just as & when it really did, all those assets,including atomic weapons, could have been brought to bear by '46, certainly mid 47.
Like Japan, Germany lost WWII the day they opened hostilities against an alliance 10 times their size.
Well the boring thing about WWII debates is that in 1945, the United States gets the a-bomb. If Germany wasn’t already all but beaten, we probably would have used both of the bombs to force Germany to surrender. Maybe it would only take one of the bombs. I can’t imagine any German still following Hitler after two cities disappeared from the map. My guess: Allies still win even if Russia is gone.
All what is said is true (even the bit about the Atomic bombs) however, the Germans would have been able to move a significant number of formations to France (done historically in early 42, many of these were sent to Tunisia and lost) as well as reinforce Rommel in Africa with the full might of the Luftwaffe and heavy armour formations, at a time when British Empire units were being sent east in haste.
Going after Moscow is always a stupid idea. He should’ve solidified his lines and waited a few decades to build up his Empire. But then again Hitler’s overreach was generally his problem. They would have won if they’d used the Jews as bureaucrats instead of kindling.
I pretty much agree with this. Whatever uses might have been made of taking Moscow, defeating the SU, and avoiding Stalingrad, Hitler probably wouldn’t have made them.
It would have been a heavy blow to the Soviets but I think they would have survived it. There were plans to move government operations to Kuybishyev (aka Samara) if Moscow fell.
If the Soviet Union had fallen, I’m certain the United Kingdom would have kept fighting. Keep in mind that the Battle of Moscow was fought in December 1941 - the same period when the United States entered the war. So the gain of America as an ally would have far outweighed the loss of Russia.
Perhaps a bad idea but not really Hitler’s. At this point in the campaign, the generals were still running military operations and they were the ones who saw Moscow as the main target. Hitler was more flexible and willing to attack other targets of opportunity that developed.