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The Germans
were already at the gates of the Soviet capital. The Soviet Union
reached its lowest point in the war, its institutions of state about
to fall to the German army. Georgi Zhukov, Red Army chief of staff,
was summoned to orchestrate the city’s defense. He built the
defense line and waited for his colleague, “General Winter.” The
German generals pleaded with Hitler to establish a defense line for
the winter, but he refused, insisting they continue to attack. The
counteroffensive began on December 6 under Zukhov. Three new,
specially prepared Soviet armies consisting of 1 million combat
soldiers, attacked the German forces. The onslaught caught the
German forces—exhausted, dug into heavy snow, freezing in the
cold, and too widely dispersed—by surprise. The German defense
disintegrated, thousands of German soldiers were taken prisoner, and
Soviet newspapers ran photographs of them covered with women’s
undergarments and furs against the bitter cold. Zukhov’s
counterattack spared Moscow from the threat of German occupation and
handed the Wehrmacht its first defeat. |
