This is episode three, the Reich attacks with fingers instead of a fist. We are building up to the start of the Battle of Stalingrad by describing how the initial phases of the invasion of Russia by the Germans’ led inexorably to the city with Stalin’s name.

Alexander Werth was a British journalist based in Moscow as the German army approached in 1941 and he describes how quickly the city went from being relatively normal including cigarette and food vendors on most street corners to mounting terror and food shortages within a week.

Most of the men had been called up when war began so women and young teens were in the fields, but the invasion had an almost catastrophic effect on Russian food supplies.

Before the war, the territory overrun by the Germans had produced 38 percent of the cereals, 84 percent of the sugar while also containing 38 percent of the cattle and 60 percent of the pigs. By January 1942 the number of cows in the Soviet Union had dropped from just under 28 million to 15 million.

Now the forces of the Third Reich were on their way to Moscow, following the same road that Napoleon had taken 140 years before. The orders given to Field Marshal von Bock’s Army Group Centre was to encircle and destroy the enemy in Belorussia before heading on to the Soviet Capital. Z`

Two deep thrusts were to be made, one in the north starting from East Prussia, and the other to the South from the area of Brest-Litovsk close to the Pripet Marshes. These are also known as the Pinks Marshes and are a vast are a vast natural region of wetlands along the forested basin of the Pripyat River with Kiev to the southeast.

It is one of the largest wetland areas of Europe occupies most of the southern part of Belorussia or Belarus and the north-west of Ukraine.

The marshes undergo substantial changes in size during the year, with melting snows in springtime and autumn rainfall causing extensive flooding as the river overflows. It is a geographical feature that armies had learned to respect over thousands of years.

The Army Group Centre was split in two – one thrust was to be made by the 9th Army under Strauss in the north along with twelve infantry divisions were involved along with Hoth’s 3rd Panzer Group.

Army Group Centre’s Field Marshal von Kluge led the 4th Army in the southern arm of Army Group Centre with 21 infantry divisions supported by Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Group.

The Panzers both to the north and south were to drive deep wedges in the form of two pincers into the enemy positions far to their rear and then joining in a double enveloping movement at Minsk. That was the capital of Belorussia and was 250 miles inside Soviet Territory.

Then the two great pockets of Soviet soldiers were to be destroyed before the armies turned their beady eyes on Smolensk. That was the historical main city on the road to Moscow. However, there were problems from the start when it came to strategy.

Von Bock thought it a complete waste of time and wanted to push directly for Smolensk.

But Hitler wanted the two armies to take Minsk first, then halt at Smolensk so that the Panzer formations could be reassigned and head north to assist Army Group North besieging Leningrad.

On the Soviet side, the unfortunate General Pavlov led the Red Army facing these two powerful German thrusts. When he was informed the German Infantry was approaching Minsk, he ordered his reserves forward which doomed them. He and the Russian leadership were not yet aware of a new form of encirclement - the double Panzer pincer which was to surround 3rd and 10th Armies. Instead of a single push past the Red Army – there would be two like a double ripple which was an extremely clever way of cutting off retreat.