This episode will focus on the failed Army Group Centre’s attack on Moscow during the winter of 1941 and its ramifications for those living in Stalingrad as Hitler began to focus his energies on the oil producing region of the Caucuses.

The city of Stalingrad lay in the way, so too did the Crimea and Sebastopol. We’ll hear how Hitler planned to take the region around Baku but then changed his mind and split his force.

He decided he’d go for the two for one option. One army, two goals. That was to be his undoing as he achieved neither. For as long as wars have been fought, strategists have warned about fighting on two fronts. In Russia, Hitler was actually fighting on four.

His northern army was being held up at Leningrad, his central army was stymied outside Moscow, then he split his southern army into two.

The Russian capital faced a major assault and by mid-October 1941 rumours were swirling about the imminent arrival of the feared and hated Nazi forces.

By October 13 the situation was critical. Numerous German troops held up by the Viazma encirclement were now redeployed to the Moscow front. Waiting for them was the Red Army led by the remarkable General Zhukov assisted by General Konev.

This A-team of Russian generals included General Rokossovsky and Govorov, as well as Zakharkin. By Octover 12 the Russian State Defense Committee had decided to call upon the people of Moscow to build a defence line some distance outside Moscow, with a second along the city border and two supplementary defensive rings within Moscow itself.

In describing the great October crisis in Moscow its important to distinguish between three factors. First, the Army which had fought desperately against the superior German Army and yielded ground very slowly the closer the Wehrmacht got to Moscow.

The second was the Russian population who’s motivation began to wilt.

When the Germans eventually broke through capturing Kaluga in the south on the 12th October and Kalinin in the north on the 14th, reports began circulating that the Germans were actually inside Moscow. The civilians panicked, but the army fought on. Rokossovsky stopped the rot by throwing in his last reserves including scarcely trained opolchentsy civilians from the city and troops from Sibera literally as they disembarked from trains.

This slowed the Nazi attack when they began another mass assault on the 15th October.

The first snow had already fallen on 7th and the country was in for one of its coldest winters in living memory. The first snow thawed quickly, turning the roads into a quagmire.

Both the Germans and Russians were affected by the mud yet the blitzkrieg machine found itself becalmed by deep sticky mud which could suck the tyres off vehicles.

A number of conflicting issues buffeted both sides.

Members of the Communist party Moscow Working class which had been touted by Stalin’s spin doctors as the heroes of the struggle basically decided to leave town. Only 12000 had put their hands up when requested to defend the city, the others believed it was better to fight another day and headed off eastwards.

Muscovites panicked on October 16 leading to the what was known as the Great Skedaddle.

These included anybody from plain obyvateli to various party members and officials who were the cogs of the Soviet State machinery and were terrified the Germans would kill them out of hand. So they began loading their goods into wagons and left town.

And it was now, on New Years Day 1942, that General Paulus who had never even commanded a division or corps, found himself catapulted up the army list to the rank of General of Panzer Troops. Five days later he became the new commander-in-chief of the 6th Army just as Timoshenko launched a major but ill-coordinated offensive towards Kursk.