Hitler's 1941 Invasion of Russia | Part 2: Rage Of The Reich

*transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors*

Hello everyone and welcome to the Anthology of Heroes podcast, the podcast sharing stories of heroic figures who altered the course of history. Anthology of Heroes is part of the Evergreen podcast network. I'm your host Elliot Gates and you've just dropped into part two of a four part series detailing the story of Operation Barbarossa, the code name for the Nazi invasion of the USSR back in 1941. A few winters back I travelled through Russia and the areas of the Eastern Front. Some friends and I actually went for a little hike and let me tell you I have never felt cold like the Russian winter. My phone battery died, the lens on my camera wouldn't focus and my friend's beard actually froze. I remember taking a breath and I could actually feel the chill travelling down my esophagus and into my lungs. You know how long I was outside? About two hours, nothing. In this episode we'll follow the German invaders who lived in this weather for months. They did this with no winter uniform and nothing but an old strip of sheet iron to protect them from the weather. All they had was a promise that their furor would get them out and in the end it would all be worth it for the glory of Germany. In part one we covered the build up to the invasion. We spoke about the cordial relationship that Stalin and Hitler had cultivated with each other over the 1930s. Through some secret and some not so secret deals it seemed like the two nations were heading for a beautiful autocratic friendship which is why the invasion came as such a shock to Stalin in 1941 when in the early hours of the morning the largest land army ever assembled in world history overran the border between these two states. The completely underprepared Red Army collapsed surrendering by the hundreds and thousands. In that episode we talked through the reason for the colossal failures of the Red Army and Stalin's hand in it. We saw Stalin fall into a depressive stupor. Paralyzed by indecision city after city fell as his terrified war ministers worked up the courage to confront the dictator. We heard from Russian citizens and soldiers who remembered June 22nd as the darkest day of their lives. While on the flip side we were acquainted with Ukrainians and Poles who were thrilled to be liberated from Bolshevist oppression. Over the course of the episode we talked about what made the German army, the Wehrmacht, so successful and the types of strategies they used in warfare and we closed off the episode with a melancholy Joseph Stalin announcing in a half to his ministers that quote, Lenin left us a great inheritance and we, his heirs, have fucked it all up. The Wehrmacht was closing in on Kiev, the bread basket capital of the nation and in this moment it looked like everything was all over for the USSR. If you haven't already I definitely recommend checking out part one as the background to Operation Barbarossa is fascinating and well worth hearing about before you get to this part. But without further ado let's get the ball rolling. Hitler's Folly, Operation Barbarossa, part two, Rage of the Reich. While things were bleak in the Kremlin, it wasn't as rosy as you might think in German High Command either. In order to be closer to the front, Hitler had a new command structure built in western Ukraine, always one for a mythical flair he christened the bunker werewolf. But in the wolf's den his field marshals were starting to sweat, their blitzkrieg was slowing down. Russian resistance, feeble as it was, was taking its toll on the Wehrmacht. All across the USSR pockets of troops were holding out for longer than expected. In a little Lithuanian town called Rossini, a single Russian tank that somehow snuck behind German lines held back an entire Panzer division for a day. And in the city of Brest-Litovsk, now in Belarus, a group of Red Army soldiers held up for a month with no ammunition, resupplies or food. In the final moments of life, one of these soldiers scrawled on the wall beside him, quote, I'm dying but do not surrender. Farewell motherland. It wasn't just these pockets that were giving the Wehrmacht trouble, the point of the spear the Panzer tanks had overstretched their supply lines, by now they'd far outpaced roads and railways that they'd relied on to bring forward spare parts and fuel. Tank engines, driving gears and sprockets were wearing out far quicker than they did in the West. Overused and choked with dust, the tanks were beginning to break down, and the parts that they needed to fix them were hundreds of kilometers west. Train tracks were being constructed as fast as humanly possible to keep the Wehrmacht mobile, but these two were hundreds of kilometers in their rear. Deep into the Russian interior, horses were fast becoming the only things they could rely on. General Heinz Guderian said about the situation, quote, I doubt the machines will stand it, even if we are unopposed. There were also scattered reports of Russian tanks far exceeding Nazi expectations. Even before the invasion began, German soldiers were assured that the Russians were technologically illiterate and that any machines they could scramble together would be little more than tractors, but the T-34 tank proved that this wasn't so. This medium tank, with its sloped armor, could withstand almost anything the Germans could throw at it. It outclassed the German tanks in almost every way, and most importantly, it could be produced much quicker than the Wehrmacht Panzers. But, as usual, Hitler dismissed these concerns. Ever the optimist, he reiterated the same lines that he always did. Superior blood, superior training, and superior minds would try up. He vehemently resisted any calls to pause and wait for repairs, insisting that there could be no stopping until their strategic objectives were met. Leningrad, Kiev, and Moscow must fall. Whenever he got on his podium, the Fuhrer talked for hours. Exuberantly, he explained how soon the two great German armies, the one in Africa and the one in Europe, would link up. And the unstoppable Wehrmacht would follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, extending the borders of the Reich to India. All the while, with Wehrmacht support, the Lakota and Sioux tribes of North America would rise up against their mongrel mixed-race government of the United States. As usual, his generals were unable to get a word in, as the dictator continued on as if the war were already won. His mind raced, as he insisted that a decisive battle was needed against the Russian troop buildup near Kiev. Insisting that this would reduce their manpower to such an extent that continuing the war would be impossible. Holder, Guderian, and other senior generals pressed Hitler to just stick with the original plan. The largest of the three army groups, Center, was making good progress towards Moscow. They argued that if they really did intend to win this war before winter, taking out the central command structure would be the quickest way. After all, the Blitzkrieg was supposed to be the point of the spear. For it to be effective, it had to be thrust with a good deal of force to the most vulnerable spot. They reasoned that if Kiev did fall, Russia could still fight on, while if Moscow fell, the government would be unable to continue operating. Hitler shook his head. He insisted the concentration of troops around Kiev were imperative to remove, as evidenced by the poor performance of German forces against them. If they captured Kiev, they stole the bread basket away from Stalin, after which his peasant army would crumble and starve. The marches on Moscow and Leningrad would continue, they'd just have to be down with a few less tanks. As he always said, one German soldier was worth 10 Bolsheviks, so this was no great ask. And that was the end of the matter. Hitler had made his decision and no amount of reasoning would now change his mind. The scope of Barbarossa was increased. The invasion was now an economic war, backed by a military war, in widest support of an ideological war. Instead of his generals getting their wish to scale things down and consolidate, Hitler had increased the workload. And so, as per Fuehrer Directive 33, two Panzer divisions peeled away from Army Group Centre and swung south to the wheat belt capital of the USSR, Kiev. Back in the Kremlin, as the Stavka poured over maps and reports, it was becoming clearer and clearer that Kiev could not be held. The rapid advancement of German troops from all sides had formed a pocket, or salient, of Red Army soldiers. This meant the defensive line was falling further and further back, and if this continued, German troops would be able to pinch off the city of Kiev, trapping just under 750,000 Red Army soldiers in the city. Point blank Stalin refused any talk of retreat. Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev must never fall, he had always said that. The Red Army must fight on. Fuehrer in the Stavka dared to disagree, but one who did was the chief of staff, Giorgi Zhukov. Giorgi Zhukov is to Russians what general Patton or MacArthur is to Americans. He's often credited as winning the war on the Eastern Front, and historians tend to place him somewhere between very good and phenomenal as a battlefield tactician. But all that was later. Right now, he was an insubordinate who had just disagreed with Joseph Stalin. To the shock of many in the room, the chief of staff stepped forward, boldly telling the man of steel that Kiev was lost and there was nothing they could do to save it. Stalin was stunned by the brashness of the chief of staff, he had killed men for much less than this. But Zhukov continued. Gesturing at the map, he dished up the kind of cold logic that Stalin never liked to hear. They were encircled, their divisions were undermanned, and they had no air support and little armor. If they pulled back now behind the Dnieper River and rushed divisions away from the Far East Japanese border, they could counterattack with real force. I'm going to read General Zhukov's autobiography now, just trying to imagine the tension in this room, quote. What about Kiev? said Stalin, looking me straight in the eye. I realized what the words to surrender Kiev meant for all Soviet people, and for Stalin, of course, but I could not be carried away by emotion. And as chief of the general staff, I had to suggest the only possible and correct strategic decision in the existing situation, as the general staff and I personally saw it. We shall have to leave Kiev, I said firmly. An oppressive silence set in. I continued the report trying to remain calm. As Zhukov began to explain his plan of counterattack, Stalin reached his limit, quote. What counter blows? It's nonsense. How could you hit upon the idea of surrendering Kiev to the enemy? Stalin was furious, and he approached the much taller chief of staff, staring up at him with that piercing gaze that made the knees of other men tremble. But Zhukov refused to back down, quote. If you think that as chief of general staff, I'm only capable of talking nonsense, I've got nothing more to do here. I request to be relieved of the duties of chief of general staff and sent to the front. Apparently, I'll be better used to my country there. Stalin didn't send Zhukov directly to the front, but he did demote him. Zhukov was putting command of the reserve front, far away from strategic decision making. For the next two months, loudspeakers throughout Kiev boomed, playing Stalin's famous speeches as the Germans closed in around. Consecutive commanders requested permission to withdraw troops, and each one Stalin denied. Frustrated with their, quote, weak resistance against the enemy, he fired them and replaced them one man after the next. One of them he phoned personally telling him on the phone, quote, Stop looking for lines of retreat and start looking for lines of resistance. Only resistance. The Red Army resisted bravely, but German air superiority meant it was a matter of when, not if. As the Panzers rumbled into the outer suburbs of Kiev, 570,000 tons of bombs rained down on the city. Generals inside bickered as to whether or not they had permission to override Stalin's orders in a final attempt to break out. On the 26th of September, the swastika flag was hoisted above the parliament building in Kiev. The loss of Kiev was a disaster for the Red Army. When the guns fell silent, the Wehrmacht found themselves in the possession of almost 500,000 Red Army prisoners. Half a million people that, if Stalin had listened to reason, could have been withdrawn to fight elsewhere. Not to mention the supplies, the ammunition, and crucially, the fuel that fell into Nazi hands. David Stel, author of Kiev, 1941, says, quote, Germany had been handed a triumph, far in excess of what its exhausted armoured forces could have achieved without Stalin's objury and incompetence. Hitler told the hysterical German public that they had just won the greatest battle in the world. The Wehrmacht soldiers, too, were re-energised. The last few months of hard fighting in the chilly autumn weather was worth it. Perhaps the war really would be over by Christmas. As usual, the few are new best. Stalin was reeling. Having recovered from his initial shock of the invasion, he had again, as he put it earlier, fucked it all up. Showing just how desperate he'd become, Stalin wrote to his old enemy, the Prime Minister of England, Winston Churchill, and asked, begged for help. The secretive dictator wrote him a letter asking for between 25 and 30 divisions of English troops to reinforce the collapsing Red Army. For Stalin not only to allow, but to request foreign troops to enter the USSR shows his desperation. And though he would not send troops, both Churchill and England and Roosevelt in the USA began supplying food, medical aid, and vehicles to the USSR. When questioned in the House of Commons why he was sending aid to a communist dictator, the Prime Minister gave one of his famous Churchillian responses, quote, If Hitler invaded hell, I would at least make a favorable reference to the devil. With Kiev conquered, the Wehrmacht turned northeast, and at long last began their march on Moscow. Stalin and the USSR had one last chance. Deep within the pine forests of western Ukraine, in werewolf HQ everyone was celebrating, French champagne popped and brandy flowed as a few eclaptive staff officers on the back. Kiev was theirs, all that remained was Moscow and Leningrad. Triumphantly he announced the beginning of Operation Typhoon, the final ruin of the Soviet Union. Once Moscow fell, he insisted, Stalin would be forced to the negotiating table, and once that happened, the stubborn British would finally realise the futility of resistance. New staff officers were enraptured by his charisma, and as the Fuhrer fell into his usual hour-long speech about a thousand-year hike, they listened in bated breath. But his field marshals and his generals, the ones that had been with him since the start, were less enthusiastic. They toasted to their Fuhrer with everyone else, but silently, they harboured grave concerns for what came next. The taking of Kiev had been much harder and taken much longer than anyone anticipated. By this point the Wehrmacht had lost almost 400,000 men, veterans who could not be easily replaced. Half of their tanks were out of commission, and the other half were in desperate need of repair. Red Army soldiers had begun to fight back with ferocity as if sensing the net was closing. Stalin too was proving he would scorch every one of his great cities from the map before he let Hitler have them. As the Russian front line collapsed, Stalin's secret police crept ahead and destroyed one of the greatest achievements of the Soviet Union to date, the Dnieper hydroelectric dam. The dam occupied a place of pride in the hearts of many Soviet citizens. The towering structure, which was among the biggest dams in the world, was a testament to Bolshevism, of what could be achieved when workers stood united. But under the cover of night, a demolition team crept in and dynamited the station. Billions of litres of water were released, and many Nazis were killed. But many, many more Ukrainian villages who had no prior knowledge of the event were also killed. Historians speculate that this little known event killed somewhere between 20 and 100,000 Ukrainian civilians. Though Stalin remained disinterested in human suffering, on the front line the senseless mass charges of early 1941 were becoming less frequent, and the Red Army had, on their side, an old ally. An ally who would always come to the aid of Russia in a darkest hour. The weather. Rasputitsa, which means literally the season of bad roads, is a rapid thawing that takes place between spring and autumn in Eastern Europe. A short period of heavy snowfall followed by rapid defrosting that turns the roads into slush. The Rasputitsa had slowed down Napoleon, it slowed down the Nazis, and 82 years into the future it would slow down Vladimir Putin as he invaded the sovereign country of Ukraine. The Soviet prisoners captured at Kiev were put to work repairing the roads. The condition these men lived in were appalling. Fed virtually nothing, they were kept in outdoor cages. With no protection from the elements, they huddled together like penguins in the Arctic, and slept standing, with a rag over their face to try and keep the warm breath in. They dug and dug at the roads without end, and when they fell dead from exhaustion, the Germans used their frozen bodies to line the roads and provide traction for their tanks. For the men that had survived the Kiev pocket, cases of self-mutilation rose rapidly. For a frontline soldier, the quickest way to get out of military duty was an injury. Initially, soldiers would shoot themselves in the foot, or hold their hand above a trench for a few seconds, but quickly the Russian command coddened onto this. If a soldier had powder burns on his pants, it was obvious that the bullet had been fired from close range. Once this method was discovered, the troops would put a loaf of bread between their rifle and their foot, and fire through the bread to keep the powder off their uniform. If anyone was caught doing this, the penalty was almost always death. Army surgeons knew this, and at times when a soldier came in they pitted, either because he was so young or because they personally liked him, they would do him a favor and amputate the limb so the evidence of the crime would be hidden and he could go home. Things were incredibly bleak, but in the face of catastrophe Stalin, unlike last time, did not falter. Instead of moping around his office, he hung the portraits of Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov, two titanic figures from Russian history who had repelled foreign invaders. Kutuzov's biography, which Stalin had recently read, seemed to have an impact on him, and very gradually he became less overbearing on his field commanders. Merit, rather than blind loyalty, slowly became the criteria for military promotions in the Red Army. A good amount of this was probably, thanks to Chief of Staff Giorgi Zhukov, who had earned his way back into the dictator's good books again. Throughout the Siege of Kyiv, despite being sent away, Zhukov was frequently in touch with the Stavka, providing what insights and direction he could. Though Stalin may not have particularly liked Zhukov, he found that he could not live without it. The peasant-born general was self-assured in his counsel, decisive in his decisions, and firm with his discipline. Whether he was in the front line or in the command office, when the broad-chested, bald-headed leader was present, he had a way of lifting the spirits and buoying the confidence of all around him. Very soon, he became Stalin's troubleshooter. He said things that irritated even angered the dictator, but if given a task, Stalin knew he would do everything in his power to get it done. Zhukov seemed to be able to read the dictator in a way that few others could. He knew when to push him on things, and he knew when to keep his mouth shut. If he ever entered a room and saw Stalin filling his pipe with tobacco and lighting it while pacing the room, it was a sign that the dictator was in a good mood. But if a subordinate was explaining something and Stalin filled his pipe without lighting it and stood still, that was the silent signal that he was raging and about to explode. Through the slushy mud, the faltering panzer tanks edged towards Moscow. Every citizen of Moscow, man, woman, and child was conscripted into the defence of the city. Air batteries were erected through the suburbs, and groups of women that showed promise with their aiming were assigned to them. While everyone else dug triple-lined ditches around the city, clock factories switched to making anti-tank mines and bullets. Soon, the faint sounds of gunfire and cannons could be heard by the citizens inside the city. It seemed impossible that three months ago they were going on with their lives, working and raising children carefree. Stalin was well aware of the possibility of the capital's collapse and ordered the Stavka to be evacuated east. This order panicked many of the citizens, but crucially and rather bravely, Stalin himself stayed put. But it wasn't just the Stavka that he evacuated. Stalin made a decision, perhaps the best decision he would make in the entirety of the war. It's a truly Stalinistic instruction that would have seemed inconceivable anywhere else in the world. Stalin ordered the industry of the USSR packed up and moved. These weren't specially constructed mobile factories, we're talking about manufacturing facilities and factories that span blocks. 1,500 steel refineries, tank factories or weapon manufacturers were taken apart piece by piece, put on trains and moved thousands of kilometres east to Siberia, Central Asia or the Ural Mountains. Every beam, furnace, bolt and machine deconstructed and rebuilt. Almost overnight, areas that were previously nothing but empty grassland became the most important regions of industry in the entire USSR. Imagine that during the era of US car manufacturing, Canada invaded the US and in response the president ordered that every factory in Michigan moved to San Diego. This was that but on an even larger scale. And its testament once again to the civilians and workers that managed to pull this off. Here's an extract from an observer who watched as an entire factory was constructed and switched on in 14 days where previously it was just empty ground. It was then that the people of the Urals came to this spot with shovels, bars and pickaxes. Students, typists, accountants, shop assistants, housewives, artists, teachers. The earth was like stone, frozen hard by our fierce Siberian frost. Axes and pickaxes could not break the stony soil. In the light of arc lamps, people hacked at the earth all night. They blew up the stones and the frozen earth and laid the foundations. Their feet and hands were swollen with frostbite but they did not leave work. Over the charts and blueprints laid out on packaging cases, the blizzard was raging. Hundreds of trucks kept rolling up with building materials. On the twelfth day, into the new buildings with their glass roofs, the machinery covered with whorefrost began to arrive. Brezillas were kept light to unfreeze the machines and two days later the war factory began production. This is just one example of the 1500 factories that were relocated. The factory workers themselves who were sent to live in the nearest town would walk through the Siberian winter anywhere between three and six miles, work 12 hours or more in the factory, walk home and do it all again the next day. No one complained, they didn't need propaganda to tell them what would happen should they lose the war. The decision to move industry east meant long-term survivability of the Red Army. Remember, Hitler's first objective was to crush the Red Army before it retreated to the Urals. Now, not only had the bulk of the Red Army survived the initial attack, it had moved its industry out of range of German bombers and artillery, meaning production could continue. On October 4th, a German tank division got their first taste of a real tank battle, a squadron of T-34 Russian tanks soundly defeating their own panzers. Losing a battle to the Russian Army shocked Heinz Guderian so much that he ordered an investigation as to what had gone wrong. The findings were alarming. The T-34 tank outclassed their panzers in almost every way. Its thick armor made it almost impervious to any missiles fired from a panzer. But apart from these isolated setbacks, the mechanized spear of the Wehrmacht was still thrusting forward. By the end of October, the cities of Vyazma and Bryansk had fallen, and hundreds of thousands more Red Army soldiers were taken as POWs. Zhukov, who had again been promoted, tried to establish a line of defence to stop the encirclement of Moscow. To the north, Leningrad was faring no better, food was almost gone, and with winter approaching, cannibalism had taken hold of the civilian population. Red Army troops inside found themselves at a crisis of conscience, as the Germans began to use Russian civilians as human shields. Zhukov requested Stalin's advice on how to approach this situation, and he gave a tragically predictable response. Quote, Don't be sentimental. Smash the enemy and his unwilling or willing accomplices in the teeth. Hit the Germans and their delegates, whoever they might be, with everything you've got. Cut the enemy down. Never mind if they are willing or unwilling enemies. All across the encirclement, the battle raged for the fate of Russia. As the temperatures continued to fall, the German troops began to suffer frostbite in larger numbers. Hitler's decision to not supply winter uniforms was having drastic consequences, but the soldiers pressed forward with the promise of a Christmas back home keeping them going. As the shrill screech of the German Stuka bombers echoed through the halls of the Kremlin itself, Stalin sat Zhukov down, looked him in the eyes with a gaze that seemed to burn through men, and asked him if he believed Moscow could be defended, insisting that he quote, Speak honestly, like a communist. Zhukov said he thought it was possible, but they must call in the reserves from the Far East. He could not hold out with the few men he had left. By mid-October, the Panzer tanks were quite literally stuck. The mud that girded the capital had become such a quagmire that for almost three weeks they barely moved. Zhukov sprang into action. From a spy in Japan, Stalin had been reassured that the Japanese were not planning to invade Russia from the east. As we now know, their focus was on a little American island in the Pacific Ocean. With that confirmation, Stalin finally agreed to move troops west, something Zhukov had been begging for months. By November, the ground was frozen solid. The mud was gone, but the arrival of one of the coldest winters in the last century created other problems. Just to start their Panzer tanks, the freezing Wehrmacht soldiers had to light fires under the engines. And during battle, machine guns malfunctioned when their lubrication grease froze. Hitler, furious as what he saw as weak leadership, insisted the army move faster. When his field marshals rattled off the plethora of issues that stopped him from doing so, the Fuhrer thumped his fists against the table to drown out their voices. A clothing drive was arranged in Nazi Germany, imploring women to donate their fur coats and hats for the war effort. The proud Wehrmacht soldiers resorted to looting Russian corpses for their warmer clothing. As the temperatures plummeted to minus 35 Celsius, minus 31 Fahrenheit, they lurched forward, itching with lice, wearing boots with toe holes cut out to fit their swollen, blackened feet. Bowel and bladder infections became more common from troops sleeping on the freezing ground. General Henrique, who would have had much better clothing than the standard soldier wrote in a diary, quote, The wind stabs you in the face with needles and blasts through your protective headgear and your gloves. Your eyes are steaming so much that you can hardly see a thing. Field Marshal Goerd von Rundstedt, unable to advance any further, yet unable to convince Hitler to let them rest, developed a severe alcohol addiction before offering his resignation. He would be the first of almost 40 veteran officers Hitler would relieve of command before the siege was up. As Hitler's impatience reached critical mass, the shivering German army arrived at Moisesk, only 68 miles, 110 kilometers from Moscow. Otto Dietrich, the Nazi press chief, gave a speech telling the German public that the defeat of Moscow was imminent, perhaps only hours away. The advancing troops were now close enough to see the spires of St Basil's Cathedral in Red Square. High above the Kremlin, the Hammer and Sickle, the eternal symbols of Soviet power, were wrapped in canvas to minimize damage, as was every statue of Stalin or Lenin. Ghost highways were created using sand to fool German bombers, and the roofing above Stalin's residence was painted black to camouflage it as an apartment block. Mile-long lines for supplies soon gave way to riots before Zhukov soldiers restored order. One eyewitness recalled that cues for hairdressers were amongst the longest in the city. Perhaps the Muscovite women were hedging their bets that if the city did fall, they stood a better chance of living if they were more attractive. Another eyewitness watched sadly as a militia marched towards the front. Quote, Under red banners, detachments of civilians armed with old rifles and hunting rifles marched towards their bitter and tragic fate. The headlights of every car was dimmed with cloth and blood banks sprang up on every street corner. Herds of cattle taken from the countryside looked out of place in the middle of the metropolis, as citizens rounded up everything they could to help them prepare for the siege. We won't surrender Moscow, we will retreat no further. Stalin's voice blared over the radio as townsfolk dragged iron hedgehogs and sandbags across Red Square. The next morning, as Stalin returned home in the early hours, an air raid began. Stepping out of his staff car, he looked up and stared. As the whirring of the sirens began, countless searchlights streaked across the dark sky. Then the long, heavy shots of anti-aircraft batteries droned out every other sound in the world. His chief of security tried to usher him inside but Stalin waved him away and stood for several minutes, mesmerized. He had helped to lead a revolution to replace a system of government that had survived thousands of years. Was this how the great nation of Rus came to an end? Overhead, a direct hit was made on a German stuka and a small piece of shrapnel landed near Stalin's feet. The head of security picked it up and handed it to him. It was still warm. Spirits were low and Stalin realized that if the citizens thought they were beaten, they might as well be beaten. He needed a way to show them that despite what was going on, despite everything, the USSR still stood tall. As Zhukov's much-needed reinforcements began to arrive, the dictator came up with a very clever idea. November 7th, the anniversary of the Great Revolution was approaching. Every year since the communist overthrow of the Russian state in 1917, the date had been celebrated. It was almost sacred, a day of rebirth. Everyone just assumed that because the city was under siege, the parade and celebration would be cancelled. Stalin cleverly realized he could still hold the parade. Zhukov's eastern reinforcements would march directly from the trains through Red Square and then off to the front. And so, as bombs fell overhead and searchlights criss-crossed the skies, the upbeat military songs of the brass band broke the monotony of siege life in Moscow. Thousands upon thousands of Red Army soldiers marched through Red Square, saluting Joseph Stalin as they passed. Stalin's speech and the parade itself were televised all across the USSR. It was a clever bit of psychology that lifted the mood of many citizens who could see their capital still standing with their leader still in charge. As soon as the parade was done, the troops were rushed to fill the gaps. These soldiers coming from some of the coldest regions in the realm were veterans of winter warfare. Strapping on their skis, alongside T-34 tanks, they turned the tide almost immediately. For the first time since the invasion began, the German troops gave ground. Gradually, at first, but soon Zhukov had them on the ropes. With no food, no fuel, no ammunition, and no winter clothing, the Wehrmacht simply could go no further. Just 60 kilometers, 37 miles outside Moscow, Corporal Alois Shua wrote to his wife, quote, I am sitting with my comrades in a dugout in the half-dark. You have no idea how lousy and crazy we all look and how this life has become a torment for me. It can't be described in words anymore. I've only got one thought left, when will I get out of this hell? On the 14th of December, Walter von Bräustitz, Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht Army, finally had enough. After travelling to the front and seeing the appalling state the men were in, he grew more and more frustrated with Hitler, who tucked away safe in his bunker away from the front lines, continued to insist that the troops just needed a quote, injection of fanatical will. Unable to perform his function, he resigned. By the time Christmas came, it was clear that threat to Moscow, at least for the time being, had passed. It had been six horrific months since the largest land invasion in world history began. Spurred forward by their unshakable faith in their furor, the Wehrmacht had made it to the very gates of Moscow. Hitler had promised the people of Germany, his generals and the world that conquest of the USSR would be swift. While vast territories of the land was occupied, Russia was still standing. Reinforcements old and young arrived in their thousands by the day, while Hitler's loyal soldiers shivered in the freezing snow, wondering if they'd ever see home again. Hitler's triumph at showdown against Bolshevism had failed. But this setback went further than just to failure to take Moscow. Operation Barbarossa had destroyed the relationship Hitler had with his senior commanders. In the early days of the war, he and them worked in tandem. Hitler's gift for psychology and unorthodox tactics blended seamlessly with their training and understanding of military theory. But in the last few months of the invasion, that cooperation had disappeared as the furor continually disregarded their opinions and ignored facts he didn't agree with. The resignation of his commander in chief would be the first of many replacements that would occur as a dictator surrounded himself with yes men. The Wehrmacht was going through the very same brain drain that had almost cost Stalin the war. In two weeks, we're going to see Zhukov explode out of the gate as the Wehrmacht lured the hard way that Russians aren't as stupid as the furor promised they were. We're going to see the introduction of probably the most pitiable character in the story. A mild-mannered Prussian staff officer named Frederick Paulus, who would be rapidly promoted to Field Marshal and then forcibly sacrificed on the altar of history. Things are about to get very bad for the German army. As Stalin told the cheering crowd of besieged Muscovites on the October Revolution parade, the German invaders want a war of extermination against the peoples of the USSR? Well, if the Germans want a war of extermination, they will get it. This has been Anthology of Heroes. If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to drop us a five star rating wherever you're listening. It really does help. And a big thanks to the show's patrons, particularly our Justinian tier members Angus, Claudia, John, Seth, Shane and Tom. Thanks for listening and speak to you on the next one.