在1941年8月底斯摩棱斯克战役结束之后，德军面临两个选择，第一是德军中央集团军群不管不顾一路往莫斯科打，第二是先解决北方集团军群与南方集团军群当面的苏军，尤其是在基辅地区的苏军西南方面军大约80万人，最终希特勒力排众议决定先进攻基辅，等消灭了西南方面军之后再一鼓作气占领苏联的心脏莫斯科。 If the Germans had chosen to attack Moscow, how would history have played out? Will it end the Soviet-German war quickly?
进攻莫斯科还是基辅？
In Guderian's conception, the commander of the German Second Panzer Group, the two armored clusters of Army Group Center should go straight to Moscow, and the Soviet cities and armies on the way do not need to be dealt with, and the armored forces should maintain high mobility, and once the speed slows down, it will be a bad thing, this plan is a bit like Wei Yan's Meridian Valley plot to take Chang'an directly.
But Hitler's problems were different from Guderian's, and at that time the Soviet army in the Kiev region of Ukraine also had this heavy army group, the Soviet Southwestern Front, which had about 800,000 troops, and the number of troops was still expanding, and it was also defending the Dnieper River, which was known as the trench. If it was not eliminated, it would pose a great threat to the flanks of Army Group Center, and Hitler was also in a dilemma at that time.
But in the end, the conservative still prevailed, Hitler finally decided to attack Kiev's Southwestern Front first, in September, the armored group of Army Group Center went south to attack Ukraine, and at the same time, the first armored group of Army Group South also crossed the Dnieper River, and the two sides successfully surrounded the main force of the Southwestern Front by advancing north and south, and the German army successfully eliminated about 700,000 Soviet troops in the siege of Kiev, More than 665,000 of them surrendered, but the Germans also lost their most precious time, dragging on the Battle of Moscow until October 1941.
进攻莫斯科的好处
After the end of the Battle of Smolensk, the newly mobilized troops used by the Soviet army to defend Moscow have not yet completed their training, their combat effectiveness is very low, even if their combat effectiveness is poor, their strength and weapons and equipment are not enough, this is really going to be dead, basically if the German army moves Moscow in September, it will be finished.
Many people say that even if the Soviet Union loses Moscow, it will still be able to resist, but this is basically impossible. What is Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, it is not only the largest city in the Soviet Union, but also the transportation hub of the Soviet Union, and it is also an important industrial base of the Soviet Union.
And once Moscow fell, the internal and external situation of the Soviet Union would change dramatically, in the early days of the war, the German army was like a bamboo, from Poland to Moscow, along the way the Soviet army surrendered in formation, and even several commanders at the level of army groups surrendered. If the Soviet army had learned that Moscow had fallen, the morale of the Soviet army would have been devastated, and then it would not have been as simple as the surrender of several army groups.
Historically, since the successful defense of Moscow in early 1942, there has been no large-scale surrender of the Soviet army, and the Soviet people's hearts and minds have been completely solidified by the Battle of Moscow. Germany should have chosen to attack Moscow quickly, only in this way could it avoid being dragged into a war of attrition, and the Soviet Union was the best at fighting this kind of bad war.