The administrative capital was tentatively proposed as Moscow, the historical and political center of the Russian state. As the German armies were approaching the Soviet capital in the
Operation Typhoon in the autumn of 1941, Hitler determined that Moscow, like Leningrad and
Kiev, would be levelled and its 4 million inhabitants killed, to destroy it as a potential center of Bolshevist resistance. For this purpose Moscow was to be covered by a large
artificial lake which would permanently submerge it,
[1][2] by opening the sluices of the
Moscow-Volga Canal.
[3] During the advance on Moscow
Otto Skorzeny was tasked with capturing these dam structures.
[3]