I'm talking specifically about the will to fight within the Kremlin between June 1941 - December 1942 .
Was it ever close to collapsing and if so, what realitically could've pushed it over the edge?
The closest things came was right after the Vyazma pocket was closed and German forces started exploiting East. Stalin nearly left the city, there were riots, part of the government evacuated and Soviet lines ripped wide open.
Weather and mud saved the limited Soviet forces left by confining German troops to the highway leading from Smolensk to Moscow, which let the defenders concentrate their limited forces and stymie the Germans. Once it was clear the Germans weren't going to just blitz on the capital the moment passed and the Soviets rallied and continued on, holding the line against the best German efforts.
Do you mean a mental breakdown?Only once, with Stalin's breakdown following the fall of Minsk. Otherwise it would have taken a black swan event, so no.
Glantz did have a story about Stalin nearly taking the train to Kuibyshev on day, but opted to stay and fight. Everything hinges on the Germans actually taking Moscow; at that point even if Stalin survives and continues the fight the average fighting man may well give up. Remember it wasn't the political leadership that quit the war in 1917, it was the army giving up and running away that ended it. You can have a plan to fight street to street, but that doesn't mean the fighting man will do it.The panic, while real, was purely on the street. The actual leadership showed no sign of abandoning the fight. Even had Stalin left the city, its probable that he would have left it under martial law, like OTL, and with the army prepared to fight it out street-to-street... again, like OTL. The idea of the Germans taking Moscow off the march is pure OKH fantasy.
The panic was specifically because the lines were broken and the public thought the Germans would take the city in hours or at most days. When the last lines held and Stalin stayed to fight the public quieted down with NKVD assistance.In reality, the subsumption of the panic was independent of what was going on in the front, which from the Soviet perspective continued to look like a desperate affair all the way into November.
We can debate that forever and never reach agreement, so agree to disagree rather than getting bogged down in a long pointless argument.And the Soviet rally was independent of the weather as well. The real reason is that the Germans had hit their culminating point with Vyazma-Bryansk and Soviet reinforcements were enough to stem the weakened, exhausted Germans. The weather was bonus in this but not decisive.
Do you mean a mental breakdown?
Glantz did have a story about Stalin nearly taking the train to Kuibyshev on day, but opted to stay and fight. Everything hinges on the Germans actually taking Moscow; at that point even if Stalin survives and continues the fight the average fighting man may well give up. Remember it wasn't the political leadership that quit the war in 1917, it was the army giving up and running away that ended it. You can have a plan to fight street to street, but that doesn't mean the fighting man will do it.
The panic was specifically because the lines were broken and the public thought the Germans would take the city in hours or at most days. When the last lines held and Stalin stayed to fight the public quieted down with NKVD assistance.
We can debate that forever and never reach agreement, so agree to disagree rather than getting bogged down in a long pointless argument.
Yes. Khrushchev after the war horribly exaggerated its extent and misrepresented the timing of it, but Stalin does appear to have suffered a nervous breakdown when learning of Minsk's capture.
a black swan event