WIf in 1941 the Nazi seige of Moscow succesfull

[imperialaquila]

Hi! I find it really funny, how people think this or that in History is impossible, would never fly, etc. just because OTL it did happen a specific way. What some persons overlook is the fact that even OTL many historic events were knife´s edge and could have gone the other way or even a third or fourth one!
Moscow (and Stalin) falling in 41 would be a major blow to the SU, it was THE hub of the SU, traffic, industry, you name it. With the capital fallen and a war of succession in the government, Germany has the chance to mop up the eastern front in 42. Unlike 1812, as some here believe, the Sowjets don´t have the option to burn anything down before the Heer arrives, since back in Napi´s time Moscow was not that of the importance in 1941. To stay in the fight, the Sowjets have to take back Moscow halfway intact. If the Heer can hold the city against the inevitable counter attack in early 42, it´s mostly over in the east. Without Moscow, the Sowjets are seriously hindered in transportation of anything. Some OTL offensives will not happen TTL, since the hub making it possible, is in German hands TTL.
If Germany supplies Army Group Center by air and rail in Moscow, even if it will be barely enough due to the distances involved (it will get easier a bit by the installations in Moscow), they can hold out.
By end of 42, early 43, there will be negotiations. And contrary to what some here might think, Hitler will take that peace! TTL Hitler is still a megalomaniac, but he never suffered the Trauma Stalingrad gave him OTL and the fighting power of the US will make him hear more to some Generals and more, Hitler got what he wanted in the first place: the East. TTL Hitler will be more reasonable, since he never got the setbacks that made him the idiot of after Stalingard OTL.
Oh, and Good Bye to the big, honking armies of the western allies coming to the rescue with atomic bombs and all! With the eastern front gone, a painful go in the Pacific and in 42/43 the bomb is still some time in the future and not an instant war-winner, it is far more likely that the war between Hitler and the western allies will become a Cold War.
Without 2/3 of the Heer fighting Russia, there will be no successful landing in France. And that the West will fight until the bomb is ready is a hind sight myth! In 1943 there was no assurance the A-bomb will be a weapon that can be used! The development stage was still too early to say that at that time or if the development will be producing more than hot air.
With Germany able to move the majority of her forces west, she can counter any landing and inflict far worse damage on the bombing campaign.
It is far more likely that there will be a grudging cease-fire and a Cold War afterward.

See CalBear's "The Anglo/American-Nazi War" for what the aftermath of a Germany successful in the East would look like. Round 2 happens in the 50s, with Germany on the wrong end of a 3-1 disparity in industrial strength and delusional leadership. Guess what happens.

CalBear has even admitted that the premise is more or less ASB.

As to the OP, I think the fall of Moscow would hurt the Soviets greatly, but it wouldn't mean an instant peace. I don't think Stalin would stay in Moscow if it looked like it was going to fall. That means that the Soviet leadership still has one man on top who is giving orders and serving as a rallying point. The Soviets will hang on, since they have the Urals industry and rapidly growing amounts of American Lend-Lease. They will be significantly weaker by the end of the war, but they will win in the end.

Also, I think the imminent fall of Moscow will result in British and American attempts to draw strength from the Eastern Front with attacks around the periphery of Nazi Europe. I think the amphibious attacks will likely end in bloody failures, as seen in Dieppe. There will likely be attacks in Africa, which could have more success.

 

[colleen1227]

1st the soviets could not pull the Kiev front back to defend Moscow as it would allow AGS to attack it in the rear and they feared a complete rout .That is why Stalin had them hold the river line instead of pulling them back to attack AGC after Smolensk fell. If Moscow was taken before the winter 41 the Soviets face the loss of Leningrad next as its rail line ran through Moscow. Plus as was said earlier their whole transportation hub including the Volga river run through Moscow. I also agree that the Allies(West) would write off the USSR . They gave them only weeks in OTL. Next you would have had the feared counter revolution as the communist party was shown as a loser.

 

[Noravea]

Taking Moscow would definitely hurt the Soviets. That much is indisputable. But it will not be enough to get them out of the fight. The stakes for the Soviets were simply far too high, and the Urals industrial zone, plus Lend Lease via Vladivostok, means they can keeping fighting.

And they have no choice to. To the Nazis, all of the Soviet nationalities were Slavic "Asiatic" untermenschen. The Nazis were not an enemy that can be reasoned with, or negotiated with. Not for the Soviets. The Nazis made their intentions abundantly clear, and every Soviet leader and soldier understood this. The Nazis aimed to plow the whole of the Soviet Union under, to completely depopulate the entire country via genocidal slaughter and starvation, and resettle it with their own people.

It was a war of annihilation, and the Soviets were fighting for their very survival. Which is why they'll resist to the bitter end, and most likely, end up driving the Germans out of their country.

Yes, but what many people fail to realize that not only numbers and technology win a war, but morale and the will of the people. If the people see their leader killed in battle, and their capitol taken, they will lose morale. There will be no successor, so any organized offensive would be hard to commit to (Beria, Molotov, and Zhukov would all try for power).

 

[archaeogeek]

Yes, but what many people fail to realize that not only numbers and technology win a war, but morale and the will of the people. If the people see their leader killed in battle, and their capitol taken, they will lose morale. There will be no successor, so any organized offensive would be hard to commit to (Beria, Molotov, and Zhukov would all try for power).

The will of the people would be pretty fucking high given they were fighting for their survival.
And if Stalin is miraculously taken out and aleadership struggle happens, there's no central leadership to make peace feelers or tell tens of millions of partisans to lay down theiir weapons.

 

[King Thomas]

The fact that Hitler is a genocidal f***wad means the Russians are not going to give in,as the only thing they can look forward to under Nazi rule is slave labour followed by execution.

 

[Paul V McNutt]

This is a setback for the Soviets, but not a fatal one. This delays them. I see the Anglo / US forces taking Prague. Maybe a big chunk of Poland. So Poland is divided after the war and there is less than velvet divorce in Czechoslovakia. One the other hand maybe the situation in the USSR is so dire that Stalin successfully pressures Roosevelt and Churchill to invade France in 1944. The British and Americans take much more of Eastern Europe and the war ends a year earlier. That of course means that there is a much more intense war in the Pacific with the totally allied Military force fighting Japan beginning in the fall of 1944. The Soviets would then occupy China and the People's Republic would be a Soviet satellite.

 

[imperialaquila]

Yes, but what many people fail to realize that not only numbers and technology win a war, but morale and the will of the people. If the people see their leader killed in battle, and their capitol taken, they will lose morale. There will be no successor, so any organized offensive would be hard to commit to (Beria, Molotov, and Zhukov would all try for power).

Why do you assume that Stalin would stay and die? He of all people knew how important he was to Soviet morale. He would have fled the city.

 

[baldy46]

Why do you assume that Stalin would stay and die? He of all people knew how important he was to Soviet morale. He would have fled the city.

True, but Stalin's underlings are convinced that his presence is necessary for the defense of the city and basically "kidnap" him. After the Soviet Union wins, the underlings are shot. I've heard rumors that that's exactly what happened in OTL.

 

[baldy46]

Are we just assuming that the Germans taking German Moscow would be so impossible - because of what happened in Stalingrad!?
Did what happened in Stalingrad happen, only because there was the example Leningrad and Moscow surviving?

What happened in Stalingrad happened due to the strategic situation in Stalingrad (the German army in house-to-house fighting unable to use its advantages in mobility and air support).

My best guess is that if Guderian's strategy had been followed, he could have gotten to "Metropolitan Moscow" and surrounded it but then been stuck in house-to-house fighting a la Stalingrad.

Given that the attack on Moscow goes ahead earlier - before the civil defence had got to work,

Very highly likely scenario: the Germans advance on Moscow earlier and the Russian civil defense starts earlier to match the advance.

Granted the City {of Moscow} is big, but the Germans had already been through Minsk & Smolensk.

True but neither city is the size of Moscow and in this case size matters. Plus Moscow's subway and the sewer system would make excellent bomb shelters.

The Germans would have been better able to cope with the counter-attack if it hit them on the east of the city, and they had the airfields around Moscow, even if units of the NKVD were still holed out in places.

Assuming the German army surrounds Moscow, the east is certainly where I'd launch the counterattack. In my time line, all German units east of Moscow are gone. There's a high probability that German units in west Moscow are encircled and basically Army Group Center is destroyed.

 

[Mr Qwerty]

This is a setback for the Soviets, but not a fatal one. This delays them. I see the Anglo / US forces taking Prague. Maybe a big chunk of Poland. So Poland is divided after the war and there is less than velvet divorce in Czechoslovakia. One the other hand maybe the situation in the USSR is so dire that Stalin successfully pressures Roosevelt and Churchill to invade France in 1944. The British and Americans take much more of Eastern Europe and the war ends a year earlier. That of course means that there is a much more intense war in the Pacific with the totally allied Military force fighting Japan beginning in the fall of 1944. The Soviets would then occupy China and the People's Republic would be a Soviet satellite.

That's when they did invade France-you must mean 1943. Actually, a plan-Sledgehammer-existed for an emergency landing in case of Russian collapse. Which would, of course, have been a big version of Dieppe.

 

[Paul V McNutt]

In the secenario I discussed earlier, where we have the War in Europe ending a year earlier you would have the entire US Army Air Corps and RAF pounding Japan begining about September 1944, so maybe there is an earlier Japanese surrender and no atomic bomb.

 

[Aelita]

Yes, but what many people fail to realize that not only numbers and technology win a war, but morale and the will of the people. If the people see their leader killed in battle, and their capitol taken, they will lose morale. There will be no successor, so any organized offensive would be hard to commit to (Beria, Molotov, and Zhukov would all try for power).

The popular Stalin cult was very much a product of the trials of the Second World War. Stalin was a fairly reclusive leader prior to that, at least by totalitarian leader standards. Still, the loss of Stalin (something I consider unlikely) is not likely going to result in a power struggle.

And if there is, Zhukov in 1941 is not going to be part of it. It's doubtful that he'd ever. Zhukov was not a very political man, and whatever his faults, he was a loyal soldier by personality. Consider the fact that even though, IOTL, Stalin sidelined and betrayed Zhukov after the war, Zhukov remained loyal to Stalin during and after the Khruschev's Destalinization campaign. He's not the purging kind. His loyalty is to the Soviet State and to the Soviet people. He's be using his position in the Red Army to prevent a power struggle.

As for Beria, Beria is always going to be the power behind the throne man. And Molotov, he'll likely go along with collective leadership until the existential threat to the Soviet state is finished. THe power struggle will come after the war is over, not before.

During the war, the Soviet state essentially became a multipolar leadership IOTL anyway. The best thing Stalin did was allow others the relative freedom and initiative to act and plan on their own to some extent.

 

[mats]

Even IF the germans manage to capture Moscow (wich might be ASB) the soviets won't be defeated, they had all their industry behind thE urals, so that the luftwaffe couldn't hit 'em. In the first place

 

[corditeman]

To capture Moscow...

...There would have been a need to capture Leningrad and maybe to use nerve gas on the Soviet forces (GA-Tabun and GB-Sarin). Thousands of tons of Tabun were available. A rapid advance on Leningrad and Moscow would then have been possible. The gases are very suitable for poisoning the Moscow Metro and for saturation of urban targets.

Yes, I know - 'Nasty, nasty Old Man!'

 

[teg]

Germany couldn't have taken Moscow in 1941. The only way to take it was by a massive offensive in 1942, but that would have meant the Germans were precious little better on than in OTL. They'd probably still suffer a major battlefield defeat and not have gained much ground at all (the Germans did gain a significant portion of land in Operation Blue, which if they'd had longer and been smarter, they could have done something with).

 

[sloreck]

In 1941 (after the German invasion) & through at least winter 1942, the U.S. military was very dubious about all the lend-lease being sent to the USSR as they felt it was (a) needed by the US as it mobilized, and (b) the Soviets were going to go down. IF Moscow falls (say spring/summer 1942) FDR may give in to his military and reduce lend-lease shipments. There is also the practical matter that with the Moscow rail hub disrupted US & British "stuff" landed at Archangel & Murmansk has no practical way to get shipped to Soviet Forces and/or factories east of Moscow in any significant quantity. While US lend-lease did come from the west coast to Vladivostok, it had to be in Soviet ships of which there were not a lot, and then sent all the way east on a RR with very limited capacity. (and...giving the Soviets liberty ships & putting the red flag on them does not help a lot...no crews, and if you have US crews on "Russian" ships, expect the Japanese to slow or stop this route).

Having said all that, if the Germans can establish themselves outside of Moscow, and use artillery and Luftwaffe to seriously interfere with RR traffic and industrial production in late 1941.....

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

While US lend-lease did come from the west coast to Vladivostok, it had to be in Soviet ships of which there were not a lot, and then sent all the way east on a RR with very limited capacity. (and...giving the Soviets liberty ships & putting the red flag on them does not help a lot...no crews, and if you have US crews on "Russian" ships, expect the Japanese to slow or stop this route).

Ummm... I do believe that most of the shipping WAS in US vessels with US crews and just flying the Soviet flag. The Japanese didn't do anything because they knew they didn't need to be fighting the Soviets, too.

Also, a lot of LL shipments came up through Iran.

 

[Beer]

Even IF the germans manage to capture Moscow (wich might be ASB) the soviets won't be defeated, they had all their industry behind thE urals, so that the luftwaffe couldn't hit 'em. In the first place

Hi! The problem the industry will have with Moscow fallen, is the fact that the SU will have major transportation ouch! Land-Lease from Murmansk/Archangelsk won´t come through, since it ran through the capital. Most of the siberian military output ran through the capital. Several offensive/defensive actions taken by the Red Army OTL won´t happen TTL, since they can´t use Moscow to deploy/rotate the forces needed. Logistics is a very major point in warfare and as bad the stretched German lines were, losing Moscow in 41 or 42 will destabilise the front for the Sowjets. It is not an instant war-winner for the Wehrmacht, but (as far as the east is concerned) a big advantage.
As said, with Moscow in German hands, the Red Army looses a very serious amount of mobility and supply transport capability. And the numbers advantage of the Sowjets will not be enough with their mobility crippled.

And to the guy who thinks that some never surrender (no matter the nation): Stalin let Millions of Ukrainians starve to death, do you really think if the SU stood back against the wall, he would hesitate to throw them to Hitler´s "mercy" if he could save the rest of the Rodina?

 

[iainbhx]

Hi! The problem the industry will have with Moscow fallen, is the fact that the SU will have major transportation ouch! Land-Lease from Murmansk/Archangelsk won´t come through, since it ran through the capital. Most of the siberian military output ran through the capital. Several offensive/defensive actions taken by the Red Army OTL won´t happen TTL, since they can´t use Moscow to deploy/rotate the forces needed. Logistics is a very major point in warfare and as bad the stretched German lines were, losing Moscow in 41 or 42 will destabilise the front for the Sowjets. It is not an instant war-winner for the Wehrmacht, but (as far as the east is concerned) a big advantage.
As said, with Moscow in German hands, the Red Army looses a very serious amount of mobility and supply transport capability. And the numbers advantage of the Sowjets will not be enough with their mobility crippled.

And to the guy who thinks that some never surrender (no matter the nation): Stalin let Millions of Ukrainians starve to death, do you really think if the SU stood back against the wall, he would hesitate to throw them to Hitler´s "mercy" if he could save the rest of the Rodina?

It is possible to bypass Moscow by rail, there is a double track line from Vologda to Kirov which can direct traffic south from Archangelsk/Murmansk.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

It is possible to bypass Moscow by rail, there is a double track line from Vologda to Kirov which can direct traffic south from Archangelsk/Murmansk.

Can it handle the same quantities of goods/materiel as the lines through Moscow? Does this line lead to a hub that can distribute the Lend-Lease as efficiently as Moscow? I'm guessing no.

Losing what was by far it's biggest transportation and railway hub is going to leave the USSR hurting no matter what. The Siberian industrial base will still be intact, but getting raw materials to that base will be more difficult, as will getting the finished goods from the factory to the frontline. Keeping everything in supply gets a lot more complicated too. It doesn't matter how much the Ural factories produce if half of the tanks can't get to the battlefield and the other half don't have enough fuel or ammunition.

That said, I have to agree with the people who have said that the USSR is not likely to give up just because Moscow is lost. At the very least, Hitler would never be content until he had all of European Russia, and the USSR would never accept the loss of that much land unless the frontline had already been pushed to that point. Even if the Germans somehow managed to pull that off, maintaining their hold on an incredibly restive European Russia would take a large garrison, and the rump-USSR would be rebuilding, rearming, and waiting for a moment of weakness to strike.