Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War

Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War

Rodric Braithwaite

Language: English

Pages: 416

ISBN: 1400044308

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


A brilliantly researched and realized history, an essential addition to the literature of World War II.

The 1941 Battle of Moscow—unquestionably one of the most decisive battles of the Second World War—marked the first strategic defeat of the German armed forces in their seemingly unstoppable march across Europe. The Soviets lost many more people in that one battle than the British and Americans lost in the whole of the war. Now, with authority and narrative power, Rodric Braithwaite tells the story in large part through the individual experiences of ordinary Russian men and women.

Setting his narrative firmly against the background of Moscow and its people, Braithwaite begins in early 1941, when the Soviet Union was still untouched by the war raging to the west. We see how—despite abundant secret intelligence—the breaching of the border by the Wehrmacht in June took the country by surprise, and how, when the Germans pushed to Moscow in November, the Red Army and the capital’s inhabitants undertook to defend their city. Finally, in the winter of 1941–1942, they turned the Germans back on the very outskirts.

Braithwaite’s dramatic, richly illustrated narrative of the military action offers telling portraits of Stalin and his generals. By interweaving the personal remembrances of soldiers, politicians, writers, artists, workers, and schoolchildren, he gives us an unprecedented understanding of how the war affected the daily life of Moscow, and of the extraordinary bravery, endurance, and sacrifice—both voluntary and involuntary—that was required of its citizens.

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Fortifications of Moscow, the Garden Ring and the Boulevard Ring in the very centre of the city (see Map 1, Central Moscow in 1941). Yevgeni Anufriev, Vladimir Frolov, Yevgeni Teleguev, their comrades from the OMSBON and the Dzerzhinski Division, and tens of thousands of other soldiers and civilians had barricaded the roads into the city with sandbags which looked like bags of flour under their covering of light snow. There were firing slits in the barricades, protected by armoured shields, and.

Canteens, even laboratories. He ordered all 200-watt bulbs to be replaced with weaker ones. He banned electric stoves and heaters. He allowed more generous standards of lighting only in the production shops and the typists’ offices. He told the mechanics to readjust the carburettors of their vehicles to save fuel.35 As public health in Moscow became more precarious, Sobolev arranged for the disinfection of the factory workshops, dormitories, cupboards, shower rooms and toilets. Workers arriving.

22. B. Sokolov, Georgi Zhukov: Triumfy i Padenic (Moscow, 2003), p. 433 et seq. 23. Ibid., p. 432 24. K. Simonov, “Syn,” from Stikhi 1954 goda (Moscow, 1954), p. 84. I am grateful to Lud-mila Matthews for her critique of the poem. 25. A. Chernyaev, Moya Zhizn i Moë Vremya (Moscow, 1995), p. 154. 26. N. Aleshchenko, Moskovskoe Opolchenie (Moscow, 1969), pp. 31, 33. 27. A. Kolesnik, Opolchenskie Formirovania Rossiiskoi Federatsii v Gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny (Moscow, 1988), p.

Officer had called home after lying in hospital wounded, to find his wife with another man. He had killed them both. He too was sent to Pyltsyn’s unit. Casualties in punishment units were very high. But at no point in the war was a blocking detachment ever posted behind Pyltsyn’s unit. As with ordinary units, the level of casualties depended on the situation on the ground and the competence of the commanding officers. At the beginning of 1944 Pyltsyn’s battalion was attached to the 3rd Army.

Of them were made of wood. Barns and sheds which could cause a fire hazard were pulled down. Where it was impossible to build proper shelters, foxholes and dugouts were constructed: by August there were enough of these to accommodate nearly a quarter of a million people. By the end of 1941 there were enough shelters for most of the people still left in the city.17 The most obvious places for people to shelter in during a raid were the underground railways stations. In London, the authorities.

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