The Battle for Moscow - Part I
One could say that there were really two battles for Moscow. The first one began in 1940 when the German military began planning a Blitzkrieg campaign against the Soviet Union. From a military perspective there were several factors that made Moscow an important objective in any campaign against the Soviet Union. Moscow was the state capital and its capture would disrupt the government. It was a large industrial center and an important hub in the Soviet railway network. Its capture would cut off Soviet links with the northwestern USSR, thereby ensuring the capture of Leningrad and seriously weakening Soviet contact with the southwest. This result would effectively outflank a Soviet defense in the Ukraine and threaten a deep envelopment of any Soviet forces remaining there.
Adolf Hitler did not share his generals' enthusiasm for attacking Moscow first and it was his intentions that were reflected. The official German plan, Directive 21 -- Operation Barbarossa, did not emphasize or sanction the attack Moscow as a priority. Moscow was ranked as less important than Leningrad. In fact, the plan called for the diversion of armored assets from the Moscow axis after the capture of Smolensk in support of the northern drive towards Leningrad. The advance towards Moscow was to continue only in the event of an extremely favorable strategic position after reaching Smolensk. Perhaps the old military saying about a plan not surviving the first encounter with the enemy held sway with the German generals. This might explain why this plan did not reflect the army's opinion on the matter of the importance of Moscow.
Under Directive 21, the German armed forces available for the campaign in the Soviet Union were divided into three army groups. Army Group North was assigned the task of driving along a single axis northeastward through the Baltic republics with the objective of occupying Leningrad. Army Group Center was to attack eastward along two axes north of the Pripet Marsh with the progressive goals of Minsk, Smolensk and ultimately Moscow. Army Group South was intended to strike southeast toward Kiev with the drive to continue in the general direction of Stalingrad on the Volga. The ultimate objective of the campaign was to reach a line of roughly the Ural mountains in the north and the Volga river in the south.
German force deployment for the campaign against the Soviet Union suggested, however, what after the war ended became fairly common knowledge: the German army general staff believed that the capture of Moscow was the highest priority of the campaign against the Soviet Union.
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