The battle of Moscow involved 2.5 million men on both sides of the eastern front, making it one of the largest and, without question, one of the most important battles of the Second World War. According to Andrew Roberts, Hitler’s offensive towards the Soviet capital was nothing less than decisive: ‘It is no exaggeration to state that the outcome of the Second World War hung in the balance during this massive attack’. For both sides, the battle for Moscow was an epic of endurance and sacrifice, while its sheer magnitude concentrated the world’s attention as never before.

There can be no debate that Nazi Germany’s drive on Moscow was a human calamity with few precedents in history. The battle began at the start of October 1941 with Operation Typhoon and, with a two-week pause at the start of November, continued to the very gates of Moscow by early December 1941. As one German soldier wrote: ‘Burning villages, the bodies of dead Russian soldiers, the carcasses of dead horses, burned-out tanks, and abandoned equipment were the signposts of our march.’ Magnifying this level of destruction across a front nearly 700 km wide, Army Group Centre, the German force charged with seizing the Soviet capital, left a torrent of devastation through central Russia.