ABSTRACT
Fhrer Directive 21 of December 1940, code-named Operation Barbarossa, red-beard from Frederick Barbarossa, a medieval warrior emperor, was the culmination of a long summer and autumn of German plans and war games. Adolf Hitler decreed three separate thrusts: Army Group North led by a powerful armoured Panzer Group, Army Group Centre led by two Panzer Groups and Army Group South also with one Panzer Group. The German offensive had by this time developed in two very different ways. To the north of the Pripyat Marshes, the two Panzer Groups attached to Army Group Centre, commanded respectively by General Herman Hoth and General Heinz Guderian, closed in quick succession around Brest-Litovsk, Bialystok, Minsk, and finally, on 22 July, Smolensk. Hitler ordered the launching of Operation Typhoon, the renewed assault on Moscow, for 1 October. The attack started auspiciously. On 2 October, Guderians panzers reached Orel to the southwest of Moscow and proceeded towards Tula, only 120 miles from the capital.
