What If Germany Had Captured Moscow in 1941

In early December 1941, so the story goes, a German motorcycle patrol reached Khimki, about 20 kilometres from the Kremlin. Six months earlier the same army had been on the Polish border. So what if they had made it? In this video we go through what really happened in 1941, from the Hitler-Stalin pact to Barbarossa, the detour to Kyiv, Operation Typhoon, the mud, the panic in Moscow and Zhukov's winter counterattack. Then we play the game: what if Germany had taken Moscow, what if Stalin had got on his train, and what if Japan had attacked the Soviet Union instead of America. Chapters 0:00 Twenty kilometres from Moscow 0:55 Why was Germany in Russia? 2:32 Operation Barbarossa 6:23 The detour south 7:54 Operation Typhoon and the mud 10:00 Moscow panics 11:50 General Frost and the counterattack 15:23 What if Moscow fell? 17:44 What if Stalin had run? 18:47 Hitler's plan for Moscow 19:30 Five reasons Germany probably still loses 22:19 Playing out the alternate 1942 24:32 What if Japan had attacked the USSR? 25:55 The verdict Sources and further reading David Stahel, Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941 (Cambridge University Press) David Stahel, Kiev 1941 and Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (Cambridge University Press) Rodric Braithwaite, Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War David Glantz, Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941 Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (memoir; his own account of the August 1941 meeting with Hitler) Andrew Nagorski, The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction (German economy, the Hunger Plan) Alex J. Kay, Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder (the Hunger Plan) Christian Streit / U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: Soviet prisoners of war in German captivity Owen Matthews, An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge Stuart Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II The Khimki patrol story is widely repeated but disputed by historians; we present it as a story, not a fact. The alternate-history sections are speculation based on the arguments historians make; they are not predictions. Music Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ "Prelude and Action" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Dark Times" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Clash Defiant" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Movement Proposition" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Stormfront" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Oppressive Gloom" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Lightless Dawn" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Sneaky Snitch" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Interloper" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Anguish" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Teller of the Tales" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Gathering Darkness" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Ishikari Lore" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Lasting Hope" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) #history #ww2 #whatif #alternatehistory #animatedhistory