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Well, there seems to be a debate among historians as to the intentions and the resultant outcomes of decisions made by the leadership involved on both sides. Kind of like Monday morning or arm chair quarterbacking.
Operation Barborosa was the intial thrust of the Germans on their drive to Moscow. This was after a lot of shell games on behalf of both sides. Germany maintaining that troops were amassed in the east to escape allied bombing and there were a significant number Russians on the opposite side under the pretext of training exercises. To make a long story short there was a non aggression pact between the two and Stalin was completely surprised when the operation began. That much historians agree. Once the Germans were within striking distance of Moscow, there tank divisions were diverted to Stalingrad to the north and the oil fields to the south. This decision by Hitler much to the opposition of his generals. Now to say that Moscow was completely vulnerable at this point is maintained in the Discovery channel documentry to the best of my recollection. However at best this is still opinion! To what extent Moscow was that vulnerable is speculation maintained by the author of this particular doc. That being said, I think that military academic circles, whose business it is to analyze these events, seem to agree that this was in fact a tremendous blunder. That had the Germans continued without this diversion the conquest of Moscow would have been more assured and quite possibly have altered the course of history as we now know it. In other words Wir soll der Duetsch sprecken.
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