The Soviet counteroffensive, winter 1942

By the end of December 1941, Leeb believed that a “certain stabilization of the entire front [had] taken place” and that the “primary worry” facing his command was to “protect the troops to some extent from the tremendous cold.” Such an appraisal differed dramatically further to the south along the German front. Two days after Leeb’s sanguine assessment of his army group, Halder wrote “a very difficult day!” as the southern and central sectors of the front faced very threatening developments. Matters appeared especially ominous for Army Group Center as the primary Soviet counterattack targeted the increasingly exhausted and weary troops charged with seizing Moscow. Within four days of launching the operation, three separate German armies faced encirclement or isolation and the entire front threatened to crack. While the 1941–2 winter crisis was most pronounced in the center of the front, Leeb’s forces did not remain immune from such threats. By the end of 1941, Army Group North had settled into a tenuous defensive line that began on the Finnish Sea, wrapped around the outskirts of Oranienbaum and Leningrad, stretched eastwards to the Volkhov river, and followed the river south until it bulged out around the village of Demiansk. Such a defensive position directly resulted from both the Soviet counterattack at Tichvin, which forced the 126th ID, among other units, to retreat behind the Volkhov river, and the determined resistance of Leningrad. The Rhinelanders and the 121st ID each felt the sting of a surprisingly resurgent Red Army during December; unfortunately for Leeb and his men, this December fighting served as mere preliminary to the main event. After exceeding its initial expectations, Stavka (the Soviet High Command) expanded the Moscow counteroffensive to include the entirety of Army Group North.