Город-герой Москва в фотографиях / Hero city Moscow in photographs - 1941-1942

Город-герой Москва в фотографиях 1941-1942 Hero city Moscow in photographs 1941-1942 Музыка: Моя Москва - Людмила Зыкина Музыка: И. Дунаевский Слова: С. Агранян, М. Лисянский 1941г. Исполняет My Moscopw - Music: I. Dunaevsky Words: S. Agranyan, M. Lisyansky 1941. Performed by: Ludmila Zykina.. On June 22, 1941, following the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, martial law was declared in Moscow. Over half a million residents of Moscow, mainly women, participated in the construction of fortifications on the approaches to Moscow and directly in the city itself. The total length of anti-tank ditches reached 361 km... Operation Barbarossa, called for the capture of Moscow, the capital of Russia, within for months. In July 1941, German forces captured Smolensk, an important stronghold on the road to Moscow. At this stage, although Moscow was vulnerable, an offensive against the city would have exposed the German flanks. In part to address these risks, in part to attempt to secure Ukraine's food and mineral resources, Hitler ordered the attack to turn north and south and eliminate Soviet forces at Leningrad and Kiev. This delayed the German advance on Moscow. When that advance resumed on 30 September 1941, German forces had been weakened, while the Soviets had raised new forces for the defence of the city..... General Georgy Zhukov, who assumed command of the city's defence, largely left close combat tactics to the local commanders on the city's approaches, and focused on concentrating fresh troops from Siberia for an eventual counter-attack. The Soviet counter-offensive was launched on 5 and 6 December 1941. In the freezing cold of an unusually harsh winter, Soviet forces, including well-equipped ski battalions, drove the exhausted Germans back out of reach of Moscow and consolidated their positions on 7 January 1942. The victory in the battle provided an important boost in morale for the Soviet population. Moscow was awarded the title Hero City in 1965.