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Originally Posted by Doppleganger Stalingrad is overrated as a decisive battle of WW2. It's true that the best part of the largest field army in the Wehrmacht was lost and it's also true that the loss of 6th Army represented men and equipment that the Germans could not hope to replace. Incidentally, only 1 korps of Hoth's 4th Panzer Army was lost and well over half of the Axis losses consisted of satellite armies from Romania, Italy and Hungary.
More importantly however, was the fact that by that time it was clear that the Germans could no longer defeat the Soviet Union. A decisive event is generally regarded as an event that determines an outcome and as it was already clear that the Soviet Union would at least draw in early 1943, Stalingrad cannot really be considered as a decisive battle. Stalingrad was, understandably, turned into a propaganda victory by the USSR and it is for that reason that it retains its mystique.
The Battle of Moscow, largely forgotten by most casual observers, was one of the true turning points of WW2 and my pick. |
Surely by your own definitions Moscow cannot be considered decisive unless you believe that the war was lost to the Germans after that point.
Lets be realistic here the only thing that stopped the Germans capturing Stalingrad intact and almost without a fight was the decision to stop and rest the 6th army outside the city as up until that point the German summer operations were moving along nicely.
If we are going to speculate on crucial points I would suggest that the failure to capture Leningrad and free up AGN for further eastward operations was probably just as important as the failure to capture Moscow.
So from this casual observers point of view I have not ruled out Moscow I just don't agree on its importance.