The end of Typhoon

In Das Reich's sector, near Istra, the Soviet resistance was proving too much even for the SS men. One wrote to his mother: "These Russians seem to have an inexhaustible supply of men. Here they unload fresh troops from Siberia every day: they bring up guns and lay mines all over the place. On the 30th [November] we made our last attack - a hill known as Pear Hill and village called Lenino. With artillery and mortars we managed to take all of the hill and half of the village. But at night we had to give it up again in order to defend ourselves against the continuous Russian counterattacks. We only need to go another eight miles to get the [Soviet] capital within gun range - but we just could not make it."

The Russian winter now struck with a vengeance. At night temperatures dropped to -40¼C (-40¼F) and in daytime they rose to barely half that. The supply crisis meant no cold-weather lubricants or winter clothing had made their way to the frontline troops outside Moscow. Most of the Germans' tanks, artillery, heavy weapons and trucks froze solid at night, and could only be made operational by lighting fires under them. Thousands of men went down with frostbite. In the space of three weeks since the final offensive opened on Moscow, Army Group Centre had lost 55,000 dead.

By 5 December Operation Typhoon was over. The efforts of the Das Reich Division were in vain. Along with the other German units outside Moscow, its cold and hungry troops were struggling to survive in improvised trenches 48km (30 miles) to the west of the city. With casualties mounting, the division's ability to hold its sector of front was rapidly diminishing.

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