Great Patriotic War 1941-1945

The greatest fight vor Moscow was fight near Smolensk. Though the Russians dismiss as fantastic the German claim to have captured 348,000prisoners, over 3,000 tanks and over 3,000 guns in the Smolensk fighting, Russian losses were undoubtedly heavy. They themselves admit the loss of 32,000 men «missing», 685tanks and 1,176 guns. Nevertheless the Smolensk battle was one of the turning points of the war. The Russians had halted the Germanblitzkrieg,and had forced Hitler to change his plans. Furthermore, it had an important effect on morale within the Red Army. Whereas, initially, manyRussian soldiers had been, as it were, psychologically overwhelmed by the power of the German army, and particularly by the number of their tanks, by the end of July more and more Russian soldiers had learnt to use weapons such as grenades and «Molotovcocktails» against tanks, and (perhaps because of pep-talks by the Army's propaganda services) a healthy hatred of the Germans more and more took the place of sheer fear. An important aid to morale was a lavish distribution of medals and decorations, though not as lavish as it became later. About a thousand decorations were awarded after Smolensk and seven men were given the title «Hero of the Soviet Union».

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