Talk:Battle of Smolensk (1941)

The battle map
The map is probably incorrect. On September 8, 1941 Germans had captured Schlisselburg on the Ladoga lake, thus completing the encirclement of Leningrad. This date is widely known as the beginning of the Siege of Leningrad that lasted almost 3 years. On the map, however, the September 9 front line is very far from Ladoga, and Leningrad is not yet encircled. This makes the map highly suspect, at least in its Northern part. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yatur (talk • contribs) 00:49, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

soviet POV
This article seems to draw conclusions about the battle that follow the line of Soviet propaganda. The claim that the Soviet attacks, particularily the Yelnya offensive, had a significant material impact on the German offensive, as opposed to purely a moral boost to the Soviet side, is debatable. A good case can be made that the Soviet losses due to the unrelenting attacks made subsequent German offensives, i.e. operation Typhoon, easier than would have been the case if the Soviets had conserved their forces and built stronger defensive positions. Madmax

It seems pretty clear that the stub describes the Smolensk offensive almost exclusively in Soviet terms. The most glaring example being the description of the battle as a part of the "Great Patriotic War". While that topic surely deserves an article, and perhaps even a reference in this one, it should not be presented, as it is, as historical fact. Great Patriotic War should clearly be changed to World War II and more information on the German end of things should be included.


 * Well, almost every Eastern Front article here seems to exclusively take the German viewpoint and mostly rely on German sources, so... It is a rare case of "history written by the losers" The andf (talk) 00:20, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Comment
I wrote the original remark above and note that the article has been significantly rewritten since then and I for one no longer concider it to have a slanted POV. I would therefor request the "Neutrality Disputed" box be removed. MadMax 3/30/09 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.172.179.222 (talk) 03:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Final paragraph
This could be clarified, the second part here also contradicts the lead. "The failure....made Hitler give up on the concept of encirclement operations.....This meant a speedy encirclement of Leningrad in the north". Sceptic1954 (talk) 14:40, 18 April 2011 (UTC)sceptic1954

Panzer Armies
Referring to other sources such as Heinz Guderian, 'Panzer Leader' among others, there were not any Panzer Armies at the time. Panzer Group 2 Was not renamed until October 5. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Werhner (talk • contribs) 00:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Casualties
Glantz made a mistake in the tables of his 1995 book for thre Soviet casualties, so i inserted the number directly from Krivosheev. StoneProphet (talk) 19:50, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

So this book - ВЕЛИКАЯ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННАЯ ВОЙНА 1941-1945 гг. КАМПАНИИ, СТРАТЕГИЧЕСКИЕ ОПЕРАЦИИ И СРАЖЕНИЯ. СТАТИСТИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ. ЛЕТНЕ-ОСЕННЯЯ КАМПАНИЯ 1941 г.Москва 2004, provides such numbers of losses. The Soviets suffered 486 171 irrecoverable and 273 803 sanitary losses (759 974 alltogether). Of those losses, 469 584 were suffered by the Western Front, 107 225 by the Central Front, 103 147 by the Reserve Front, 79 575 by the Bryansk Front and 443 by the Pinsk flotilla. Krivosheev is cited. The German losses in the battle amount to 19 886 killed, 4213 missing and 76 833 wounded (100 932 alltogether). Of those losses, 33 241 were suffered by the 2nd Army, 19 834 by the 9th Army, 21 976 by the 2nd PzGr, 10 406 by the 3rd PzGr and further 15 475 by other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.230.40 (talk) 02:28, 8 October 2013 (UTC)


 * So then add that in, just cite the source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.147.23 (talk) 10:43, 27 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It is this in English "The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Campaigns, strategic operations and battles -- a statistical analysis. Book 1: The summer-autumn campaign in 1941 Moscow, 2004. - P.92." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.147.194 (talk) 02:08, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

July 27 meeting at Bock's headquarters
I've been reading Alan Clark's book "Barbarossa" (which I was shocked to find had not been cited in this article before now), and came across his description of the July 27 meeting at Novy Borisov, which was attended by the Commander-in-Chief of the Supreme High Command of the Wehrmacht Field Marshall Walther von Brauchitsch, who had flown into Novy Borisov the previous night direct from Berlin. Hitler was very concerned about his front-line generals taking too much initiative on their own, and creating what he considered a very dangerous situation by pushing too fast too far into Russia, creating a "bulge" that would inevitably be encircled by Soviet forces and cut off. To prevent this, he'd issued his Directive 33 on July 14, but he still believed that his orders needed strengthening, and thus sent Brauchitsch personally to deliver a lecture to the front line generals of Army Group Center. This meeting was incredibly important, I believe, because it was a point to which historians have pointed (among them Clark) as being very influential in inspiring the Wehrmacht leadership to actively work contrary to Hitler's orders, which though they'd had disagreements up to then, had always maintained discipline and followed the Fuhrer's orders. This is why I expanded the article to include a paragraph about this meeting. Comments are welcome. --Saukkomies talk 17:42, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
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 * Смоленск во время оккупации.jpg