In the winter of 1941, 78 choice Nazi divisions, 1,700 tanks and over 1,000 planes were drawn up near Moscow to carry out Operation Typhoon. The Germans had come so close to Moscow that German could be heard on the radio on any wave length, and the very air was polluted by enemy breath. Leningrad, the second largest ctiy in the Soviet Union, was besieged, and the noose of the enemy blockade had tightened round it. The Wehrmacht commanders were planning the capture of Stalingrad on the Volga, the country's main route for grain and oil supplies.It was in those days and months, in the early period of the Great Patriotic War, that Hitler's army which was then at the zenith of its power suffered its first serious defeat. About half a million German soldiers and officers were killed in the battle for Moscow alone. The offensive launched by the Red Army in December, 1941 recaptured enemy-occupied territory with a pre-war population of approximately 5,000,000. Leningrad held out, and soon the whole world was to hear of the heroic battle of Stalingrad.This book tells about the battle for Moscow and Stalingrad, and other major events in the first period of the Great Patriotic War. The articles and stories are by Marshals Zhukov, Vassilevsky and Rokossovky, and by such well-known authors as Alexander Fadeyev, Konstantin Simonov, Vassily Grossman and Alexander Bek.