Editing Franz Halder (section)

==== Operation Typhoon ====
{{Main|Battle of Moscow}}
Operation Typhoon, the German offensive at the [[Battle of Moscow]], began on 2 October 1941.{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=25}} In early October, the German forces encircled the bulk of the Soviet armies defending the capital city in the [[Battle of Moscow#Battles of Vyazma and Bryansk|Vyazma and Bryansk pocket]].{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=21}} Halder determined the strategy for Typhoon, and it was subsequently endorsed by Hitler.{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=117}} Typhoon had the same basic flaw as Barbarossa; officers on the front line were unable to change Halder's objectives even when those objectives were impossible.{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=117}}

The Barbarossa Decree and Commissar Order became a fundamental aspect of the battle for Moscow.{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=24}} By this time, thousands of Soviet civilians and defenceless prisoners in already occupied Russia were being murdered every day.{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=24}} The killings were unprecedented in the modern era and radicalised the defence of Moscow.{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=24}} On 5 December Operation Typhoon was over. Halder wrote in his diary there was no more strength and a withdrawal may be necessary.{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=308}} The withdrawal, when it came, was dictated by the Soviet army.{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=309}} The crisis on the battlefield prompted Hitler to remove von Brauchitsch and assume command of OKH himself.{{sfn|Wheeler-Bennett|1967|p=525}}

Halder vehemently pushed for a [[blitzkrieg]] assault on Moscow and believed if the capital could be taken the war would be won. However, he did not understand the fundamental underpinnings of blitzkrieg and the impossibility of carrying out a lightning war in the vast expanse of the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Stahel|2009|p=446}} Even if Moscow had fallen, Stalin would have moved his base of operations farther east and the war would have continued.{{sfn|Fugate|1984|p=315}}

[[David Stahel]] writes: "The Soviet Union was nothing less than a militarised juggernaut and, while deeply wounded in Germany's 1941 campaign, there is no evidence to suggest it was about to collapse either politically or militarily."{{sfn|Stahel|2009|p=448}} The responsibility for the failure fell on Halder, Hitler and [[Fedor von Bock]].{{sfn|Stahel|2015|p=20}} The war in the Soviet Union and the winter that followed was one of the worst chapters in the history of the German army—there were over one million casualties.{{sfn|Citino|2007|p=9}}