4th Army

Kluge's 4th Army provided the infantry mass of the central thrust, reducing the Vyazma pocket through October 1941 while the panzer groups raced ahead. It then followed up the Warsaw highway toward Mozhaisk and Naro-Fominsk, grinding forward a few kilometres a day against the Mozhaisk defence line. In December it held the centre of the German front before Moscow until Zhukov's counteroffensive tore gaps on both its flanks; forbidden by Hitler to retreat, it bent but did not break, forming hedgehog defences in frozen towns through the winter battles west of Moscow. It absorbed foreign volunteer contingents on its flanks, a symptom of an army scraping the barrel; in January its V and IX Corps were nearly encircled at Sukhinichi, and only the stand-fast order plus air supply kept the front from unravelling. Kluge himself rose to command Army Group Centre in December. The tracks recorded here are schematic headquarters-area positions, not surveyed front lines.