E1  How naval war saved Russia in winter 1941/42
Draft 23 March 2011

The fact that weather prevented Adolf Hitler’s army to reach Moscow before the winter season is widely acknowledged. The New York Time brought the news on the front page  of the 9^th December 1941 issue: “Nazis give up idea of Moscow in 1941. Winter forces abandonment of big drives in north till spring, Berlin says” (NYT, 09 Dec.1941). Temperature and snow conditions had been suddenly out of  tune with even the worst imagination. What is not know, that Hitler can only blame himself, and his advisors, for this gross miscalculation. Thank heaven, a great commander by his own adjustment, shout himself so severely in the foot, that the announcement  marked the beginning of the end of the Third Reich which unfortunately took until 1945. 
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The topic is about the role of naval war on the weather during the autumn of 1941. From all the numerous naval activities in Europe, and the North Atlantic, the eastern Baltic Sea had been very severely under siege from June to December. The moderating role of the Baltic Sea in the adjacent countries and east wards into the Euro-Asian continent was quickly in disarray    Against all statistical expectation the weather stopped  the largest military operation in human history in both manpower and casualties. Unusual low temperature in November and  December rendered plans and expectations obsolete. The Moscow region usually expecting  mean temperature  of  +1° to –3°C (November), or –3° to –7°C (December) now faced with conditions far below –20°C. For example, Field Marshal von Bock, commander of Army Group Center, recorded in his war diary on 5 November 1941 that the mercury dipped to -29°C (-20°F), and it had been reported that around 24 November it was a steady -30°C (-22°F).[1]  In one report the New York Times refer to a radio communiqué from Moscow as follows:

“Nazi Misplanning Alleged. ‘The Germans complain about the Winter and said it prevented their plans from materializing. First, there was no Winter proper in the Moscow area, and second, the complaints reveal that the Germans were not properly provided with warm clothing because they hoped to finish the war before Winter set in’. … the Russian were much better equipped and conditioned for Winter warfare than the Germans, recalling that the Russian carried out the Finnish campaign (1939/40) in the dead of the Arctic Winter”. (NYT, 13 Dev.1941)

• REMARK: The German weather services and military had been fully aware of the conditions in Finland two years earlier, but showed no interest to understand why, presumably because they understood too little about the functioning of atmospheric processes. .   

 Usually serve cold days sets in during the latter half of December. In 1941 the cold weather started four weeks earlier, and was more severe than severe winters had been usually recorded. So what went wrong, or what was not taken into account? 

By not reaching Moscow before the setting in of the winter, Hitler’s ‘blitzkrieg’ concept failed due to bad weather forecast. Weather forecasting was in the responsibility of special services. Why did they failed so thoroughly is not so difficult to imagine. For anyone who regards the oceans and seas as the maker and controller of the weather and climate, would at least have taken the pervious two extreme winters, during which war and naval war took place, in focus, and have asked the question: why? Why came this winters without a warning? Why had been many weather conditions so exceptional? Why was there so much sea ice in the Baltic Sea?  

 Here is not the place to discuses this matter any further, and to  consider the failure and scientific ignorance of the WWII weather experts any further. On one hand any free and independent research was rarely, if at all, possible. All weather information fell widely under the mark: Top Secrete. Living condition were all to often very difficult if not life threatening. When the U.S.A. Government discontinue the publication of weather maps few days after the Pearl Harbor incident, the New York Times wrote that from now on “we must look at our own thermometer and the skies and draw what conclusion we can. Meteorologically we are living in the year 1800” (NYT, 17 Dec.1941). On the other hand that is all a long time ago. Meanwhile there had been ample time to do what the weather experts had been not able or  not competent enough to do in the early 1940s.  

Modern climatology is well advised to do at least now what there predecessor should have done. Since long science should have investigated and explained the reason for the exceptional winter conditions that took Europe into an icy grip. Since long they could have known why the naval war became a very decisive factor for stopping the German war machinery before Moscow in the 3^rd war winter 1941/42. Without naval war operation in the Baltic Sea and North Sea the weather  would not have turned into an arctic mode. The available weather information provide many clues in support of the naval war thesis. Science is invited to offer better explanation, but should finish the ignorance to take not notice at all of one of the most pronounced winter weather sciences is in being.