1942.01.05 “Losing the War by Degrees!”
By Joseph L Parrish (1905-1989)
19 x 14 in., ink in board
Coppola Collection
Joe Parrish grew up in Dickson, Tennessee, where his father was a coal dealer. Parrish decided he wanted to be a cartoonist while he was in high school. He taught himself to draw and gained a position as cartoonist for the Nashville Banner when he was 20. In 1929, he moved to the Nashville Tennessean as an editorial cartoonist. In 1936, he became the chief editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune until his retirement in 1970. After retirement, he continued to draw his regular ``Nature Notes`` for the paper until 1982.
The failure of the Wehrmacht to take Moscow is one of the legendary tales from WW2. Several of the winters during World War II were very cold in Europe. And the winter of 1941-42 is known as the coldest winter during the 20th century.
In October 1941, the Second World War teetered on a knife edge. There was war in China and war in North Africa, and soon there would be war between America and Japan. But in the autumn of 1941, the only war that really seemed to matter was fought in a portion of central Russia.
Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, had begun brilliantly on June 22, 1941. Attack fast and be done. By early October, they had advanced to within 200 miles of Moscow. The mud was consuming German vehicles at a steady pace, and progress was slow. Winter was coming.
After the German armies paused for breath in early November, the weather turned colder, freezing the mud and giving Hitler's troops the solid footing they needed to advance. By the end of November, German reconnaissance units were just 12 miles from Moscow, so close they could see the towers of the city through their binoculars.
So close and yet so far. By the beginning of December, the thermometer had dropped to 45 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. With limited supply capacity, priority was given to fuel and ammunition. Besides, who needs winter clothing if Moscow was supposed to be captured before the winter struck? Instead, it was the Soviets who struck.
German weapons were frozen, German soldiers were frozen, and sometimes the soldiers froze to the weapons. The survivors could only watch helplessly as the attackers, warmly clad in fur-lined jackets and boots, and camouflaged in white snowsuits, emerged like ghosts through the mist and snow.
The Germans were pushed back to 150 miles from Moscow. The battle of dictatorial egos was on, with attacks and counterattacks, and no surrender while the glory of capturing capital cities was in their dreams. Hitler’s army took the worst of it.
