The battle for Kalinin

The battle for Kalinin (Tver) on October 10-17, 1941 is one of the key episodes of the battle for Moscow. During the Typhoon operation, the Wehrmacht had to take this important bridgehead and a transport hub, the loss of which for the Red Army was fraught with the strengthening of the blockade of Leningrad and a relief of supplying the German formations aimed at the capital of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the Kalinin defensive operation, as a rule, is associated with the events that took place after the Kalinin Nazi capture, and the fighting for the city itself, due to their relative transientity, describes the military historians extremely sparingly and the outcome of these heavy battles seems to be preceded in advance. However, in October the 41st, none of the warring parties considered it that way. This book, for the first time, on the basis of both Soviet and German archival documents in all details, restores the course of bloody battles for Kalinin, answering the most difficult and debatable questions. How important for the Red Army it was important to hold Kalinin and what prevented the Germans from taking him on the move? Why did the defense of the city become atypical, differing in high dynamism and fierce confrontation? Where did the most violent battles unfolded? Why, in relation to the battles for Kalinin, the word “defensive” can only be used partly? How did three large German formations restrained only a few thousand Soviet fighters? What were the consequences of the multi-day Kalinin "meat grinder" for the elite 1st Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht and other Nazi formations? Finally, how did bloody battles for Kalinin help to defend Moscow?