Field Marshal Fedor von Bock
Fedor von Bock commanded the drive on Moscow and was dismissed for saying it had failed. Born in Küstrin in 1880 into a Prussian military family, he was commissioned into the Guards, won the Pour le Mérite in the First World War, and rose steadily through the small interwar army. He was politically conservative and disliked the Nazi party while serving it without objection; he was known for a cold manner and for a preoccupation with his own advancement that his colleagues remarked on. He commanded Army Group North in the invasion of Poland in 1939 and Army Group B in the west in 1940 — the northern arm of the attack that drew the Allied armies into Belgium while the decisive blow came through the Ardennes further south. In June 1941 he was given Army Group Centre, the largest of the three formations invading the Soviet Union, with the main armoured strength. He destroyed enormous Soviet forces in encirclements at Białystok, Minsk and Smolensk, and then argued to continue directly on Moscow. Hitler diverted his armour south to Kiev instead, producing another vast encirclement and a delay of some two months. Operation Typhoon began at the end of September. Advance units reached within about thirty kilometres of Moscow in December, and the offensive collapsed in the cold with the Soviet counter-attack. He was dismissed later that month, recalled to command Army Group South in 1942, and dismissed again in July for objecting to the division of the summer offensive. He was killed with his wife and stepdaughter by a strafing aircraft in May 1945.
- Lived: 1880 CE – 1945 CE
- Nationality: German
- Roles: field_marshal
