I've been recently watching a new History Channel series about WWII called 'The War of the Century'. 8)
It goes into quite some detail about many aspects. The latest installment dealt with the Russian campaign and more specifically the battle for and seige of Moscow.
The official figure quoted in the series regarding how close the Germans came was 40 kilometres (about 25 miles). Very close indeed! :o
They gave some figures and info dealing with Russian POW's that I wasn't aware of.
Apparently Hitler decided, after something like 1.5 million Russians were captured during the first few weeks, that they would 'do away with them' by a kind of 'systematic neglect'. This included starvation, disease and freezing etc.
They quoted a figure of 4 million Russian POW's dying in German captivity. I don't recall if that was for the entire war, or just up till Moscow!
There were interviews from veterans of both sides. Stories of terrible barbarism on both sides and also very touching tales of individual acts of kindness among enemies.
One German was under orders to 'summarily' shoot all Russian 'commisars'. he came across one and rather than 'murder him' (as he put it), he directed him back to his own troops, as he knew if he took him in, someone would shoot him and he would probably in trouble anyway.
Anyway, the amount of Russian prisoners taken by the Germans was absolutely staggering. Blitzkreig definitely worked very well in the oonset. I think it was more the winter that affected the Blitzkreig tactic more than the Russians retreating.
The reasons why Blitzkreig worked in surrounding 'pockets' of thousands, was that they couldn't retret fast enough to get away from the fast advancing armour and 'aerial' artillery.
After having seen this series, I still believe that had the Germans had only 3 or 4 weeks more of decent weather, the result in the East would have been very different.
I think the numbers and manufacturing capacity of tyhe Russians, against the supply problems and manufacturing limitations of the Germans would still have seen a Russian victory, but it would have taken much longer (I don't dare hazard a guess at how long - I don't know how people can calculate how muich loger these thing could have lasted, had one thing or another happened). :o
Also I still believe that the story in the West would have been quite different for a while, had the Germans captured and held onto the oil fields in the Caucus'. ;D