Monday October 13, 1941. Hitler grounds Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 over the UK. The Germans commence mass murder in Dnipropetrovsk.

 On this day in 1941 Hitler ordered the cessation of German night raider operations over Great Britain.

Unit symbol for Nachtjagdgeschwader 1, which operated all German  night fighter units during World War Two.

First, giving credit where credit is due, I learned of this here:

Today in World War II History—October 13, 1941

The decision was a curious one.  The operation of night fighters to interdict RAF bombers had been expensive at first, but it was also having an outsized impact on the RAF and was gaining ground.  Hitler seems to have wanted, however, the night fighter to operate over German territory, where the bombers were actually less vulnerable, as anything they shot down would be visible to the German population.  He also seemed unconvinced that the tactic of hitting bombers over their bases was a sound one, was the RAF had not adopted it during the Blitz.

British captured Bf-110.

Simple logic, however demonstrated that the Luftwaffe was right.  Equipped at the time with early production variants of the Bf-110, the Luftwaffe did not yet have a radar equipped night fighter.  Therefore, RAF bombers had to be intercepted by site, after being guided by ground radar into location.  As the Luftwaffe knew where RAF airfields were, however, this meant that sending night fighters to areas where the bombers had to land was not a hugely difficult plotting proposition.  In contrast, sending them to where the RAF intended to strike over Northern Europe, and intercepting the bombers where they were going, was a hugely difficult task.

Regarding the RAF, Newsweek featured the latest model of the Hurricane on its issue that came out on this day.  The aircraft on the cover appeared to be a MkIIC, which introduced 20mm cannons in place of .303 machineguns.

On the same day the Germans took ground to the northwest and southwest of Moscow.  In Dnipropetrovsk they commenced a two-day massacre of the region's Jewish population.

Time Magazine's cover featured Marshall Budenny with a caption noting that "an army". . ."is only as good as its generals".  Budenny was a crappy General at this point, if he ever had been, but Stalin's favoritism of him meant that he not only survived Stalin's murderous purge, but it kept Budenny in uniform, if by this point sidelined forever.

 A U.S. soldier sent this letter:  October 13, 1941 Moss letter home.