The 51st Army Corps' 295th Infantry Division went after the Mamayev Kurgan hill, the 71st attacked the central rail station and toward the central landing stage on the Volga, while 48th Panzer Corps attacked south of the Tsaritsa River. On 19 November, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, a two-pronged attack targeting the Romanian armies protecting the 6th Army's flanks. German personnel in the pocket numbered about 210,000, according to strength breakdowns of the 20 field divisions (average size 9,000) and 100 battalion-sized units of the Sixth Army on 19 November 1942. A low-level Soviet envoy party (comprising Major Aleksandr Smyslov, Captain Nikolay Dyatlenko and a trumpeter) carried generous surrender terms to Paulus: if he surrendered within 24 hours, he would receive a guarantee of safety for all prisoners, medical care for the sick and wounded, prisoners being allowed to keep their personal belongings, "normal" food rations, and repatriation to any country they wished after the war. [190] General Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach offered to raise an anti-Hitler army from the Stalingrad survivors, but the Soviets did not accept the offer. All of the 19 German tanks were lost, as well as 81 of the R-2 light tanks. Toward the end of the battle, the gigantic railroad gun nicknamed Dora was brought into the area. [71] During the battle the 62nd Army had the most arrests and executions: 203 in all, of which 49 were executed, while 139 were sent to penal companies and battalions. It consisted of two Romanian cavalry divisions and the 23rd Panzer Division, which mustered no more than thirty serviceable tanks. [58] Civilians, including women and children, were put to work building trenchworks and protective fortifications. Background Planning an Offensive Importance of Stalingrad Operation Blue Begining of the Battle Soviet Counter-Offensives Operation Uranus Stalingrad Pocket Operation Saturn Soviet Victory The Aftermath Background The Battle Of Stalingrad. This slowed the German advance and reduced the effectiveness of the German advantage in supporting fire. In September 1942, the German commander of the Sixth Army, General Paulus, assisted by the Fourth Panzer Army, advanced on the city of Stalingrad. Hitler reiterated that the Sixth Army would stay at Stalingrad and that the air bridge would supply it until the encirclement was broken by a new German offensive. These factors, taken together, prevented the Luftwaffe from effectively employing the full potential of its transport forces, ensuring that they were unable to deliver the quantity of supplies needed to sustain the 6th Army.[140]. After his release by the Soviets in 1953, he settled in East Germany. While a motorised breakout might have been possible in the first few weeks, the 6th Army now had insufficient fuel and the German soldiers would have faced great difficulty breaking through the Soviet lines on foot in harsh winter conditions. Pavlov was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union for his actions. Historical Memorial Complex "To the Heroes of the Stalingrad Battle" at Mamayev Hill. About fifty Red Army defenders, cut off from resupply, held the position for five days and fought off ten different assaults before running out of ammunition and water. This armed resistance continued until 15 February and in a few areas until 20 February. at Stalingrad Catherine Merridale notes that, seemingly paradoxically, "their response was frequently relief. The letter was signed by Colonel-General of Artillery Voronov and the commander-in-chief of the Don Front, Lieutenant-General Rokossovsky. The German offensive started well. It fought as part of the 100th Jger Division. [37], Hitler intervened, however, ordering the Army Group to split in two. A massive road block resulted when the 4th Panzer and the 1st Panzer choked the roads, stopping both in their tracks while they cleared the mess of thousands of vehicles. According to Stephen Walsh: Romanian casualties were 158,854; 114,520 Italians (84,830 killed, missing and 29,690 wounded); and 143,000 Hungarian (80,000 killed, missing and 63,000 wounded). The Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division, assigned to counterattack at the Mamayev Kurgan and at Railway Station No. horses' skeletons, and to the right, there was an enormous horrible cesspool fortunately, frozen solid. The initial objectives in the region around Stalingrad were to destroy the industrial capacity of the city and to block the Volga River traffic connecting the Caucasus and Caspian Sea to central Russia, as the city is strategically located near a big bend of the Volga. We start 1943 under conditions I would never have dared to hope. The USSR lost 4,341 tanks destroyed or damaged, 15,728 artillery pieces and 2,769 combat aircraft. The starving encircled forces at Stalingrad made no attempt to break out or link up with Manstein's advance. The German 16th Panzer Division reportedly had to fight the 1077th's gunners "shot for shot" until all 37 anti-aircraft guns were destroyed or overrun. The two German army groups were too far apart to support one another. [94] Soviet nurses not only treated wounded personnel under fire but were involved in the highly dangerous work of bringing wounded soldiers back to the hospitals under enemy fire. However, the Soviets held on, and the coming of winter forced a pause to the German offensive. Artillery spotters were an especially prized target for snipers. Plot The film opens in Japan in the wake of the 2011 Thoku earthquake and tsunami. Manstein, however, who knew that Sixth Army could not survive the winter there, instructed his headquarters to draw up a further plan in the event of Hitler's seeing sense. All Rights Reserved. The Sixth Army under Gen. Friedrich Paulus would lead the assault on Stalingrad; Hitler sets a deadline of August 25 for the capture of the city. This artillery was able to bombard the German positions or at least provide counter-battery fire. Unsung Witnesses of the Battle of Stalingrad [143], The toll on the Transportgruppen was heavy. More Soviet soldiers died in the five-month battle than Americans in the entire war. Part 2: The Fight for Stalingrad's Factory District-14 October18 November 1942", "The Battle Of Stalingrad Involved 2.2 Million People One Of The Biggest Battles In History", "Heeresarzt 10-Day Casualty Reports per Army/Army Group, 1942", Leavenworth Papers No. The other would start from the Chir front west of the Don, which was little more than 60 kilometres (40mi) from the edge of the Kessel, but the continuing attacks of Romanenko's 5th Tank Army against the German detachments along the river Chir ruled out that start-line. They could only be aimed at point-blank range through the bore of their gun barrels.[66]. The 6th Army slowly starved. Battle of Stalingrad | History, Summary, Location, Deaths, & Facts The condition of the troops that surrendered was pitiful. In February 1943, after months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, the surviving German forcesonly about 91,000 soldiers . A five-month struggle from street to street and house to house that was deemed "the . The preparations for the attack could be heard by the Romanians, who continued to push for reinforcements, only to be refused again. Lieutenant General Alexander Rodimtsev was in charge of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, and received one of two Heroes of the Soviet Union awarded during the battle for his actions. "[168], Around 91,000 exhausted, ill, wounded, and starving prisoners were taken. Changing the day will navigate the page to that given day in history. The natural line of defence, the Don River, had never been properly established by the German side. The Front was reformed from reserve armies on 22 October 1942. General Richthofen informed Manstein on 27 November of the small transport capacity of the Luftwaffe and the impossibility of supplying 300 tons a day by air. Writing in his diary on 1 January 1943, British General Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, reflected on the change in the position from a year before: I felt Russia could never hold, Caucasus was bound to be penetrated, and Abadan (our Achilles heel) would be captured with the consequent collapse of Middle East, India, etc. By the end of July, the Germans had pushed the Soviets across the Don River. The operative report of the Don Front's staff issued on 5 February 1943, 22:00 said, The 64th Army was putting itself in order, being in previously occupied regions. Paulus requested permission to surrender, but Hitler rejected Paulus' request out of hand. Only 27 of the latter were lost in combat, however, the remaining 54 being abandoned after breaking down or running out of fuel. [191] It is often identified as the turning point on the Eastern Front, in the war against Germany overall, and in the entire Second World War. When asked by Hitler, Gring replied, after being convinced by Hans Jeschonnek,[135] that the Luftwaffe could supply the 6th Army with an "air bridge". Stalingradskaya bitva, IPA:[stlnratskj bitv]; 23 August 1942 2 February 1943)[17][18][19] was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later renamed Volgograd) in Southern Russia. Bloody urban warfare began again in Stalingrad, but this time it was the Germans who were pushed back to the banks of the Volga. Paulus requested that he be granted permission to accept the terms. This left only the LVII Panzer Corps around Kotelnikovo, supported by the rest of Hoth's very mixed Fourth Panzer Army, to relieve Paulus's trapped divisions. The prisoners included 22 generals. Two major pockets were formed and destroyed: the first, northeast of Kharkov, on 2 July, and a second, around Millerovo, Rostov Oblast, a week later. The wings of the 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army met near Jablotchni along the Zaritza on 2 Sept.[67] By 1 September, the Soviets could only reinforce and supply their forces in Stalingrad by perilous crossings of the Volga under constant bombardment by artillery and aircraft. And then, suddenly, at the far end of the yard I caught sight of a human figure. [Note 3]. But what is wrong Fuhrer and that was the cause of his end? 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Hitler was furious and confided that Paulus "could have freed himself from all sorrow and ascended into eternity and national immortality, but he prefers to go to Moscow".[169]. Thus, they converted multi-floored apartment blocks, factories, warehouses, street corner residences and office buildings into a series of well-defended strong-points with small 510-man units. A young girl crawls out of her hiding place amidst the ruins and stealthily picks her way to the Volga to fetch some water. The offensive was repelled. He studied 11,237 letters sent by soldiers inside of Stalingrad between 20 December 1942 and 16 January 1943 to their families in Germany. In addition, the German 6th Army included between 40,000 and 65,000 Hilfswillige (Hiwi), or "volunteer auxiliaries",[125][126] a term used for personnel recruited amongst Soviet POWs and civilians from areas under occupation. Army Group South was selected for a sprint forward through the southern Russian steppes into the Caucasus to capture the vital Soviet oil fields there. The armies in the area were also poorly equipped in terms of anti-tank weapons. [197], At this point, the British had won the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942. [35], The Soviets realised their critical situation, ordering everyone who could hold a rifle into the fight. [111], The Soviet bomber force, the Aviatsiya Dal'nego Deystviya (Long Range Aviation; ADD), having taken crippling losses over the past 18 months, was restricted to flying at night. Stalingrad Press Coverage - Calvin University Similarly, Operation Wilhelm attacked Voltshansk on 13 June, and Operation Fridericus attacked Kupiansk on 22 June.[39]. Battle of Stalingrad began exactly 80 years ago, on Aug. 23, 1942 - NPR Sensing that this was the last chance for a breakout, Manstein pleaded with Hitler on 18 December, but Hitler refused. However, the combination of constant air support operations on the German side and the Soviet surrender of the daytime skies began to affect the strategic balance in the air. [59] Casualties were estimated to have been 40,000,[60][21] though they were likely exaggerated,[61] and after 25 August the Soviets did not record any civilian and military casualties as a result of air raids. Battle of Stalingrad and its outcome | Britannica The 16th Panzer was shocked to find that, due to Soviet manpower shortages, it had been fighting female soldiers. [76] The soldiers found about ten Soviet civilians hiding in the basement. Biesinger (2006: 699): "On August 23, 1942, the Germans began their attack.". He argues that, though it is "easy to argue that from the summer of 1942 the Soviet army fought because it was forced to fight," to concentrate solely on coercion is nonetheless to "distort our view of the Soviet war effort. Battle of Stalingrad Significance FamilySearch Not all of the 6th Army was trapped: 50,000 soldiers were brushed aside outside the pocket. [151][152] The German High Command informed Paulus, "Every day that the army holds out longer helps the whole front and draws away the Russian divisions from it. Battle of Stalingrad - Definition, Dates & Significance - HISTORY Germany's defeat shattered its reputation for invincibility and dealt a devastating blow to German morale. He denied that he was the commander of the remaining northern pocket in Stalingrad and refused to issue an order in his name for them to surrender. It took place in the city of Stalingrad (now known as Volgograd) in southwestern Russia from July 1942 to February 1943 and was fought between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Hence it was ineffective in relieving the 6th Army. However, there were only about 50,000 German soldiers at El Alamein in Egypt, while at Stalingrad 300,000 to 400,000 Germans had been lost. [108] Determined to crush Soviet resistance, Luftflotte 4's Stukawaffe flew 900 individual sorties against Soviet positions at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory on 5 October. [116] From 21 August to 20 November, the German 6th Army lost 60,548 men, including 12,782 killed, 45,545 wounded and 2,221 missing. "As quick as lightning, the Panzergrenadiers jumped from their wagons. The forces under the 6th Army were almost twice as large as a regular German army unit, plus there was also a corps of the 4th Panzer Army trapped in the pocket. [106] The Soviet-controlled area shrank down to a few strips of land along the western bank of the Volga, and in November the fighting concentrated around what Soviet newspapers referred to as "Lyudnikov's Island", a small patch of ground behind the Barrikady Factory where the remnants of Colonel Ivan Lyudnikov's 138th Rifle Division resisted all ferocious assaults thrown by the Germans and became a symbol of the stout Soviet defence of Stalingrad. The Luftwaffe retained air superiority into November, and Soviet daytime aerial resistance was nonexistent. Both sides began to attach propaganda value to the city, which bore the name of the Soviet leader meaning that the capture of the city would have been a great ideological victory for the Reich. The British historian Antony Beevor noted the "sinister" message from the Stalingrad Front's Political Department on 8 October 1942 that: "The defeatist mood is almost eliminated and the number of treasonous incidents is getting lower" as an example of the sort of coercion Red Army soldiers experienced under the Special Detachments (later to be renamed SMERSH). Fliegerkorps dispatched wave after wave of Stuka dive-bombers to prevent a breakthrough. Most died of wounds, disease (particularly typhus), cold, overwork, mistreatment and malnutrition. This page was last edited on 23 June 2023, at 09:38. Russia has held, Egypt for the present is safe. Hiwi often proved to be reliable Axis personnel in rear areas and were used for supporting roles, but also served in some front-line units as their numbers had increased.[126]. The battle came to an end after Soviet forces circled the Germans, forcing them to surrender on Feb. 2, 1943. Battle of Stalingrad, (July 17, 1942-February 2, 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd ), Russia, U.S.S.R., during World War II. [23][24] Today, the Battle of Stalingrad is universally regarded as the turning point in the European theatre of war, as it forced the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (German High Command) to withdraw considerable military forces from other areas in occupied Europe to replace German losses on the Eastern Front, ending with the rout of the six field armies of Army Group B, including the destruction of Nazi Germany's 6th Army and an entire corps of its 4th Panzer Army. Christoph Hasselbach 02/02/2023 Eighty years ago, the surrender of Nazi Germany's Sixth Army marked the end of the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalin was feted as the hero of the hour and made a Marshal of the Soviet Union. [136], The director of Luftflotte 4, Wolfram von Richthofen, tried to get this decision overturned. The public mood was sullen, depressed, fearful, and war-weary. The 6th Panzer Division, arriving from France, was a vastly more powerful formation, but its members hardly received an encouraging impression. On 20 November, a second Soviet offensive (two armies) was launched to the south of Stalingrad against points held by the Romanian 4th Army Corps. [36]:98 The third and last serviceable runway was at the Stalingradskaya flight school, which reportedly had the last landings and takeoffs on 23 January. [65] Staff and students from the local technical university formed a "tank destroyer" unit. the battle of Stalingrad lasted from July 1942 to February 1943 was the turning point in the war. In a method of fighting the Germans began to call the Rattenkrieg, or Rats War, the opposing forces broke into squads eight or 10 strong and fought each other for every house and yard of territory. Hitler ordered Von Paulus to remain in place and promoted him to field marshal, as no Nazi field marshal had ever surrendered. Initially, supply flights came in from the field at Tatsinskaya,[142] called 'Tazi' by the German pilots. There is a hope of clearing North Africa of Germans in the near future Russia is scoring wonderful successes in Southern Russia. The Axis suffered 747,300868,374 combat casualties (killed, wounded or captured) among all branches of the German armed forces and their allies: 235,000 German and allied troops in total, from all units, including Manstein's ill-fated relief force, were captured during the battle. The destruction of an entire army (the largest killed, captured, wounded figures for Axis soldiers, nearly 1million, during the war) and the frustration of Germany's grand strategy made the battle a watershed moment. [88] On the other hand, Beevor noted the often extraordinary bravery of the Soviet soldiers in a battle that was only comparable to Verdun, and argued that terror alone cannot explain such self-sacrifice. "[91], Many women fought on the Soviet side or were under fire. Buildings had to be cleared room by room through the bombed-out debris of residential areas, office blocks, basements and apartment high-rises. Soviet forces reached the entrance to the German headquarters in the ruined GUM department store. Out of the nearly 91,000 German prisoners captured in Stalingrad, only about 5,000 returned. Stalingrad was strategically important to both sides as a major industrial and transport hub on the Volga River. The Battle of Stalingrad took place between July 17, 1942 and February 2, 1943, during the Second World War. Nevertheless, they continued to resist, in part because they believed the Soviets would execute any who surrendered. [176] According to a contemporary Soviet report, 5,762 guns, 1,312 mortars, 12,701 heavy machine guns, 156,987 rifles, 80,438 sub-machine guns, 10,722 trucks, 744 aircraft; 1,666 tanks, 261 other armoured vehicles, 571 half-tracks and 10,679 motorcycles were captured by the Soviets. Location of army's units is as it was previously. [30][31][32], On 23 July 1942, Hitler personally rewrote the operational objectives for the 1942 campaign, greatly expanding them to include the occupation of the city of Stalingrad. [164][165], There was no one with a camera present to film the capture of Paulus. The additional distance became another obstacle to the resupply efforts. The battle started with the South Western Front. [79], German military doctrine was based on the principle of combined-arms teams and close cooperation between tanks, infantry, engineers, artillery and ground-attack aircraft. [199], The news of the battle echoed round the world, with many people now believing that Hitler's defeat was inevitable. [141] Transport aircraft also evacuated technical specialists and sick or wounded personnel from the besieged enclave. Stalingrad was one of the most decisive battles on the Eastern Front in the Second World War. [192][193][194] The Red Army had the initiative, and the Wehrmacht was in retreat. By 27 Sept. the Germans occupied the southern portion of the city, but the Soviets held the centre and northern part. In autumn, the Soviet generals Georgy Zhukov and Aleksandr Vasilevsky, responsible for strategic planning in the Stalingrad area, concentrated forces in the steppes to the north and south of the city. The German public was not officially told of the catastrophic defeat until the end of January 1943. At this point, the Don and Volga Rivers are only 65km (40mi) apart, and the Germans left their main supply depots west of the Don, which had important implications later in the course of the battle. The soldiers surrounded it with minefields, set up machine-gun positions at the windows and breached the walls in the basement for better communications. Some, including Paulus, signed anti-Hitler statements that were broadcast to German troops. Some of the taller buildings, blasted into roofless shells by earlier German aerial bombardment, saw floor-by-floor, close-quarters combat, with the Germans and Soviets on alternate levels, firing at each other through holes in the floors. [100] The Soviet command moved units from the Red Army strategic reserve in the Moscow area to the lower Volga and transferred aircraft from the entire country to the Stalingrad region. Three days later, when the first trainload of Raus's division steamed into Kotelnikovo station to unload, his troops were greeted by "a hail of shells" from Soviet batteries. "They'll be taken away tomorrow, I suppose." [48] Beyond the Volga River on the eastern boundary of Stalingrad, additional Soviet units were formed into the 62nd Army under Lieutenant General Vasiliy Chuikov on 11 September 1942. "Stalingrad anniversary: 70 years on, Russian city still gives up its WWII dead", "Russia marks 70th anniversary of Stalingrad battle", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqFo-TswRss, Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad, "Stalinqrad dy: tarixin n qanl sava v II dnya mharibsind sasl dnn balanc", Stalingrad battle Newsreels // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive, Story of the Stalingrad battle with pictures, maps, video and other primary and secondary sources, Volgograd State Panoramic Museum official homepage, The Battle of Stalingrad in Film and History, Stalingrad-info.com, Russian archival docs translated into English, original battle maps, aerial photos, pictures taken at the battlefields, relics collection, H-Museum: Stalingrad/Volgograd 19432003.

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