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STAlINGRAD, 1942
Above: General Georgy
Zhukov was responsible
for the defence of
Stalingrad. Rather than
interfering for political
reasons, Stalin left him
alone to conduct the
battle.
Left Russian soldiers in
winter uniform combat
the extreme cold as well
as the Germans in the
rubble of Stalingrad.
Stalin refused to give up the city in southern Russia that bore
his name and the Germans were encircled in a crushing pincer
movement. A German army became trapped inside the
wrecked remains of the city, fighting a bitter house-to-house
oattle for survival. It was the beginning of the end for Hitler's
war against the Soviet Union.
The German war machine had come to a halt outside
Stalingrad and the Soviet Union had begun to gain the initiative
-n the most terrible war of the 20th century.
The contest for Stalingrad has often been called the most
decisive battle of the Second World War. Before it, German
armies had conquered most of Europe and they seemed poised
·0 complete Hitler's long-desired conquest of the east. In the
ruins of Stalingrad, however, the Red Army halted the German
advance and so weakened the resolve of Hitler's ~rmy thatfrom then onwards it was more or less in retreat back to Berlin.
STALINGRAD
One decisive aspect of the battle was that it revealed the lim
its of political power. It demonstrated to two of the biggest ideo
logical dictators of the 20th century that war could not be fought
by politicians alone and that military command was best left to
generals. But only one of the dictators was to learn the lesson.
THE FAILURE OF DICTATORS
Up until this point in the great clash between the Nazi and
Soviet regimes, each leader had believed that his own political
will was enough to bring victory to his armies. Hitler and Stalin
were convinced they knew better than their generals. In order
to secure his grip on power, Stalin had fatally weakened the
Red Army with purges of its officers and placed it directly under
political influence. After war broke out, humiliating defeat on
all fronts was the result of his paralysing efforts, and when
faced with annihilation in 1942 Stalin was forced to concede
• - • Soviet aavances
• - .German counterattacks- - - Front line 19 Nov
• • -- -. Frontline 30 Nov
-- Front line 31 Dee
® German airfields
50
I80
mileso
Io kilometres
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\ PANZER ARMy·· •• " " I••~ ~-""', I, ~ F' tS 't
ITALIAN ". Irs f~vle.fOURTH ARMY ;-'. countero enSive
,", begins 19·20 Nov
" ••• Second Soviet \~ - - - •• counteroffensive
begins 16 ?ec I
At the beginning of 1942, the Russians launched a winter
counter-offensive, but the Germans were too strong to be
affected by it and maintained their lines from Finland to the
Crimea. In the spring, the German armies pressed forward,
forcing the Russians on to the defensive once again.
Hitler's generals recommended that the German and Axis
armies combine in one powerful thrust southwards along the
Don and Donets valleys to capture Rostov and Stalingrad and
then move into the Caucasus to assume control of its immense
oil reserves. Hitler was impatient, however, and decided on
simultaneous thrusts against Stalingrad and the Caucasus. This
meant dividing his armies and the creation of a considerable
gap between the two forces. Hitler's generals complained that
command of the Stalingrad campaign to one of his generals,
Georgy Zhukov, and let him get on with it.
Hitler, on the other hand, was intoxicated with victory. He
believed his generals were too timid and constantly pushed
them onwards, until he fatally overextended Germany's military
and logistical capacities. When two of his generals protested,
they were relieved of their commands and Hitler took direct
control of the fighting in southern Russia. The remaining gener
als were too afraid to counter Hitler's commands and they and
hundreds of thousands of soldiers were sacrificed to his vanity.
After Stalingrad, Hitler no longer dined with his high command.
He ate alone, with only assistants to perpetuate his delusions.
HITLER TAKES COMMAND
Below. Russian soldiers
in snow camouflage
advance through a
ruined factory at the
heart of the fighting.
Right The progressive
advances of the Soviet
forces as they broke
·through and surrounded
the German troops
fighting inside
Stalingrad .
this would put severe pressure on their fighting and supply abil
ities. Hitler dismissed two of his generals and took direct com
mand of Army Group A, communicating his orders from his
headquarters in East Prussia 1,900km (1,200 miles) away.
In August 1942, Hitler concentrated his troops in order to
capture the city of Stalingrad astride the River Volga. He issued
commands to General Friedrich Paulus and his Sixth Army,
which took on the brunt of the fighting. In the meantime, Army
Group B held the line to the north of Stalingrad, while Army
Group A led the line to the south, with a gap of 380km (240
miles) between them maintained by only one German motor
ized division and some less than reliable allies.
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov had survived Stalin's purges
in the 1930s to emerge as his leading general, having been
awarded the honour of Hero of the Soviet Union for his victori
ous battle against the Japanese in Manchuria. Stalin now
looked to him to defend Stalingrad and, for once, let his general
deal with the situation without political interference. Zhukov
made a very accurate analysis of the situation, believing, as
STALINGRAD 117
- - •••• Soviet forces
- - •••• ' German forces
front line 12 September
Top: During the fight for
the city, front lines
swung back and forth as
each side made gains
one day only to lose
them again the next.
Above left Germany's
strategic offensive in the
Caucasus region ofsouthern Russia meant
that Hitler's troops wer~dang.erously stretched.
UN ION
Above right Central
Stalingrad, where therubble of bombed-out
buildings slowed the
German advance
towards the Volga.
Hitler's own generals had argued, that the German forces
around the city were greatly overextended. Zhukov also
observed that the flanks of the German thrust into Stalingrad
were protected by Italian, Romanian and Hungarian troops,
men who were less well armed than the Germans and less
committed to the cause. Zhukov's plan was to hold Stalingrad
until he could muster sufficient forces to launch counter-attacks
against the weaker German flanks.
STREET FIGHTING
The bitter fighting inside Stalingrad dragged on for months and
into the winter of 1943. The Soviet Sixty-second Army was sur
rounded in the centre of the city but refused to give up. A sec
ond Soviet army, the Sixty-fourth, maintained a small bridge
head on the River Volga, over which supplies could be sent to
the desperate defenders. Soviet artillery and aircraft based on
the other side of the Volga kept up a relentless barrage against
the attacking Germans.
The rubble created by the fighting stopped tanks from
advancing swiftly and led to hand-to-hand fighting. Snipers took
up positions in the many broken buildings. The daily pressure
on both sides was tremendous, and hungry, cold, frightened
and exhausted soldiers found themselves reduced to desper
ate animals, depending on a primeval desire to survive.
General Vasily Chuikov, the tough son of a peasant, took on
the terrible task of battling with Paulus's men in the ruins of the
city. Paulus was less resilient and his health began to deterio
rate during the months of fighting. The morale of his troops had
slumped considerably too. 'Stalingrad is hell on earth,' wrote
one German officer in September. 'We attack every day. If we
capture twenty yards in the morning, the Russians throw us
back again in the evening.'
Despite being more poorly armed, the Soviet soldiers fought
for every square metre of the city. Building by building they
were forced back towards the Volga, but it was a costly and
slow victory for the Germans. And as the Germans slogged it
out inside the city, Zhukov was gathering his forces for a
counter-attack outside.
ZHUKOV STRIKES
On 19 November, Zhukov sprang his attack. More than a million
men, with almost a thousand tanks, struck north and south of
Stalingrad, taking the Germans completely by surprise. Zhukov
had judged the opposition just right: the flanking Romanian
armies and German reserves crumbled before the determined
offensive, with many quickly surrendering. Soviet tanks execut
ed swift advances, just as the Germans had shown them in ear
lier battles, and rapidly surrounded the German Sixth Army
inside Stalingrad. By 22 November, Soviet forces had linked up.
Realizing the danger of encirclement, Paulus wanted to pull his
men out of Stalingrad and break through to safety, but Hitler
was obsessed with beating Stalin and refused Paulus permis
sion to retreat. The Sixth Army was trapped.
News of this development coincided with the Allied victory in
North Africa over Rommel at EI Alamein. For a moment, Hitler
~11.STALINGRAD
was struck by uncertainty. The Luftwaffe promised to relieve
the trapped soldiers by delivering 500,000kg (500 tons) of sup
plies a day, but in reality it could barely manage 1OO,OOOkg(100
tons). Soviet aircraft enforced a blockade of the city. Panzer divi- .
sions attempted to break through, but were met by stiff resis
tance from Soviet tank crews. Elsewhere, the Italian and
Hungarian armies collapsed under further Soviet aggression.
The Red Army had finally learned to coordinate its elements
and concentrate its power against the weakest aspects of the
enemy. Having found its strength, the Red Army would now
take the war to Germany.
Almost a quarter of a million German soldiers remained
inside Stalingrad, but by late December they were in a poor
state. They were short of food, medical supplies and ammuni
tion. Worn down by constant Soviet bombardment, German
soldiers began to lose the will to resist. On 10 January, Zhukov
gathered his forces to crush the remaining opposition. The
fierce resistance they met surprised the advancing Red Army
forces because the number of Germans left inside the city had
been wildly underestimated. The Germans now fought with the
same sort of desperation that had been characteristic of the
Soviets. Eventually, though, German nerves gave way and on
31 January Paulus surrendered his army to Zhukov. The day
before, Hitler had promoted Paulus to the rank of field marshal;
now, on 1 February, Hitler condemned him for his betrayal.
Stalingrad was a costly defeat. At least 147,000 German sol
diers were dead and 91,000 taken prisoner, many never to
return. Thousands of German tanks, aircraft and guns had been
destroyed. Germany's allies had suffered a trauma they would
not forget. Soviet morale was lifted immensely: the depression
of their earlier defeats was forgotten and it had been demon
strated that they had learned the lessons of war. The Soviets
now believed they could win this awesome struggle. Stalin
took back control of the war, but he was more open to the
advice of his generals. Even Hitler seems to have been cowed
by his massive defeat and allowed his generals to plan counter
attacks from 1943 onwards.
Above right Soviet T34
tanks in action against
the Germans in southern
Russia.
Above: A Russian soldier
raises the Red Flag as a
signal of victory as the
German army surrenders
inside Stalingrad.
GUY SAJER, GROSSE DEUTSCHLAND DIVISION
VICIOUS WAR
All wars are bitter and cruel, but the
German invasion of the Soviet Union in
1941 unleashed a warfare of absolute
brutality, one in which atrocities and
massacre were commonplace, with
civilians suffering as much as soldiers.
Guy Sajer was a French member of the
Grosse Deutschland Division posted to
the Eastern Front and recalls his
experience of this routine brutality:
'[very [Russian] prisoner caught robbing
a German body was immediately shot.
There were no official firing squads for
these executions. An officer would
simply shoot the offender on the spot, or
hand him over to a couple of toughs who
were regularly given this sort of job.
Once, to my horror, I saw one of these
thugs tying the hands of three prisoners
to the bars of a gate. When his victims
had been secured, he stuck a grenade
into the pocket of one of their coats,
pulled the pin, and ran for shelter. The
three Russians, whose guts were blown
out, screamed for mercy until the last
moment.'
Quoted from The Forgotten Soldier by
Guy Sajer (Cassell, 1999)
STALINGRAD 11'
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