This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the most- bloody battles of World War Two but also the most pivotal. Under the codename Operation “Barbarossa,” Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in the largest German military operation of World War II.
The Battle of Stalingrad is considered by many historians to have been the turning point in World War Two in Europe. The first reason is that the Battle of Stalingrad marked the end of Germany’s advances into eastern Europe and Russia. The second reason is that this battle was the first major German loss during World War II. After the Germans lost in Stalingrad, they did not advance any farther into eastern Europe or Russia and after this defeat, the Germany Army was in full retreat.
On February 2, 1943, General Paulus surrendered what remained of his army-some 91,000 men. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad was a great humiliation for Hitler, who had elevated the battle’s importance in German opinion. Official Russian military historians est. 1.1M Soviet soldiers lost their lives. Soviets recovered 250,000 German + Romanian corpses in and around Stalingrad. Total Axis losses (Germans, Romanians, Italians and Hungarians) estimated at 800,000.
Having swept all before them previously, Hitler believed that the Blitzkrieg tactics that had proved so successful up until now would sweep them through Russia but they could not have expected to find such fierce resistance which extended the campaign deep into the Russian winter which meant the Germans also had to face the winter as well as a determined defence. Temperatures dropped to well below zero and food, ammunition and heat were in short supply.
Stalingrad was an important target as it was Russia’s centre of communications in the south as well as being a centre for manufacturing.
In early September 1942, the German Army advanced to the city. The Russians, already devastated by the power of Blitzkrieg during Operation Barbarossa, had to make a stand especially as the city was named after the Russian leader, Joseph Stalin. For simple reasons of morale, the Russians could not let this city fall. Likewise, the Russians could not let the Germans get hold of the oil fields in the Caucasus. Stalin’s order was “Not a step backwards”.
The battle for the city descended into one of the most brutal in World War Two. Individual streets were fought over using hand-to-hand combat. The Germans took a great deal of the city but they failed to fully assert their authority. Areas captured by the Germans during the day, were re-taken by the Russians at night.
On November 19th, the Russians were in a position whereby they could launch a counter-offensive.
Marshal Zhukov used six armies of one million men to surround the city. The 5th tank regiment led by Romanenko attacked from the north as did the 21st Army (led by Chistyakov), the 65th Army (led by Chuikov) and the 24th Army (led by Galinin). The 64th, 57th and 521st armies attacked from the south. The attacking armies met up on November 23rd at Kalach with Stalingrad to the east.
The bulk of the German Sixth Army – some 250,000 to 300,000 men – was in the city and Zhukov, having used his resources to go around the city, north and south, had trapped the Germans in Stalingrad.
Paulus could have broken out of this trap in the first stages of Zhukov’s attack but was forbidden from doing so by Hitler, who had dismissed his Generals and took personal command of the operation.
The failure of the German Army was nothing short of a disaster. A complete army group was lost at Stalingrad and 91,000 Germans were taken prisoner. With such a massive loss of manpower and equipment, the Germans simply did not have enough manpower to cope with the Russian advance to Germany when it came. This also affected how they could deal with the counter attack from the west, with their resources stretched and much reduced, this coupled with their aura of invincibility being shattered gives reason to why this was one of the most pivotal moments and great turning points of the war.
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