The Battle of Stalingrad was a battle of World War II between Nazi Germany and its allies and the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 17 July 1942 and 2 February 1943.[1]
It is often cited as one of the turning points of the war. The battle was the bloodiest in modern history, with combined casualties estimated at nearly two million. The battle involved more participants than any other in history, and was marked by brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties by both sides. The German offensive to take Stalingrad, the battle inside the city, and the Soviet counter-offensive which eventually trapped and destroyed the German 6th Army and other Axis forces around the city, was the first large-scale German land defeat of World War II.[8][9] Soviet and Russian studies identify ten campaigns, strategic and operational level operations.
Importance of Stalingrad
The capture of Stalingrad was important to Hitler for two primary reasons. First, it was a major industrial city on the Volga River – a vital transport route between the Caspian Sea and northern Russia. As a result, the German capture of the city would effectively sever the transportation of resources and goods to the north. Second, its capture would secure the left flank of the German armies as they advanced into the oil-rich Caucasus region – with the strategic goal of cutting off fuel to Stalin's war machine. The fact that the city bore the name of the leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, would make its capture an ideological and propaganda coup.
The Soviets realized this and, though they were under tremendous constraints of time and resources, ordered that masses should swarm the city. [11] At this stage of the war, the Red Army was less capable of highly mobile operations than the German Army; however, the prospect of combat inside a large urban area, which would be dominated by hand-held small arms rather than armored and mechanized tactics, minimized the Red Army's disadvantages. Even though the German Forces in the city were under very crude conditions they held the city until all hope of re-enforcement and resupply was lost. At that point, Field Marshal Paulus surrendered what was left of the German 6th Army, disobeying Hitler's orders to hold out to the last man.
Legacy
[edit] Casualties
Various scholars[who?] have estimated the Axis suffered 850,000 casualties (killed, disabled, captured) among all branches of the German armed forces and its allies, many of them POWs who died in Soviet captivity between 1943 and 1955. 400,000 Germans, 120,000 Romanians, 120,000 Hungarians, and 120,000 Italians were killed, wounded or captured.[17]:p? Of the 91,000 German POW's taken at Stalingrad 27,000 died within weeks[41] and only 5,000 returned to Germany in 1955. The remainder of the POWs died in Soviet captivity.[2]:430[42][43] According to Russian sources, the Axis lost 1.5 million killed, wounded or captured in the whole Stalingrad area[44][45]. 50,000 ex-Soviets Hiwis (local volunteers incorporated into the German forces in supporting capacities) were killed or captured by the Red Army. According to archival figures, the Red Army suffered a total of 1,129,619 total casualties;[45] 478,741 men killed or missing and 650,878 wounded. These numbers are for the whole Stalingrad Area; in the city itself 750,000 were killed, captured, or wounded. The Soviet authorities executed approximately 13,500 Soviet soldiers during the battle, equivalent to an entire division.[2]:166 Also, more than 40,000 Soviet civilians died in Stalingrad and its suburbs during a single week of aerial bombing as the German Fourth Panzer and Sixth armies approached the city; the total number of civilians killed in the regions outside the city is unknown. In all, the battle resulted in an estimated total of 1.7 million to 2 million Axis and Soviet casualties.
[edit] The scope of the battle
At different times, the Germans had held up to 90% of the city, yet the Soviet forces fought on fiercely. At the end of the battle, the Soviet armies had encircled and besieged the Sixth Army. Some elements of the German Fourth Panzer Army also suffered casualties in operations around Stalingrad during the Soviet counter-offensive.
German mobility had been a significant factor in the Wehrmacht's earlier victories. Before Stalingrad, the Soviets had been able to amass their forces in sufficient numbers to achieve victory only around Moscow. Stalingrad, which had limited military value and had already been stripped of its assets, could have been bypassed and invested by Sixth Army in its drive to the Caucasus with Army Group A. Instead, Hitler chose to sacrifice many of his most experienced troops in vicious street fighting among urban rubble, which favoured the defenders and gave the Soviet Union time to amass and concentrate its forces for its pincer movement. Some Germans felt Hitler had sacrificed one of his largest and finest armies for prestige. Sixth Army was reconstituted in time for the Battle of Kursk, but was made up mostly of conscripts, and was never the force it had once been.[17]:386
A significant factor in Germany's failure at Stalingrad was Hitler's pursuit of too many simultaneous objectives. To the South of Stalingrad, Army Group A was committed to capturing oilfields in the Caucasus and in particular at Baku in Azerbaijan. These oil fields were the original objective of the 1942 campaign, and were seen as vital to winning the war. Capture of the oilfields may have been achievable if Army Group B were also committed to them rather than to Stalingrad. As a result, Baku was never in serious threat from the Germans. If Hitler had cancelled the Caucasus campaign, he could have used Army Group A to bolster Army Group B's flanks around Stalingrad and perhaps to aid in fighting within the city. Clearly Hitler's ambitions were well beyond German means.[32]
Besides being a turning point in the war, Stalingrad revealed the discipline and determination of both the German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army. The Soviets first defended Stalingrad against a fierce German onslaught. So great were Soviet losses that at times, the life expectancy of a newly arrived soldier was less than a day,[2][page needed] and the life expectancy of a Soviet officer was three days. Their sacrifice is immortalized by one of General Rodimtsev's soldiers, about to die, who scratched on the wall of the main railway station – which changed hands 15 times during the battle – “Rodimtsev’s Guardsmen fought and died here for their Motherland.”
For the heroism of the Soviet defenders of Stalingrad, the city was awarded the title Hero City in 1945. Twenty-four years after the battle, in October 1967,[46] a colossal monument, Mother Motherland, was erected on Mamayev Kurgan, the hill overlooking the city. The statue forms part of a War memorial complex which includes ruined walls deliberately left the way they were after the battle. The Grain Silo, as well as Pavlov's House, the apartment building whose defenders eventually held out for two months until they were relieved, can still be visited. Even today, one may find bones and rusty metal splinters on Mamayev Kurgan, symbols of both the human suffering during the battle and the successful yet costly resistance.
On the other side, the German Army showed remarkable discipline after being surrounded. It was the first time that it had operated under adverse conditions on such a scale. During the latter part of the siege, short of food and clothing, many German soldiers starved or froze to death.[2][page needed] Yet, discipline was maintained until the very end, when resistance no longer served any useful purpose. Friedrich Paulus obeyed Hitler's orders, against many of Hitler's top generals' counsel and advice, including that of von Manstein, and did not attempt to break out of the city. German ammunition, supplies, and food became all too scarce.
Paulus knew that the airlift had failed and that Stalingrad was lost. He asked for permission to surrender to save the life of his troops, but Hitler refused and instead promoted him to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall. No German officer of this rank had ever surrendered, and the implication was clear. If Paulus surrendered, he would shame himself and would become the highest ranking German officer ever to be captured. Hitler believed that Paulus would either fight to the last man or commit suicide. Choosing to live, Paulus surrendered, commenting that, "I have no intention of shooting myself for that Austrian corporal".
(Wikipedia)
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