Battle of Stalingrad

Joseph Stalin was born in 1879 in Russia to a peasant family. His father was an abusive drunk who died when Stalin was young. In 1898 he was expelled from his religious school because of his interest in communist ideas. After this, Stalin became a revolutionary. He joined Lenin’s Bolshevik party participated in the October Revolution. In 1922, became General Secretary of the Soviet Union, which was one of the highest positions in the country. Stalin took over the Soviet Union when Lenin died in 1924.

Stalin used the secret police and control of all the media (newspapers and radio) to make himself a totalitarian dictator who controlled the daily lives of the people in the Soviet Union. Stalin used this control to turn the Soviet Union into a communist society, and killed millions of people in the process. Stalin killed many of his fellow communists and army commanders because the feared they might try to overthrow him. Stalin’s brutality extended to his own family. In the 1930’s, Stalin’s son attempted suicide after being treated badly by this father. However, he only wounded himself. Afterward, Stalin made fun of him by saying, "Ha! He couldn’t even shoot straight!" Soon after that, Stalin’s wife did commit suicide (there is some evidence that Stalin had her murdered).

The largest challenge Stalin faced was Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Hitler spoke of a hatred of communism and plans to take over Russia. In 1939, Stalin signed a treaty with Hitler to give him some time to rebuild the Soviet Army after killing so many of the army commanders. However, in 1941, Hitler broke the treaty when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany was a horrifically violent war that killed 20 million Soviet citizens. Stalin was ruthless in this war, issuing the order “Not one step back” to his soldiers – to enforce this rule, behind the Soviet soldiers were secret police men who would kill any soldier who tried to retreat.

During World War Two, Stalin and the Soviet Union was allied with the United States and Great Britain. The leaders of all three countries worked closely together to defeat Nazi Germany. However, Stalin distrusted the United States, which he believed was an enemy and as the war against Nazi Germany ended, Stalin used the Soviet Army to take over and set up communist governments in the countries of Eastern Europe. In addition, Stalin supported the expansion of communism into China and North Korea. The growth of communism after World War Two resulted in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Stalin died in 1953 from a brain hemorrhage (bleeding).

Overview of the Battle of Stalingrad

In the summer of 1942, Hitler ordered the German army to attack on southern Russia with the goal of destroying the Soviet's industrial base and capturing its oil fields. The leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin had few military units in southern Russia because he expected the Germans to continue their attack on the Soviet capital of Moscow. The result was that the German attack quickly advanced deep into Russia. However, while the German army looked strong, it was much weaker than it had been when it first attacked the Soviet Union, a year earlier.

Stalin was alarmed by the speed of the German advance into southern Russia and he gave the “Not one step back!” order which forbid the Soviet army to retreat. The Soviet Army was ordered to fight a suicidal defense to hold ground. The secret police were stationed behind the Soviet lines to kill any soldiers attempting to retreat. These tactics had little effect on the German advance.

By August 1942, the German army had reached the outskirts of Stalingrad, an industrial city of on the Volga River. The battle for Stalingrad became the focus of both sides. Hitler was determined to capture the city to humiliate Stalin (since the city was named after Stalin). He ordered the German army to committed everything to this battle. Stalin was equally determined to hold the city and did not allow the people living in Stalingrad to leave the city. Soviet soldiers were ordered to fight to the death - at one point the average life expectancy of a Soviet soldier in Stalingrad was 24 hours. However, the Soviets soldiers quickly learned how to fortify apartment buildings and turn the battle into a gruesome house-to-house battle for the city. The German and Soviet soldiers even fought battles in the sewers under the city - which the German soldiers called "war of the rats". While battle was being fought for the city, Soviet government kept factories in Stalingrad working to make tanks and weapons - there were cases of Soviet workers driving tanks they just built out of the factories and into battle. By the middle of the fall of 1942 it seemed that the Germans were winning the battle as the Soviet soldiers only held a few parts of the city. However, this was part of the Soviet plan. While the Germans had been putting more forces into Stalingrad, the Soviets had been stripping forces away and building up their reserves outside the city in preparation for a counter-attack.

The Soviet Red Army launched its counter attack on the Germans at Stalingrad on November 1942. The Soviet attack closed like two giant arms around the Germans in Stalingrad. In a swift move, the Soviet army trapped 250,000 German soldiers in the ruins of Stalingrad. Hitler ordered the trapped German army to hold the city despite the fact that did not have reinforcements or supplies. For two months the Soviets slowly tightened the ring around the Germans. In February, the 90,000 surviving German soldiers surrendered (a few units did fight to the death). The Soviet victory at Stalingrad was major turning point in the war. The Soviets destroyed a entire German army, but it had come at a high cost of more than 700,000 Soviet casualties. From this point on the advantage on the Eastern Front had passed to the Soviets and the German never again won a major battle.

Source # 2 - Video of an animated map of the Battle of Stalingrad - click here