3 - Battle of Stalingrad

Context

Stretching about 30 miles along the banks of the Volga River, Stalingrad was a large industrial city producing armaments and tractors and was an important prize in itself for the invading German army. Capturing the city would cut Soviet transport links with southern Russia, and Stalingrad would then serve to anchor the northern flank of the larger German drive into the oil fields of the Caucasus. In addition, seizing the city that bore the name of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin would serve as a great personal and propaganda victory for Adolf Hitler. German war planners hoped to achieve that end with Fall Blau (“Operation Blue”) which would result in the elimination of Soviet forces in the south, securing the region’s economic resources, and allow the armies either march north to Moscow or south to conquer the remainder of the Caucasus.

The offense began with significant German victories but Hitler altered the original plan and ordered the simultaneous capture of both Stalingrad and the Caucasus. The division of forces placed tremendous pressure on an already-strained logistical support system. It also caused a gap between the two forces.

By the end of August, the Germany Fourth Army’s northeastward advance against Stalingrad was converging with the eastward advance of the Sixth Army, under Gen. Friedrich Paulus, with 330,000 of the German army’s finest troops. The Red Army, however, put up a determined resistance, yielding ground only very slowly and at a high cost to the Sixth Army as it approached Stalingrad.

The Event

On August 23 a German spearhead penetrated the city’s northern suburbs, and the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) rained incendiary bombs that destroyed most of the city’s wooden housing. The Soviet Sixty-second Army was pushed back into Stalingrad proper, where, under the command of Gen. Vasily I. Chuikov, it made a determined stand. Meanwhile, the Germans’ concentration on Stalingrad was steadily draining reserves from their flank cover, which was already strained by having to stretch so far. By mid-September the Germans had pushed the Soviet forces in Stalingrad back until the latter occupied only a 9-mile long strip of the city along the Volga, and that strip was only 2 or 3 miles wide. The Soviets had to supply their troops by barge and boat across the Volga from the other bank. At that point Stalingrad became the scene of some of the fiercest and most-concentrated fighting of the war; streets, blocks, and individual buildings were fought over by many small units of troops and often changed hands again and again. The city’s remaining buildings were pounded into rubble by the unrelenting close combat. The most-critical moment came when on October 14 the Soviet defenders had their backs so close to the Volga that the few remaining supply crossings of the river came under German machine-gun fire. The Germans, however, were growing dispirited by heavy losses, fatigue, and the approach of winter.

German Luftwaffe Ju-88 Stuka dive bomber over Stalingrad, 1942.

Street-fighting in Stalingrad

General Chuikov called this type of close combat, "Hugging the enemy."

"When I close my eyes, I can see the Volga on fire because of spilt oil... We dug holes in the clay to live in - not trenches, but holes, like real animal holes. Soon there was heavy fighting inside the ravine. German tanks moved up and down, while female Soviet pilots dropped bombs on them, and therefore on us. Everything was on fire and we heard thunder and planes roaring.

"The most horrible moment was around 20 November when the Germans broke through down the ravine towards the Red October plant. It was very scary. At first we just sat there in our dugouts, then our parents went out to help the wounded with their disjointed limbs. They would bandage the hands and legs, then medical staff would appear and take them away. Down by the Volga there was a hospital. There was no food, only the local mud, which happened to be slightly sweet. We ate clay and nothing but clay, And we drank water from the Volga. My mother would throw away the bits of clay that were soaked in blood, and then take the rest and filter it through a piece of cloth."

(Soviet civilian Valentina Savelyeva, recalling her experience in Stalingrad as a 5-year old)

The turning point of the battle came with a huge Soviet counteroffensive. It was launched in two spearheads, some 50 miles north and south of the German salient whose tip was at Stalingrad, hitting the weaker flanks defended by undermanned, undersupplied, overstretched, and undermotivated Romanian, Hungarian, and Italian troops.. The counteroffensive utterly surprised the Germans, who thought the Soviets incapable of mounting such an attack. The attacks quickly penetrated deep into the flanks, and by November 23 the two prongs of the attack had linked up about 60 miles west of Stalingrad; the encirclement of 250,000 formidable German troops in Stalingrad was complete. The German high command urged Hitler to allow Paulus and his forces to break out of the encirclement and rejoin the main German forces west of the city, but Hitler would not contemplate a retreat from the Volga River and ordered Paulus to “stand and fight.” With winter setting in and food and medical supplies dwindling, Paulus’s forces grew weaker. Hitler declared that the Sixth Army would be supplied by the Luftwaffe, but the air convoys could deliver only a fraction of the necessary supplies.

A German prisoner of war escorted by a Soviet soldier with a PPSh-41, 1943

The failed German airlift of supplies to the trapped 6th Army, Winter 1943.

In mid-December Hitler ordered one of the most-talented German commanders, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, to form a special army corps to rescue Paulus’s forces by fighting its way eastward but Hitler refused to let Paulus fight his way westward at the same time in order to link up with Manstein. That fatal decision doomed Paulus’s forces. Hitler exhorted the trapped German forces to fight to the death, going so far as to promote Paulus to field marshal (and reminding Paulus that no German officer of that rank had ever surrendered). On January 31 Paulus disobeyed Hitler and agreed to give himself up. Twenty-two generals surrendered with him, and on February 2 the last of 91,000 frozen starving men (all that was left of the Sixth and Fourth armies) surrendered to the Soviets.

The Soviets recovered 250,000 German and Romanian corpses in and around Stalingrad, and total Axis casualties (Germans, Romanians, Italians, and Hungarians) are believed to have been more than 800,000 dead, wounded, missing, or captured. Of the 91,000 men who surrendered, only some 5,000–6,000 ever returned to their homelands (the last of them a full decade after the end of the war in 1945); the rest died in Soviet prison and labour camps. On the Soviet side, official Russian military historians estimate that there were 1,100,000 Red Army dead, wounded, missing, or captured in the campaign to defend the city. An estimated 40,000 civilians died as well.

General Paulus surrenders to the Soviets, 1943.

Source(s): Encyclopedia Britannica

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