The brief History of the
battle of Stalingrad
The reason
I’ve chosen this topic for my essay is because I’ve learned quite a lot in my
History class about World War II the Nazis and the battles which occurred
throughout the war. And for quite a while I’ve been intrigued by the battle of
Stalingrad and am now very keen on learning about this battle in detail as it
is the turning point of war which is the moment Germany suffered there first
major defeat.
Over the
course of this essay I plan to do the following:
1. A brief
history of World War II
2. To look
at Operation Barbarosa briefly
3. To
investigate the planning and reason of Germanys attempt to take over Stalingrad
4. To study
the course of the battle
5. To
evaluate the importance of the battle in the history
Of World
War II
I found out
about this History project during senior cycle when my teacher told me to pick
a topic on anything to do with History. I decided to do a project on World War
II and came into school the following day and told my teacher of my idea. He
said to cut it down a bit and pick a battle which occurred during the war which
led to me picking my project (the battle of Stalingrad).
I then went and got books from the library (Witness to World War II) and (Europe
1870-1970). I also looked up websites on the internet and found ( ) and ( ). Finally I went and planned my
essay.
Background:
On June 22, 1941, Germany and the Axis powers (Romania, Italy
and Hungary) invaded the Soviet Union,
quickly advancing deep into Soviet territory. Having suffered many defeats at the
hands of the Germans during the late summer and early winter of 1941, Soviet
forces then retaliated counter-attacking the Germans in the Battle of Moscow in
December later that year. During the arctic Russian winter the exhausted German forces, ill
equipped for winter warfare and with there heavily overstretched supply lines,
were stopped in there move towards the Russian capital of Moscow.
The Germans
had stabilized their front by the spring 1942. The Wehrmacht
was confident it could match and master the Red army when the winter weather no
longer stopped its movement. German army group centre had suffered heavy punishment
during the Battle of Moscow; however sixty-five percent of the infantry had not
been involved in the winter fighting, and instead had spent it resting and
refitting.
German High
Command knew time was running out for them as the United
States had just entered the war following Germany’s declaration of war in support of its
Japanese ally who had just previously bombed the main American port of Pearl Harbor. On the eastern front
Hitler wanted to end or at least minimize the fighting before the U.S. had got deeply involved in the war in Europe.
Importance of Stalingrad:
Hitler next wanted to capture Stalingrad.
The capture of this city was important to the Germans for several reasons.
Firstly being the city carried the name of the leader of Germany’s main
enemy Joseph Stalin, this would make the city’s capture a propaganda coup.
Stalin realized this and ordered that anyone strong enough to weald a rifle be
sent out to war. Secondly it was a major industrial city on the banks of the
river Volga (a vital transport route between the Caspian Sea and northern Russia) and its capture would secure the
protection of the German armies left flank as it progressed into the Caucasus which had large oil deposits, hard shortages of
which were experienced by the German forces. At this stage of the war Stalin
was under a lot of pressure because the red army was less capable of a highly
mobile operation than the German army, and the chance of combat inside a large
urban area, which would be ruled by short-range small arms fire and artillery
instead of the armored and mechanized tactics would reduce the Germans
advantage over the red army
Operation Blau/Blue:
Operation Blau/Blue was a sprint forward through the southern Russian
steppes into the Caucasus to capture the vital
soviet oil fields. These oil fields were a key goal for Hitler and instead of
focusing his attention on the key capital of Moscow as his generals advised, he continued
to send his forces and supplies to the southern Russian front. The summer
offensive was code- named Fall Blau (trans.:“Case Blue”). It was to include the German Sixth
Army and Seventeenth Army and the Fourth Panzer Army and First Panzer Army. In
1941, Army Group South had conquered the Ukrainian SSR, and was positioned at
the area of the planned offensive.
The date
set for the start of OPERATION BLAU was May 1942. However, a number of German
and Romanian units that were involved in Blau were
then in the process of being besieged Sevastopol
on the Crimean Peninsula. Delays in ending the siege
pushed back the start date for Operation Blau a
number of times, and the city did not collapse under the immense pressure of
the Russians until the end of June.
Operation Blau finally begun as Army Group South began its attack
into southern Russia
on June 28, 1942. Meanwhile the Hungarian Second Army and the German 4th
Panzer Division had launched an assault on Voronezh, capturing the city on the 5th
of July. By the end of July the Germans pushed the soviet forces across the Don River. At this moment in time the Germans had made
defensive lines using the forces of their Italian, Hungarian and Romanian
allies. The German 6th army was only a few dozen kilometers from
reaching its destination, and the 4th Panzer army, now to their
south, turned northwards to help take the city. Army Group A’s advance into the
Caucasus down south had slowed and there
forces were deployed to far to the south to provide support to Army Group B up
in the north.
German
intentions had now become clear to the soviet commanders: in July the Soviet
Union had developed plans for the defense of Stalingrad.
The eastern border of Stalingrad was the wide Volga River,
and over the river soviet troops were deployed. Soviet troops still moving
eastwards before German offensive were also stationed in Stalingrad.
This combination of units formed the newly made 62nd Army under the
command of Vasiliy Chuikov.
There mission was to defend Stalingrad at all
costs.
Beginning of the Battle
The battle
of Stalingrad began with the city coming under
heavy bombing from the attacking army’s air force (Luftwaffe). The largely
inhabited city became a graveyard. Many troops and factory workers died as soon
as the battle began, and the city became a shell of its former self. Even after
the heavy bombing many buildings survived and the remaining inhabitants and
many factory workers joined in the fighting.
Stalin
prevented civilians, including women and children from leaving the city, most
civilians were put to work building trenches and fortifications. On august 23rd
a massive German air bombardment caused a firestorm that turned Stalingrad into almost unlivable landscape of rubble and
burnt ruins and killed thousands. Almost eighty percent of living space in the
city was destroyed.
The
responsibility of defending the city fell to the 1077th
Anti-Aircraft (AA) Regiment made up of mainly young women volunteers. The AA
gunners took on the advancing panzers and reportedly without the help of any
other soviet troops managed to go “shot for shot” with the panzers until the AA
batteries were either destroyed or overrun. In the beginning of the war the
Russians relied heavily on the “workers militias”. For a very short time tanks
continued to be made, sometimes without paint or even gun sights and they were
drove directly from the factory floor to the front line.
By the end
of August, army group South (B) had finally reached the Volga, north of Stalingrad. Another advance to