Beginning in late August, continuing in September and into October, the Soviets committed between two and four armies in hastily coordinated and poorly controlled attacks against the Germans' northern flank. [137][Note 5] To supplement the limited number of Junkers Ju 52 transports, the Germans pressed other aircraft into the role, such as the Heinkel He 177 bomber. Most importantly, the Soviets controlled the ferries to their supplies on the east bank of the Volga. Battle of Stalingrad - Wikipedia The 62nd Army had been cut in two and, due to intensive air attack on its supply ferries, was receiving much less material support. The actions resulted in more than 200,000 Soviet Army casualties but did slow the German assault. [176] According to a contemporary Soviet report, 5,762 guns, 1,312 mortars, 12,701 heavy machine guns, 156,987 rifles, 80,438 sub-machine guns, 10,722 trucks, 744 aircraft; 1,666 tanks, 261 other armoured vehicles, 571 half-tracks and 10,679 motorcycles were captured by the Soviets. A reconnaissance and assault group of four soldiers, led by Sergeant Pavlov (it included Red Army men A.P. In 1985 a memorial was erected, listing the names of the garrison. [184], The bombing campaign and five months of fighting in the city had utterly destroyed 99% of the city, with the city being nothing more than a heap of rubble.[185]. Aleksandrov, V.S.Glushchenko, N.Ya. Concluding its four-part series on the Battle of Stalingrad, Army University Press is proud to present Stalingrad: The Grain Elevator. '", By 18 December, the German Army had pushed to within 48km (30mi) of Sixth Army's positions. One person, though, Roman Karmen, managed to record the first interrogation of Paulus that took place the same day, at Shumilov's 64th Army's HQ, and a few hours later at Rokossovsky's Don Front HQ. Across the streets and open spaces, barricades and communications were being built, and minesmen were mining dangerous routes. [23][24] Today, the Battle of Stalingrad is universally regarded as the turning point in the European theatre of war, as it forced the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (German High Command) to withdraw considerable military forces from other areas in occupied Europe to replace German losses on the Eastern Front, ending with the rout of the six field armies of Army Group B, including the destruction of Nazi Germany's 6th Army and an entire corps of its 4th Panzer Army. [45], On 25 July the Germans faced stiff resistance with a Soviet bridgehead west of Kalach. Lieutenant General Alexander Rodimtsev was in charge of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, and received one of two Heroes of the Soviet Union awarded during the battle for his actions. ", "The Struggle for Stalingrad City: Opposing Orders of Battle, Combat Orders and Reports, and Operational and Tactical Maps. In another part of the city, a Soviet platoon under the command of Sergeant Yakov Pavlov fortified a four-story building that oversaw a square 300 meters from the river bank, later called Pavlov's House. [58] Civilians, including women and children, were put to work building trenchworks and protective fortifications. If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny then I must finish [liquidieren; "kill off", "liquidate"] this war. In addition, the Germans decided to abandon their favorite tactics of massive art and air strikes, followed by a clean-up close quarters. Targets were often soldiers bringing up food or water to forward positions. Zhukov states, "Compared with the Germans, the troops of the satellites were not so well armed, less experienced and less efficient, even in defence. Hailed as the single largest confrontation of the war, the battle involved nearly 2.2 million military personnel, with around 1.8-2 million were killed, wounded, or captured. During the preparations for the attack, Marshal Zhukov personally visited the front and noticing the poor organisation, insisted on a one-week delay in the start date of the planned attack. Poor weather prevented effective air action against the Soviet offensive. Germany, already operating on dwindling fuel supplies, focused its efforts on moving deeper into Soviet territory and taking the oil fields at any cost. Two photographs taken by photojournalist S. Loskutov in the fall of 1942 in trenches east of the ruins of the NKVD complex. Hitler was furious and confided that Paulus "could have freed himself from all sorrow and ascended into eternity and national immortality, but he prefers to go to Moscow".[169]. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked . "[92] At the beginning of the battle there were 75,000 women and girls from the Stalingrad area who had finished military or medical training, and all of whom were to serve in the battle. The British historian Antony Beevor noted the "sinister" message from the Stalingrad Front's Political Department on 8 October 1942 that: "The defeatist mood is almost eliminated and the number of treasonous incidents is getting lower" as an example of the sort of coercion Red Army soldiers experienced under the Special Detachments (later to be renamed SMERSH). The State Bank could not be captured, many old fighters, well-respected scouts, were killed. "L-shaped house" was a five-six-story "Stalinka", from the upper floors from which German spotters could view almost the entire bridgehead of the 13th Guards Rifle Division. [88] On the other hand, Beevor noted the often extraordinary bravery of the Soviet soldiers in a battle that was only comparable to Verdun, and argued that terror alone cannot explain such self-sacrifice. Nevertheless, the German forces were determined to continue their advance and heavy fighting continued for another two months. A handful of senior officers were taken to Moscow and used for propaganda purposes, and some of them joined the National Committee for a Free Germany. Ice floes on the Volga now prevented boats and tugs from supplying the Soviet defenders. On September 27, 1942, as a result of bombing by German aircraft, the architect of the house, Sergei Voloshinov, and his pregnant wife were killed . The first 30 days of defense were especially difficult, when the Germans tried to recapture the building every day. The Germans called this unseen urban warfare Rattenkrieg ("Rat War"),[84] and bitterly joked about capturing the kitchen but still fighting for the living room and the bedroom. [71] During the battle the 62nd Army had the most arrests and executions: 203 in all, of which 49 were executed, while 139 were sent to penal companies and battalions. 282,606 in the 6th Army from 21 August to the end of the battle; 17,293 in the 4th Panzer Army from 21 August to 31 January; 55,260 in the. [94] Soviet nurses not only treated wounded personnel under fire but were involved in the highly dangerous work of bringing wounded soldiers back to the hospitals under enemy fire. By mid-November, the Germans, at great cost, had pushed the Soviet defenders back into narrow zones along the west bank of the river. [110] Stukageschwader 1, 2, and 77 had largely silenced Soviet artillery on the eastern bank of the Volga before turning their attention to the shipping that was once again trying to reinforce the narrowing Soviet pockets of resistance. Akulshin and VN Kuprin, who stopped in the dugout of the agitator of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment Leonid Koren. [179], The USSR, according to archival figures, suffered 1,129,619 total casualties; 478,741 personnel killed or missing, and 650,878 wounded or sick. The 6th Army now was beyond all hope of German relief. The Axis suffered 747,300868,374 combat casualties (killed, wounded or captured) among all branches of the German armed forces and their allies: 235,000 German and allied troops in total, from all units, including Manstein's ill-fated relief force, were captured during the battle. From a bunker on the slope came the raps of the "Maxim" - in response the embrasure was shot by a stream of flamethrower. The defense of this house alone lasted 58 days. Soviet offensives in the central and northern portions of the Eastern Front tied down Luftwaffe reserves and newly built aircraft, reducing Luftflotte 4's percentage of Eastern Front aircraft from 60 percent on 28 June to 38 percent by 20 September. The lull did not last long. [57] After 23 January, there were no more reported landings, just intermittent air drops of ammunition and food until the end. The operating room was in the sewer pipe in the slope of the steep bank of the Volga, near the headquarters of the division near the mouth of the Dolgiy ravine . 1, suffered particularly heavy losses. 2 Nomonhan: Japanese-Soviet Tactical Combat, 1939; MAPS, Meine Stalingradeinstze (My Stalingrad Sorties), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ4Jz0H4fAA, "Heeresarzt 10-Day Casualty Reports per Army/Army Group, 1943", "80 years ago, the Soviets began defending Stalingrad against Germany". [133][134], Adolf Hitler had declared in a public speech (in the Berlin Sportpalast) on 30 September 1942 that the German army would never leave the city. In spite of the failure of the German offensive to reach the 6th Army, the air supply operation continued under ever more difficult circumstances. Similarly, Operation Wilhelm attacked Voltshansk on 13 June, and Operation Fridericus attacked Kupiansk on 22 June.[39]. Rodimtsev together with the headquarters was forced to evacuate from the tunnel opposite the NKVD complex to the Banniy ravine. 160 aircraft were destroyed and 328 were heavily damaged (beyond repair). Suddenly, the F-1 grenades and the PPSh decided the outcome of a fleeting battle - the house was captured. After a few weeks on such a diet, he had "visibly lost weight", according to Albert Speer, and Hitler "commanded Zeitzler to resume at once taking sufficient nourishment". machine gun platoon commander (garrison commander). For Russians, 75 Years Later, Stalingrad Is a Battle to Remember Most notably, he promoted Paulus to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall. Army Group Don was formed under Field Marshal von Manstein. Any movement - whether a fighter, running from entrance to entrance, or a civilian in search of food - drew fire.
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