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Battle of Stalingrad
by Mike Yoder
Operation Barbarossa
On June 22, 1941, the German Army poured across the borders of the Soviet
Union, initiating nearly 4 years of the most savage and brutal warfare humanity
ever experienced. Three Army Groups penetrated Russia on a front extending from
the Baltic coast to the Black Sea. One and a half million soldiers of the
Wehrmacht obeyed the Fuehrer's directive to destroy the Red Army and the Soviet
Union. "The World will hold it's breath!", Adolf Hitler told his Generals. And
as the world watched in amazement, the Wehrmacht rolled triumphantly across the
Russian steppe, seemingly invincible. Caught by surprise, the bulk of the
Russian Air Forces were destroyed on the ground. Under orders not to provoke
the Germans, the Russian frontier armies were not given coherent directions to
mount a defense of their borders. The Red Army fell back in disorder,
surrendered in wholesale numbers, or died in a futile effort to halt the German
advance. Western military experts gave the Russians 6 weeks, perhaps 8 at the
most, before suffering total military disaster at the hands of the Germans.
Battered by one defeat after another, the poor performance of the Red Army gave
no one reason to believe otherwise.
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Operation Blue
During the winter of 1941-42, the Russian front stabilized, with little more
than skirmishing among both armies. The extreme cold of the Russian winter
effectively immobilized both sides. The Germans struggled with logistical
problems, and debate raged at OKW about how to proceed from this point. High
ranking officers such as the Luftwaffe's Field Marshal Erhard Milch, argued
that Germany needed to consolidate her gains in the East. He pointed out that
enormous resources were now available to Germany, but it would take time to use
these to their best advantage. The head of the German General Staff,
Generaloberst Franz Halder, was of the opinion that the Wehrmacht had been
bloodied badly in the opening phase of the campaign, and needed time to
recuperate. He felt that under no circumstances should the German army resume
the offensive. With over 850,000 casualties, the numbers seemed to bear him
out. Other factions at OKW held that a partial withdrawal should be made,
taking advantage of natural defensive barriers such as rivers. Let the Soviets
beat their brains out trying to retake their own territory.
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The Commanders
The principal adversaries in the battle for Stalingrad marked a sharp departure
in tradition for European armies. Up to and including World War I, high ranking
officers in both the German and Russian military had been drawn from the ranks
of the nobility. Now the son of a Hessian book-keeper and a Russian peasant
would square off against one another in the largest clash of arms the world has
ever seen. Generaloberst Friedrich Paulus had joined the German army in
1910. He had risen to the rank of Captain during the First World War, and had
been largely involved in work as a staff officer. He married well, winning the
hand of a beautiful young woman of the Romanian nobility, Elena
Rosetti-Solescu, whose friends called her "Coco". Paulus served both in
the Balkans with the Alpenkorps, and at the Battle of Verdun. He stayed in the
post-war Reichswehr, rising as high as Major before Hitler came to power.
Paulus had a strange fixation for a soldier. He despised dirt, bathed and
changed uniforms several times in a day, even on the rare occasions he ventured
into the field. He grew professionally as an excellent staff officer,
contenting himself with sand-table models of various battle-field scenarios.
Read More...
Death of a City
On Russian military maps it is simply Hill 103. Mamaev Kurgan, or the Tatar
Mound, commands a view of central Stalingrad and the surrounding steppe. At
it's summit today is the largest free-standing statue in the world. Rodina -
Mother Russia - nearly 150 meters high and brandishing a sword weighing 14
tons, faces West and exhorts her sons to follow. But in 1942, the tide of
battle rolled across this hill so many times that defenders and attackers alike
lost count of the number of times that it changed hands. Mamaev Kurgan was
subjected to so much shell - fire that the shrapnel and scrap metal churned
into the soil prevented grass from growing there after the war. The entire hill
has been turned into a park and massive monuments bear witness to the tragedy
that befell the city on the Volga.
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Rattenkrieg
With the German 6th Army in control of 90 percent of Stalingrad, Chuikov's army
struggled to maintain its precarious foothold. Their backs now to the Volga,
the Russians contested the very sewers of the city. Prolonged street fighting
and the utter destruction of Stalingrad had reduced men to a primitive level of
existence. The Germans had a name for this - Rattenkrieg - War of the Rats. A
German infantryman wrote to his family, "Animals flee this burning hell of a
city...the hardest stones do not last for long. Only men endure." Chuikov
sought to minimize the German advantage in firepower by instructing his men to
close with the enemy and seek hand to hand combat at every opportunity. The
Wehrmacht would then be unable to call in airstrikes or artillery without
hitting their own men. The Blitzkrieg tactics which had enabled them to conquer
much of Europe were useless, and the battle for the city was now reduced to
hundreds of small unit actions.
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Uranus and Saturn
With the launching of the Soviet counter-offensive, Gen. Halder's worst fears
about the vulnerable left flank were about to be realized. But no one had
anticipated the size and scope of the operation which was about to encircle
Paulus's 6th Army as well as one half of Gen. Hermann Hoth's 4th Panzer Army.
While Chuikov fought the Wehrmacht to a bloody draw in the ruins of Stalingrad,
he had purchased a valuable commodity with the lives of his soldiers - time.
Read More...
Der Kessel
With his army trapped inside a ring of Soviet armor, Paulus informed Hitler
that he only had 6 days of food for his troops. Similar shortages of fuel,
ammunition, clothing and all other materiel needed to sustain an army in the
field were now building to a crisis. Morale remained fairly high among the
Germans, and they nick-named their position "Der Kessel" - The Kettle. What the
world would soon know as "The Stalingrad Cauldron" was no laughing matter. One
of the finest armies in history was about to die from starvation, disease and
exposure.
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Annihilation and Aftermath
As the attempt at resupply by air gradually faded away, the proud army that
Paulus had marched to the edge of the Volga was disintegrating. The elite men
of the German 6th Army were now a tattered collection of emaciated walking
skeletons. Although the famous discipline of the Wehrmacht still remained
largely intact, it too was starting to fade away as starvation, disease and
despair stalked the German soldiers. Desertions, unauthorized surrenders and
even an occasional mutiny further diminished their capacity for organized
resistance as the Red Army relentlessly closed the ring around the city.
Read More...
Copyright © 2003 Mike Yoder
Written by Mike Yoder. If you have questions or comments on this
article, please contact Mike Yoder at:
mikeyzinaz@hotmail.com.
About the author:
Coming soon...
Published online: 02/04/2003.
* Views expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent
those of MHO.
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