



Battle of Stalingrad

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe southern Russian city of Stalingrad was a major industrial city, producing tanks, among other equipment, for the Soviet war effort. In terms of location, the city sat on the flank of the route toward the oil fields in the Caucasus region, while it was also a major transportation center between northern Russia and the Caspian Sea. Finally, the mere fact that it bore the name of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gave more the reason for Adolf Hitler to conquer the city for morale reasons.

ww2dbaseIn the summer of 1942, German, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, and Croatian forces, organized as the German Army Group South (B), which contained the 6th Army under Colonel General Friedrich Paulus and the 4th Panzer Army under Hermann Hoth, marched toward Stalingrad. The initial attacks were very successful, thus Hitler transferred the 4th Panzer Army away from the Stalingrad offensive to join Army Group South (A), which was moving toward the Caucasus oil fields. This move, however, caused major traffic jams on the inadequate road systems of Russia, slowing the offensive plans upwards of a week. With this delay in mind, Hitler changed his mind and re-assigned the 4th Panzer Army back into Army Group South (B) for Stalingrad. By the end of Jul 1942, the Germans had forced their way across the Don River. At this point, the Germans began deploying Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, and Croatian forces on their northern flank, leaving the attack of Stalingrad to the German forces. The only exception was the Croatian 369th Reinforced Infantry Regiment, which fought alongside the German 100th Jaeger Division.

ww2dbaseStalin recognized the threat to Stalingrad and appointed Colonel General Andrey Yeryomenko on 1 Aug 1942 as the commanding officer of the Southeastern Front to plan the defense. Political commissar Nikita Khrushchev was assigned to assist Yeryomenko. Among the first orders Yeryomenko issued was to move the city's grain, cattle, and railroad cars east across the Volga River. Then, he organized the Soviet units immediately to the east of the Volga River into the 62nd Army, which was later placed in command of Lieutenant General Vasiliy Chuikov on 11 Sep 1942.

ww2dbaseThe first attacks on the city came in the form of aerial strikes conducted by the German Luftflotte 4 under the command of Colonel General Wolfram von Richthofen, targeting shipping on the Volga River and known defensive fortifications. Between 25 and 31 Jul, 32 Soviet ships were sunk on the river, and a further 9 were seriously damaged. As for the city, it received about 1,000 tons of bombs, which damaged about 80% of its structures. As the oil tanks exploded and their contents spilled, "[t]orrents of burning oil and petrol flowed into the Volga until the river itself was in flames.... Stalingrad became a gigantic pile of ruins and debris stretching along the banks of the Volga." On 23 Aug, a massive air bombardment caused a firestorm that killed thousands. The Soviet Air Force was generally ineffective in countering the aerial attacks. By 31 Aug, only 192 aircraft were operable, and only 57 of them were fighters. Despite German air superiority and the heavy bombardments, however, some of the factories continued their work, turning out tanks and war supplies until they could no longer do so, and at that time the workers were conscripted into the Soviet Army.

ww2dbaseBy the end of Aug, the German Army Group South (B) had reached the Volga River north of Stalingrad. By 1 Sep, the Soviet forces could only reinforce the city by crossing the river as the city was now surrounded on three sides. Meanwhile, river crossings continued to be subjected to German attacks, now both by air and by artillery pieces. To preserve the strength of the Soviet regulars, Chuikov deployed women and conscripted civilians as the first line of defense. A post-engagement report written by an officer of the German 16th Panzer Division noted that the fight to silent 37 anti-aircraft batteries (used in anti-tank roles) was difficult, and he was shocked to find out afterwards that they were crewed by women. In the morning of 5 Sep, the Soviet 24th Army and 66th Army launched a counter-offensive against the German XIV Panzer Corps, but it was driven back at the face of superior firepower, particularly from the air, which destroyed 30 out of the 120 tanks that the Soviet forces lost in the attack. On 18 Sep, the Soviet 1st Guards Army and the 24th Army launched an offensive against VIII. Armeekorps at Kotluban near Stalingrad. Again, German Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers played an important role in repulsing the attack, destroying 41 out of the 106 Soviet tanks destroyed in the morning; Bf 109 fighters also shot down 77 Soviet fighters during the engagement. By the end of Sep, Chuikov had realized that he could not sustain a battle of attrition, thus he decided to dig in to the cityscape, thus minimizing the German advantage of the control of air. Additionally, he also developed the "hugging" tactic which kept his front lines very close to the German lines; this also deprived the Germans of the ability to use dive bombers to support the ground troops due to the risk of hitting German troops.

ww2dbaseBack on 28 Jul 1942, Stalin had issued the Order Number 227, disallowing defending Soviet troops to take even a step back. Khrushchev and other political commissars dispatched to Stalingrad were those who policed this order. All who withdrew from the front lines were considered deserters and cowards, and they were brought before a military tribunal, which usually delivered death sentences or transferred the accused to penal battalions. There were also incidences where deserters were shot on the spot. Even as the battle fought on and more and more of the city slowly turned into rubble, Stalin continued to also forbid the civilians from evacuating; instead, they were ordered to join the fight or to help construct defensive structures. Any civilian discovered to be evacuating the city in secret, like their military counterparts, were also in violation of Order Number 227.

ww2dbaseThe battle for Stalingrad turned into bitter street fighting by this time. Every building was turned into Soviet fortresses, and even the sewer tunnels became battlegrounds. The railroad station became the scene of ferocious combat; on a particularly violent day, the marshalling yards exchanged hands 14 times within six hours, with the Germans finally capturing it only because the Soviet unit deployed there had been completely wiped out. At an apartment building at the edge of a square in the city center, Yakov Pavlov's platoon defended against waves after waves of German attacks. The German efforts to capture this apartment building was so costly that the Germans marked the building as a fortress on their field maps, while the Soviets nicknamed it "Pavlov's House". At his command bunker, Chuikov said that "Stalingrad could be seized by the enemy on one condition only if every one of the defending soldiers were killed."

ww2dbaseWhile the German Luftwaffe controlled the air during the day, Soviet air force sneaked small scale bombing raids at night. These attacks were generally ineffectively and were regarded more so as a nuisance rather than a threat.

ww2dbaseWith the city gradually being reduced to rubble, snipers on both sides became more and more active as they began to gain more and more hiding spots. The most successful Soviet sniper was Vasily Zaytsev, who claimed somewhere between 200 to 400 kills; he became an effective centerpiece for Soviet propaganda aimed at raising morale.

ww2dbaseOn 5 Oct, 900 dive bombing sorties were flown against Soviet positions at the Dzerzhinskiy Tractor Factory, wiping out entire regiments of troops entrenched there. On 14 Oct, 2,000 sorties were flown, dropping 600 tons of bombs against various Soviet positions. By this time, the Soviet forces in Stalingrad were forced into a 910-meter strip of land on the bank of the Volga River, running out of supplies due to the German control of the air over the river. Also on 14 Oct, a renewed German attack against the Soviet forces, pushing for the following 10 days, but they failed to eliminate final Soviet foothold on the west bank of the Volga River. On 8 Nov, the Luftwaffe at Stalingrad took a heavy blow not from the Soviets but rather from Hitler, who had transferred entire units of Luftflotte 4 to southern Europe in response to the Allied landings in North Africa. The Soviet Air Force suddenly found an opportunity to rival the German air forces in the region, right at the time when Moscow was planning on launching a major counter-offensive to take advantage of the oncoming winter and its effects on German tanks.

ww2dbaseOn 19 Nov 1942, the Soviet offensive, Operation Uranus, was launched, oversaw by Marshal Georgi Zhukov and tactically led by General Nikolai Vatutin. The Soviet 1st Guards Army, the 5th Tank Army, and the 21st Army shattered the northern flank, manned by the Romanian 3rd Army, on the first day. Silesian soldier of the German Sixth Army Joachim Wieder recalled the fighting:

The 19th of November will live in my memory as a day of black disaster. At the break of dawn on this gloomy, foggy day in the late autumn, during which lashing snowstorms were soon to appear,... Russians attacked like lightning from the north and the following day from the east, pressing our entire Sixth Army into an iron vice.

ww2dbaseOn 20 Nov, two additional Soviet armies joined in on the attack. By 21 Nov, the third day of the offensive, the Soviets had already surrounded Stalingrad along with 290,000 Axis troops inside. Hitler's advisors immediately suggested the troops trapped within to break out and form a new line at the western bank of the Don River, but Hitler refused, while chief of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring promised that his aircraft would be able to deliver all the supplies the 270,000 to 300,000 men needed to continue the fighting. Göring had failed to recognize that the German 6th Army in Stalingrad required 800 tons of supplies each day, and available aircraft in the area only had the capacity of 117.5 tons. This deficiency, coupled with bad weather, and the increasing Soviet Air Force threat, meant that only an average of 94 tons of supplies were actually delivered per day. On 23 Dec, the Soviet 24th Tank Corps under Major General Vasily Mikhaylovich Badanov captured the airfield at Tatsinskaya, forcing the German aircraft located there to relocate to Salsk, which was 200 miles from Stalingrad and made the resupply mission even more difficult. By mid-Jan 1943, Salsk was abandoned after a closer airfield at Zverevo near Shakhty was established, but Soviet forces repeatedly attacked this new location, disrupting flight schedules and damaging or even destroying aircraft. Between 24 Nov 1942 and 31 Jan 1943, the German Luftwaffe lost 296 Ju 52 aircraft, 169 He 111 aircraft, 42 Ju 86 aircraft, 9 Fw 200 aircraft, 5 He 177 aircraft, and 1 Ju 290 aircraft while attempting to supply the troops in Stalingrad. Trapped in Stalingrad, men of the German 6th Army began to suffer from the effects of starvation.

ww2dbaseOn 19 Dec, the Soviet troops declared victory in Stalingrad. This was rather premature, as heavy fighting would continue.

ww2dbaseOn 12 Dec, the German Army Group Don was formed under Erich von Manstein. When this new unit reached Stalingrad on 21 Dec, Manstein asked Paulus to break out, but Paulus refused, citing Hitler's prior orders for him to hold the city. At the end of Dec 1942, Paulus sent a message to Berlin detailing the dire situation, but Hitler did not change his mind.

ww2dbaseAs the weather became colder, the Volga River froze over, and the Soviets were now able to supply the small Soviet contingent in the city with trucks. On 16 Dec, the Soviet forces launched Operation Little Saturn in an attempt to cut off the entire German Army Group South by securing the Don River; the attempt was not successful, but it greatly disrupted German operations in the Caucasus region, for example forcing Army Group South (A) to pull back to within 250 kilometers from Stalingrad to consolidate German positions in the area. On 8 Jan 1943, Soviet Lieutenant General Konstantin Rokossovsky demanded Paulus to surrender, which was rejected. "Capitulation is impossible. The 6th Army will do its historic duty at Stalingrad until the last man", Hitler ordered. "Stand fast, not a step back". German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel agreed with Hitler's order, noting that a withdraw only by a few miles would result in a near complete loss of all heavy equipment, and without the heavy weapons the troops withdrawn would be vulnerable to the Soviet counterattack that would undoubtedly take place immediately afterwards.

ww2dbaseOn 10 Jan 1943, a Soviet offensive cut the German garrison in Stalingrad into two. A new phase of street fighting began, and it was now the Soviets who advanced steadily but were surprised by the ferocity of the defenders who had no choice but to fight until the end. On 16 Jan, Pitomnik Airfield was captured by the Soviets, followed by Gumrak Airfield on 23 Jan, and then the smaller Stalingradskaya Airfield on 24 Jan. This meant that German aircraft were no longer able to land in Stalingrad to deliver supplies, thus the only supplies coming in were limited to the small amounts that could be paradropped to German positions.

ww2dbaseOn 31 Jan, Hitler promoted Paulus to the rank of field marshal on the basis that no German field marshal had ever surrendered to the enemy in history. Despite Paulus' prior determination to obey Hitler's orders, he finally broke down on 2 Feb and surrendered. By this time, there were only 91,000 men left, meaning that about 200,000 were killed in action or simply died of starvation in the past two months. 3,000 of those who surrendered were Romanians; 22 officers with general ranks were among the prisoners of war. At his command post at a department store building, Paulus surrendered to General Mikhail Shumilov of the Soviet 64th Army. Fighting ceased about two days after. Hitler was furious, noting that Paulus "could have freed himself from all sorrow and ascended into eternity and national immortality, but he prefers to go to Moscow."

ww2dbaseDuring this battle, the Axis forces suffered an estimated 850,000 casualties, half of which were German; some estimates ran much higher, with the greatest being the Soviet official report which noted that 1,500,000 Axis personnel were killed in this battle, though that number was generally regarded as a gross over-estimation. The Soviet Union suffered 1,129,619 military (which included 478,741 killed or missing) and about 40,000 civilian casualties. The 40,000 figure included only civilians within Stalingrad city; there were also significant civilian casualties in the suburbs that could not be determined.

ww2dbaseEpilogue

ww2dbaseThe German government did not reveal this defeat until Jan 1943; it became the first time that Germany publicly acknowledged a military failure. Of the 91,000 captured, only about 5,000 were repatriated to Germany in 1955; most of the remaining, already weakened by the lack of food and medicine during the encirclement, failed to survive the harsh living conditions of prisoner of war camps and labor camps where they were sent to. Stalingrad itself was reduced to almost nothing after the fighting. As Wieder later remembered, "[f]or half a year destruction and death had celebrated orgies here and hardly left anything save the torn stumps of houses, naked rows of walls, chimneys sticking up from vast piles of rubble, gutted factories, formless hunks of asphalt."

ww2dbaseSources:

Isabel Denny, The Fall of Hitler's Fortress City

Walter Görlitz, In the Service of the Reich

Wikipedia



Last Major Update: Aug 2010

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