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