Battle of Stalingrad

Battle of Stalingrad

David Horstdaniel

HIS 241

        The Battle of Stalingrad was fought during from the winter of 1942 to the winter of 1943. In September 1942, the German Sixth Army, with the Fourth Panzer Army, advanced towards the city of Stalingrad. The primary objective was to secure the oil fields in the Caucasus for Germany. The Sixth Army, under the command of General Paulus, was ordered personally by  Hitler to take the city of Stalingrad, with the final target to have been Baku in Azerbaijan. Stalingrad is considered by many historians and military experts to be the turning point of World War Two in Europe. The battle bled the German military dry on the Eastern Front and after this defeat; the German Army was in full retreat in Russia.  It is one of the great ironies that the German Sixth Army did not need to be entangled and destroyed in Stalingrad. Other German Armies were well on their way to the Caucasus, when Hitler ordered the fateful attack on Stalingrad. While strategically unwise to leave a major city unconquered in your rear, many believe that Hitler only ordered the attack on Stalingrad because of the cities name and Hitler’s hatred of Stalin. If not for Hitler’s personal involvement in the fighting of the battle, the Germans may have won on the Eastern Front, but even if they had not, millions of lives may have been saved.

        In the prelude leading up to the Battle of Stalingrad, the Germans planned a summer offensive for 1942 codenamed Fall Blau (Case Blue).  Army Group South, which included the German 6th, 17th, 4th Panzer and 1st Panzer Armies, was chosen to carry out the offensive actions of Fall Blau.  The Army Group was to attack through the southern steppes of Russia into the Caucasus thereby capturing the oil fields vital to the Soviets and Germany.  But in what would be foreshadowing of things to come, “Hitler intervened, ordering the Army Group to be split in two. Army Group South (A), under the command of Wilhelm List, was to continue advancing south towards the Caucasus as planned with the Seventeenth Army and First Panzer Army. Army Group South (B), including Friedrich Paulus’s Sixth Army and Hermann Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army, was to move east towards the Volga and the city of Stalingrad.” (Batlle of Stalingrad/Virtual Jewish Library n.d.)  

        Originally planned to start in May of 1942, the offensive was delayed until late June, due to the Siege of Sevastopol delaying German and Romanian units to take part in Fall Blau. The offensive started very well. Soviet units offered token resistance in empty steppes and retreated east. Attempts to establish defensive lines failed when German units outflanked them.  Once again Hitler would change the plan.  The Sixth Army had had such great success, that he ordered the Forth Panzer to join Group A; the resulting confusion delayed the advancing armies for up to a week.  Hitler than change his mind and ordered the Forth back to Group B.  Progress was slowed again because fuel was rationed and Army Group A was given priority in supplies. At the end of July 1942, a lack of fuel brought Paulus to a halt at Kalach. It was not until early August that the Sixth Army would receive the supplies needed to continue with the advance. Over the next few weeks the Sixth Army killed or captured 50,000 Soviet troops but on August 18th, Paulus, now only thirty-five miles from Stalingrad, ran out of fuel again.  “At this point, the Germans began using the armies of their Italian, Hungarian, and Romanian allies to guard their left (northern) flank” (Batlle of Stalingrad/Virtual Jewish Library n.d.) and their supplies west of the Don.  With the German Sixth Army and Forth Panzer only a short distance away, the attack on Stalingrad would begin.  

        In August the 6th Army reached the outskirts of Stalingrad and would now have to pursue the Soviet forces towards the city center.  The Soviet Army attacked the advance party of the Sixth and they were brought to a halt just short of Stalingrad. The rest of his forces were brought up and Paulus now circled the city. As his northern flank came under attack Paulus would delay the attack on the city until September 7th. While he was waiting the Luftwaffe would bomb the city killing thousands of civilians.The Soviets had had enough time during the delays to strip the city of vital supplies and move them out of harm’s way.  But, “By mid-September, the Soviets controlled only a nine mile strip of the city along the Volga. With their backs to the river, the fight for their city looked hopeless.” (DeLaine 2015)  But after months of fighting and several extended supply lines, “the Nazi troops were tired, low on supplies and weary of an offensive that was taking more time than expected.” (DeLaine 2015)    The Germans plan of attack attempted to take the city in a rush. Though successful at first, the attack would stall as the Soviets brought reinforcements across the Volga. A million Soviet soldiers were brought into the Stalingrad area. Stalin knew that if Stalingrad was taken, Moscow would be open for an attack from the east. If Moscow was cut off, the defeat of the Soviet Union was virtually inevitable. Over the next weeks the fighting in the city was brutal.  Battle for key objectives, such as the rail station, grain elevator and at Mamayev Kurgan, a prominent hill above the city was merciless.  “The 13th Guards Rifle Division, assigned to retake Mamayev Kurgan and Railway Station No. 1, on September 13. Both objectives were successful, only to temporary degrees. The railway station changed hands 14 times in 6 hours. By the following evening, the 13th Guards Rifle Division did not exist.” (Batlle of Stalingrad/Virtual Jewish Library n.d.)   Of the original 10,000 men of the unit, only just over 300 survived the entire battle.  At the grain elevator fighting raged for three days.  Ten assaults were carried out by the Germans before the defenders ran out of ammunition and water. Forty dead Soviet fighters were all that were found, though the Germans had thought due to the intensity of resistance that there had been many more.  

        Through all this the Germans would make slow progress through the city but failed to capture the crossing points along the river.  Paulus, who had suffered 40,000 casualties since entering the city, was running out of fighting men and in early October he made a desperate plea to Hitler for reinforcements. Hitler would send five engineer battalions and a panzer division to the Sixth Army. Fighting a war of attrition, the Soviets commited three more armies to the city. Soviet losses were much higher than those of the Germans, but the Soviets had more men at their disposal than Paulus. “With no end in sight, the Germans started transferring heavy artillery to the city.” (Batlle of Stalingrad/Virtual Jewish Library n.d.) While the Soviet artillery on the east bank bombarded the German positions. The resulting ruins were used by the Soviets as defensive positions.  The piles of rubble made German tanks useless as well.  Though the Luftwaffe controlled the skies at this point, the Germans could not dislodge the few Soviets left on the west bank.  The battle had turned into an issue of prestige for Hitler. By November the Germans controlled 90% of the city, but three months of slow advance and carnage cost them. Now, “Soviet command moved the Red Army’s strategic reserves from the Moscow area to the lower Volga, and transferred aircraft from the entire country to the Stalingrad region.” (Batlle of Stalingrad/Virtual Jewish Library n.d.) With winter coming the Red Army prepared to go on the offensive.  

        With the onset of winter, Army Group B was severely overstretched. The Germans were forced to call up Italian and Romanian forces that had guarded supplies to fill the gaps, on the northwest and southeast of Stalingrad. With his Army now running short of ammunition and food, Paulus decided to order another major offensive on November 10th  despite these problems. The German Army would take heavy casualties and then the Soviet Army launched a counterattack. Paulus was forced to retreat southward but when he reached Gumrak Airfield, Hitler once again became involved and ordered Paulus to stop and stand fast despite the danger of encirclement for the whole Army.  “The troop shortage had been caused by Hitler’s all-or-nothing policy of capturing both the Caucasus oil fields and Stalingrad, which soon became a recipe for disaster.” (McTaggert 1997)  Senior officers under Paulus argued that the scale of the airlift required to support the Army could not be achieved during a Russian winter. All of his corps commanders argued for a breakout before the Soviet Army could consolidate its positions. General Hans Hube told Paulus: "A breakout is our only chance." Paulus responded by saying that he had to obey Hitler's orders.

The Soviet Army and its commanders had learned many lessons in the 1 1/2 years that the German armies had been pressing into the Soviet Union.  On November 19, the Soviets attacked the Third Romanian and Eighth Italian armies, on the northwest of Stalingrad and day later on the Fourth Romanian Army, south of Stalingrad.  “The Romanian divisions, many of them poorly led and poorly equipped, melted away under the Soviet onslaught. During the first four days of the attack, the Third Romanian Army lost approximately 75,000 men and almost all of its heavy equipment. The Fourth Romanian Army fared little better.” (McTaggert 1997)  The Germans, with their flanks collapsing were forced to retreat or be surrounded.  On November 23rd the attacking Russians linked up forming, “a ring around the Sixth Army and parts of the Fourth Panzer Army that had not been quick enough to escape the encirclement.” (McTaggert 1997)  The Soviet offensive was codenamed Operation Uranus and it was the beginning of the end of the German Sixth Army and her allies left in Stalingrad.