The significance of the Battle of Stalingrad in history is very great. Just after its completion The Red Army launched a full-scale offensive, which led to the complete expulsion of the enemy from the territory of the USSR, and the allies of the Wehrmacht abandoned their plans ( Turkey and Japan in 1943 planned a full-scale invasion into the territory of the USSR) and realized that it was almost impossible to win the war.
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The battle of Stalingrad can be briefly described if we consider the most important:
- history of events;
- a general picture of the balance of forces of opponents;
- the course of the defensive operation;
- the course of the offensive operation;
- results.
Brief background
German troops invaded the territory of the USSR and moving fast winter 1941 ended up near Moscow. However, it was during this period of time that the troops of the Red Army launched a counteroffensive.
In early 1942, Hitler's headquarters began to develop plans for the second wave of the offensive. The generals suggested continue the attack on Moscow, but the Fuhrer rejected this plan and proposed an alternative - an attack on Stalingrad (modern Volgograd). The advance to the south had its reasons. In case of luck:
- control over the oil fields of the Caucasus passed into the hands of the Germans;
- Hitler would have gained access to the Volga(which would cut off the European part of the USSR from the Central Asian regions and Transcaucasia).
If the Germans captured Stalingrad, Soviet industry would have suffered serious damage from which it would hardly have recovered.
The plan to capture Stalingrad became even more realistic after the so-called Kharkov catastrophe (the complete encirclement of the Southwestern Front, the loss of Kharkov and Rostov-on-Don, the complete “opening” of the front south of Voronezh).
The offensive began with the defeat of the Bryansk Front and from the positional stop of the German forces on the Voronezh River. At the same time, Hitler could not decide on the 4th Panzer Army.
The transfer of tanks from the Caucasian direction to the Volga and back delayed the start of the Battle of Stalingrad for a whole week, which gave the opportunity for Soviet troops to better prepare for the defense of the city.
balance of power
Before the start of the offensive on Stalingrad, the balance of forces of the opponents looked as follows *:
*calculations taking into account all nearby enemy forces.
Beginning of the battle
The first clash between the troops of the Stalingrad Front and the 6th Army of Paulus took place July 17, 1942.
Attention! Russian historian A. Isaev found evidence in military journals that the first clash occurred a day earlier - on July 16th. One way or another, the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad is the middle of the summer of 1942.
Already to July 22–25 German troops, having broken through the defenses of the Soviet forces, reached the Don, which created a real threat to Stalingrad. By the end of July, the Germans successfully crossed the Don. Further progress was very difficult. Paulus was forced to resort to the help of the allies (Italians, Hungarians, Romanians), who helped to surround the city.
It was at this very difficult time for the southern front that I. Stalin published order number 227, the essence of which was displayed in one brief slogan: “ No step back! He urged the soldiers to increase resistance and prevent the enemy from getting closer to the city.
In August Soviet troops saved three divisions of the 1st Guards Army from complete disaster who entered the battle. They launched a counterattack in a timely manner and slow down the advance of the enemy, thereby frustrating the Fuhrer's plan to rush to Stalingrad.
In September, after certain tactical adjustments, German troops went on the offensive trying to take the city by storm. The Red Army could not resist this onslaught. and was forced to retreat to the city.
Street fighting
August 23, 1942 Luftwaffe forces undertook a powerful pre-assault bombardment of the city. As a result of a massive attack, ¼ of the city's population was destroyed, its center was completely destroyed, and strong fires began. On the same day, shock the grouping of the 6th army reached the northern outskirts of the city. At this moment, the defense of the city was carried out by the militia and the forces of the Stalingrad air defense, despite this, the Germans advanced into the city very slowly and suffered heavy losses.
On September 1, the command of the 62nd army made a decision to force the Volga and entrance to the city. The forcing took place under constant air and artillery shelling. The Soviet command managed to transport 82 thousand soldiers to the city, who in mid-September offered stubborn resistance to the enemy in the city center, a fierce struggle to maintain bridgeheads near the Volga unfolded on Mamaev Kurgan.
The battles in Stalingrad went down in world military history as one of the most brutal. They fought literally for every street and for every house.
The city practically did not use firearms and artillery weapons (because of the fear of ricochet), only piercing and cutting, often went hand to hand.
The liberation of Stalingrad was accompanied by a real sniper war (the most famous sniper is V. Zaitsev; he won 11 sniper duels; the story of his exploits still inspires many).
By mid-October, the situation became extremely difficult, as the Germans launched an offensive against the Volga bridgehead. On November 11, Paulus' soldiers managed to reach the Volga. and force the 62nd army to take up a tough defense.
Attention! Most of the civilian population of the city did not have time to evacuate (100 thousand out of 400). As a result, women and children were taken out under shelling across the Volga, but many remained in the city and died (calculations of civilian casualties are still considered inaccurate).
counteroffensive
Such a goal as the liberation of Stalingrad became not only strategic, but also ideological. Neither Stalin nor Hitler wanted to retreat and could not afford defeat. The Soviet command, realizing the complexity of the situation, began to prepare a counteroffensive back in September.
Marshal Eremenko's plan
September 30, 1942 was the Don Front was formed under the command of K.K. Rokossovsky.
He attempted a counter-offensive, which by the beginning of October had completely failed.
At this time, A.I. Eremenko proposes to the Headquarters a plan to encircle the 6th Army. The plan was fully approved, received the code name "Uranus".
In the event of its 100% implementation, all enemy forces concentrated in the Stalingrad area would be surrounded.
Attention! A strategic mistake during the implementation of this plan at the initial stage was made by K.K. Rokossovsky, who tried to take the Oryol salient with the forces of the 1st Guards Army (which he saw as a threat to a future offensive operation). The operation ended in failure. 1st Guards Army was completely disbanded.
Chronology of operations (stages)
Hitler ordered the command of the Luftwaffe to carry out the transfer of goods to the Stalingrad ring in order to prevent the defeat of the German troops. The Germans coped with this task, but the fierce opposition of the Soviet air armies, which launched the "free hunting" regime, led to the fact that the German air traffic with the blockaded troops was interrupted on January 10, just before the start of Operation Ring, which ended the defeat of the German troops at Stalingrad.
Results
In the battle, the following main stages can be distinguished:
- strategic defensive operation (defense of Stalingrad) - from 17.06 to 18.11.1942;
- strategic offensive operation (liberation of Stalingrad) - from 11/19/42 to 02/02/43.
The Battle of Stalingrad lasted a total of 201 days. It is impossible to say exactly how long the further operation to clean up the city from the Khiva and scattered enemy groups took.
The victory in the battle was reflected both in the state of the fronts and in the geopolitical alignment of forces in the world. The liberation of the city was of great importance. Brief results of the Battle of Stalingrad:
- Soviet troops gained invaluable experience in encircling and destroying the enemy;
- have been established new schemes of military-economic supply of troops;
- Soviet troops actively impeded the advance of German groups in the Caucasus;
- the German command was forced to send additional forces to the implementation of the Eastern Wall project;
- Germany's influence on the allies was greatly weakened, neutral countries began to take the position of not accepting the actions of the Germans;
- The Luftwaffe was severely weakened after attempts to supply the 6th Army;
- Germany suffered significant (partly irreparable) losses.
Losses
Losses were significant for both Germany and the USSR.
The situation with prisoners
At the time of the end of Operation Kotel, 91.5 thousand people were in Soviet captivity, including:
- ordinary soldiers (including Europeans from among the German allies);
- officers (2.5 thousand);
- generals (24).
The German Field Marshal Paulus was also captured.
All prisoners were sent to a specially created camp number 108 near Stalingrad. For 6 years (until 1949) surviving prisoners worked on the construction sites of the city.
Attention! The captured Germans were treated quite humanely. After the first three months, when the death rate among the prisoners reached peak levels, they were all placed in camps near Stalingrad (part of the hospitals). The able-bodied worked a regular working day and received wages for work, which they could spend on food and household items. In 1949, all surviving prisoners, except for war criminals and traitors
In Russian there is a saying "disappeared like a Swede near Poltava." In 1943, it was replaced by an analogue: "disappeared like a German near Stalingrad." The victory of Russian weapons in the Battle of Stalingrad on the Volga unambiguously turned the tide of World War II.
Reasons (oil and symbolism)
The interfluve of the Volga and the Don in the summer of 1942 became the target of the main blow of the Nazis. There were several different reasons for this.
- The original plan for the war with the USSR by that time had already been completely thwarted and was no good for business. It was necessary to change the "point of attack", choosing new promising strategic directions.
- The generals offered the Fuhrer a new attack on Moscow, but he refused. It can be understood - hopes for a "blitzkrieg" were finally buried near Moscow. Hitler motivated his position by the "obviousness" of the Moscow direction.
- The attack on Stalingrad also had real goals - the Volga and Don were convenient transport arteries, and through them there were routes to the oil of the Caucasus and the Caspian, as well as to the Urals, which Hitler considered as the main line of German aspirations in this war.
- There were also symbolic goals. The Volga is one of the symbols of Russia. Stalingrad is a city (by the way, representatives of the anti-Hitler coalition stubbornly saw the word “steel” in this name, but not the name of the Soviet leader). The hits on other symbols of the Nazis failed - Leningrad did not surrender, the enemy was thrown back from Moscow, the Volga remained to solve ideological problems.
The Nazis had reason to count on success. In terms of the number of soldiers (about 300 thousand) before the start of the offensive, they were significantly inferior to the defenders, but they were 1.5-2 times superior to them in aviation, tanks and other equipment.
Stages of battle
For the Red Army, the battle of Stalingrad was divided into 2 main stages: defensive and offensive.
The first of them lasted from July 17 to November 18, 1942. During this period, fighting took place on the distant and near approaches to Stalingrad, as well as in the city itself. It was virtually wiped off the face of the earth (first by bombing, then by street fighting), but it never ended up completely under enemy rule.
The offensive period lasted from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943. The essence of the offensive was to create a huge "cauldron" for the German, Italian, Croatian, Slovak and Romanian units concentrated near Stalingrad, followed by their defeat by squeezing the encirclement. The first stage (the actual creation of the “boiler”) was called Operation Uranus. On November 23, the encirclement closed. But the encircled group was too strong, it was impossible to defeat it immediately.
In December, Field Marshal Manstein made an attempt near Kotelnikov to break through the blockade ring and come to the aid of those surrounded, but his breakthrough was stopped. On January 10, 1943, the Red Army launched Operation Ring, the destruction of the encircled group of Germans. On January 31, Hitler promoted von Paulus, the commander of the German formations near Stalingrad and who ended up in the "cauldron", to field marshals. In a congratulatory letter, the Fuhrer transparently indicated that not a single German field marshal had ever surrendered. On February 2, von Paulus became the first, capitulating along with his entire army.
Results and significance (radical change)
The Battle of Stalingrad in Soviet historiography is called the “moment of a radical turning point” in the course of the war, and this is true. At the same time, the course of not only the Great Patriotic War, but also the Second World War was reversed. As a result of the battle Germany
- lost 1.5 million people, more than 100 thousand - only prisoners;
- lost the confidence of the allies (Italy, Romania, Slovakia thought about withdrawing from the war and stopped supplying conscripts to the front);
- suffered colossal material losses (on the scale of 2-6-month production);
- lost hope for Japan's entry into the war in Siberia.
The USSR also suffered huge losses (up to 1.3 million people), but did not let the enemy into the strategically important areas of the country, destroyed a huge number of experienced soldiers, deprived the enemy of offensive potential and finally seized the strategic initiative from him.
steel city
It turned out that all the symbolism in the battle went to the USSR. The destroyed Stalingrad became the most famous city in the world. The entire Anti-Hitler coalition was proud of the inhabitants and defenders of the "steel city" and tried to help them. In the USSR, any schoolchild knew the names of the heroes of Stalingrad: Sergeant Yakov Pavlov, signalman Matvey Putilov, nurse Marionella (Guli) Koroleva. The titles of Heroes of the Soviet Union for Stalingrad were given to the son of the leader of the Spanish Republic, Dolores Ibarruri, Captain Ruben Ibarruri, and the legendary Tatar pilot Amet Khan Sultan. In planning the battle, such outstanding Soviet military leaders as V.I. Chuikov, N.F. Vatutin, F.I. Tolbukhin. After Stalingrad, "parades of prisoners" became traditional.
And Field Marshal von Paulus then lived in the USSR for quite a long time, taught at higher military educational institutions and wrote memoirs. In them, he highly appreciated the feat of those who defeated him at Stalingrad.
Total > 1 million Human.
| The Great Patriotic War |
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| Invasion of the USSR Karelia arctic Leningrad Rostov Moscow Sevastopol Barvenkovo-Lozovaya Kharkov Voronezh-Voroshilovgrad Rzhev Stalingrad Caucasus Velikiye Luki Ostrogozhsk-Rossosh Voronezh-Kastornoye Kursk Smolensk Donbass Dnieper Right-Bank Ukraine Leningrad-Novgorod Crimea (1944) Belarus Lviv-Sandomierz Iasi-Chisinau Eastern Carpathians the Baltic States Courland Romania Bulgaria Debrecen Belgrade Budapest Poland (1944) Western Carpathians East Prussia Lower Silesia Eastern Pomerania Upper Silesia Vein Berlin Prague |
Battle of Stalingrad- a battle between the troops of the USSR, on the one hand, and the troops of Nazi Germany, Romania, Italy and Hungary during the Great Patriotic War. The battle was one of the most important events of World War II. The battle included an attempt by the Wehrmacht to capture the left bank of the Volga near Stalingrad (modern Volgograd) and the city itself, a confrontation in the city, and a counteroffensive by the Red Army (Operation Uranus), which resulted in the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht and other German allied forces inside and around the city were surrounded and partly destroyed, partly captured. According to rough estimates, the total losses of both sides in this battle exceed two million people. The Axis powers lost large numbers of men and weapons and subsequently failed to fully recover from the defeat. I. V. Stalin wrote:
For the Soviet Union, which also suffered heavy losses during the battle, the victory in Stalingrad marked the beginning of the liberation of the country and the victorious march through Europe, which led to the final defeat of Nazi Germany in.
Previous events
The capture of Stalingrad was very important to Hitler for several reasons. It was the main industrial city on the banks of the Volga (a vital transportation route between the Caspian Sea and northern Russia). The capture of Stalingrad would provide security on the left flank of the German armies advancing into the Caucasus. Finally, the very fact that the city bore the name of Stalin, Hitler's main enemy, made the capture of the city a winning ideological and propaganda move. Stalin may also have had ideological and propaganda interests in defending the city that bore his name.
The summer offensive was codenamed Fall Blau. variant blue). It was attended by the XVII armies of the Wehrmacht and the 1st tank with the 4th tank armies.
Operation Blau began with the offensive of Army Group South against the troops of the Bryansk Front to the north and the troops of the South-West to the south of Voronezh. It is worth noting that despite the two-month break in the active hostilities of the troops of the Bryansk Front, the result was no less disastrous than for the troops of the South-Western Front, battered by the May battles. On the very first day of the operation, both Soviet fronts were broken through for tens of kilometers and the Germans rushed to the Don. Soviet troops could only oppose the Germans with weak resistance in the vast desert steppes, and then they began to flock to the east in complete disorder. Ended in complete failure and attempts to re-form the defense, when the German units entered the Soviet defensive positions from the flank. Several divisions of the Red Army in mid-July fell into a cauldron in the south of the Voronezh region near the village of Millerovo
The offensive of the German troops
Sixth Army's initial offensive was so successful that Hitler intervened again, ordering Fourth Panzer Army to join Army Group South (A). As a result, a huge "traffic jam" was formed, when the 4th and 6th armies needed several roads in the zone of operations. Both armies were firmly stuck, and the delay turned out to be quite long and slowed down the German advance by one week. With a slow offensive, Hitler changed his mind and reassigned the 4th Panzer Army's target back to the Stalingrad direction.
In July, when the German intentions became quite clear to the Soviet command, they developed plans for the defense of Stalingrad. Additional Soviet troops were deployed on the eastern bank of the Volga. The 62nd Army was created under the command of Vasily Chuikov, whose task was to defend Stalingrad at any cost.
Battle in the city
There is a version that Stalin did not give permission for the evacuation of the inhabitants of the city. However, no documentary evidence of this has yet been found. In addition, the evacuation, albeit at a slow pace, but still took place. By August 23, 1942, out of 400 thousand inhabitants of Stalingrad, about 100 thousand were evacuated. On August 24, the Stalingrad City Defense Committee adopted a belated decision to evacuate women, children and the wounded to the left bank of the Volga. All citizens, including women and children, worked on the construction of trenches and other fortifications.
A massive German bombardment on August 23 destroyed the city, killing thousands of civilians and turning Stalingrad into a vast area covered in burning ruins. Eighty percent of the housing in the city was destroyed.
The burden of the initial struggle for the city fell on the 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment: a unit staffed mainly by young female volunteers with no experience in destroying ground targets. Despite this, and without the proper support available from other Soviet units, the anti-aircraft gunners remained in place and fired on the advancing enemy tanks of the 16th Panzer Division until all 37 air defense batteries were destroyed or captured. By the end of August, Army Group South (B) had finally reached the Volga north of Stalingrad. Another German advance to the river south of the city also followed.
At the initial stage, the Soviet defense relied to a large extent on the "People's Militia of Workers", recruited from workers not involved in military production. Tanks continued to be built and manned by voluntary crews, consisting of factory workers, including women. The equipment was immediately sent from the conveyors of factories to the front line, often even without painting and without sighting equipment installed.
Street fighting in Stalingrad.
The Headquarters considered Eremenko's plan, but considered it unfeasible (the operation was too deep, etc.)
As a result, the Headquarters proposed the following version of the encirclement and defeat of the German troops near Stalingrad. On October 7, the directive of the General Staff (No. 170644) was issued on the conduct of an offensive operation on two fronts to encircle the 6th Army. The Don Front was asked to strike the main blow in the direction of Kotluban, break through the front and go to the Gumrak area. At the same time, the Stalingrad Front was advancing from the Gornaya Polyana region to Elshanka, and after breaking through the front, the units advanced to the Gumrak region, where they connected with the DF units. In this operation, the front command was allowed to use fresh units. Don Front - 7th Rifle Division, Stalingrad Front - 7th Art. K., 4 Apt. K. The operation was scheduled for October 20th.
Thus, it was planned to encircle and destroy only the German troops fighting directly in Stalingrad (14th Panzer Corps, 51st and 4th Infantry Corps, about 12 divisions in total).
The command of the Don Front was dissatisfied with this directive. On October 9, Rokossovsky presented his plan for an offensive operation. He referred to the impossibility of breaking through the front in the Kotluban region. According to his calculations, 4 divisions were required for a breakthrough, 3 divisions for the development of a breakthrough, and 3 more divisions for cover from German attacks; thus, 7 fresh divisions were clearly not enough. Rokossovsky proposed to strike the main blow in the Kuzmichi area (height 139.7), that is, everything according to the same old scheme: surround the units of the 14th Panzer Corps, connect with the 62nd Army, and only after that move to Gumrak to join units of the 64th th army. The headquarters of the Don Front planned 4 days for this: -24 October. The "Orlovsky ledge" of the Germans haunted Rokossovsky since August 23, so he decided to "insure" and first deal with this "corn", and then complete the complete encirclement.
The Stavka did not accept Rokossovsky's proposal and recommended that he prepare an operation according to the Stavka's plan; however, he was allowed to conduct a private operation against the Oryol group of Germans on October 10, without attracting fresh forces.
In total, more than 2,500 officers and 24 generals of the 6th Army were taken prisoner during Operation Ring. In total, over 91 thousand soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht were taken prisoner. Trophies of the Soviet troops from January 10 to February 2, 1943, according to a report from the headquarters of the Don Front, were 5762 guns, 1312 mortars, 12701 machine guns, 156,987 rifles, 10,722 machine guns, 744 aircraft, 1,666 tanks, 261 armored vehicles, 80,438 vehicles, 10,679 motorcycles, 240 tractors, 571 tractors, 3 armored trains and other military property.
Battle results
The victory of the Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad is the largest military and political event during the Second World War. The great battle, which ended in the encirclement, defeat and capture of a select enemy group, made a huge contribution to achieving a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War and had a decisive influence on the further course of the entire Second World War.
In the Battle of Stalingrad, new features of the military art of the Armed Forces of the USSR manifested themselves with all their might. Soviet operational art was enriched by the experience of encircling and destroying the enemy.
As a result of the battle, the Red Army firmly seized the strategic initiative and now dictated its will to the enemy.
The outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad caused bewilderment and confusion in the Axis. A crisis of pro-fascist regimes began in Italy, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia. The influence of Germany on its allies sharply weakened, and the differences between them became noticeably aggravated.
Defectors and prisoners
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According to some other sources, from 91 to 110 thousand German prisoners were taken prisoner near Stalingrad. Subsequently, 140 thousand enemy soldiers and officers were buried on the battlefield by our troops (not counting the tens of thousands of German soldiers who died in the "boiler" for 73 days). According to the German historian Rüdiger Overmans, almost 20 thousand "accomplices" captured in Stalingrad - former Soviet prisoners who served in auxiliary positions in the 6th Army - also died in captivity. They were shot or died in the camps.
The reference book “World War II”, published in Germany in 1995, indicates that 201,000 soldiers and officers were captured near Stalingrad, of which only 6,000 returned to their homeland after the war. According to the estimates of the German historian Rüdiger Overmans, published in a special issue of the historical journal Damalz dedicated to the Battle of Stalingrad, about 250,000 people were encircled near Stalingrad. Approximately 25,000 of them managed to be evacuated from the Stalingrad pocket and more than 100,000 soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht died in January 1943 during the completion of the Soviet operation "Ring". 130,000 people were captured, including 110,000 Germans, and the rest were the so-called “voluntary helpers” of the Wehrmacht (“Hiwi” is an abbreviation for the German word Hillwillge (Hiwi), literal translation; “voluntary helper”). Of these, about 5,000 survived and returned home to Germany. The 6th Army had about 52,000 Khivs, for whom the headquarters of this army developed the main directions for the training of "voluntary assistants", in which the latter were considered as "reliable comrades in the fight against Bolshevism." Among these "volunteers" were Russian support personnel and an anti-aircraft artillery battalion manned by Ukrainians. In addition, in the 6th Army ... there were about 1000 people of the Todt organization, consisting mainly of Western European workers, Croatian and Romanian associations, numbering from 1000 to 5000 soldiers, as well as several Italians.
If we compare the German and Russian data on the number of soldiers and officers captured in the Stalingrad region, then the following picture appears. In Russian sources, all the so-called “voluntary assistants” of the Wehrmacht (more than 50,000 people) are excluded from the number of prisoners of war, whom the Soviet competent authorities never classified as “prisoners of war”, but considered them as traitors to the Motherland, subject to trial under the laws of wartime. As for the mass death of prisoners of war from the "Stalingrad cauldron", most of them died during the first year of their captivity due to exhaustion, the effects of cold and numerous diseases received during the period of being surrounded. Some data can be cited on this score: in the period from February 3 to June 10, 1943 alone, in the camp of German prisoners of war in Beketovka (Stalingrad region), the consequences of the "Stalingrad cauldron" cost the lives of more than 27,000 people; and out of 1800 captured officers stationed in the premises of the former monastery in Yelabuga, by April 1943 only a quarter of the contingent survived
71 years have passed since the fascist tanks, like a devil from a snuffbox, ended up on the northern outskirts of Stalingrad. And hundreds of German planes, meanwhile, brought down tons of deadly cargo on the city and its inhabitants. The furious roar of engines and the ominous whistle of bombs, explosions, groans and thousands of deaths, and the Volga, engulfed in flames. August 23 became one of the most terrible moments in the history of the city. In total, 200 fiery days from July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943, the great confrontation on the Volga continued. We recall the main milestones of the Battle of Stalingrad from the beginning to the victory. A victory that changed the course of the war. A victory that cost a lot.
In the spring of 1942, Hitler divides Army Group South into two parts. The first should capture the North Caucasus. The second is to move to the Volga, to Stalingrad. The summer offensive of the Wehrmacht was called Fall Blau.
Stalingrad, like a magnet, attracted German troops to itself. The city that bore the name of Stalin. The city that opened the way for the Nazis to the oil reserves of the Caucasus. The city is located in the center of the transport arteries of the country.
To resist the onslaught of the Nazi army, on July 12, 1942, the Stalingrad Front was formed. Marshal Timoshenko became the first commander. It included the 21st Army and the 8th Air Army from the former Southwestern Front. More than 220,000 soldiers of three reserve armies: the 62nd, 63rd and 64th were also brought into the battle. Plus artillery, 8 armored trains and air regiments, mortar, tank, armored, engineering and other formations. The 63rd and 21st armies were supposed to prevent the Germans from forcing the Don. The rest of the forces were thrown to defend the borders of Stalingrad.
Stalingraders are also preparing for defense, in the city they form parts of the people's militia.
The beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad was rather unusual for that time. There was silence, tens of kilometers lay between the opponents. The Nazi columns were rapidly moving east. At this time, the Red Army was concentrating forces to the Stalingrad line, building fortifications.
July 17, 1942 is considered to be the start date of the great battle. But, according to the statements of the military historian Alexei Isaev, the soldiers of the 147th Infantry Division entered the first battle on the evening of July 16 near the farms of Morozov and Zolotoy not far from the Morozovskaya station.
From that moment on, bloody battles begin in the big bend of the Don. Meanwhile, the Stalingrad Front is replenished by the forces of the 28th, 38th and 57th armies.
The day of August 23, 1942 became one of the most tragic in the history of the Battle of Stalingrad. Early in the morning, General von Wittersheim's 14th Panzer Corps reached the Volga in the north of Stalingrad.
The enemy tanks ended up where the inhabitants of the city did not expect to see them at all - just a few kilometers from the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.
And in the evening of the same day, at 4:18 pm Moscow time, Stalingrad turned into hell. Never before has any city in the world withstood such an onslaught. For four days, from 23 to 26 August, six hundred enemy bombers made up to 2,000 sorties daily. Each time they brought death and destruction with them. Hundreds of thousands of incendiary, high-explosive and fragmentation bombs were constantly raining down on Stalingrad.
The city was on fire, choking on smoke, choking on blood. Generously flavored with oil, the Volga also burned, cutting off people's path to salvation.
What appeared before us on August 23 in Stalingrad struck me as a severe nightmare. Incessantly, here and there, fire-smoke plumes of bean explosions soared upwards. Huge pillars of flame rose to the sky in the area of oil storage facilities. Streams of burning oil and gasoline rushed to the Volga. The river was on fire, steamships on the Stalingrad roadstead were on fire. The asphalt of streets and squares stankly smoked. Telegraph poles flared up like matches. There was an unimaginable noise, tearing the ear with its infernal music. The squeal of bombs flying from a height mixed with the rumble of explosions, the rattle and clang of collapsing buildings, the crackle of raging fire. The dying people moaned, wept angrily and cried out for help, women and children, - he later recalled Commander of the Stalingrad Front Andrey Ivanovich Eremenko.
In a matter of hours, the city was practically wiped off the face of the Earth. Houses, theaters, schools - everything turned into ruins. 309 Stalingrad enterprises were also destroyed. Factories "Red October", STZ, "Barricades" lost most of the workshops and equipment. Transport, communications, water supply were destroyed. About 40 thousand inhabitants of Stalingrad died.
The Red Army and the militias hold the defense in the north of Stalingrad. Troops of the 62nd Army are fighting hard on the western and northwestern borders. Hitler's aviation continues its barbaric bombardment. From midnight on August 25, a state of siege and a special order are introduced in the city. Its violation is punished strictly, up to execution:
Persons engaged in looting, robbery are to be shot at the scene of the crime without trial or investigation. All malicious violators of public order and security in the city should be tried by a military tribunal.
A few hours before this, the Stalingrad city defense committee adopts another resolution - on the evacuation of women and children to the left bank of the Volga. At that time, no more than 100,000 were taken out of the city with a population of more than half a million people, not counting those evacuated from other regions of the country.
The remaining residents are called to the defense of Stalingrad:
We will not give up our native city to the Germans for desecration. Let us all stand as one to protect our beloved city, our home, our family. We will cover all the streets of the city with impenetrable barricades. Let us make every house, every quarter, every street an impregnable fortress. Everyone to build barricades! All who are able to carry weapons, to the barricades, to defend their native city, native home!
And they respond. Every day, about 170 thousand people go out to build fortifications and barricades.
By the evening of Monday, September 14, the enemy made his way into the very heart of Stalingrad. The railway station and Mamaev Kurgan were captured. Over the next 135 days, height 102.0 will be recaptured and lost again more than once. The defense was also broken through at the junction of the 62nd and 64th armies in the area of Kuporosnaya Balka. Hitler's troops got the opportunity to shoot through the banks of the Volga and the crossing, along which reinforcements and food were going to the city.
Under heavy enemy fire, the soldiers of the Volga military flotilla and pontoon battalions begin to transfer from Krasnoslobodsk to Stalingrad units of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, Major General Rodimtsev.
In the city there are battles for every street, every house, every piece of land. Strategic objects change hands several times a day. The Red Army soldiers try to stay as close to the enemy as possible in order to avoid attacks by enemy artillery and aircraft. Fierce fighting continues on the outskirts of the city.
Soldiers of the 62nd Army are fighting in the area of the tractor plant, "Barricade", "Red October". Workers at this time continue to work almost on the battlefield. The 64th Army continues to hold the defense south of the Kuporosny settlement.
And at this time, the Nazi German forces pulled together in the center of Stalingrad. By the evening of September 22, the Nazi troops reach the Volga in the area of \u200b\u200bJanuary 9 Square and the central pier. These days, the legendary history of the defense of Pavlov's House and Zabolotny's House begins. Bloody battles for the city continue, the Wehrmacht troops still fail to achieve the main goal and take possession of the entire bank of the Volga. However, both sides suffer heavy losses.
Preparations for the counteroffensive at Stalingrad began in September 1942. The plan for the defeat of the Nazi troops was called "Uranus". The operation involved units of the Stalingrad, Southwestern and Don Fronts: more than a million Red Army soldiers, 15.5 thousand guns, almost 1.5 thousand tanks and assault guns, about 1350 aircraft. In all positions, the Soviet troops outnumbered the enemy forces.
The operation began on November 19 with massive shelling. The armies of the Southwestern Front strike from Kletskaya and Serafimovich, during the day they advance 25-30 kilometers. In the direction of the village of Vertyachy, the forces of the Don Front are throwing. On November 20, south of the city, the Stalingrad Front also went on the offensive. On this day, the first snow fell.
On November 23, 1942, the ring closes in the area of Kalach-on-Don. The 3rd Romanian army was defeated. Around 330 thousand soldiers and officers of the 22nd divisions and 160 separate units of the 6th German Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army were surrounded. From that day on, our troops begin the offensive and every day they squeeze the Stalingrad cauldron more and more tightly.
In December 1942, the troops of the Don and Stalingrad fronts continue to crush the encircled Nazi troops. On December 12, Field Marshal von Manstein's army group made an attempt to reach the encircled 6th Army. The Germans advanced 60 kilometers in the direction of Stalingrad, but by the end of the month the remnants of the enemy forces were driven back hundreds of kilometers. It's time to destroy the army of Paulus in the Stalingrad cauldron. The operation, which was assigned to the fighters of the Don Front, received the code name "Ring". The troops were reinforced with artillery, and on January 1, 1943, the 62nd, 64th and 57th armies of the Stalingrad Front were transferred to the Don Front.
On January 8, 1943, an ultimatum with a proposal to surrender was transmitted by radio to Paulus's headquarters. By this time, the Nazi troops were severely starving and freezing, the reserves of ammunition and fuel came to an end. Soldiers are dying of malnutrition and cold. But the offer of surrender was rejected. From Hitler's headquarters comes the order to continue the resistance. And on January 10, our troops go on a decisive offensive. And already on the 26th, units of the 21st Army joined the 62nd Army on Mamaev Kurgan. The Germans surrender by the thousands.
On the last day of January 1943, the southern grouping ceased resistance. In the morning, Paulus was brought the last radiogram from Hitler, counting on suicide, he was given the next rank of Field Marshal. So he became the first field marshal of the Wehrmacht to surrender.
In the basement of the Central Department Store in Stalingrad, they also took the entire headquarters of the 6th field German army. In total, 24 generals and more than 90 thousand soldiers and officers were captured. The history of world wars has never seen anything like it before or since.
It was a disaster, after which Hitler and the Wehrmacht could not come to their senses - they dreamed of the "Stalingrad cauldron" until the end of the war. The collapse of the fascist army on the Volga convincingly showed that the Red Army and its leadership were able to completely outplay the vaunted German strategists - this is how that moment of the war was assessed army general, Hero of the Soviet Union, participant in the Battle of Stalingrad Valentin Varennikov. - I well remember with what merciless jubilation our commanders and ordinary soldiers received the news of the victory on the Volga. We were incredibly proud that we broke the back of the most powerful German grouping.
Starting the war against the USSR, the German command planned to complete the hostilities during one short campaign. However, during the winter battle of 1941-1942. the Wehrmacht was defeated and was forced to surrender part of the occupied territory. By the spring of 1942, in turn, the counter-offensive of the Red Army had stopped, and the headquarters of both sides began to develop plans for summer battles.
Plans and forces
In 1942, the situation at the front was no longer as favorable for the Wehrmacht as in the summer of 1941. The surprise factor was lost, and the overall balance of forces changed in favor of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA). An offensive along the entire front to a great depth, similar to the 1941 campaign. became impossible. The Wehrmacht High Command was forced to limit the scope of operations: in the central sector of the front it was supposed to go on the defensive, in the northern it was planned to strike around Leningrad with limited forces. The main direction of future operations was the south. On April 5, 1942, in Directive No. 41, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Adolf Hitler outlined the goals of the campaign: "Finally destroy the manpower that still remains with the Soviets, deprive the Russians of as many of the most important military and economic centers as possible." The immediate task of the main operation on the Eastern Front was determined by the exit of German troops to the Caucasus Range and the capture of a number of economically important areas - primarily the oil fields of Maikop and Grozny, the lower reaches of the Volga, Voronezh and Stalingrad. The offensive plan was codenamed "Blau" ("Blue").
Army Group South played the main role in the offensive. She suffered less than others during the winter campaign. It was reinforced with reserves: fresh infantry and tank formations were transferred to the army group, part of the formations from other sectors of the front, some motorized divisions were reinforced by tank battalions seized from Army Group Center. In addition, the divisions involved in Operation Blau were the first to receive modernized armored vehicles - medium tanks Pz. IV and StuG III self-propelled guns with enhanced armament, which made it possible to effectively fight against Soviet armored vehicles.
The army group had to operate on a very wide front, so the contingents of Germany's allies were involved in the operation on an unprecedented scale. The 3rd Romanian, 2nd Hungarian and 8th Italian armies took part in it. The allies made it possible to hold a long front line, but they had to reckon with their relatively low combat effectiveness: neither in terms of the level of training of soldiers and the competence of officers, nor in terms of the quality and quantity of weapons, the Allied armies were on the same level with either the Wehrmacht or the Red Army. For the convenience of managing this mass of troops, already during the offensive, Army Group South was divided into Group A, advancing on the Caucasus, and Group B, advancing on Stalingrad. The main striking force of Army Group B was the 6th Field Army under the command of Friedrich Paulus and the 4th Panzer Army of Hermann Goth.
At the same time, the Red Army was planning defensive operations in the southwestern direction. However, the Southern, Southwestern and Bryansk fronts in the direction of the first blow "Blau" had mobile formations for counterattacks. The spring of 1942 became the time for the restoration of the tank forces of the Red Army, and before the campaign of 1942, tank and mechanized corps of a new wave were formed. They had fewer capabilities than the German tank and motorized divisions, had a small artillery fleet and weak motorized rifle units. However, these formations could already influence the operational situation and provide serious assistance to rifle units.
The preparation of Stalingrad for defense began as early as October 1941, when the command of the North Caucasian Military District received instructions from the Headquarters to build defensive lines around Stalingrad - lines of field fortifications. However, by the summer of 1942 they were never completed. Finally, supply problems seriously affected the capabilities of the Red Army in the summer and autumn of 1942. The industry has not yet developed a sufficient amount of equipment and consumables to cover the needs of the army. Throughout 1942, the consumption of ammunition by the Red Army turned out to be significantly lower than that of the enemy. In practice, this meant that there were not enough shells to suppress the defense of the Wehrmacht with artillery strikes or to counter it in counter-battery combat.
Battle in the bend of the Don
On June 28, 1942, the main summer offensive of the German troops began. Initially, it developed successfully for the enemy. Soviet troops were thrown back from their positions in the Donbass to the Don. At the same time, a wide gap appeared in the front of the Soviet troops to the west of Stalingrad. In order to close this gap, on July 12, the Stalingrad Front was created by the directive of the Stavka. For the defense of the city, mainly reserve armies were used. Among them was the former 7th reserve, which, after entering the active army, received a new number - 62. It was she who was to defend Stalingrad directly in the future. In the meantime, the newly formed front was advancing to the line of defense to the west of the big bend of the Don.
The front initially had only small forces. The divisions that were already at the front managed to suffer heavy losses, and part of the reserve ones only followed the assigned lines. The mobile reserve of the front was the 13th Panzer Corps, which was not yet equipped with equipment.
The main forces of the front advanced from the depths and had no contact with the enemy. Therefore, one of the first tasks assigned by the Headquarters to the first commander of the Stalingrad Front, Marshal S.K. Timoshenko, consisted in sending forward detachments towards the enemy 30-80 km from the front line of defense - for reconnaissance and, if possible, occupying more advantageous lines. On July 17, the forward detachments first encountered the vanguards of the German troops. This day marked the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad. The Stalingrad front collided with the troops of the 6th field and 4th tank armies of the Wehrmacht.
The battles with front-line forward detachments lasted until July 22. It is interesting that Paulus and Goth were not yet aware of the presence of large forces of Soviet troops - they believed that only weak units were ahead. In reality, the Stalingrad Front numbered 386 thousand people, and numerically inferior to the advancing troops of the 6th Army (443 thousand people as of July 20). However, the front defended a wide strip, which allowed the enemy to concentrate superior forces on the breakthrough sector. On July 23, when the battles for the main line of defense began, the 6th Wehrmacht Army quickly broke through the front of the Soviet 62nd Army, and a small “cauldron” formed on its right flank. The attackers were able to reach the Don north of the city of Kalach. The threat of encirclement hung over the entire 62nd Army. However, unlike the encirclement of the autumn of 1941, the Stalingrad Front had a maneuverable reserve at its disposal. The 13th Panzer Corps of T.S. was used to break through the encirclement. Tanaschishin, who managed to pave the way to freedom for the encircled detachment. Soon, an even more powerful counterattack hit the flanks of the German wedge that had broken through to the Don. To defeat the German units that had broken through, two tank armies were thrown - the 1st and 4th. However, each of them consisted of only two rifle divisions and one tank corps capable of participating in a counterattack.
Unfortunately, the battles of 1942 were characterized by the advantage of the Wehrmacht at the tactical level. German soldiers and officers had, on average, the best level of training, including in technical terms. Therefore, the counterattacks launched from two sides by tank armies in the last days of July crashed against the German defenses. The tanks advanced with very little support from infantry and artillery, and suffered unnecessarily heavy losses. There was undoubtedly an effect from their actions: the forces of the 6th Field Army, which entered the breakthrough, could not build on the success and force the Don. However, the stability of the front line could only be maintained until the forces of the attackers were exhausted. On August 6, the 1st Tank Army, which had lost almost all its equipment, was disbanded. A day later, units of the Wehrmacht surrounded the large forces of the 62nd Army west of the Don with a blow in converging directions.
Surrounded by troops, several separate detachments managed to break out of the ring, but the battle in the bend of the Don was lost. Although the fierce resistance of the Red Army is constantly emphasized in German documents, the Wehrmacht managed to defeat the opposing Soviet units and force the Don.
Fight on the defensive contours of Stalingrad
At the moment when the battle was developing in the big bend of the Don, a new threat loomed over the Stalingrad front. She came from the southern flank, occupied by weak units. Initially, the 4th Panzer Army of Hermann Hoth did not aim at Stalingrad, but stubborn resistance on the Don forced the Wehrmacht command to turn it from the Caucasian direction to the rear of the Stalingrad Front. The reserves of the front were already involved in the battle, so the tank army could rapidly attack the rear of the defenders of Stalingrad. On July 28, the Headquarters ordered the new commander of the Stalingrad Front, A.I. Eremenko to take measures to protect the south-west of the outer defense bypass. However, this order was somewhat late. On August 2, Goth's tanks reached the Kotelnikovsky district . Due to the dominance of German aviation in the air, Soviet reserves were crushed on the approaches, and entered the battle already seriously battered. On August 3, the Germans, having easily broken through the front, rushed to the northeast and deeply bypassed the positions of the defenders of Stalingrad. It was possible to stop them only in the Abganerovo region - geographically it is already to the south, and not west of Stalingrad. Abganerovo was held for a long time thanks to the timely approach of reserves, including the 13th Panzer Corps. Corps T.I. Tanaschishin became the "fire brigade" of the front: the tankers for the second time eliminated the consequences of a severe failure.
While the fighting was going on south of Stalingrad, Paulus was planning a new encirclement, already on the eastern bank of the Don. On August 21, on the northern flank, the 6th Army crossed the river and began an offensive to the east, to the Volga. The 62nd Army, already battered in the "cauldron", could not hold back the blow, and the Wehrmacht vanguards rushed to Stalingrad from the northwest. If the German plans were implemented, the Soviet troops were to be surrounded west of Stalingrad and die in the flat steppe. So far, this plan has been carried out.
At this time there was an evacuation of Stalingrad. Before the war, this city with a population of more than 400 thousand people was one of the most important industrial centers of the USSR. Now the Stavka faced the question of evacuating people and industrial facilities. However, no more than 100,000 Stalingraders were able to cross the Volga by the time the fighting for the city began. There was no talk of a ban on the export of people, but a huge number of goods and people awaiting the crossing had accumulated on the west bank - from refugees from other areas to food and equipment. The capacity of the crossings did not allow everyone to be taken out, and the command believed that they still had time left. Meanwhile, events developed rapidly. Already on August 23, the first German tanks reached the northern outskirts. On the same day, Stalingrad was subjected to a devastating air strike.
As early as July 23, Hitler pointed out the need for the "advance" destruction of Stalingrad. On August 23, the Fuhrer's order was carried out. The Luftwaffe struck in groups of 30-40 vehicles, in total they made more than two thousand sorties. A significant part of the city was made up of wooden buildings, they were quickly destroyed by fire. The water supply was destroyed, so the fire brigades could not fight the fire. In addition, as a result of the bombing, oil storage facilities ignited. (On this day?) about 40 thousand people, mostly civilians, died in Stalingrad, and the city was almost completely destroyed.
Since the Wehrmacht units reached the city in a quick spurt, the defense of Stalingrad was disorganized. The German command considered it necessary to quickly link up the 6th Field Army, which was advancing from the northwest, and the 4th Panzer Army, from the south. Therefore, the main task of the Germans was to close the flanks of the two armies. However, the new environment did not take place. Tank brigades and front corps launched counterattacks against the northern strike force. They did not stop the enemy, but allowed the main forces of the 62nd Army to be withdrawn to the city. To the south, the 64th Army was defending. It was they who became the main participants in the ensuing battle in Stalingrad. By the time the 6th field and 4th tank armies of the Wehrmacht joined, the main forces of the Red Army had already got out of the trap.
Defense of Stalingrad
On September 12, 1942, a major personnel reshuffle took place: the 62nd Army was led by General Vasily Chuikov. The army retreated into the city seriously battered, but it still had more than 50 thousand people in its composition, and now it had to hold a bridgehead in front of the Volga on a narrow front. In addition, the German advance was inevitably slowed down by the obvious difficulties of street fighting.
However, the Wehrmacht was not at all going to get involved in two-month street battles. From the point of view of Paulus, the task of taking Stalingrad was solved within ten days. From the standpoint of post-knowledge, the Wehrmacht's persistence in destroying the 62nd Army seems difficult to explain. However, at that particular moment, Paulus and his staff believed that the city could be taken within a reasonable time with moderate losses.
The first assault began almost immediately. During September 14-15, the Germans took the dominant height - Mamaev Kurgan, joined the forces of their two armies and cut off the 62nd Army from the 64th operating south. However, in addition to the stubborn resistance of the city's garrison, two factors influenced the attackers. Firstly, reinforcements regularly came across the Volga. The course of the September assault was broken by the 13th Guards Division of Major General A.I. Rodimtseva, who managed to regain part of the lost positions by counterattacks and stabilized the situation. On the other hand, Paulus did not have the opportunity to recklessly throw all available forces into the capture of Stalingrad. The positions of the 6th Army north of the city were subjected to constant attacks by Soviet troops, who were trying to build a land corridor to their own. A series of offensive operations in the steppe northwest of Stalingrad turned out to be heavy losses for the Red Army with minimal progress. The tactical training of the attacking troops turned out to be poor, and the superiority of the Germans in firepower made it possible to effectively disrupt the attacks. However, pressure on the army of Paulus from the north did not allow him to concentrate on the main task.
In October, the left flank of the 6th Army, drawn far to the west, was covered by Romanian troops, which made it possible to use two additional divisions in a new assault on Stalingrad. This time, the industrial zone in the north of the city was attacked. As in the first assault, the Wehrmacht ran into reserves coming from other sectors of the front. The headquarters closely monitored the situation in Stalingrad and transferred fresh units to the city in a dosed manner. Transportation went in an extremely difficult situation: the boats were attacked by artillery and aircraft of the Wehrmacht. However, the Germans did not succeed in completely blocking traffic along the river.
The advancing German troops suffered high losses in the city and advanced very slowly. Extremely stubborn battles made Paulus' headquarters nervous: he began to make frankly controversial decisions. The weakening of positions beyond the Don and their transfer to the Romanian troops was the first risky step. The next is the use of tank divisions for street fighting, the 14th and 24th. Armored vehicles did not have a significant impact on the course of the battle in the city, and the divisions suffered heavy losses and got involved in a hopeless confrontation.
It should be noted that in October 1942, Hitler already considered the goals of the campaign as a whole achieved. The order dated October 14 stated that "the summer and autumn campaigns of this year, with the exception of individual operations still ongoing and planned offensive actions of a local nature, have been completed."
In fact, the German troops did not so much complete the campaign as they lost the initiative. In November, freezing began on the Volga, which greatly worsened the position of the 62nd Army: due to the situation on the river, it was difficult to deliver reinforcements and ammunition to the city. The defense zone in many places narrowed to hundreds of meters. However, the stubborn defense in the city allowed the Headquarters to prepare a decisive counteroffensive of the Great Patriotic War.
To be continued...
