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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 1:07:11 GMT -5
By the way, How come the other guy (coder?) was Global Mod, I was mod, and you moved us all up one?
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 1:09:26 GMT -5
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 1:20:53 GMT -5
Battle of Stalingrad, Operation Barbarossa,
On June 22, 1941, the German Army poured across the borders of the Soviet Union, initiating nearly 4 years of the most savage and brutal warfare humanity ever experienced. Three Army Groups penetrated Russia on a front extending from the Baltic coast to the Black Sea. One and a half million soldiers of the Wehrmacht obeyed the Fuehrer's directive to destroy the Red Army and the Soviet Union.
"The World will hold it's breath!", Adolf Hitler told his Generals. And as the world watched in amazement, the Wehrmacht rolled triumphantly across the Russian steppe, seemingly invincible. Caught by surprise, the bulk of the Russian Air Forces were destroyed on the ground. Under orders not to provoke the Germans, the Russian frontier armies were not given coherent directions to mount a defense of their borders. The Red Army fell back in disorder, surrendered in wholesale numbers, or died in a futile effort to halt the German advance.
Western military experts gave the Russians 6 weeks, perhaps 8 at the most, before suffering total military disaster at the hands of the Germans. Battered by one defeat after another, the poor performance of the Red Army gave no one reason to believe otherwise. With their officer corps decimated by Stalin's purges, the badly equipped , poorly trained and demoralized Red Army sustained losses and gave ground which would have defeated any other country in a matter of days.
For the invasion, Hitler chose the same armies and commanders which had swept through the Low Countries and France in a little over a month. Army Group North, commanded by Generalfeldmarshall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, launched their attack from East Prussia, driving for the Baltic port of Leningrad. Army Group Center, under Gfm. Fedor von Bock, erupted out of Poland, with Moscow as it's objective. Under the command of one of Germany's "Black Knights", Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Army Group South headed for the Ukraine, and the oil fields of the Caucasus.
Facing them in the field were their Soviet counterparts, Soviet Marshals Klimenti Voroshilov, an old Bolshevik, drinking partner, and crony of Stalin; Semyon Buddeny, a cavalry officer of indifferent ability in modern warfare, and Semyon Timoshenko, one of the few capable high ranking officers to survive Stalin's purges.
Anticipating the easy capture of Moscow, Leningrad, and the Caucasus, the planners of Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces, or OKW) gave themselves less than 6 months to effectively destroy the Red Army, occupy European Russia, and halt Operation Barbarossa at the foothills of the Ural Mountains. In Hitler's view, this would secure for Germany all the living space, food, and mineral resources it would ever need, and would in effect constitute victory for the Reich in the Second World War.
German surprise and success was so overwhelming in the first few weeks that few would have disagreed with that assessment. On top of the disasters suffered by the Red Army, the Soviet government itself seemed to fall into disarray. Joseph Stalin is reported to have gone nearly catatonic for 11 days, while Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov effectively ran the government. True or not, this amount of time lapsed before Stalin addressed the Russian people about the nature of the calamity that was upon them.
In a halting, somber tone, Stalin spoke to the Russian people in a radio broadcast on July 3, 1941, imploring them not to give up hope. He reminded them of Napoleon, and the defeat of his armies. Hitler was no more invincible than the French Emperor, he declared. Stalin called for a "Scorched Earth" behind the retreat of the Russian armies, non-cooperation, and partisan warfare on the part of the occupied territories. He also expressed gratitude for the promises of support from the Western democracies.
Western support was immediately forthcoming from Great Britain. After standing alone against the Nazis for an entire year, Winston Churchill stated that, "All who resist Nazi domination shall have our aid". Derided by opposition members of Parliament about his long-standing position against Communism, Churchill retorted, "If Hitler were to invade Hell, I should at least stand in the Commons and say a few words on behalf of the Devil". Rhetoric aside, there was little that Britain could offer of immediate assistance, and Russia faced the German onslaught alone.
One disaster after another plagued the Red Army as the Germans drove deeper into the Russian heartland. By July 16, 1941, Army Group Center had captured over 600,000 prisoners alone. An ill-conceived and executed counter-attack at Kharkov cost the Red Army over 300,000 men. The Wehrmacht had captured the city of Smolensk, and the road to Moscow appeared to be open.
In the north, Field Marshal von Leeb's forces had approached the outskirts of Leningrad. Here the Germans shied away from an all-out street fight to take the city. The Finns, in the meantime, had resumed war with the Soviet Union, and their forces combined with the Germans, surrounded Leningrad for a 900 day long siege. Leningrad held, at the cost of one and a half million civilians dead, from starvation, disease, and exposure. However, the Germans were not without problems of their own. For reasons best understood by Hitler, they diverted vital resources to enhance the push upon Kiev, and the drive towards Moscow faltered. By the time Kiev was in German hands and the prime objective shifted back to Moscow, time and the Russian winter was starting to work against them. Stalin had recognized the vital work of Gen. Georgi Zhukov at Leningrad, and directed him to marshal the resources necessary to save the Soviet capital from being over-run. From Oct. 1941, Field Marshal von Bock had concentrated his armor and infantry to close upon Moscow, spear-headed by the master of the Panzers, Gen. Heinz Guderian.
In the closing days of October, 1941, Stalin held the annual observance of the Bolshevik Revolution in Red Square. The military review was held as usual, but the soldiers continued marching out of the city, directly towards the front. The Red Army fought a delaying operation at the approaches to the city, while Zhukov gathered forces for a counter-attack. On or around Dec. 8, 1941, an advance patrol from Panzer Gruppe Guderian was within eyesight of the spires of the Kremlin. This was probably the closest the Germans ever came to their dream of conquering Soviet Russia. Army Group Center, exhausted and over-extended, had been pushed to the limit.
With an impeccable sense of timing, Zhukov struck back. Fresh reserves of infantry, armor, and cavalry fell upon the German front lines. German troops, still wearing summer uniforms and ill-prepared for the Russian winter, fought back as best they could, but were overwhelmed. Von Bock's soldiers bled and died in the snow, and the front of Army Group Center crumbled. OKW insisted upon an immediate withdrawal, and an end to the Russian adventure. Hitler overruled his Generals, giving a firm order to stand fast and fight to the last man.
The Luftwaffe jury-rigged airlifts of supplies to relieve isolated pockets. The experience and training of German staff officers improvised strategies to hold off the Soviets while they rallied their shattered armies and held their ground. The inexperience of the Soviets at a war of rapid movement made it impossible for them to press their advantage and finish off their opponent. All these factors combined enabled the Wehrmacht to hold their position in Russia, and to embellish the myth of Hitler as a military genius.
One year later, this same military genius would lead the German 6th Army into a mass grave at Stalingrad.
Ill do the rest later.
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 11:05:14 GMT -5
Operation Blue by Mike Yoder
During the winter of 1941-42, the Russian front stabilized, with little more than skirmishing among both armies. The extreme cold of the Russian winter effectively immobilized both sides. The Germans struggled with logistical problems, and debate raged at OKW about how to proceed from this point. High ranking officers such as the Luftwaffe's Field Marshal Erhard Milch, argued that Germany needed to consolidate her gains in the East. He pointed out that enormous resources were now available to Germany, but it would take time to use these to their best advantage.
The head of the German General Staff, Generaloberst Franz Halder, was of the opinion that the Wehrmacht had been bloodied badly in the opening phase of the campaign, and needed time to recuperate. He felt that under no circumstances should the German army resume the offensive. With over 850,000 casualties, the numbers seemed to bear him out. Other factions at OKW held that a partial withdrawal should be made, taking advantage of natural defensive barriers such as rivers. Let the Soviets beat their brains out trying to retake their own territory.
Adding to the urgency of the situation was the fact that the United States had now entered the war. Although under no specific obligation to do so, Hitler had declared war upon the US the day after the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. With the bulk of the German forces committed deep inside Russia, the threat of a two front war was now a reality, and not something to overlook.
Hitler was also confronted with political problems at home. Although his dictatorship over Germany was now absolute, his continued rule depended upon an appearance of public support, as well as the backing of the industrial cartels and the military. He felt that he could not afford to appear anything less than resolute in prosecuting the war to a successful conclusion. Hitler still possessed a measure of rationality at this point, and conceded that an all out offensive on the entire front was out of the question. But any withdrawal by his forces was dismissed out of hand. He had already fixed in his mind that wherever the German soldier set foot, he must remain. This was the underlying premise for the disaster which would follow.
In keeping with his notion that the only possible way to win the war was to remain on the offensive, Hitler and his staff officers at OKW devised Operation Blue. Leaving the Northern and Central armies to hold their ground, they would send 2 Army groups into the Caucasus, seizing Russia's oil supply and cutting the Volga river at Stalingrad. This was, in Halder's opinion, a "poor man's offensive". Hitler touted this plan as the knock-out punch, the killing blow which would take out the Soviet Union and put an end to the war. With Stalin's regime out of the picture, the Reich could consolidate it's hold on the European continent and keep the Western Allies at arms length. Faced with this reality, they would presumably sue for peace.
The near disaster in Russia had prompted a massive reorganization of the German forces, and a shake-up in the high command. Hitler dismissed Field Marshal von Brauchitsch as Commander-in -Chief of the Army, and assumed the position himself for the duration of the war. Von Rundstedt was summarily dismissed as commander of Army Group South for ordering an unauthorized withdrawal, and von Leeb was relieved as well . Fedor von Bock retained his Army Group staff, but was shifted to command Army Group South. When he objected to splitting his command into two separate Army Groups, he was relieved as well. Army Group South now became Army Groups A and B.
Army Group B, consisting of Friedrich Paulus's 6th Army, and the 4th Panzer Army of Gen. Hermann Hoth, would sweep through the corridor separating the Don and Volga rivers, swing Northeast and capture the city of Stalingrad, cutting the Volga river lifeline. This force was fleshed out with the addition of armies from Germany's allies, with Romanian and Italians on one flank, Hungarians on the other. Army Group A, under the command of Field Marshal List, with Field Marshals von Manstein and von Kleist in command of their armies, would fan out through the Transcaucasus, heading for Armavir, the oil-fields at Maikop, and the Caspian Sea.
Jumping off in July of 1942, Operation Blue ran into some trouble almost immediately. Although the Red Army was still no match for the Wehrmacht, unexpectedly stiff resistance at Voronezh delayed the timetable. With a brief respite from the spirited defense of the city, the bulk of the Russian forces withdrew into the interior of Russia. The Russians were still retreating, but now they were doing it like soldiers.
Despite the losses suffered in the opening phase of Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht still possessed a considerable advantage in equipment, firepower, and experience. Although much improved from the previous summer, the Red Army was still no match for the invader. The Germans still rounded up thousands of prisoners, captured abandoned equipment, and remained confident that victory was in sight.
This confidence was shared by Hitler, who decided that the 4th Panzer Army was no longer needed to capture Stalingrad. He gave orders to detach it from the drive to the Volga, and join the assault upon the oil fields. This sent the 4th Panzer into a cross-over of the 6th Army's line of march. The two forces crossed paths, and the ensuing traffic jam took several days to untangle. When it was sorted out, the 4th Panzer had also commandeered the lion's share of the fuel intended for the 6th Army. Paulus's armor stalled for lack of fuel, and logistical problems kept the drive halted for nearly 2 weeks.
Hitler subsequently changed his mind again, and ordered Hoth to rejoin Paulus. By the time the march resumed, General Andrei Yeremenko, commander of the Southern Front, had been able to formulate a strategy to hold the Axis armies on the west bank of the Volga. His prospects looked bleak, his armies still demoralized by defeat, and a combined force of nearly 750,000 men was approaching what would be the Red Army's last line of defense.
At the headquarters of Field Marshal von Weichs, Commander of Army Group B, doubts were beginning to rise. Paulus was crossing the narrow area between the Don and Volga rivers with little or no opposition. The lack of contact with the enemy was ominous, as was the fact that their left flank was growing more dangerously exposed with every mile advanced.
Paulus had declared that, "The important thing now is to hit the Russians such a hard crack that they won't recover for a long time!" He watched that opportunity vanish, as his enemy disappeared across the horizon, withdrawing towards Stalingrad.
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 11:06:32 GMT -5
The Commanders by Mike Yoder The principal adversaries in the battle for Stalingrad marked a sharp departure in tradition for European armies. Up to and including World War I, high ranking officers in both the German and Russian military had been drawn from the ranks of the nobility. Now the son of a Hessian book-keeper and a Russian peasant would square off against one another in the largest clash of arms the world has ever seen. Generaloberst Friedrich Paulus had joined the German army in 1910. He had risen to the rank of Captain during the First World War, and had been largely involved in work as a staff officer. He married well, winning the hand of a beautiful young woman of the Romanian nobility, Elena Rosetti-Solescu, whose friends called her "Coco". Paulus served both in the Balkans with the Alpenkorps, and at the Battle of Verdun He stayed in the post-war Reichswehr, rising as high as Major before Hitler came to power. Paulus had a strange fixation for a soldier. He despised dirt, bathed and changed uniforms several times in a day, even on the rare occasions he ventured into the field. He grew professionally as an excellent staff officer, contenting himself with sand-table models of various battle-field scenarios. However, on at least one occasion he was called upon to command a battalion during a field exercise. Paulus's performance was found lacking, and a superior noted in an evaluation, "This officer lacks decisiveness!" The following is a direct quote from his commanding officer of the time. As it turns out, this statement is indicative of what could be expected of him as a soldier. "A typical Staff officer of the old school. Tall, and in outward appearance painstakingly well groomed. Modest, perhaps too modest, amiable, with extremely courteous manners, and a good comrade, anxious not to offend anyone. Exceptionally talented and interested in military matters, and a meticulous desk worker, with a passion for war-games and formulating plans on the map-board or sand-table. At this he displays considerable talent, considering every decision at length and with careful deliberation before giving the appropriate orders." With the advent of Hitler and the expansion of the German army, Paulus moved steadily up the ranks of officers attached to the General Staff. By the outbreak of war in 1939, Paulus was a Major General, and on the staff of Gen. Walther von Reichenau's 10th Army. Von Reichenau was probably the very antithesis of Paulus. An ardent Nazi, coarse and unkempt, he loathed routine paper work, preferring duty in the field. During the Polish campaign, he set an example for his troops by swimming across the Vistula river. He was perfectly content to let Paulus handle the organizational duties, and as a result, his army was running as efficiently as a Swiss watch. Renamed the 6th Army for the 1940 campaign in the West, von Reichenau and Paulus spearheaded the attack through Belgium, establishing their army as one of the elite of the Wehrmacht. Theirs was among the forces which pinned the British Expeditionary Force and the Remnants of the French Army against the sea at Dunkirk. Chosen for the cross-channel invasion of Britain, Paulus worked up the operational details for an amphibious assault by the 6th Army. With the cancellation of Operation Sea-Lion, Paulus found himself back in Berlin, under Gen. Franz Halder, working up operational plans for Operation Barbarossa. To work with the chief of the German General Staff was a plum of a career opportunity for him. He impressed Halder with his intellectual precision, his meticulous preparations and staff work. Ironically, Paulus laid down the basic operational plans for the ultimate fate of the 6th Army, as well as his own. With the dismissal of Field Marshal von Rundstedt as Commander, Army Group South, Field Marshal von Reichenau was moved up from 6th Army to replace him. Von Reichenau recommended his old deputy to be the new commander of the 6th Army. It was intended that von Reichenau would assist Paulus through the transition and change of command. But von Reichanau died of complications from a heart attack and stroke (largely brought on by the stress of the Russian campaign) on Jan 17, 1942. At the age of 51, Paulus had achieved his life's ambition - command of an army in the field. Lt. General Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov was likely the very mirror image of his opponent. Born of Russian peasants in 1900, Chuikov was a mechanic's apprentice from the age of 12, worked at various odd jobs, such as a bell-hop, and joined the Red Army in 1918. With the onset of the Russian Civil War, Chuikov served as a private soldier in forces commanded by Commissar Josef Stalin. Ironically, his first battle was for control of a small town on the Volga river named Tsaritsyn. The struggle for Tsaritsyn, and the subsequent defeat of the White Army there, was a milestone in Stalin's career. Years later, as Soviet Dictator, Stalin would rename Tsaritsyn after himself. From the 1930's on, it would be known as Stalingrad. Chuikov would distinguish himself as a soldier there, and within a year, found himself with a field commission, a member of the Communist party, and commander of a regiment in the Red Army. In the years following the Civil War, he attended to his neglected education. He graduated from the prestigious Frunze Military Academy in 1925. As the son of a peasant, possessed of a good war record, and the epitome of the new class-less society, here was an officer clearly headed for higher command. Through some miracle which benefited the Russian people, Chuikov survived Stalin's purges of the Red Army. Although promoted to fill the resulting vacancies, he was never advanced beyond his merits or abilities. Stalin's paranoia swept the ranks of the Soviet military of all who were considered politically suspect, no matter what their military ability or war record. Chuikov was obviously considered politically reliable, and his military credentials were impeccable. Equally capable men found themselves in the Gulag, and Vasily Chuikov stood head and shoulders above the mediocrities who were now in control of much of the Red Army. Chuikov served in the Polish Campaign of 1939, when the Red Army moved into Eastern Poland, in accordance with the secret protocols of the German-Soviet pact. Here he made his first contact with the German Army, and saw first-hand what the new style of warfare was about. He also served in the ill-fated Winter War with Finland in December of 1940. There the outnumbered Finns inflicted disproportionate casualties upon the Red Army, and revealed great weaknesses in the training, equipment, and fighting abilities of the Russians. Chuikov was serving a tour as the Military Attaché in China when Operation Barbarossa was launched. Recalled to Russia in early 1942, he was posted as the deputy commander of the Soviet 64th Army. By this point in his career, he had emerged as an aggressive, opinionated, and determined officer. Possessed of a volatile temper, he held short shrift for anyone who disagreed with him about military matters. On occasion, he was known to use his walking stick to strike subordinates who had displeased him. With the Red Army in headlong retreat, many came to displease him. In August of 1942, as the German armies approached Stalingrad, it appeared that the primary defense of the city would fall upon the Soviet 62nd Army. The commander of the 62nd, General V.I. Lopatin, despaired of their ability to hold the city. When he confided these fears to Gen. Yeremenko, commander of the Stalingrad Front, he was immediately dismissed. Yeremenko looked about for a successor, a man who would display the tenacity and spirit needed to rally the Russian soldiers and hold on the Volga. His first choice for the job was Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov. Summoning Chuikov to his command post, Yeremenko appointed him the new commander of the 62nd Army. Echoing Stalin's proclamation, Yeremenko had also issued a directive to all his army commanders, to take "Not another step back". Countersigned by Soviet Commissar Nikita S. Krushchev, this order was backed up with instructions for the NKVD to shoot anyone who failed to comply. Directing Chuikov to hold Stalingrad at all costs, Yeremenko asked of him, "Comrade General, how do you interpret your assignment?" Chuikov did not hesitate. He told the Front Commander, "We do not dare lose the city!" He then assured Yeremenko and Krushchev that the 62nd Army would hold at Stalingrad or die in the city. Leaving to take stock of his new command, he first determined that he could not match the firepower of the Wehrmacht out on the open steppe. He laid plans for a street fight, pinpointing future strong-points where the enemy would be forced to pass on their march to the Volga. He positioned his artillery, and registered his guns where the Germans would be concentrated in the greatest numbers. He then issued a proclamation to his soldiers - "There is no land past the Volga" - and awaited the arrival of the 6th Army in Stalingrad. Listen, Ill do the other Stalingrad articles (quick reference), but Ill give you the site address for pics, click on the read mores: www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/stalingrad/default.aspx
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 11:07:12 GMT -5
Death of City by Mike Yoder
On Russian military maps it is simply Hill 103. Mamaev Kurgan, or the Tatar Mound, commands a view of central Stalingrad and the surrounding steppe. At it's summit today is the largest free-standing statue in the world. Rodina - Mother Russia - nearly 150 meters high and brandishing a sword weighing 14 tons, faces West and exhorts her sons to follow. But in 1942, the tide of battle rolled across this hill so many times that defenders and attackers alike lost count of the number of times that it changed hands. Mamaev Kurgan was subjected to so much shell - fire that the shrapnel and scrap metal churned into the soil prevented grass from growing there after the war. The entire hill has been turned into a park and massive monuments bear witness to the tragedy that befell the city on the Volga. From it's humble origins as the town of Tsaritsyn, Stalingrad had benefited from the decision of Soviet planners to develop the region. By 1942, it was the third largest city in the Soviet Union, sprawling in a narrow band for nearly 20 miles along the Volga river-front. Under successive 5 Year Plans, the Russians had erected the Krasny Oktyaber Tractor factory, the Barrikady Metal Works, and the Lazur Chemical Plant. As a gathering point for Volga river barge traffic, it shipped grain, oil, farm machinery, chemicals and other products to the interior of the Soviet Union. Converted to war-time production, the factories of Stalingrad now produced tanks, guns, and other vital war materiel for the Red Army. At the opening of Barbarossa, the war seemed a long ways off, and of little immediate concern to the citizens of Stalingrad. Although most young men were away serving with the military, life continued as it always had. But by the middle of August,1942, the Stalingrad City Soviet began giving consideration to evacuating children and non-essential civilians. However, the bulk of the population was still in the city in late August when the battle got underway. The Luftwaffe sent Luftflotte 4 to commence air raids on the city, and the first of these set downtown Stalingrad aflame, reducing much of it to rubble. With central Stalingrad in flames, the editors of the local paper put together an improvised edition of Stalingrad Pravda. On a hand-cranked press, without power, they printed out a one page edition with a banner headline proclaiming, "We Will Smash the Enemy at the Gates of Stalingrad!" Over 40,000 civilians were killed in these first raids, and an evacuation began in earnest. The Luftwaffe commanders recognized that the boat traffic taking civilians across the Volga was also shuttling reinforcements into the city. German pilots strafed and bombed the landing in a concerted effort to panic the civilians flocked on the shore. Thousands more died under the bombs and guns, but the ferry traffic continued unabated. The first elements of the 6th Army breached the city in the northern residential suburb of Rynok. Gen. Hans Hube's 16th Panzer division was the first to reach the banks of the Volga, and Stalingrad was boxed in from the north. The Luftwaffe continued to pound the city into rubble, and Stalingrad would continue to burn for the next few months. The first of many bizarre, grotesque sights emerged as the inmates of the insane asylum came out of the ruins, wandering dazed and naked through the streets. By Sept. 1st, the 62nd Army was fully engaged throughout the city, and the battle began in earnest. The rubble and the ruins of Stalingrad now posed serious problems of movement for the Germans. With the Panzers unable to maneuver quickly through the debris choked streets, Paulus's war of rapid movement was over. Chuikov had turned several key buildings into strongholds, and the Germans attempted to advance through paths which were zeroed in on by Soviet artillery. German gains were now measured in yards and inches, as the determined Russians made them fight for every house and building which remained standing. Stuka dive bombers continued to hammer the Russian strong points, inflicting numerous casualties. The survivors, though bloodied, merely found new hiding places in the rubble and continued to fight on. Despite horrendous losses, the Germans systematically leveled the city block by block and relentlessly pressed towards the Volga. While it was still capable of production, the Krasny Oktyaber plant continued to produce T-34 tanks and drive them directly into battle, often crewed by the workers who built them. Those civilians not cowering in cellars now pitched in to aid in the defense of the city. One German Panzer battalion over-ran a position, only to be sickened when they discovered that the defenders were women.
In spite of the heroic efforts of it's defenders, the 62nd Army was being driven back slowly but surely. Chuikov struggled to maintain communications with his beleaguered forces, but realized that the best he could hope to do was to give general instructions. He later stated that, "In Stalingrad, every man had to be his own General!" Russian positions which were by-passed continued to fight on, without orders, reinforcements, or supplies. Many would hold out for weeks, until finally running out of food and ammunition. All continued to exact a heavy toll of the enemy up to the moment they were over-run and killed. Among the units Chuikov committed to the battle in the early stages was the 13th Guards Division of General Alexander Rodimtsev. Rodimtsev was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, and something of a national hero. Briefed by Chuikov on his assignment, Rodimtsev declared, "I am a Communist. I have no intention of abandoning the city". One of Rodimtsev's junior officers would be hand-picked by the commander of the 62nd Army himself to carry out a vital, but near suicidal mission - hold the railroad station in downtown Stalingrad. Lt. Anton Kuzmich Dragan received these orders from Vasily Chuikov in person. Gathering a platoon of less than 50 men, Dragan and his soldiers proceeded to frustrate the Germans in an epic room by room struggle for control of the depot for nearly three weeks. Breaking through walls, crawling over the rafters, and burrowing under the floor boards, the Russians would yield a portion of the building to the Germans only to emerge elsewhere and start the struggle all over again. Exchanging gunfire down hallways, lobbing grenades back and forth between rooms, Dragan's men inflicted as many casualties as possible on the enemy. In spite of this heroic resistance, Dragan's force was eventually reduced to a handful of men. Running out of ammunition, their rations gone, one of his soldiers took out a bayonet and carved on the wall, "Rodimtsev's Guardsmen fought and died for their country here". Under cover of darkness, Dragan and 5 of his soldiers slipped out of the building, made their way through enemy lines, and later rejoined the fight. Supplies and reinforcements converged upon Stalingrad from all regions of the Soviet Union. The battle was now a test of will between the two dictators, Hitler and Stalin. Ample materiel was available on the east bank of the Volga, but with the Germans in command of the river from the north and south, everything was now funneled through the ferry landing in central Stalingrad. Holding that landing became Chuikov's top priority, for without it, the 62nd Army would wither and die. The east bank of the Volga now became a huge marshaling yard for men and materiel, including a large field hospital for tending to the wounded. From this point, the Red Army now deployed batteries of the newly developed Katyusha mortars. Also called "The Stalin Organ" these truck launched rockets would leave their racks with an ungodly screech, and were deadly accurate. Very effective as a psychological weapon as well as for the damage they inflicted, Katyushas now rained down on Stalingrad by night and day. The Soviet Air Forces, now equipped with modern aircraft such as the Yak 1, began to contest the Luftwaffe for air superiority over the city. For the first time in the war, German soldiers on the ground were receiving the punishment from the air which the Luftwaffe had inflicted upon their enemies. Among the pilots confronting the Germans was a pretty, 22 year old blonde woman named Lidia Litviak. Litviak, who was called Lily by her friends, was an alumnus of the famous 588th Night Bomber Regiment, better known as the Night Witches. With a white flower painted by her cockpit, Litviak became a national hero, nicknamed "The White Rose of Stalingrad". Litviak shot down 12 enemy planes, survived Stalingrad, but was killed in July, 1943, at the Battle of Kursk. With rockets, bombs and shells pouring into the city around the clock, Stalingrad now resembled a scene out of Dante's Inferno. The burning city cast a glow which could be seen from 30 miles away at night. By day a gruesome pall of smoke and dust churned up out of Stalingrad, truly a glimpse of Hell on Earth. This fearsome sight panicked many Russian reinforcements being ferried into the city from across the river. Some would take their chances with the frigid waters of the Volga and jump overboard from the shuttle boats rather than join the battle for the city. Soviet political officers would accompany each boatload to maintain order and discipline, and shoot all would be deserters on the spot. Although both commanders had ample forces at their disposal, the narrow approach to the city and the bottleneck of the river crossing forced them to feed their units to the battle one piece at a time. The Germans were slowly gaining ground, but at the cost of excessive casualties. Likewise, Chuikov's delaying tactics were working, although at an enormous price in blood. The stress was also starting to exact a physical toll from both men. Paulus had developed an uncontrollable tic in his eye, and Chuikov was experiencing an outbreak of eczema which kept his hands bandaged much of the time. The situation in Stalingrad also had repercussions in Berlin. With grave concerns over the exposed left flank, Halder continued to express his misgivings to Hitler. In mid-October, with no immediate end to the battle in sight, Halder and Hitler quarreled for the last time. Hitler dismissed Halder, replacing him with Gen. Kurt Zeitzler, a spineless yes-man. Now all sound military logic and sense of restraint was removed from Hitler's presence. The German war-lord was free to do as he wished with his armies. With reckless self-confidence, Hitler proclaimed to the German people that, " the enemy in the East has been struck down, never to rise again". But although the Soviet 62nd Army had been reduced to three small pie -shaped pieces of land on the west bank of the Volga, Friedrich Paulus had not yet captured Stalingrad.
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 11:07:55 GMT -5
Rattenkrieg by Mike Yoder
With the German 6th Army in control of 90 percent of Stalingrad, Chuikov's army struggled to maintain its precarious foothold. Their backs now to the Volga, the Russians contested the very sewers of the city. Prolonged street fighting and the utter destruction of Stalingrad had reduced men to a primitive level of existence. The Germans had a name for this - Rattenkrieg - War of the Rats. A German infantryman wrote to his family, "Animals flee this burning hell of a city...the hardest stones do not last for long. Only men endure."
Chuikov sought to minimize the German advantage in firepower by instructing his men to close with the enemy and seek hand to hand combat at every opportunity. The Wehrmacht would then be unable to call in airstrikes or artillery without hitting their own men. The Blitzkrieg tactics which had enabled them to conquer much of Europe were useless, and the battle for the city was now reduced to hundreds of small unit actions.
Attrition was now the key to the outcome. If Paulus could bleed the 62nd Army to death before the Volga froze over, Stalingrad would fall before the onset of the Russian winter. But Paulus's casualty lists were mounting far beyond what anyone had ever anticipated. Booby traps, snipers, and Soviet artillery exacted an unrelenting toll of his men. However, if Paulus's casualties were enormous, the Russian losses were staggering. Estimates run as high as 80,000 Red Army soldiers killed by the middle of October, 1942. Counting German losses and civilian deaths, the battle had probably cost a quarter of a million lives by this point. The worst was yet to come.
The Germans now controlled the summit of Mamaev Kurgan, the southern residential suburbs, and had broken through to the Volga north of downtown Stalingrad. With his command split, Chuikov still held downtown Stalingrad, the ferry landing, the Barrikady Metal Works, and contested much of the Krasny Oktyabr plant, all now in ruins. Back in Germany, newspaper editors had prepared special editions with headlines proclaiming "Stalingrad Verfallen!", but Reich Propaganda Minister Dr. Josef Goebbels withheld permission to release them.
At one point, the Germans pushed to within 200 yards of Chuikov's command bunker, and the battle hung in the balance. But isolated Russian strongholds continued to thwart the final German conquest of Stalingrad. A platoon of the 42nd Guards had taken possession of a 3 story building in the downtown area, commanding all approaches to the river. With their officers killed or incapacitated from the onset, Sergeant Yakov Pavlov assumed command of the unit, holding the building for 59 days before being relieved. This building became famous as "Pavlov's House", and its burned out shell remains standing in downtown Volgograd as a grim reminder of the battle.
Pavlov discovered early on that an anti-tank rifle mounted on the roof was able to pick off the Panzers with impunity. A tank approaching the building was unable to elevate its barrel high enough to hit it. Pavlov's House, bristling with machine guns, mortars, and snipers, remained a dangerous threat for any German in the proximity. Sgt Yakov Pavlov became a Hero of the Soviet Union for his stand at Stalingrad. Pavlov discovered his God somewhere in this devastation and bloodshed, as he joined the Russian Orthodox priesthood after the war. He lived out the rest of his life in peace as the Archmandriate Kyrill, a man of God determined to kill no more.
Tanya Chernova, nineteen years old, had once dreamed of becoming a ballerina. But after serving as a partisan in her native Belarus, she made her way to Stalingrad, grimly determined to kill as many Germans as possible. The bitter warfare and the savage German reprisals had led her to totally dehumanize her enemy. She no longer thought of the Germans as enemy soldiers, but referred to them as "sticks", fit only for breaking.
Tanya and her companions found themselves evading the Germans by maneuvering through the sewer system of Stalingrad, intent upon joining a Red Army unit. Utterly lost in the maze of tunnels, they emerged from their foul passage through the city well behind German lines. Hiding their weapons, they brazenly joined the chow line at a Wehrmacht field kitchen, hoping to get a bowl of soup. Fresh from the sewers, their pungent aroma attracted attention in very short order. One German exclaimed, "What is that horrible smell?" Tanya and her friends were saved by a Russian collaborator who claimed that they were working for him.
Despite his help, Tanya made no attempt to hide her loathing for him or for any other Hiwi (Hilfsfreiwilliger, or volunteer) who worked for the Germans. She wolfed down the bread and soup he gave them, and quietly determined to kill this man at the first opportunity. To her, he was worse than the "sticks" she was intent on breaking. Tanya eventually became a student at the special school for snipers conducted by Lt. Vasily Zaitsev. She continued her vendetta against the Germans remorselessly, until she herself was wounded. She awoke in a field hospital, recovering from surgery for an abdominal wound which left her unable to bear children.
Lt. Vasily Zaitsev was the leading figure among the Soviet snipers who prowled the ruins of Stalingrad, spreading fear among the Germans. A skilled hunter who had learned stealth and marksmanship hunting deer near his home in the Ural mountains, Zaitsev was trumpeted as a hero by the Soviet press. From hundreds of yards away, he would lie in wait for the inevitable moment when a German soldier would get careless. Only then would he dispatch another enemy with a single shot.
A rather improbable legend has been built around Zaitsev and his exploits. The publicity arising from his shooting skills allegedly prompted the Germans to send a Super-sniper of their own to kill him. By some accounts, this man was a Major named Koenig. By others, an SS Obersturmbannfuehrer by the name of Heinz Thorwald. In either event, a classic 3 day duel between Zaitsev and his opponent results in the same outcome. Zaitsev puts a bullet between the Germans eyes, killing him instantly.
This story does not seem to be supported by either German or Soviet archives. Reports concerning sniper actions by the 62nd Army contain no mention of this classic legend. German muster rolls of the Wehrmacht and SS reveal no officer by the name of Koenig or Thorwald posted to Stalingrad. In all probability, this account was a fabrication of some apparatchik in the Soviet propaganda bureau. Zaitsev did single-handedly shoot well over 140 German soldiers before his career was ended by the explosion of a land mine in Jan. of 1943, which permanently blinded him.
The exploits of Pavlov, Chernova, and Zaitsev were certainly memorable, but they were also typical of the individual acts of heroism on the part of countless Russian soldiers. Their stories are part of the mosaic which presents the larger picture of the stubborn and fanatical resistance of the 62nd Army. On starvation rations, hounded by thirst, and partly numbed by Vodka, Chuikov's soldiers fought on in conditions of human misery and filth unmatched even by the trenches of the First World War.
Chuikov also faced another threat to his army. With the Russian winter looming ahead, he faced problems of re-supply which could be insurmountable. Once the Volga was frozen over and able to bear heavy traffic, his logistical problems would be simplified. But for nearly three weeks, starting in the middle of November, drifting ice floes would make the river impassable for boat traffic. He stockpiled ammunition, husbanded his reserves, and warehoused 12 tons of chocolate bars for the coming crisis. In the weeks ahead, one half of one chocolate bar would be the daily ration for a Russian soldier fighting in Stalingrad. Chuikov complained that such measures were "cruel economies" to be imposed upon his army.
Paulus had no illusions about the prospects of maintaining his army through the winter in a devastated city still contested by a determined enemy. It was imperative to put an end to the battle, and quickly. He asked for, and received, several battalions of elite combat engineers, experts in demolition and street fighting, who were known as Pioneers. These tough, battle-savvy soldiers represented the best possibility of putting a final end to the battle.
One unit of Pioneers, assembled in the ruins of the Krasny Oktyabr plant, were awaiting their jump-off time when a booby trap exploded. With scores of men killed before even entering combat, the Pioneers were somber and chastened. This might prove more difficult than expected. One survivor of the fighting for the Krasny Oktyabr plant described it as "A ghastly place for a battle...heavy metal panels creaking in the wind", with walls and supporting columns on the verge of collapse.
The Pioneers would spearhead the last attempt by Paulus to capture Stalingrad. In a furious attack upon the burrowing Russians, they poured precious gasoline down into the sewers and ignited it. Ripping up floorboards, they flung satchel charges into cellars to root out the defenders. One group actually reached the bluffs over-looking the Volga, and lowered charges on wires attempting to entomb the defenders dug in below. The Russians cut the wires, and the charges exploded harmlessly in the river.
On November 11, Paulus followed through with an attack by 5 divisions on the factory district. The breach in the Russian lines was expanded, and Chuikov's command was now split into three parts. Still the Russians held on in spite of heavy casualties. The Germans, spent and exhausted, regrouped as Paulus pondered what to do next.
Ice had started flowing on the Volga, and by Nov. 14, boat traffic had ceased, as the river was now impassable. Efforts were made to air-drop supplies to the 62nd Army. But with the Russian foothold reduced to such a narrow margin, most of the material fell into German hands. Chuikov was now in a race against time, and it was problematical about whether he could hold the city until relief arrived.
German reconnaissance planes and intelligence reports had been detecting signs of a huge Soviet buildup to the Northwest of Stalingrad. The exposed left flank which had so concerned Halder was now showing unmistakable signs of being the target of a Soviet counter-attack. Paulus added this to his growing list of problems, and ordered the 48th Panzer Corps of Gen. Ferdinand Heim to reinforce the Rumanian 3rd Army, charged with holding his left flank.
Adolf Hitler was also informed of the Soviet build-up, and his response to it was in keeping with his belief in maintaining an offensive posture. In a message to Paulus, he stated that he understood the difficulties involved in erasing the last vestige of Russian resistance. The full text of his dispatch, dated Nov. 17, 1942 , reads:
"I know about the difficulties of the battle for Stalingrad and about the loss of troops. With the ice drifting on the Volga, however, the difficulties are even greater for the Russians. Making use of this (time) span we will avoid a bloodbath later on. I expect therefore that the Supreme Command, with all its repeatedly proven energy, and the troops, with their courage often demonstrated, will do their utmost to break through to the Volga at the metallurgical works and at the gun factory and occupy these parts of town."
Paulus dutifully circulated this exhortation among all his unit commanders, but none of them ever had the opportunity to act upon it. In the early morning hours of Nov. 19th, 1942, the rumble of artillery from the northwest could be heard across the steppe. These guns were the opening salvos of a well prepared and overwhelming counter-attack which would seal the fate of Paulus and his men. Russians refer to their artillery as the "Great Soviet God of War". On that morning, the thunder of this God would sound the death knell for the German 6th Army in Stalingrad.
Uranus and Saturn by Mike Yoder
With the launching of the Soviet counter-offensive, Gen. Halder's worst fears about the vulnerable left flank were about to be realized. But no one had anticipated the size and scope of the operation which was about to encircle Paulus's 6th Army as well as one half of Gen. Hermann Hoth's 4th Panzer Army. While Chuikov fought the Wehrmacht to a bloody draw in the ruins of Stalingrad, he had purchased a valuable commodity with the lives of his soldiers - time.
Stalin, Zhukov, and Stavka chief General Alexander Vasilevsky had used this time to lay plans and assemble the forces which would close an iron fist around Stalingrad. In September of 1942, as the battle was getting underway, no one was certain as to how Stalingrad could be relieved. A direct frontal assault from across the Volga was dismissed as impractical. But as the Germans had concentrated their forces to hammer upon the city on a rather narrow front, the shape of their perimeter presented obvious possibilities. Stalingrad was at the tip of a long salient, 25 miles deep and 40 miles wide at the base. The text-book solution would be to attack it's flanks and trap the Germans in a pocket. With the forces available to the Russians at the time, it would have been easy for Paulus to fight his way out of it. After the disastrous losses from previous Red Army offensives, Stalin was now willing to plan this matter very carefully with his professionals. Rash and precipitate action was something to be avoided at all costs. Squandering Soviet reserves in a failed effort to relieve Chuikov could hasten the fall of the city.
Zhukov and Vasilevsky seem to have sensed a workable solution simultaneously, yet independent of one another. Attacking the base of the salient would have sent the Red Army against some of the best units of the Wehrmacht. But the broader sections of both flanks were held by Germany's allies, Rumanians, Italians, and Hungarians. The Russians were well aware that these were troops of questionable fighting ability and none too eager to die for the German crusade for Lebensraum.
It was obvious to the two Generals that the place to strike was the weakest part of the line. It also occurred to them that this would involve an operation on a scale never before attempted by the Red Army. The attack would have to be massive to be decisive. It also brought into play the question of reinforcing and supplying Chuikov's army. The buildup would take time and careful allocation of men and materiel. Realizing that the 62nd Army could not hold out forever, they reached a compromise. They would feed Chuikov enough men and supplies to maintain his foothold on the city, but just barely. The remainder of the forces pouring into the region would be assembled and deployed along a front stretching nearly 150 miles.
By November 1942, Zhukov had assembled over 1 million fresh troops, 1500 tanks, 2500 heavy guns, and three Air Armies for the assault. Secrecy was paramount during this buildup. Only the Front commanders involved - Vatutin, Rokkosovsky, and Yeremenko were made aware of the plans. Not even Chuikov was brought into the picture until the very last minute. Gen. Konstantine Rokkosovsky briefed the commander of the 62nd Army and his staff personally. Outlining the proposed offensive, he pointed out that it was essential that Chuikov be able to hold out until the encirclement was complete. Could this be accomplished? Chuikov's chief of staff, Gen. Nikolai Krylov answered for him. "General, if Paulus couldn't drive us into the river during the summer months, he will not be able to do it now!"
Operation Uranus, the opening phase of the campaign, , was scheduled to begin on Nov. 11, 1942. Delays in deployment postponed it for a week. On the morning of Nov. 19th, Uranus commenced, with a blinding snowstorm in progress. After the preliminary bombardment, Rokkosovsky's Don Front opened the ground war, followed shortly by Vatutin's Southwest Front. Russian armor immediately penetrated the weakly held area between the Rumanian 3rd army and the Italian Army. Vatutin followed through on the Rumanian left flank, and within a day the Rumanians were surrounded in a pocket.
Gen. Ferdinand Heim's 48th Panzer corps, ordered to beef up Rumanian resistance, had been of little help as his armor had been rendered ineffective. Upon being ordered to deploy, the German tankers found that many of their Mark IVs and Panthers would only sputter and misfire. Field mice had nested in the vehicles and chewed through the insulation on the wiring, shorting out their electrical systems. Heim had fewer than 50 battle-ready tanks at his disposal, wholly inadequate to deal with the developing situation.
As Rokkosovky plunged deeper through Axis defenses, his armies swung to the Southeast, driving towards the town of Kalach on the Don river. The single bridge there carried the supply line for the Germans in Stalingrad. The first order of business would be to cut it off. Along with a single rail line from Rostov, Paulus's logistical situation had depended on this road, and had proved inadequate even before the Soviet offensive began. Luftflotte 4 had attempted to supplement Paulus with reinforcements and ammunition, in addition to its other duties in support of the German armies in the Caucasus.
On Nov. 20th, Operation Saturn, the second phase of the counter-offensive, got underway. To the south of Stalingrad, Yeremenko's Stalingrad Front fell upon the Rumanian 4th Army with devastating effect. Spearheaded by the Soviet 51st Army of Gen. Trufanov, Yeremenko's forces headed nearly due west, driving for a link-up with Rokkosovsky at Kalach.
Under orders from von Weichs, the Army Group commander, Paulus withdrew three Panzer divisions from Stalingrad to beef up the defenses of his left wing. The German fuel situation in Stalingrad was already so critical that valuable time was spent just foraging enough gasoline for this maneuver. By Nov. 21st, the Rumanians were either surrounded or in headlong retreat. Paulus's own headquarters at Golubinskaya was threatened by the onrushing Red Army, and he evacuated his staff a mere two hours before it was over-run. Flying to his alternate command post at Nizhne-Chirskaya, Paulus saw for himself just how completely Russian armor had routed the Rumanian forces. It was obvious that it was just a matter of days before the 6th Army would be surrounded and cut off.
Paulus radioed OKW, urgently requesting permission to withdraw 6th Army 100 miles to the west before the ring closed around his troops. This request was fully endorsed by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Zeitzler, who presented it to Hitler. The Fuehrer dismissed it immediately, ordering Paulus to assume a "hedge-hog" defense, and to await further instructions. Hitler also ordered Paulus to move his headquarters yet again, this time to Gumrak, just 10 miles from the Volga. Now deep inside the developing pocket himself, Paulus again requested permission to withdraw his army westward. Von Weichs forwarded his request to Berlin, and Hitler again rejected it.
Hitler now chose to leave Berchtesgaden and travel to his headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia, where he could study the situation in some detail. He strictly ordered Zeitzler to make no decision regarding the 6th Army without his permission. Poor flying weather grounded his personal airplane and Hitler proceeded to Rastenburg by rail.
While Hitler was in transit, the 6th Army was quickly running out of time and any opportunity of escaping from the pocket which was forming up. The order to form a "hedge-hog" defensive perimeter precluded the possibility of a mass movement of troops. OKW reorganized yet again, placing Field Marshal von Manstein at the head of the newly formed Army Group Don. The new order of battle placed Paulus under Manstein's operational control, but had no effect on his situation.
Luftwaffe General Martin Fiebig, commanding VIII Flieger Korps, sounded a warning about the looming disaster. In a pointed message to Paulus's chief of staff, Gen. Arthur Schmidt, he warned that the Luftwaffe would be unable to adequately supply 6th Army from the air. Unknown to everyone concerned, this is exactly what Hitler was proposing to do.
At this point, there exists a great deal of confusion as to where the responsibility lies for the ill-advised attempt to sustain 6th Army from the air. Historians almost universally blame Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering for the fiasco. In fact, Hitler does not seem to have even consulted Goering until after the pocket had closed on Nov.23, 1942. Hitler's initial decision to order Paulus to hold at Stalingrad left no other alternative but to attempt an airlift.
The warnings by Fiebig and the apprehensions of Gen. Wolfram von Richthofen, commander of Luftflotte 4, should have been funneled up the Luftwaffe chain of command from the moment the Soviet counter-offensive was launched. Here is where the shortcomings of the Luftwaffe command structure are apparent, and for that Goering must bear full responsibility. At the very least, Luftwaffe chief of staff Gen. Hans Jeschonnek should have advised Hitler of the operational status of Luftflotte 4. Jeschonnek's character was such that he was very reluctant to confront the dictator with unpleasant facts and realities.
In a conference with Zeitzler and Hitler on Nov. 24, Goering grandiosely announced, "Mein Fuehrer, the Luftwaffe can resupply Stalingrad from the air". Zeitzler summoned the nerve to confront the Reichsmarschall, and a nasty exchange followed. He asked Goering if he was aware of the tonnage involved. Goering responded that he did not, but his staff had the figures. Zeitzler yelled, "It's a lie!", and Hitler put an end to the discussion with the statement by announcing, "The Reichsmarschall has given his reassurances, and I am obliged to believe him."
Whether or not Goering was to blame for reinforcing Hitler's decision is moot. With the capture of the bridge at Kalach on Nov. 23rd, Paulus and his army were sealed inside a pocket some 30 by 40 miles wide. Paulus had worked up operational plans for a breakout, to be executed on Nov. 27th, pending Hitler's approval. He would have been forced to abandon much of his equipment, as there was inadequate fuel for all the vehicles, but he felt he could still save his army.
Hitler's approval never came. But the moment for withdrawing 6th Army had already passed. Vatutin, Rokkosovsky, and Yeremenko had pushed well through the rear areas of Paulus's forces, bringing Uranus and Saturn to a halt at the banks of the Don and Chir rivers on Nov. 30, 1942. The 6th Army was now over 40 miles from the German front lines. Hitler felt that a fighting withdrawal through the consolidated Russian positions without adequate armor or transport could only have a "Napoleonic ending".
Paulus acknowledged that obeying Hitler's orders could only result in the death of his Army. However, he was intent upon following his instructions, and he pinned his hopes upon Hitler's promise to resupply his army from the air. It was the first of many such meaningless promises. Unable to do anything meaningful about relieving the predicament of 6th Army, Hitler resorted to propaganda. Now that the besiegers had been turned into the besieged, Hitler proclaimed Paulus's forces as "Fortress Stalingrad".
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 11:10:59 GMT -5
Der Kessel by Mike Yoder
With his army trapped inside a ring of Soviet armor, Paulus informed Hitler that he only had 6 days of food for his troops. Similar shortages of fuel, ammunition, clothing and all other materiel needed to sustain an army in the field were now building to a crisis. Morale remained fairly high among the Germans, and they nick-named their position "Der Kessel" - The Kettle. What the world would soon know as "The Stalingrad Cauldron" was no laughing matter. One of the finest armies in history was about to die from starvation, disease and exposure.
Hitler promised to re-supply the 6th Army from the air, and Gen. Wolfram von Richthofen, commanding Luftflotte 4, worked to keep that promise. He knew from the outset that it was a hopeless task. Paulus needed a minimum of 500 tons of supplies flown in daily. This would merely sustain the 6th Army in a defensive posture and only prolong the efforts of the Russians to liquidate the pocket. Hitler did concede that this figure was beyond the capability of the Luftwaffe transport fleet and a daily target of 350 tons was set for the airmen of Luftflotte 4 to deliver to Paulus and his troops.
The work-horse of the Luftwaffe transport fleet was the Junkers Ju-52 trimotor. To meet the supply requirements of the 6th Army, von Richthofen's aircrews would be required to fly some 250 aircraft on 4 sorties per plane every day. Luftflotte 4 didn't have that many aircraft on hand and a good portion of what they did have was down for maintenance. Much of what was still flying was over-due for a major engine overhaul and pilots had already been pushed to the limits of endurance.
After losing some 100 Ju-52s during the invasion of Crete, the Luftwaffe simply did not have the inventory to supplement the airlift. With 150 serviceable Ju-52s on hand, Von Richthofen pressed He-111 bombers into service as transports and struggled to maintain what effort he could. Soviet fighters now controlled the corridors his planes used to approach Stalingrad and the daily toll of aircraft was mounting. The severity of the Russian winter made flying impossible on some days and nothing would reach Paulus' forces. Quite often a transport would crash while attempting to land and the wreckage would block the airstrip from being used by other aircraft. Outgoing transports would be delayed and incoming flights diverted back to their home base while the runway was cleared. In spite of these setbacks, the Luftwaffe did manage on one day to set down 300 tons of materiel at the Gumrak airstrip.
Despite von Richthofen's best efforts, the airlift never had a remote chance of success. The shortage of aircraft, horrible flying weather and the distances involved doomed it from the outset. Richthofen's appeals for more aircraft and crews did prompt Hitler to prod Goering and Jeschonnek to scrounge every available airplane in Germany and the occupied countries and dragoon them into service for the airlift. The 4 engine Focke-Wulf Condor was withdrawn from maritime patrols in the North Atlantic, along with a squadron training with the He-117, a big, cumbersome bomber which was being developed as the Luftwaffe's answer to the B-17. The FW-200 Condor was totally unsuited as a transport and the shortage of trained aircrew adept at handling the big aircraft under adverse conditions merely accelerated their losses. Similarly, the He-117 had never reached full operational status due to sorting out problems. The odd tandem engine arrangement in its design made the plane prone to in-flight engine fires which raised severe difficulties in training conditions, let alone under hostile fire deep in Soviet territory and with the onset of the Russian winter at hand.
Pilot fatigue, improperly trained aircrew, ice and Soviet fighters soon left a trail of downed aircraft strewn across the steppe on the approaches to Stalingrad. Compounding Paulus' supply problems was interservice rivalry. Luftwaffe loadmasters refused to let Army quartermasters prioritize the loading of material on the outbound flights. As a result, some rather absurd and totally useless items showed up in the planes which managed to land safely at Gumrak and Pitomnik. Crates of cellophane grenade covers but no grenades, along with condoms for the troops contributed absolutely nothing to the fighting ability of 6th Army. A shipment of wine for Christmas festivities arrived, but after having been frozen the bottles had shattered, leaving a rather unappetizing sludge which did nothing to alleviate the growing hunger of the starving soldiers of 6th Army.
Neither man nor machine received any respite from the grinding attempt at supplying Stalingrad by air. An aircraft engine shut down for servicing would never be restarted under the intense cold. Refueling turned into a long, torturous process because gasoline stored out in the cold would start to freeze in the drums. In the final analysis, it's no surprise that the airlift ultimately failed. But it is amazing that it succeeded to the extent that it did in the circumstances under which Luftflotte 4 was forced to operate. It speaks volumes of the skill and bravery of the ground crew and airmen of von Richthofen's command that they continued to soldier on in a futile effort to save the men of 6th Army.
As the airlift sputtered on, Paulus cut his troops rations in an effort to conserve food. Some troops surviving the annihilation of their units found themselves written out of the order of battle, legally unable to receive any sustenance whatsoever. As ammunition stockpiles were depleted, 6th Army's capacity to resist dwindled. One sergeant commanding a howitzer desperately fended off a Russian attack. Although successful, his reward was an official reprimand for unnecessary expenditure of ammunition. Orders went out to return fire only when essential and to take only "sure shots".
German morale received a boost when word spread that Hitler had ordered von Manstein to mount a relief operation and open a supply corridor to Paulus. Von Manstein would launch Operation "Wintergewitter" (Winter storm) from the southwest under the most improbable of circumstances. A relief column consisting of elements from XIV Panzer Corps would attempt to punch a hole in the encirclement and link up with a 6th Army detachment driving from the Southwest of Stalingrad. Manstein's relief column was as hopeless an effort as the airlift.
Adding to the confusion was the fact that the German dictator's orders were becoming more absurd and self-contradictory. Hitler left von Manstein with the impression that opening this corridor would be simultaneous with Paulus evacuating the Stalingrad pocket. On the other hand, Paulus was given firm instructions to hold Stalingrad at all costs. Between the two commanders, Manstein and Paulus had worked out a pre-arranged code word, "Donnerschlag" (Thunderbolt). Von Manstein's understanding was that upon issuing the "Donnerschlag" order, Paulus would simultaneously drive for a link-up with Manstein's force and begin evacuating the 6th Army from Stalingrad. Paulus fell victim to his own indecisiveness by refusing to comply with "Donnerschlag" without express orders from Hitler. Those orders would never come.
Manstein launched "Wintergewitter" on schedule on Dec. 16, 1942. The German panzers did penetrate the outer ring of Soviet forces in spite of a severe blizzard. But Russian resistance stiffened while German supply problems mounted the further they pushed into territory held by the Red Army. It must have been obvious to von Manstein that his Division sized force had no hope of accomplishing what the combined efforts of 4th Panzer and 6th Army had been unable to do - punch through the ring of Red Army artillery and armor.
Further complicating the rescue effort was the fact that communications between Paulus and von Manstein had been reduced to a single teletype. It has been asserted that verbal communication between the two might have cleared up some misunderstandings about how Paulus was to proceed once the "Donnerschlag" order had been issued. Manstein was of the belief that "Donnerschag" implied evacuation of the pocket and the only possible option considering the difficulties of maintaining the supply corridor for any length of time. But considering the difficulties involved it is unlikely that a face to face meeting between the two Generals could have satisfactorily resolved Paulus' predicament.
Although there was a dispute between the two men about whether or not "Donnerschlag" was ever issued, let alone acknowledged, Paulus was in no position to comply in any event. The 6th Army's fuel and ammunition situation had deteriorated to the extent that most heavy equipment, trucks and armor would have had to be abandoned. Whatever the case, Paulus was not about to proceed with an evacuation without Hitlers permission. Hitler steadfastly refused to consider the withdrawal of 6th Army from Stalingrad, saying that without their heavy guns and armor such a retreat could only have a "Napoleonic ending".
As Christmas of 1942 approached, the situation of 6th Army was becoming increasingly desperate. Manstein's relief column had been forced to retreat, supplies arriving by air were diminishing and starvation began to cull the ranks of the men inside the pocket. With no fodder avialable for their horses, the Germans had started slaughtering the animals for food shortly after the Red Army closed the ring around Stalingrad. On Christmas Eve, Paulus ordered that the last of the beasts be killed to provide a makeshift Christmas dinner for his men. But on the following day he ordered another cut in the soldiers rations. The daily food allotment for each man was now a bowl of thin soup and 100 grams of bread per day.
Along with shortages of food and ammunition, doctors were forced to cope with an increasing number of wounded men and diminishing stocks of medicine with which to care for them. Although the wounded were given priority for evacuation on the outbound transport planes, Wehrmacht doctors were now forced to give first choice to wounded soldiers who stood the best chance of recovering and being returned to battle. A triage was set up at the airport to sort out the hopeless cases and to remove any cases of self-inflicted wounds, which were becoming more prevalent with each passing day. As the siege wore on, Army aid stations became overwhelmed with wounded soldiers who might have stood a chance of survival under normal conditions. But with the lack of supplies and the sheer weight of their numbers many of these men died and manpower for proper disposal of the bodies was inadequate. As a result, many of these aid stations were swamped with corpses which remained in place for lack of enough able bodied men to transfer them to graves registration units.
In the meantime, Rokkosovsky and Yeremenko tightened the noose around 6th Army. The perimeter which Paulus had to defend shrank every day. On Jan. 10, 1943, Rokkosovsky issued a call for Paulus to surrender. He pointed out that their position was hopeless, that the main German front was being pushed further back each day and that the worst of the Russian winter had not even yet begun. He made a very generous offer for all units which gave up, promising food and medical treatment for all of the men and allowing all officers to retain their badges of rank and decorations. He also promised utter annihilation if this offer wasn't accepted. Paulus radioed Hitler, asking for permission to surrender and attempt to at least save the lives of his remaining men. Hitler refused, ordering Paulus to stand and fight where he was, down to the last man and last bullet.
Hitler did dispatch Luftwaffe Field Marshal Erhard Milch to the Stalingrad front to try and revive the flagging airlift. Milch was a former executive of Lufthansa with a reputation for working wonders with air transport, but not even he was capable of providing the miracle which the Fuehrer had ordered him to conjure up. Milch arrived at the forward airfields in Russia brimming with enthusiasm, but was soon jolted into reality and appalled by what he found there. In spite of the fact that Goering and Jeschonnek had sucked replacement aircraft from every theater of operations, von Richthofen's total fleet was now down to 100 machines of all types. In addition, Soviet bombers were now cratering the runways and hammering the supply depots at the forward airfields from which the airlift operated.
Milch returned to Germany and amazingly managed to scrape together an assortment of some 300 aircraft, including Lufthansa mail planes and anything still left in Germany's civil air transport inventory. But not even Milch could figure out how to staunch the bleeding caused by the worsening winter weather and the dominance of Soviet fighters who now controlled the air around Stalingrad.
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 11:11:33 GMT -5
Annihilation and Aftermath by Mike Yoder
As the attempt at resupply by air gradually faded away, the proud army that Paulus had marched to the edge of the Volga was disintegrating. The elite men of the German 6th Army were now a tattered collection of emaciated walking skeletons. Although the famous discipline of the Wehrmacht still remained largely intact, it too was starting to fade away as starvation, disease and despair stalked the German soldiers. Desertions, unauthorized surrenders and even an occasional mutiny further diminished their capacity for organized resistance as the Red Army relentlessly closed the ring around the city.
After his demand for surrender had been rebuffed, Rokkosovsky stepped up the pressure on the Stalingrad pocket. By mid-January 1943, the remnant of Paulus' command had shrunk to an area roughly 10 miles square. The Staff officers at OKW had tacitly admitted to themselves that 6th Army was lost and they tried to salvage what they could of technicians and specialists while abandoning the ordinary Landsers to their fate. They stepped up evacuation of officers with rare skills and ability, giving them priority on flights out of the pocket even in front of the wounded. Gen. Hans Hube, the one-armed commander of the 16th Armored division who had first reached the Volga at Rynok was one such officer. Ordered to abandon his command and fly out, Hube refused. He was flown out after a squad of Gestapo men were sent to the city with orders to remove him forcibly.
Many others needed no such prompting. With a sense of urgency spurred on by the knowledge that each departing aircraft from Gumrak or Pitomnik might be the last, desperate soldiers overwhelmed the guards and clung to the outside of transports making their take-off run. Many still clung to the wings as the planes gained speed and became airborne, but all eventually lost their grip and fell onto the snowy steppe. Among those departing these final flights were a number of men with self-inflicted wounds who had managed to deceive the triage doctors who were determined to bar such men from evacuation. They had managed to hide the tell-tale marks of gunpowder burns by shooting themselves through thick blankets. Rather than inflicting an obvious wound such as shooting themselves in the hand or foot, many of them shot themselves in the chest or abdomen. Such acts were indicative of the level of desperation that drove many to try and escape the frozen Hell of Stalingrad at any cost.
In an attempt at dissuading Hitler from his insistence upon fighting to the bitter end, Paulus dispatched an aide, Major Coelestine von Witzewitz, to speak directly to Hitler and give him a first hand account of the dire situation of the men in the pocket. Although von Witzewitz was warmly welcomed by the Fuehrer, his attempt at recounting the horrors facing the soldiers of 6th Army was met with attempts to change the subject. Hitler spluttered nonsense about how the soldiers should hang on until relief arrived and that 6th Army's ordeal was tying down Soviet forces which might otherwise prevent the evacuation of the Army Group in the Caucasus.
With Hitler trying to evade the issue and Keitel glaring a warning at him not to take this any further, von Witzewitz was undeterred. With a temerity few higher ranking officers dared to display to the German dictator, von Witzewitz countered Hitler's instructions to fight to the last man and bullet by saying, "Mein Fuehrer, I can state that these men can no longer fight to the last bullet because they no longer have a last bullet!" Hitler mumbled something to the effect that, "Man recovers very quickly". With that statement the young officer was dismissed.
Airlift operations struggled on until Jan. 24, 1943. Two Ju-52s managed to lumber off the runway at Pitomnik airfield, littering the surrounding countryside with an assortment of desperate men who tried to escape by clinging to the wings of the transport. Along with a handful of wounded and a few key staff officers, the last transport carried the War Diary of the 6th Army, Paulus' Last Will and Testament and a few personal keepsakes for his family. A short time after these planes left, a Soviet T-34 tank broke through the outer defense ring of the airfield and started shooting up the control tower and the makeshift airport facilities. Supported by more tanks and a horde of Russian infantry which soon followed, Pitomnik was now in the hands of the Red Army and the airlift came abruptly to a halt.
With all hope of relief or rescue now gone, Paulus radioed Hitler yet again, asking for permission to surrender and save what he could of his army. "The troops are out of ammunition and food, effective command is no longer possible. There are 18,000 wounded without any supplies, dressings or drugs....Further defense senseless. Collapse inevitable. Army requests permission to surrender in order to save the lives of remaining troops".
Hitler gave the same response that he did to all similar requests for a humane ending to the now futile struggle. "Surrender is forbidden. Sixth Army will hold their positions to the last man and last round and by their heroic resistance make an unforgettable contribution towards the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western world". For once there was a measure of truth in one of Hitler's statements. Each day that 6th Army held out tied up Soviet forces which might be diverted from their push towards Rostov, on the mouth of the Don River. With disaster looming at Stalingrad, Hitler finally recognized the mortal danger to the Army Group in the Caucasus. If the Red Army could seize Rostov before the Caucasus could be evacuated, the Wehrmacht faced an even larger entrapment of forces in the region. Hitler had resigned himself to the loss of 6th Army, but he balked at the prospect of losing an even larger force and thus authorized the evacuation.
If Hitler had communicated in private to Paulus his determination to continue the fight to the bitter end, his fat Deputy Goering now proceeded to make this known to the ordinary soldier and to do it very much in public. On Jan 30, 1943, in a radio broadcast marking the anniversary of Hitler's rise to power , Goering stated that, "A thousand years hence Germans will speak of this battle with reverence and awe, and that in spite of everything Gemany's ultimate victory was decided there... In years to come it will be said of the heroic battle on the Volga: When you come to Germany, say you have seen us lying at Stalingrad, as our honor and our leaders ordained that we should, for the greater glory of Germany!"
Apart from this bombastic tripe, Hitler had only one thing left to offer the doomed men of 6th Army. With an unprecedented show of generosity, he presented dozens of senior officers of 6th Army with promotions in rank, most notably a Field Marshal's baton for Friedrich Paulus. There was a cynical method to his madness, as Hitler mentioned to Gen. Zeitzler that in the entire history of the German Army no Field Marshal had ever surrendered or been captured alive. If he couldn't have the prize of the city that bore Stalin's name, he was determined to have a dead Field Marshal to offer up as a hero to the German Reich.
Paulus was not so accommodating as to throw himself on his own funeral pyre. The very next day, Soviet forces closed in on his last command post, a cellar in the bombed out ruins of the Univermag Department Store in downtown Stalingrad. Unshaven, dirty and close to a state of collapse, Friedrich Paulus offered his surrender to an obscure Russian Lieutenant named Fyodor Yelchenko, who promptly marched the new Field Marshal and his staff off to his superiors. Of the nearly 350,000 men who had followed him to Stalingrad, only 90,000 survived to surrender to the Soviets.
Stalin and Stavka waited a day until surrender arrangements were secure and it could be confirmed that Paulus was alive and in custody before the Soviet government proudly announced their incredible victory to an astonished world. With the Russian announcement of Paulus' surrender on Feb 1, Goebbels and his propaganda machine could no longer hide the truth. The following day, the German people were informed of the loss of the entire German 6th Army and a three day period of national mourning. Theaters, restaurants and all forms of entertainment in Germany were shut down as Hitler's subjects contemplated the reality that one of their elite armies had died in the field.
A sense of foreboding fell over the Reich as Goebbels indefatigable propaganda apparatus prepared them for the worst, including ultimate disaster in Russia. "We have thrown the national existence into the balance. There is no turning back". Adolf Hitler was a little more expressive, only much more private. At his Headquarters the apoplectic dictator raged to Gen. Zeitzler about the lack of character in the "Weakling" he had promoted to Field Marshal but who had failed to take the hint and commit suicide, as was only fitting. Hitler also speculated that Paulus might actually be dead in the ruins of the city someplace and that the Russians were lying about having captured him.
At that moment, Paulus was actually in warm and comfortable quarters in a suburb of Moscow, where he would remain until the end of the war. The soldiers of 6th Army who had been promised food and shelter by the Russians were not so fortunate. The Russians kept about 20,000 of them to remain as forced labor in Stalingrad to work at rebuilding the city they destroyed. The rest were dispatched to numerous POW camps scattered from Siberia to Soviet Central Asia. Many died shortly after the surrender from a Typhus epidemic brought about by Lice and the unsanitary conditions experienced during the battle. Many more died of malnutrition, disease and neglect in the various prison camps run by the Soviets. Of the 90,000 who surrendered with Paulus, only 5,000 men survived to return home to Germany. Many of these men were held captive the longest by the Russians, as their release wasn't finally secured by W. German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer until 1955.
Gen. Vasily Chuikov was deprived of the honor of taking Paulus into custody, and in fact the two principal adversaries of Stalingrad never had a chance to meet. But Chuikov and his 62nd Army received the highest honors the Red Army could bestow upon their soldiers. Renamed the 8th Guards Army for their heroic defense of the city, Chuikov led his men on a march across Europe which ultimately led to Berlin. His troops had the honor of capturing the Reichstag and planting the Hammer and Sickle flag on top of the building in the capitol of the Third Reich. After the war, Chuikov was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union. He commanded the prestigious Kiev Military District and later became a candidate member of the Politburo. Chuikov died in 1982.
Apart from going to Nuremberg to testify at the trial of the top German Generals, Paulus spent his last years in the Soviet occupation zone of E. Germany. He was given a house, aides, the honorific of being addressed as "Herr Generalfeldmarschall" and all deference in consideration of his rank while he was the permanent "guest" of the E. German Security Service. He never saw his wife Coco again. She had been arrested by the Nazis after he started making anti-Hitler broadcasts to Germany on behalf of the Soviet propaganda apparatus. She died in Bavaria in 1948. His son Alexander was killed in action at Anzio in 1944. Paulus spent much of his time writing long and rambling rebuttals to those who blamed him for the disaster at Stalingrad. He died in Dresden, E. Germany in 1957.
The city of Stalingrad itself rose to the highest level in the Soviet Pantheon in the years following the "Great Patriotic War". As head political officer for the greater Stalingrad Front, Nikita Khrushchev eventually became General Secretary of the Communist Part of the Soviet Union and Stalin's ultimate heir. In the years that followed, men such as Brezhnev, Malinowsky and Rokkosovsky achieved high rank in both the military and the Communist Party by virtue of having served in the battle.
From the Soviet perspective, the significance of the struggle for Stalingrad carried implications far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. It defined the major turning point of World War II in Europe. By halting the advance of one of Germany's elite armies and ultimately defeating it, the Russians proved that the Wehrmacht was not invincible. It gave the Soviet armed forces the confidence they would need and the skills required to ultimately defeat Nazi Germany. From beyond the horizons of European Russia, the road to the Soviet Union's claim as a legitimate Superpower began at the banks of the Volga.
Stalingrad also shattered the myth of Hitler's infallibility among the Germans themselves. Although it cannot be properly said that Stalingrad was the beginning of the German defeat in Russia, it certainly marked the end of German victories. After they comprehended the scope and scale of the disaster, several German officers were prompted to calculate exactly how they might bring and end to Hitler's rule. The nucleus of the Bomb Plot of July 20, 1944 was hatched in the ruins of the city by the Volga.
The monumental scale of the battle lived on in the ruins of the shattered city for years. A panel of the Supreme Soviet assessed the damage and determined that it would be far easier to abandon the city and build a new one someplace else. Only the ego and determination of Stalin brought about the ultimate reconstruction of the city. But buried among the ruins was the truth of the horrendous price the Russians paid for their victory.
How many people ultimately died at Stalingrad? Nobody really knows. Right up until its final collapse the Soviet Government never did release accurate casualty figures from the war . Some post-Soviet Russians have stated that Chuikov spent over one million soldiers lives to hold the city, but that claim is almost certainly exaggerated. Also exaggerated is the claim that Stalingrad was the bloodiest "battle" in world history. When you consider the size and scope of military operations as well as the time frame, Stalingrad could more accurately be described as a "campaign". But the blood-letting was appalling, no matter what kind of label is attached to it.
When you tally the figures for the German 6th Army and its allied auxiliaries which supported the march to the Volga, the numbers are both impressive and distressing. The Germans lost about 350,000 men, the Italians, Hungarians and Romanians about 100,000 men apiece. The Red Army also must have lost at least 500,000 men in Stalingrad and the surrounding areas which were adjunct to the battle. But the most horrendous toll must have been on the innocent civilians who formerly lived in the city. Stalingrad was estimated to have had 850,000 residents in 1940. It isn't known how many of them may have escaped the carnage and vanished into the interior of Russia. But after 1945, a census showed only 1500 of these people remained in the pile of rubble that had once been Stalingrad.
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 11:13:36 GMT -5
Here is the link for pics of Battle of Kursk: (The link includes the article) zhukov.mitsi.com/Kursk.htmThe battle of Kursk was monumental for numerous reasons but will almost always be remembered for being the largest clash of armor, certainly during W.W.II and would not be rivaled until the Arab-Israeli wars of the 1960's and 1970's. The vast area around the city of Kursk presented itself as a target with a salient being formed in the Russian line of defense. Hitler needed a victory that would regain the initiative in the east and declared that Operation Zitadelle as it was known" would shine like a beacon to the world" and would avenge the crushing defeat at Stalingrad earlier in the year, but even he had misgivings about the whole affair. The brilliant armor strategist Heinz Guderian once asked Hitler "Was it really necessary to attack Kursk and indeed in the East that year at all. Do you think anyone even knows where Kursk is?" to which Hitler agreed with him saying, "I know. The thought of it turns my stomach." But Colonel-General Kurt Zeitzler insisted that the offensive go ahead and he became the main avocet of the offensive. The facts however were plain to see as a large salient had been created with the capture of Kharkov by the Germans a few months previous in March and was logically the next sector in which to start an offensive. The salient was positioned just south of Orel with Maloarkangelsk at the northern base, at the center of the salient was the city of Kursk and at its southern base was Belgorod. The Russians without a doubt knew of the impending German offensive with the massive build up of German armor and troops around the salient and through their "Lucy" spy network in Germany and also from ULTRA codes intercepted by the British and passed on to Stalin. It was obvious anyway that this would be the next German point of attack as the "bulge" presented too tempting a target for the Germans to ignore and the Russians saw this as a catalyst to start their own summer offensive. Stalin was intent on attacking the Germans in a pre-emptive strike but General Zhukov insisted on letting the Germans attack first and wearing themselves down on the defenses he had planned. These defenses were of a scale never seen before for a battle and the Russians immediately put the military and 300,000 of the local civilian population to work laying a massive array of tank traps, minefields, anti-tank guns and dug in tanks and other defensive positions in anticipation of the German attack. The minefields were specially designed to channel the armored formations into dug in antitank defenses and it was hoped that the Germans would burn themselves out trying to break through the defenses Armour and troop concentrations were also built up by both sides with the Russians amassing 1,300,000 men, 3,600 tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces and 2,400 aircraft. The Germans also assembled a formidable fighting force which was slightly smaller with 900,000 men 2,700 tanks 2,000 aircraft. As well as the three premier Waffen SS divisions taking part. The original date for the offensive to take place was the 4th May 1943 but Hitler wanted to wait for the new Panther and Elefant tanks to be ready and a series of postponements followed. June 12th was the next scheduled date but the collapse of the African front in Tunisia also delayed the start of the offensive for a further three weeks until July. On the night of the 3rd July German Army sappers cleared and taped paths through some of the minefields, an extremely dangerous business as the ground was full of metal and the readings on detectors went into a frenzy. This meant that the mines had to be prodded with a bayonet and lifted out and made safe by hand. Testimony to the expertise of the Großdeutschland engineers was the fact that ten men of the 2nd Engineer Company on the night of the 3rd July lifted and made safe a total of 2,700 mines which worked out at a rate of a mine a minute by each man! On the same night the Red Army captured a sapper of the 6th Infantry Division-Private Fermello after a skirmish, who informed the Soviets of the start time of the offensive which was to be at 3am on 5th July. In the Belgorod sector a Slovene sapper deserted and told the Soviets of the date and start time of the offensive confirming what they already knew. At 14.45 hrs on the 4th July Stukas belonging to the five Ju 87D Gruppen of Luftflotte 4 bombed an area around Butovo two miles long and 500 yards deep. The attack lasted ten minutes and as the dive bombers turned for home German artillery and Nebelwerfers opened up on the Red Army positions. Hoth's III Panzer Korps advanced on the Soviet positions around Savidovka, Alekseyevka and Luchanino. At the same time at Butovo the Soviet 199th Guards Rifle Regiment were attacked by 3rd Battalion Panzer Grenadier Regiment in torrential rain and the high ground around Butovo was taken by 11th Panzer Division. To the west of Butovo the going proved tougher for the 3rd Panzer Division who met stiff Soviet resistance and did not secure their objectives until midnight. Meanwhile II SS Panzer Korps were launching preliminary attacks to secure observation posts for the next days fighting and again were met with stiff resistance until assault troops equipped with flame-throwers cleared the bunkers and outposts. At 22.30 hrs the Soviets hit back with a fierce artillery bombardment which, aided by the torrential rain, slowed the German advance. At this time Georgi Zhukov had been briefed on the information about the start of the offensive gained by the German prisoners and decided to launch a pre-emptive artillery bombardment on the German positions. Ten minutes before the Offensive was to begin and the German artillery barrage was to open up, the Soviets launched their own bombardment with 600 guns, mortars and Katyusha rocket launchers belong to Central Front which lasted for thirty minutes. The German response was slow at first but by 4.45am had grown in intensity. In fact the weight of shells fired during this bombardment was heavier than that fired during the whole of the Polish and French campaigns. A second Russian battery opened up but was ineffectual in disrupting German assembly areas and after the war Zhukov, analyzing the battle admitted that both fronts had opened up too early as German armor and infantry were still under cover. However some of General Model's troops were caught in the open and could not start their attack until 90 minutes after their scheduled start time. The Großdeutschland division had made the best progress advancing towards its objective of Oboyan forcing the Russian 3rd Mechanized Corps back to the River Pena. II SS Panzer Korps under the command of Paul Hausser progressed quite well using a tactic known as the "Panzerkiel" which was basically spearheaded by the heavy Tiger I tanks followed up by Panther, MK IV and MK III tanks. By the 6th July they had penetrated some twenty miles but had come under increasingly harsh resistance. Losses were high too with the Leibstandarte for example losing on the first day of action, 97 men killed and 522 men wounded. II SS Panzer Korps continued on towards Prokhorovka with the 3rd SS Totenkopf leading the advance and smashing all resistance to the west of the town. Their flank however was unprotected as Kempfs 6th,7th and 19th Panzer Divisions (III Panzer Korps) were stalled by 7th Guards Army after crossing the River Donets. The 5th Guards Tank Army were situated to the east of the town of Prokhorovka and were preparing a counter attack of their own when II SS Panzer Korps arrived and an intense struggle ensued with elements of the 5th Guards Army being deployed to halt the advance. During which the Soviets managed to halt the SS-but only just. This sent alarm bells ringing in the Soviet camp and they knew that if III Panzer Korps broke out, the balance of armor would tip in the Germans favor. They decided to deploy the rest of the 5th Guards Tank Army to destroy the SS armored divisions. On the 12th July the Luftwaffe and artillery units bombed Soviet positions and the SS Divisions formed up into their "Panzerkiel" formations and were astonished to see masses of Soviet armor advancing towards them. What followed was to go down history as one of the largest tank engagements ever mounted. The Germans contrary to popular belief did not deploy masses of Tiger I tanks which made up a small percentage of the the total number of tanks with the main force consisting of up-gunned MK III and MK IV tanks. The conflict was fought at very close range with main armament and armor bearing little importance as a hit at almost point blank range would mean certain death. The Luftwaffe and Soviet air forces fought dogfights in the sky above but could play no part in the battle below as friend and foe were indiscernible through the dust and billowing black smoke pouring out from destroyed tanks. The battle raged on all day and by evening as the last shots were being fired the two sides disengaged. German losses amounted to over 300 tanks lost with the Soviets losing a similar number. German losses, not just from this engagement but from the start of the offensive and losses in men and machine due to the extensive defensive preparations the Russians had made before the offensive had started and the immensely deep minefields which had proven themselves extremely effective had taken a seriously high toll. This along with the extensive Russian artillery and Katyusha fire had also taken a heavy toll on the floundering German divisions. The new tanks had turned out a very disappointing show with most of the Mk V Panthers breaking down on the first day due to problems with the complex electrical cooling systems (from a total of 200 only forty were in running order at the end of the first day). The Elefant tanks although a formidable machine with their 88mm gun had also proved a disappointment with Russian infantry simply attacking the 73 ton monsters with satchel charges and Molotov cocktails when they were separated from the infantry with relative ease due to the absence of a hull machine gun as a secondary defenses. Although German losses were quite high Russian losses were higher with the 6th Guards Army (which had borne the brunt of the assault) suffering very high losses and by the 11th July the battle hung in the balance. Things did not look promising for the Germans for two reasons. The defeat of the Afrika Korps meant that the invasion of Sicily was imminent and units that were badly needed on the eastern front would have to be transferred to the western front to bolster the defenses in Italy. The second reason and more alarming to the German forces at Kursk was the arrival of the 5th Guards Army in the salient. When the Allies landed in Sicily Hitler called von Kluge and Manstein to his headquarters and declared that he was calling Operation Zitadelle off. von Manstein was furious and argued that one final effort and the battle could be won. Hitler would have none of it particularly as the Soviets had launched a new counter offensive in the Orel sector. It was decided the Leibstandarte would be transferred to Italy and Sepp Dietrich would personally escort the deposed Mussolini's mistress Clara Pettachi to him after Skorzeny's rescue of the Duce from Gran Sasso. Sepp Dietrich was duly disgusted! On the 15th July, Rokossovsky's Central Front struck at the Orel bulge and by 5th August Orel was liberated. The Germans withdrew to the partly prepared Hagen line at the base of the salient. To the south of Kursk the Russians re-grouped and by 3rd August another offensive opened up and Belgorod was liberated on the same day as Orel. The attack forced a 40-mile gap in Army Group South between 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf. On the 11th August the last battle of Kharkov began and by 20th August the Germans were forced to withdraw. The Germans from then on would be fighting defensive battles all the way back to the frontiers of the Reich and into the Reich itself. Zitadelle had proved a costly gamble which, if one analyses the battle, had a very slim chance of success and one from which the Germans would never fully recover their losses. The total number of losses for the whole offensive were put at 100,000 men killed or wounded. The Soviet casualty figures were not released until the end of the communist regime in the USSR and were recorded at 250,000 killed and 600,000 wounded. They also lost 50% of their tank strength.
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Post by Wasres on Sept 23, 2005 11:18:10 GMT -5
Yay! Finally: The Battle of Britain (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah) www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/bobhome.htmlwww.battle-of-britain.com/www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5443/bofb1.htmThat 3rd address, Here is the article, but, It has pics and other links for Battle of Britian. What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour." Winston Churchill House of Commons, June18th 1940 Hear Churchill's speech on Real Audio If you don't have Real Player, download for free The Battle of Britain For boys of my generation, born a decade after the end of World War Two, the Battle of Britain was the ultimate expression of warrior virtue. We read about it in our comics and watched the old black and white movies with titles such as 'Angels 15'. I remembered the ripple of excitement that rushed through our schoolclass when we heard the new history master had once been a Spitfire pilot. We knew all the names of the participating aircraft and their performances. Hurricane - rugged, eight Browning .303 machine-guns, able to take lots of punishment; Heinkel 111- slow, lumbering, easy to shoot down and with a pitifully small bomb load; Messerschmitt 109 - fast, dangerous especially its cannon, but hampered by a very short range that reduced its loiter time over London to just a few minutes; and of course the Spitfire which everyone agreed was the most beautiful aircraft that had ever flown. We knew the names of the aces, Douglas Bader, Robert Stamford-Tuck, Adolf Galland. In our playground games we rushed around with our arms outspread, shouting rat-at-tat and nobody wanted to be a Messerschmitt. Everyone wanted to be a Spitfire or Hurricane for we instinctively knew that in the Battle of Britain they were flown by the good guys. We were probably right. By an accident of birthtime we were privileged to play games that reflected a historical and moral watershed. Some historians talk of crucial battles where the right man in the right place at the right time can alter the course of history. Others say that the forces of history are inexorable and mere mortals can barely hope to influence, much less deflect or halt them. The Battle of Britain is very close to evidence for the former view. In the summer of 1940, the ascendant star of German Nazism flush from a string of astonishing victories and seemingly invincible, clashed with the power of a declining Britsh Empire, disillusioned by the carnage of the Great War and beginning to feel the first pangs of doubt that perhaps their imperial mission was not a mission at all but just a monstrous self-indulgence that had outlived its time. Britain stood alone without allies save the far-flung dominions - those hands across the seas that had served her so self- sacrificingly in the previous world war. Nazi invasion was imminent and the shattered remnants of the equipment-less BEF recently pulled from the beaches of Dunkirk, knew they would have little chance if Hitler's legions got ashore on the south coast of England. As ever the Royal Navy was Britain's first and last line of defence, but things had changed since Napoleon had glowered with envious eye across the Channel. The German navy was too small to hope to control that narrow strip of water long enough for an invasion fleet to cross in the face of determined Royal Naval resistance. The Luftwaffe, however, could. To destroy the Royal Navy, the Luftwaffe had to secure command of the air and that meant the neutralizing of RAF Fighter Command and in particular 11 Group that protected the airspace over southern England. On paper it seemed not to difficult. In an age when aircraft were still called machines, the Germans had many, many more of them. More important than the machines were the men to fly them and the RAF was critically short of fighter pilots. They had little more than 800 of them. Young men all, many university educated their stereotypical image shows them as having flamboyant moustaches and a penchant for silk scarves. They embodied that spirit of individual enthusiasm that had seen Britons, first as pirates, then as merchants finally as soldiers bring many foreign lands under the aegis of the British Empire. Now it was up to the pilots of the RAF to save their homeland from destruction and in this their country's greatest hour of need they were not found wanting. They weren't just Britons of course. There were Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Frenchmen, Poles, Czechs and Americans; the latter showing that even if the United States is hamstrung by political considerations, some of her sons at least will know where and when democracy has to be defended and will honour their homeland by doing so. Britain had one great advantage, radar. Invented by a Scotsman, James Watson Watt, it was still rudimentary and often unreliable but it allowed Fighter Command to have a good idea of where German attacks were heading and how strong they were. It allowed the RAF to keep its planes on the ground until they were needed and then the fighter controllers would vector them in onto the attackers. It was a less than perfect system but it was the best in the world at that time, and it worked. The Germans began by trying to destroy the radar masts and the forward airfields of 11 Group. They did great damage but the radar chain stayed intact and the airfields kept operating. Stukas, used in the first attacks, were so badly handled by the opposing Spitfires and Hurricanes that the Germans withdrew them and they never saw service over England again. It became a battle of attrition and not just in the air. The unsung heroes of Fighter Command were the ground crews who got the planes into the air, lived through the attacks on the airfields, came out and filled in the craters on the runways and were waiting for the fighters when they came back thirsty for fuel and hungry for more ammunition. Attacking the airfields was strategically and tactically the correct thing to do. Soon 11 Group was near to collapse. There were not enough pilots, not enough ground crew, never enough sleep and too many enemy planes. Then a German bomber being pursued by a British fighter jettisoned its bombload over London. Churchill ordered retaliatory raids on German cities and an incensed Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to switch its attacks to London and level the British capital. This gave the embattled 11 Group airfields a desperately needed breather. It also brought the fighters of 10 Group, based further north, into play and forced the Messerschmitts to go into combat at the extreme end of their range, something they had never been intended to do. As Londoners bore the brunt of the German bombs, the RAF regrouped and eventually repulsed the airborne assailants. As the summer drifted into autumn the tide and weather patterns changed and soon invasion was no longer a practical possibility. Hitler started to look eastwards for fresh conquests. The Luftwaffe had been given a bloody nose and never again launched an air offensive on anything like a similar scale. The RAF had been hurt but not broken. As the war progressed it grew in size and power and its bomber arm carried the war deep into the heart of Germany with greater devastation than anything ever visited on British cities. And as for the new history master at my school, he arrived white-haired and with a flamboyant moustache. He never wore a silk scarf, however, and when we asked him how many Germans he had shot down he just smiled and changed the subject. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_BritainThis has links IN the article and out, and pics. Now what should I do? Can I have a copy of the files?
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Post by Army_Of_One on Sept 24, 2005 19:39:42 GMT -5
ok
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Post by Wasres on Sept 25, 2005 1:24:31 GMT -5
2 OKays?? Now what should I do? By the way, How come the other guy (coder?) was Global Mod, I was mod, and you moved us all up one?
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Post by Wasres on Sept 25, 2005 1:30:49 GMT -5
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Post by Army_Of_One on Sept 25, 2005 1:33:45 GMT -5
2 OKays?? Now what should I do? By the way, How come the other guy (coder?) was Global Mod, I was mod, and you moved us all up one? you guy are good help and you get updates on your member ship.
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