While the Western Front was a bloody, hard-fought battle pushing back the Germans, all of this pales in comparison to the brutal warfare of the Eastern Front. The Germans and Russians lost more casualties than every other nation in WW2 which is purely caused by the fighting of the Eastern Front. The Russians lost over 20 million, while the Germans lost 7 million. Do you know how many the US lost? Just over 400 thousand. Barely comparable to the Russians and Germans. While major events such as D-day or the Battle of the Bulge are often talked about throughout American culture, few know about the events of Stalingrad.
During this battle, over 500,000 Germans and over 1.1 million Russians would lose their lives. The Russians fought furiously to protect the city named after their leader knowing that its capture would be a huge morale loss. Meanwhile the German 6th army fought desperately to seize the city which would both protect their northern flank as they pushed to the oil fields and also was a large industrial producer of tanks and other weapons of warfare. Even civilians were not permitted to leave the city as Stalin believed it would help to motivate the troops there.
After Operation Barbarossa, the Russians were on the retreat losing entire armies to the German war machine. But when they reached Stalingrad, they refused to yield the city at any cost. Even as the Germans pushed into the city, the Russians kept fighting no matter what. Soon the battle had devolved into brutal urban warfare with units fighting over every single block. Building were pounded into rubble as the war would go on at the cost of thousands of troops to both sides.
Then on November 19, the battle began to turn for the Russians. A massive counter-attack called Operation Uranus was able to smash the Axis’s flanks trapping the German’s entire 6th army and most of the 4th army as well. From there, the battle could only get worse for the Germans. While commanders pleaded with Hitler to allow them to retreat and break out to the West, Hitler told them to stay in fight. He promised them that necessary supplies could be flown to them by the luftwaffe. In reality, this could never work and the 6th army only got a fraction of their supplies. Furthermore, winter had come which meant that the Germans would begin to freeze to death while the Russians were relatively more suited for the oncoming winter.
Yet even as the Germans laid there freezing and surrounded, Hitler order them not to retreat or surrender. He even promoted their commanding officer to field marshal arguing that no German commander of that rank had ever surrendered in that position. But the situation was hopeless for them. 7 armies had encircled them and were slowly moving in. In the end, they were forced to surrender and some 91,000 troops were captured. This was a fraction of the 6th army as everybody else was dead. Only 5,000 of those captured troops would ever return home.
As a whole, Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle in the history of mankind. In this single battle, over 1.7 million people died dwarfing all other battles on the Western Front. It also marked an end to the German offensive as after this, they would only lose land as the Russians continued to push forward towards Berlin. It was considered to be a turning point in the war and demonstrates how much the Eastern front played a role in WW2.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Stalingrad
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-stalingrad
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-battle-of-stalingrad
I liked how you talked about the grit the 6th army had in the Battle of Stalingrad. I find it interesting how Hitler had to promote his commanding officer to field marshal to try and force the army in to not surrendering. What's worse is that even when the Germans were surrounded, Hitler wanted them to continue fighting. The surrender was an act of disobedience to Hitler, as he wanted his army to either win, or die trying. The battle of Stalingrad was truly bloody, but it's scary to think that it could have been even worse if the 6th army followed orders and fought to the very end.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/Battle_of_Stalingrad.htm
I also find it very interesting that, at the fight at Stalingrad that the German troops were told to stay in the combat even though it has devolved into house to house conflict. The main reason that Hitler threw so many troops at the battle was because Stalin was in the name of the city and could be used for good publicity.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-stalingrad
This was such a defining battle of the war. Its unfortunate to see how many died in just one battle. Its a shame really, but its also a miracle how the soviets were able to win really.
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