The Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a battle that took place during World War II between the forces of Nazi Germany and their Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian allies, and the forces of the Soviet Union. At the beginning of World War II, Hitler focused on attacking Western Europe in order to create “living space” for his superior Aryan race. In 1941, Hitler turned his attention to the Soviet Union and decided that they needed to be destroyed before he was able to confront Great Britain and the United States. Hitler also believed that the Soviet Union was infiltrated by, and was under the control of the Jews (Walsh 8).
News quickly spread about Hitler wanting to attack the Soviet Union. German soldiers couldn’t believe it and
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Hitler detached Hoth’s armour and first sent him and his army south to the Caucasus. Hitler finally sent Hoth and his army northeast towards Stalingrad two weeks late. Sending Hoth and his army towards Caucasus first instead of directly towards Stalingrad allowed the Soviets to organize their defense. It also weakened Hoth’s army. By August 9, Hoth halted outside the city of Stalingrad due to lack of supplies. They had few vehicles and had already traveled many miles by foot and were exhausted. At the same time, Paulus and his Sixth Army were crossing the River Don heading southeast towards Stalingrad (Macdonald 92). By the end of July, The German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, took over the Volga River so they could use it for bringing supplies over. The Volga River was no longer capable of being used by the Soviets for the time being.
The battle would officially begin on August 23, 1942 when the Luftwaffe, started heavily bombing Stalingrad, destroying most of its residential and industrial infrastructure. The Luftwaffe destroyed almost two thousand Soviet aircraft in the first two days of the battle. It smashed road and rail communication, hospitals, and industrial plants. Nearly 300,000 Stalingrad citizens lost their lives but Stalin wouldn’t order an evacuation (Walsh 46). Hitler thought that Stalingrad would be seized in just a few
In addition, the Battle of Stalingrad also caused great political unrest in Germany, causing many to question Hitler’s leadership. Hitler had the opportunity to withdraw his numerous troops after they were surrounded by the Russian army. However, against his Generals’ advice, he chose to let them die for so called ‘Glory’. Von Paulus radioed Hitler desperately informing
From July 1942 to February 1943, Soviet forces defended the city of Stalingrad from Nazi attack. The battle began during the summer offensive of 1942, Nazi Army groups A an B had already pushed past Stalingrad to take oil fields in south west Russia, when Hitler ordered Stalingrad be attacked (Trueman, n.d.). “Some historians believe that Hitler ordered the taking of Stalingrad simply because of the name of the city and Hitler's hatred of Joseph Stalin. For the same reason Stalin ordered that the city had to be saved” (Trueman, n.d.). Stalingrad was also the center of Soviet communications and manufacturing in the south. Since Stalingrad had such a significance to the soviet war effort and because the Soviets could not allow the
Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union under Directive 21, known as Operation Barbarossa commenced on the 22nd of June 1941. The invasion proved to be motivated by Adolf Hitler’s long-standing ideologies of lebensraum and race. Hitler saw Barbarossa as an ideological, strategic and economic advance within World war II.
During The Battle of Stalingrad, in World War II, the Axis powers, Germany, Japan, Italy, invaded Soviet territory, by launching Operation Blue, and Operation Barbarossa. Joseph Stalin launched Operation Uranus, to drive out the Axis, and take back his beloved land. When Operation Uranus succeeded, the Soviet Union proved to its allies, the United States, Great Britain, France, they could actually be a useful allies in war, to stop Adolf Hitler’s goal of world domination, and Joseph showed that he could now trust his generals, and his army. Timeline and Map 23rd of August- Hitler launches Operation Blue (Case Blue) starting the Battle of Stalingrad.
By successfully defending the city of Stalingrad the Soviet Union were able to deny Hitler his
The Eastern Front of the European theater saw some of the harshest conditions and most intense combat of the second World War. Germany and Russia had been enemies for centuries and with Hitler’s belief that Marxism and Judaism were one in the same, the stage was set for a war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Hitler broke the non-aggression pact he had signed with Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union on June 22nd, 1941. Neither side was prepared for the ferocity and destruction that was to follow.
The Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 was the major turning point in the war, which sparked the Soviet counterattack against the Germans which led to the Allied European victory. Considered to be one of the bloodiest battles in history, that in Stalingrad, more lives were lost than Great Britain and the USA fatalities both combined for the entire war. It is estimated that the Axis forces had a total of 750,000 causalities and 478,741 Soviet casualties . In August 1942, the Axis conducted an offensive attack to capture Stalingrad after their failure to capture Moscow the previous year. Stalingrad was very important to the USSR as it was Russia’s centre of communication in the south and a major manufacturing city. In early September 1942, the Germans advanced towards Stalingrad. The Soviets could not give up this city as it was named after
Much of the city was composed of large four to five story buildings. The Germans likely viewed the capture of this city as a psychological advantage as well as providing an impact to Russian military manufacturing. Germany did not initially believe Stalingrad would prove difficult to occupy. The German 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army would be assigned as the lead effort to achieve this advancement known as Operation Blue. Figure 1 below is a depiction of disposition of forces during Operation Blue as well as planned assault locations.
The Battle of Stalingrad was fought from the September 1942 through to early February 1943, and took place after the Germans had reached the fringes of Leningrad and Moscow in operation Barbarossa. Hitler’s, and the German commander of the sixth army, General von Paulus’ main aim was to take and secure the oil fields of Caucasus in Russia. The oil from here would prove valuable, as it would not only replenish the German oil stores that were running low, but also cut off a key Soviet fuel supply. However, Hitler then made a major error, and commanded that the forces should be split, ordering the sixth army,
First let’s take a look at the Battle of Stalingrad and the importance it had on World War II. The Battle of Stalingrad lasted 199 days from July 17th 1942 to February 2nd 1943. During that time Hitler divided
Russian front was a devastating and decisive victory. The Allies would not have been able to disarm Germany without this front. The southern theatre was a success for the Allies that the Germans needed victory in all three for a future success. The front lasted from June 22, 1941 until May 9th, 1945. 30 million civilians killed in this confrontation. 4 million German soldiers died during the fray, roughly 9 million Russian soldiers died in combat during this. This was the largest confrontation in history. The Confrontation started with the Germans invading the Soviet union. The germans did not prepare for long term warfare against the Russians. The decisive victory at Stalingrad caused major problems for the Germans to continue the assault.
As the winter sets in the Nazi army weakens. They are cold, starving, low on ammunition, and there guns were freezing. Trapped and poorly supplied the Germans waved the white flag on february 2 1943. Only 6,000 German soldiers survived that fought in stalingrad. The war ended with more than 2 million casualties. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad is a turning point in the war. It plays a key role in the ultimate downfall of the third Reich.
During World War II, the battle of Stalingrad began in the city of Stalingrad, Russia and was fought between August of 1942 and February of 1943. http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-stalingrad It is still considered today to be one of Russia’s greatest battles in which the Russian army defended itself from invasion by the German army. This battle essentially stopped Germany’s determined advance into Russian territory. This marked a huge turning point in the war for the Allies. It was a very important war because it crippled the German offensive as well as destroying much of its army.
The German side had around 250,000 troops. The bulk of the seasoned forces for the German army where in the city limits. Those flanks were vulnerably exposed on the open steppes surrounding the city and were weakly defended by undermanned, undersupplied, overstretched, and under motivated Romanian, Hungarian, and Italian troops (Limbach, 2015). On November 23, the maneuvers to encircle from the north and south were successful 6th and 4th Panzer Armies. The German High Command suggest to Hitler to order General Paulus to fight through the Russian troops to rendezvous with other German forces west of Stalingrad. Hitler does not allow this. Hitler main goal is to push pass Stalingrad in order to reach Caucasus. The region had vast resources and oil that would greatly increase the power and influence of the Nazi Empire. Hitler also deems the victory of Stalingrad as a political statement for his regime (Limbach, 2015). Instead, Hitler orders air convoys to resupply his surrounded armies. The convoys were poor and unsuccessful in delivering the
Let me tell you how it started. It started when in WWII Adolf Hitler the leader of the Axis powers betrayed the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin. But the actual battle started in July 14 1942. It started with the Nazis carpet bombing the city 24/7 for a couple days but you would think that the Soviet Union would