The Eastern Front: A Logistical Nightmare

The invasion of Russia was further enticing to Hitler as both a strategic and economic maneuver, allowing for a gain in land and resources. Russia’s rich land provided Hitler with oil and grain to help sustain the Reich and future Aryan race. Furthermore, the proposed existing state of the Soviet Union presented Russia as unsuspecting and unprepared for attack, with a weakened army that possessed a false sense of security towards Hitler’s intentions. Weakened by

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-1943 is book written by the British military historian, Antony Beevor. Stalingrad covers the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. Stalingrad was a city in Russia where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union fought for control. This was part of Adolf Hitler’s plan to crush the Soviet Union and extend his Third Reich into Russian territory. The battle lasted from August 1942 to February 1943. However, the battle ended up with the destruction of the entire German 6th army and with a victory for the Soviet Union. Beevor has won three awards for this book. I wish to give brief summaries of the five sections of the book and give reviews on their main content.

World War II was full of conflicts between countries all over the world. Although most people only know things about the holocaust or Hitler 's affect on the World War II, there are other important events that have affected many countries. The Battle of Moscow was a major battle between the Soviet Union and Germany. Ironically, the Soviet Union and Germany previously had a secret agreement (the nonaggression pact) not to go to war on each other, but the promises turned to be broken when Germany 's plan to capture Moscow went into action. (German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, History Site)

From the time of ‘Mein Kampf’ Hitler had outwardly expressed his desire to move toward Russia in his quest for ‘Lebensraum,’ however in 1939, it was beneficial for him

The battle of Stalingrad raged from August 1942 until the German surrender on 2 February 1943. Significantly, it was the first catastrophic defeat to befall the Wermacht Army who not only lost the battle but were severely humiliated. Indeed, the German Army never fully recovered from this blow to its morale. Upwards of 270,000 troops were killed and 91,000 prisoners were taken by the Red Army; included in this latter number were 23 German Generals. Conversely, morale in the Red Army soared as a consequence of Stalingrad giving the Russians increased strength and confidence. This battle represented a turning point in the Second World War.

Other than causing the liberation of France and the establishment of a new battlefront, the invasion also relieved the Soviet Union’s pressure. Before the Invasion, Germany had over two million troops fighting against the Red Army in the Eastern Front, and many of Soviet’s cities were captured. The Russians fought desperately to protect their cities. However, after the invasion, with the launch of a new major battlefront in the West, Hitler had to transport many of his forces to the West in order to defend his own country. Without as many troops to fight against, the Soviet army was able to push through Czechoslovakia, Poland and eventually penetrate into Germany; the Soviet Union’s progress greatly sped up the endof the war. (Naval History and Heritage- D-Day, the Normandy Invasion, 6 - 25 June 1944)

One may wonder why Stalingrad was so important to Hitler. Well, Stalingrad was the capital of the Soviet Union, the heart of their industry and their largest city. As an industrial city, Stalingrad contained numerous factories that provided tanks, guns and ammunition for the Soviet war effort. Without the war supplies and the oil fields in Caucasus, nothing would be supporting the Soviet forces. And more importantly, a World War Two database describes Stalingrad as a “city [that] bore the name of Hitler’s nemesis, Joseph Stalin, [which] would make the city’s capture an ideological and propaganda coup” (http://en.allexperts.com). As both Hitler and Stalin recognized, taking Stalingrad would prove essential to their country’s propaganda, boosting their nation’s morale and destroying the others. Stalingrad was named after Stalin and thus symbolic to both sides of the war. Basically, to the Germans, taking Stalingrad meant the crushing the Soviets; taking them out of the war once and for all.

Although there are various factors which triggered the German’s efforts in Stalingrad to become futile, the extreme weather conditions that the German and Red army troops faced was unquestionably the most impactful. In spite of both forces having to cope with fighting against the weather, the reason that the German’s struggled whilst the Russians prevailed was due to differing distinct battle tactics which were developed to aid both forces whilst in fight. The Russian Army adapted to the harsh weather conditions that they were facing in many ways that the Germans did not; an example of this is the addition of gasoline to the oil within their guns which prevented the oil from freezing, allowing the Red Army to shoot with ease whilst the Germans

There were many reasons that contributed to Hitler's invasion of the USSR. Hitler had always harboured a hatred for the Slavs, he thought they were inferior, impure people who were only fit to be used as slaves. This was a racist attitude

Hitler believed Jewish control over the Slavic peoples as proof that they were sub-human and could not govern themselves. In 1941 he preached that the war with Russia was a “war of ideology and racial differences”, Nazi Germany vs Soviet Judeo Bolshevism. The German plan for Eastern Europe combined the objectives of Lebensraum with Slavic slave-labor, and Jewish annihilation. “It was decided that 14 million of the indigenous Slavs would be deported and used as slaves along with the Jews; as the Jews died from overwork they would be replaced by Slavs”. Creating room for German colonization and agricultural settlements was the most important aspect of going east; the native Slavs were seen as unimportant “Redskins” by Hitler as he compared his policy towards them to the U.S. treatment of Native Americans.

Throughout history no other nation has been able to fend off invasion like Russia. From harsh climate to sheer numbers of inhabitants, Russia is seemingly capable of never being completely over run. This essay is going to explain why Hitler’s Germany greatest mistake was invading Russia and how the decision ultimately cost the war.

In 1941 The red army's count was at 8.9 million soldiers .During Barbarossa, so many casualties were lost that the us even helped the Soviets by sending tanks plans and other weapons to help aid the next Allie fighting against Hitler and his army of the axis.some of the tanks used was a Russian IS-2 is had a crew limit of rolled at the incredibly swifty speed of 23 mph, had a total weight of 51 tons and a max range of 150 miles it had only 3,854 made and it was named for Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, the IS-2 spearheaded the Soviet portion of the Allied assault on Berlin that brought victory. On December 6, 1941, the Soviet Union launched a major counterattack against the center of the front, driving the Germans back from Moscow in chaos. Only weeks later were the Germans able to stabilize the front east of Smolensk. In the summer of 1942, Germany carried on with the offence with a massive attack to the south and southeast toward the city of Stalingrad on the Volga River and toward the oil fields of the Caucasus. In the end 34.4 million men and women served in the red army. The red army had some of the least battling experience but yet they had some of the strongest fighters.

As mention in his book Mein Kampf, Hitler viewed all of Eastern Europe as “Untermenschen” (sub-human) and assert that Aryan German need to secure more living space, by killing Russian and take it place with purely German.

They were relying on the capture of the Russian oil fields to supply their army with fuel after their stockpiles had run out. Their lack of fuel is evident even in this battle as Friedrich Von Paulus, who was commanding the sixth army’s assault on Stalingrad, advance towards the city was very slow due to the fuel rations and at one point his army was even brought to a complete halt outside Kalach, as they had completely exhausted their fuel supply. The outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad exacerbated the Germans shortage of fuel, limiting the vital supply for their planes and tanks. Without fuel, the German panzer tanks and the mighty German Luftwaffe would be useless, thus rendering two of Germany’s greatest assets worthless. The Germans could not win the war without a reliable source of fuel. Therefore, the Battle of Stalingrad was a turning point in World War Two because it stopped the German advance into Russian thus denying them access to the Caucasus oil wells, exacerbating Germany’s fuel crisis and crippling the German army.

Hitler also wanted to eliminate the Jews and the spread of communism. According to Overy, “German forces entered the USSR with instructions from Hitler’s headquarters to use the most brutal methods to keep control and to murder Communist commissars and Jews in the service of the Soviet Union” (BBC.com). Hitler thought that by preventing the spread of communism and murdering Jews, Germany would have a greater advantage of