Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad, also known as the Battle of Stalingrad, was the main turning point in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union in World War II, the turning point of The Second World War, and one of the bloodiest and largest battles in human history.

The battle began on 17 July 1942 and ended on 2 February 1943.

Stalingrad, formerly Tsaritsyn, is located on the west bank of the lower Volga River. In 1941, after the German occupation of Ukraine, Stalingrad became the only transportation choke point in the central region of the Soviet Union to an important economic region in the south, and its strategic location was extremely important.

After the defeat at the Battle of Moscow, the Germans were forced to abandon the all-out offensive and launched a major offensive on the southern flank of the Soviet-German battlefield in the summer of 1942 in an attempt to capture the Caucasus and Stalingrad and cut off the Soviet strategic supply line. In May, the Germans thwarted the Soviet offensive at the Battle of Kharkov. In mid-July, the German Army Group "B" advanced to the great bend of the Don River and approached Stalingrad.

Initially, the German Sixth Army, commanded by General Paulus, was ordered to capture Stalingrad, with 13 divisions of about 270,000 men, about 3,000 artillery and mortars, and about 500 tanks, supported by the Fourth Air Force.

During the battle, the German high command increased its strength in this direction, and the Fourth Panzer Army, the Second Army, the Hungarian Second Army, the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies and the Italian Eighth Army participated in the battle.

In order to defend Stalingrad, the Soviet High Command formed the Stalingrad Front on July 12, with the sixty-second, sixty-third, sixty-fourth and twenty-first armies and the Eighth Army of the Air Force, which were subsequently incorporated into the Fifty-seventh and Fifty-first Armies and the First and Fourth Tank Armies. The task of the Stalingrad Front was to organize a defense on the 520-kilometer front of Pavlovsk to Kulmauyarskaya, with the basic forces concentrated at the Great Bend of the Don.

When the Front began its mission to defend Stalingrad, it had only 12 divisions of 160,000 men, 2,200 artillery and mortars, about 400 tanks, and 454 aircraft, supported by the 102nd Division of Long-range Aviation and Anti-Aircraft Aviation.

On July 17, 1942, the Soviets and Germans engaged in close combat at Stalingrad, and the battle officially began.

For both Stalin and Hitler, the Battle of Stalingrad was a crucial battle for success or failure. The Soviet command shifted its strategic focus from Moscow to the Volga region and mobilized all air power in support of Stalingrad.

On November 19, 1942, the Red Army began operation Uranus. By the time Zhukov and Vasilevsky had reported this bold and bold idea to Stalin, Stalingrad had entered a brutal street battle.

The German army invaded the city, and the defenders and workers fought side by side and resisted desperately. For more than two months, there was an unprecedented fierce struggle day and night.

Vatutin's Southwestern Front and Rokossovsky's Don Front launched a counter-offensive in the snow, with the main attack forces commanded by Lieutenant General Vatutin strongly supported by the Air Force.

Due to its absolute numerical inferiority and lack of sophisticated equipment, the positions of the Romanian Third Army on the Nazi side were breached by the Soviets within a day of the start of the battle.

Stalin immediately instructed Vasilevsky to concentrate his forces on the "Uranus" battle plan, which was a bold offensive against the German army trapped in Stalingrad plus a layer of encirclement. Thus, after the Soviet army took control of Rostov, the retreat of the Germans in the Caucasus was blocked.

On the 22nd, the Soviet Southwestern Front began to cross the Don River in batches. On the 23rd, the Southwestern Front and the Stalingrad Front met in Karachi, thus completing the siege of Stalingrad.

By the 30th, the 3rd Soviet Front had encircled the 5 corps of the German Sixth Army, the Romanian and Italian troops, and part of the Croatian army in the territory of Stalingrad, and only about 50,000 troops of the Sixth Army were divided out of the encirclement. The Soviets were constantly strengthening their encirclement of Stalingrad and began to shrink it.

In January 1943, the Red Army launched another offensive, code-named Operation Jupiter, in an attempt to break through the Italian lines in the Don region and capture Rostov. If the operation was successful, the remnants of the German Army Group South would be completely besieged in the Caucasus.

Although the Soviets never approached Rostov, the operation forced the Germans to be more than 250 kilometers away from the Germans in the stalingrad encirclement.

On 8 January, Lieutenant General Rokossovsky, commander of the Sutton Front, issued an ultimatum to The Commander of the German Sixth Army, General Paulus, urging him to surrender. Paulus telegraphed Hitler, asking him to act at random, which Hitler rejected.

On the 10th, Rokossovsky's Don Front launched an attack code-named "Ring" against the besieged German Sixth Army, and the heavily besieged German army began to shrink its defense from the outskirts of Stalingrad to the city. On 22 January, the Soviets captured the Gumenlac airfield, and the Air Supply Transport and the evacuation of the wounded by the German Sixth Army were completely interrupted.

On 30 January, Hitler awarded Paulus the German Field Marshal with a staff to encourage him to continue his resistance, hoping that Paulus would fight to the end or commit suicide.

However, when the Soviets invaded the German headquarters in the department store, Paulus chose to surrender. On the same day, the Soviets reached Paulus' headquarters.

On 1 February, the dispatchers of the encircled Headquarters of the Sixth Army decided to send a final telegram to Berlin, with the word "CL" in international code, indicating that the station had stopped sending. The Soviets were outside the basement and told the personnel of the Sixth Army Command to surrender. Paulus had nothing to say and surrendered.

On February 2, 1943, the remnants of the Eleventh Army, besieged north of Stalingrad, also announced their surrender. At this point, the Battle of Stalingrad ended. To the great surprise of the Soviets and at the same time to the great disappointment of the Germans, the prisoners of war included 22 generals. Hitler was extremely disappointed in Paulus, the new Field Marshal, and said publicly: "Paulus was about to step into the hall of glory, but he chose to retreat." ”

From any point of view, the Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most tragic battles in the Second World War and even in the history of human warfare.

The entire campaign lasted 199 days. Due to the scale of the campaign, the number of casualties has never been accurately counted.

On February 4, 1943, Rokossovsky and Voronov were called back to the Kremlin from the front. Stalin welcomed them warmly and congratulated them on their victory.