The Battle of Stalingrad, also known as the Battle of Stalingrad, began on July 17, 1942, as a battle fought by Nazi Germany for the southern Soviet city of Stalingrad in World War II.
1. The Barbarossa Plan is launched
Stalingrad was the main transport route from the central region of the SOVIET Union to an important economic region in the south, and its strategic location was extremely important.
Most of the soviet grain, oil and coal production areas were located in the vast and fertile lower Don, Kuban and Caucasus regions west of and south of Stalingrad.
Following the German occupation of Ukraine in 1941, if the Germans reoccupied the area, the Soviet Union would lose the vital resources needed for the war. Hitler would not have been unaware of the importance of this place, for before the imminent offensive,
Hitler once told Paulus, commander of the 6th Army: "If you can't quickly take the oil from Maykop and Grozny, then you must end this war." ”
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany launched the "Barbarossa Plan", the constraints of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact disappeared, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Soviet-German War broke out, and the German army quickly occupied a large part of the western part of the Soviet Union.
The Battle of Moscow broke out in December 1941, and the Red Army, which had suffered a series of blows in the summer and autumn of the same year, won its first victory in the defense.
Due to the excessive attrition of the German army in the previous battles, coupled with the sudden decline in the night weather, the lack of war equipment and stable supply lines to cope with the winter, the German mechanized troops were completely unusable, so the German army under Moscow suffered a serious blow and was counter-attacked.
In early 1942, the long Soviet-German front stabilized, but both sides were preparing for a larger campaign for the strategic initiative. General Halder, chief of the German Army General Staff, suggested that the Germans were no longer able to launch a full-scale offensive and that if they were to launch another offensive, they should target moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union.
However, Hitler thought that it was too obvious to target Moscow, and that Army Group Center had been severely damaged, and that the Germans should abandon their plans to attack Moscow again.
Subsequently, Germany began to plan to concentrate its forces on the northern and southern fronts to launch a new round of local offensives. At the same time, the United States declared war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His ally Japan began to be counterattacked by the Americans, and Germany recognized that time was of the essence, and the Germans hoped to end the war on the Eastern Front before americans could enter the European theater.
Second, the prelude to the Great War has begun
The beginning of a battle always begins with a hint of the moment, just as the Battle of Kharkov opened the Battle of Stalingrad.
The Battle of Kharkov was divided into four phases
The first was one of the battles of the Wehrmacht in the final phase of Operation Barbarossa, with the goal of capturing the city of Kharkov.
The second took place from May 12 to 29, 1942, and the Soviet side called it the First Kharkov Offensive.
The third was from February 2 to March 3, 1943, the purpose of the campaign was to crush the basic strength of the German "B" group in Kharkov and retake the Kharkov industrial area, and the third battle was code-named "Star".
The fourth was the offensive of the Soviet Steppe Front into the Belgorod-Kharkov region, and the Soviets won the victory and recaptured Belgorod and Kharkov.
In the end, the German army won victories in Kharkov and Harim, a battle that depleted the Soviet Union's hard-won reserves, severely weakened the southern wing of the troops, and the Germans regained part of the strategic initiative, for a time surpassing the Soviet Union in a dominant position. The Germans captured the Barvinkovo salient and occupied favorable offensive positions for the upcoming Stalingrad Offensive.
On 30 June 1942, the German right-wing Paulus 6th Army took Stalingrad as a target and advanced southeast, launching an offensive northeast of Kharkov.
On July 17 of the same year, the Soviets and Germans engaged in a fierce battle at Stalingrad, and the battle between the two sides officially began.
On the Soviet side, in order to stimulate the will to fight of the Stalingrad defenders,
On July 28, 1942, Stalin issued Order No. 227, in which any soldier who disobeyed the order and left his combat post or retreated would be shot, and severely demanded that the Red Army troops of the Soviet Union should never take a step back.
On September 16, 1942, the Soviet 13th Division, the Soviet Guards, crossed the Volga River into Stalingrad and launched a surprise counterattack against the Germans, which recaptured the heights. On September 15, 1942, the Germans decided to carry out a major assault on the Mamayev Heights, which the Germans attacked because the highlands were the commanding heights of Stalingrad and were in a favorable position on the terrain, and it would only be good for the Germans if they were to take it.
Three or three months of bloody fighting
After three months of bloody fighting between the Soviets and Germans, it was not until the beginning of November 1942 that the Germans finally advanced to the banks of the Volga River and occupied 80% of the city, and the Soviet remaining troops divided the army into two narrow pockets in order to prevent the Germans from continuing to divide, so the Germans never fully occupied Stalingrad.
On November 11, 1942, the Germans launched a strong offensive from the front with 5 infantry divisions, 2 panzer divisions and 2 engineer battalions, engaging in a state of intense combat. Within a day, the Soviet and German armies fought an unusually fierce battle for every inch of land, with heavy casualties on both sides. The Germans rushed south of the barricade factory to the banks of the Volga River, but the cost was terrible, and the troops were exhausted. The Germans were forced to halt the offensive and regroup.
Not only the Germans, but also the Red Army suffered heavy losses, with two divisions of the 62nd Army losing 75 percent of their strength.
According to Soviet statistics, from July 1942 to November 1942, the Germans lost nearly 700,000 people, more than 1,000 tanks, more than 2,000 cannons and mortars, and 1,400 aircraft in large and small battles.
In January 1943, the Red Army launched an offensive code-named "Operation Jupiter", which was also the fourth Battle of Kharkov mentioned earlier. In this campaign the Soviets tried to break through the Italian lines in the Don area and capture Rostov.
Because once the operation was successful, some units of the German Army Group South were completely besieged in the Caucasus.
Although the Red Army was never able to approach Rostov, the operation separated the Germans from the Germans in the Stalingrad encirclement by 250 kilometers, and the German 6th Army had completely lost reinforcements.
On January 31, 1943, German Field Marshal Paulus sent a final telegram to Hitler: "The 6th Army will hold its post for the sake of the Führer and the Fatherland, and fight until the last soldier." However, when the Red Army captured the German headquarters, German Field Marshal Paulus chose to surrender.
In the end, the Battle of Stalingrad ended in a bloody battle between the Soviets and Germans for months with a Soviet victory.
epilogue
This battle is incomparable to other battles, both in scale and strategic sense. The war was brutal for both sides, a victory made with blood. Although the outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad was good, its process was indeed bloodied. Any war is built with living life.
Although the Battle of Stalingrad was won by the Red Army, the Soviet Union's losses were still higher than those of the Germans. The German army, the instigator of the war, was gradually destroyed at the end of the battle, and the Soviet people's efforts to protect their homeland were forever recorded in the annals of history, and the city is now known as the hero city.
Reference: History of the Second World War
"Defending Stalingrad" by Anthony Beaver.