The Second World War was a global catastrophe that swept across Eurasia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in which thousands of people lost their lives and every country involved was devastated and recovered decades after the war. It is precisely because of this war that the people of the world have seen the cruelty of war, the unprecedented desire for peace, and the further development of human civilization, it can be said that World War II rewrote the world pattern and played a role in promoting to a certain extent.
The victorious side of a war will have the losing side. Although Germany at that time was invincible, with advanced weapons and equipment, and excellent military talents such as Rommel, victory ultimately belonged to the righteous side.
Throughout the Second World War, many world-famous battles broke out, of which the Battle of Stalingrad, which was the turning point of the Second World War, was the most famous, which not only crushed Germany's ambitions to capture the Soviet Union, but also sounded the clarion call of the Allied counterattack against Germany, the most important thing is that this battle was more tragic than people imagined, and it was rated as the bloodiest battle in World War II.
The battle, also known as the Battle of Stalingrad, lasted 199 days, with more than 2 million casualties on both sides, and the battle scene was very tragic, the average survival time of an ordinary soldier was not more than 9 minutes, the officer did not exceed three days, and the distance between the two sides was calculated by the number of corpses. It can be said that the cruel scenes you can imagine in the war are reflected in this battle.
In June 1941, Germany, which had been eyeing the Soviet Union for a long time, unilaterally tore up the German-Soviet non-aggression peace treaty, sent a total of 5.5 million German troops and 5,000 tanks, launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union, and tore through the Soviet defenses from the central, northern and southern directions.
On the first day of the war, the Soviet Union lost more than 1,200 warplanes. In the following six months, the cities in the western Part of the Soviet Union were completely lost, more than 3 million Soviet soldiers were annihilated or captured, and the German army approached more than 1,000 kilometers of Soviet territory, controlling the towns of 40% of the Soviet Union at that time.
After learning this news, the outside world was in an uproar, both lamenting the rout of the Soviet army and being surprised by the combat effectiveness of the German army. If Germany occupied the Soviet Union in an all-round way, it would have unimaginable consequences for the Allies, but the situation in the Eastern European battlefield at that time was not optimistic, the Allies were mud bodhisattvas crossing the river and it was difficult to protect themselves, and the Soviet Union could only rely on its own strength to defend its homeland.
Under the overwhelming German offensive, Moscow was already in danger.
On 5 April 1942, Hitler issued a combat order, ordering Marshal Liszt to lead Army Group A to the Caucasus, and Marshal Bauer to lead Army B to Stalingrad.
The strategic significance of Stalingrad is self-evident, it is close to the Volga River, has the largest port on the river, and is also the most important transportation hub and industrial city of the Soviet Union. Once lost, it meant that the Soviet supply line was cut off, and the soldiers on the front line would lose the strategic supplies they needed. In addition, the city was named after Soviet leader Stalin, and if captured by the Germans, it would seriously damage the morale of the Soviet army.
On July 17, 1942, the German AB Army Group arrived at the designated location according to the order, but Hitler temporarily changed his plans and prepared to annihilate the main force of the Soviet Southwest Army, and then once and for all. As a result, the German Fourth Panzer Army bypassed Stalingrad and marched south, annihilating the main Soviet forces that were surrounded. However, this move not only weakened the strength of the attack on Stalingrad, but also slowed down the speed of the attack, giving the Soviets enough time to strengthen the defense of Stalingrad.
At that time, the German Sixth Army was responsible for attacking Stalingrad, and the commander was General Paulus. Under his leadership, this unit had participated in many battles and was a well-trained and battle-hardened elite division.
On the Soviet side, in order to cope with the German offensive, Stalin dispatched troops to block the German army from the line to reduce the pressure on the frontal battlefield; on the other hand, he formed the Stalingrad Front, which was responsible for defending Stalingrad.
The German Sixth Army marched day and night towards Stalingrad, encountering stubborn resistance from the Soviets along the way, and the Germans took advantage of air superiority and artillery suppression on the ground to bombard the Soviets, and then attacked forward with tanks as the vanguard and broke through the Soviet positions.
On 25 July, the German Sixth Army engaged the Stalingrad Front for the first time, but the Germans, led by tank armies, launched an attack on the Soviets, and the Soviets fought back and forth with the Germans in a life-and-death manner. For a time, both sides were stuck in a state of stalemate.
On the other hand, the German Fourth Panzer Army immediately sent an armored army unit to the aid of the Sixth Army, while Stalin also transferred ten divisions from the Far East to aid Stalingrad, and then issued an order that the defenders "never take a step back."
On 1 August, in the face of the advance of the German Sixth Army and the Panzer Army, the Soviet defense line collapsed completely.
On 2 September, the Germans surrounded Stalingrad from three directions, northwest and south. Subsequently, Hitler sent the Fourth Air Force to launch an indiscriminate bombardment of the urban area of Stalingrad, and the city suddenly burst into flames and became a sea of fire, all the buildings were blown into ruins, and the whole city was like a purgatory on earth. On this day alone, 40,000 residents of the city were killed, and countless people were injured.
For more than a decade after that, the Fourth Air Force continued to bombard the city. Stalingrad was filled with smoke during the day and flared up at night.
On 13 September, the German Sixth Army, as the main force, launched a fierce assault north of Stalingrad. Because the city was in ruins and the passage of armored vehicles was difficult, the armored army could only start from the south of the city to advance, in response to the German attack in the north of the city, and the famous Stalingrad offensive and defensive battle began.
Relying on the suppression of firepower, the Germans quickly cut into the city and engaged in a fierce street battle with the Soviet army defending the city. For the Soviets who participated in the battle, death was their destination, and the only variable was to kill as many Germans as possible before dying. Most of the city's inhabitants have died, and only a small number have been lucky enough to escape.
Since then, Stalingrad has been under artillery fire every day, and smoke has covered the entire city, and all buildings have been destroyed. If you're there, you'll only hear gunshots and wails. In order to quickly occupy Stalingrad, the German army launched a charge with the whole regiment and the whole division, and at first the two sides relied on the position warfare to fight back and forth, and then it directly evolved into a short white-knife battle, as long as the enemy can be killed, anything can be used as a weapon.
During the street battles between the two sides, there were constant encirclement and counter-encirclement and suppression, and one position was occupied by the Soviet army one minute and occupied by the German army the next minute. There were countless corpses on the battlefield, and neither side had time to clean up the battlefield, these corpses either naturally decayed or were blown into meat paste by indiscriminate artillery fire, and the whole city was filled with the strange smell of gun smoke, rotten meat and blood.
The German tanks, which had lost their agility on the ruins, could only be transformed into moving batteries and slowly pushing forward, giving the necessary firepower. At the same time, the Soviet soldiers did not sit still, tied anti-tank grenades on their bodies, pounced on the tanks, and died with them.
After several days of fighting in the city, there was no fixed position to speak of, and the two armies formed a situation in which you have me and I have you, and after the encounter, it was a fight. At this time, Stalingrad was like a purgatory on earth, and the corpses were densely packed all over the street.
After October, the fighting between the two sides entered a white-hot stage, the appearance of the city has long ceased to exist, and the wide foundation tells people about the prosperity of the place. The soldiers on both sides had no time to rest, and when they were not careful, they fell into a fierce battle, fighting for every inch of territory. In order to better annihilate the enemy army, both sides organized a large number of snipers to hunt each other among the ruins.
On October 15, although the German army occupied two-thirds of Stalingrad, it was met with more stubborn resistance from the Soviet army, and the German army, which had been fighting for many days, had long been strong and unable to advance.
The battle dragged on until November, when the Soviet Union had entered winter, the minimum temperature reached minus 30 degrees Celsius, and the balance of victory was slowly tilting in the Soviet Union. After all, for the Germans, bad weather was as ferocious as enemy fire.
Seeing that the situation was unfavorable to the German army, Hitler, who was in Germany, quickly called Paulus, asking him to capture Stalingrad regardless of all consequences, otherwise he would be punished militarily.
So Paulus led his Sixth Army on a final major offensive. The Soviets understood the situation facing the enemy and desperately resisted the German attack, vowing to defend Stalingrad to the death. The White Blade War broke out again, with heavy casualties on both sides and mountains of corpses.
When the Germans finally rushed to the Volga River, they were already hungry and cold, and had no intention of fighting again. In desperation, Paulus had to stand still and wait for someone to rescue him. However, the end of the German army was also coming. While the Sixth Army was fighting desperately with the Soviets, the Soviet commander-in-chief, General Zhukov, secretly mobilized 1.1 million troops in the direction of Stalingrad.
On 19 November, the Soviets engaged the north and south, rendezvousing at Karachi behind Stalingrad, encircling the German Sixth Army regiment at Stalingrad. Seeing that the tide was gone, Paulus immediately called Hitler to ask for a breakthrough, but Hitler stubbornly asked him to hold where he was and that Marshal Goering's air force be responsible for air supply.
On 12 December, Demanstein led his army in support of Stalingrad, breaking through all the way forward, tearing several Soviet lines of defense in succession. When the breakthrough reached only 40 kilometers from the encirclement, the Soviets deployed heavy troops to encircle them, and Manstein demanded that Paulus break out to the south to join him. However, Paulus did not dare to disobey Hitler's orders, abandoned the breakthrough, and chose to hold on to the spot, and Manstein had no choice but to retreat.
At this point, the German Sixth Army completely lost the opportunity to escape.
The Sixth Army, trapped in Stalingrad, was in a very bad situation, when the temperature had dropped to minus 45 ° C, and the wind and snow were continuous all day long. The soldiers were thinly dressed, huddled in the rubble, so cold that they could not open the bolts of their guns, and had to tear down houses and burn furniture for warmth.
The Luftwaffe's air supplies were also often unsafe due to the wind and snow, sometimes dozens of tons a day, sometimes only a few tons, and the German supply in the Soviet Union at that time needed at least 700 tons per day. Hundreds of soldiers suffered from typhoid fever and dysentery, and some were frozen alive.
After several unsuccessful attempts to persuade Paulus to surrender, the Soviets launched a full-scale offensive against the remnants of Paulus on 10 January 1943. Subsequently, the German airfield was breached, which meant that the supply line of the Sixth Army was completely cut off.
Paulus wanted Hitler to allow them to surrender, but Hitler simply refused his request and granted him marshals to continue his resistance. In fact, by this point, Hitler's intentions were already obvious, he was forcing Paulus to commit suicide and martyrdom, because there had never been a marshal in German history who had been captured.
In the end, Paulus chose to disobey Hitler's orders and surrendered to the Soviets on February 1, and all German troops in the Stalingrad area laid down their arms.
At this point, the 199-day defense of Stalingrad came to an end, the 300,000 soldiers of the Sixth Army, at this time only 90,000 people, the Soviets sent them to the distant Siberian prisoner of war camp, most of them died before they reached the place, and only a few thousand survived until the end of World War II.
Throughout the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviets committed 2.5 million troops and eventually suffered 1.1 million casualties, while the Germans put in 1.05 million troops with 840,000 casualties. Nearly 4 million troops from both sides participated in the battle, which is unprecedented in numbers alone. The horror of the war cannot be expressed in words, for commanders casualties are just a statistic; for ordinary soldiers, death is the destination.
The Battle of Stalingrad was so brutal because of its extraordinary strategic significance. If the Soviet Union had not won the battle, it would have been in danger of being destroyed. At the same time, Germany would spread the war throughout Eurasia and take absolute control. The situation in the Soviet Union at that time was just like Chen Sheng said:
"Death is death now, death is death with big plans, waiting for death, death of the country can be."
Under such a premise, the Soviet army will certainly hold Stalingrad at all costs, otherwise sooner or later it will die, and the number of deaths will be more than 1.1 million. Of course, history has no ifs, and even if there were, with the temper of the Soviets, victory would have belonged to them.
At that time, the Soviet Red Army occupied at most a "heavenly time", but it was forced to use the way of fighting for their lives to drag the battle until winter, and successfully rewritten history. Therefore, the army of the former Soviet Union is really admirable, especially their spirit of unity and defense of the country, which is worth learning from the world