In World War II, the Soviet Union paid a huge price, both in terms of population and material losses, and was the country with the most traumatic war wounds. According to the official statistics of the Soviet Union after the war, during the entire period of World War II, the Soviet military lost more than 30 million people in the war and suffered more than 20 million civilian casualties, and the actual situation is far more than this. You know, at that time, the entire Population of the Soviet Union was 194 million, that is to say, the Soviet Union lost a quarter of the entire population of the Soviet Union in World War II, and its tragic degree can be imagined. Until now, the trauma of World War II still exists, and the demographic structure of the country left behind after the collapse of the Soviet Union is still more women than men.
And in all the Soviet Patriotic Wars, the most tragic battle took place in Stalingrad, which is neither the capital Moscow nor the economic center of St. Petersburg, why did the two sides fight here repeatedly, paying a heavy price and being the first of the Second World War?
First, how the Battle of Stalingrad was fought
In the first six months before the outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Germany, Germany's intention to attack the Soviet Union on the eastern front was already very obvious, and at that time it was only the western front that had not been completed, so Hitler did not want to divide his troops and risked going to war at the same time. However, the Soviet top brass was blindly confident, believing that the Soviet Union was vast at that time, heavy industry was thriving, and strategic weapons were plentiful, so it insisted that Germany could not skip Britain and attack itself first.
So the Soviet Union did not prepare for war, but stored a large number of weapons not far from the national border. However, Germany's blitzkrieg was too efficient, like a sharp blade cutting into the unsuspecting Soviet hinterland, so the Soviet Union fell into a strategic passive situation at the beginning of the war, and many troops did not react, they were eaten by the enemy, causing extremely serious losses.
After that, the German army has approached Moscow, and although russia's geographical area is vast, the Soviet army has no way to retreat, followed by Moscow. The desperate Soviet Union erupted with great combat effectiveness and willpower, coupled with the extreme cold of the Russian winter, which caused heavy losses to the German army. However, the Soviet army misjudged, mistakenly believed that the battlefield situation had been reversed, and blindly launched an attack, and nearly 200,000 Soviet troops in the Battle of Kharkov disappeared in a blink of an eye.
Later, in 1942, the German army drew up a summer battle plan for the Russian Southern Front, in accordance with Hitler's guidelines. The occupation of Stalingrad was not the main objective, their real strategic goal was to occupy the oil fields of the Caucasus and control the transport lines in the region. Stalingrad was actually a large industrial area, through which the Volga River flowed was a strategic transportation artery linking the central region of the Soviet Union, the administrative region, and the Caucasus region, the mineral and energy supply area.
The previous Battle of Moscow by the German army made Hitler realize that if he wanted to capture the Soviet Union in such a cold winter, he must first be able to obtain the oil and gas resources of the Caucasus region, otherwise once he fell into a long and harsh winter in Russia, all the occupied lands would be harvested by the cold climate, and the German army could not stay here. Therefore, they must occupy and control the city in order to control the surrounding transportation network, so that they can gain the initiative on the battlefield in the future.
In August, the German front-line troops advanced to the vicinity of Stalingrad, and if the area was controlled by the Germans, both the strategic supply in the front and the national economy in the rear would be severely damaged, because the main transportation route for oil in Baku, the final oil-producing area of the Soviet Union, was here. Moreover, once Stalingrad fell, the Germans were able to break the main road on the Volga River and directly cut off the central soviet zone from the Ural Mountains in Central Asia.
While the Germans were still celebrating their victory in the southern Soviet-German battlefield, they had fundamentally ignored the resistance that Stalingrad could encounter, believing that it would be as easy as the previous battlefield. The main forces decided to attack the Caucasus instead, but they were well aware of the significance of the strategic location of Stalingrad. For the Soviets, the name Stalingrad was a city named after the supreme leader of the Soviet Union at that time, and neither Stalin nor other officers and commanders who rallied around him could tolerate it falling into the hands of the Germans. Therefore, both sides are taking sides here and are ready to fight a decisive battle here.
The Soviets deployed three armies previously deployed to the bend of the Don River, followed by two air forces, 8 and 21, and in late July, the 28th, 38th, and 57th Armies, as well as the Volga Fleet to control the main routes of water traffic. For its part, the task of the Soviets in this campaign was not to block or eliminate the Germans, but to slow down their offensive and not to allow the oil-producing industrial areas of the Caucasus to fall into the hands of the enemy.
On July 17, 1942, the advance troops of the Soviet 62nd and 64th Armies and the German Sixth Pioneer Division suddenly encountered at the junction of the Kiel river and the Zimra River, and the defense of Stalingrad began. The Red Army fought for six days and nights, and finally buffered the German offensive at the cost of flesh and blood. The Germans found at the Don river no longer against a panicked Red Army, but a group of well-equipped, calm and calm soldiers who knew that they had finally encountered hard stubble.
Second, the corpses of the two sides fought against each other
On 23 July, Hitler issued an order to the front at the Nazi command, asking one of the armies to attack the Volga and caucasus, thereby destroying the Soviet forces at Stalingrad, disrupting the transport lines on the Volga, and finally pointing directly at the Astrakhan region. Another powerful army group with 41 divisions went to destroy the Soviet forces and military positions south of the Don River, thereby cutting off the railway transport line.
It seems that in fact, the German army's expectations are very strict, after cutting off water and land traffic, as long as they hold the Caucasus and do not let the oil flow out, they can gradually drain the vitality of the Soviet army in the consumption of resources. Thus, the defense of Stalingrad attracted both the strongest of the Soviet and German armies, and the Germans initially threw only the Sixth Army into the battlefield, and a week later the Fourth Panzer Corps was dispatched. Everyone knows that the rapid advance of the armored forces was the killer of the German army in the two world wars, and it can be seen that they have no cost in order to seize Stalingrad.
However, the German troops gathered here, and the Soviet army was not far behind, but under the strong attack of the German army's superior strength, the Soviet army had to temporarily avoid the wind and retreat to the defense of the stalingrad city. In late August 1942, the Luftwaffe repeated the same tactics and launched a high-density bombing attack on the city, and in just one day, they dispatched more than 2,000 sorties of aircraft to completely cover the city. The Soviet Air Force and ground anti-aircraft guns and other equipment shot down more than one hundred and twenty aircraft, but the entire city was immersed in fire, and when the fire was extinguished, it became a ruin, and forty thousand civilians were killed in this disaster.
What is even more frightening is that the area has a Soviet reserve oil depot, because it was hit by shells, resulting in the buildings and the ground connected to the Volga River being lit by flowing oil, and the flames flowed through, and the ground was scorched, and it was impossible to rescue. At the same time, the bombing of the Luftwaffe had not stopped, and the Soviet Air Force and military aircraft were destroyed by German blitzkriegs in the early stages of the war, and the number of air forces could not compete with the Germans, so there was insufficient firepower in the battle.
Until mid-August, the Germans were on the offensive, advancing at a low speed, but always advancing. The Soviets were defending layer by layer, but they were peeled off layer by layer. With the appearance of German tanks in the tractor factory, the situation changed abruptly, and the Soviets were almost unable to hold on, but despite the proximity of Stalingrad, the Germans were unable to break through the city's defenses.
The Germans finally could not bear it, not only reorganized the army, but also transferred reserve forces from the rear and moved the Fourth Air Base to the Volga River, so that the German army could take turns to launch air raids on Stalingrad and the surrounding areas at close range. After mid-August, the Soviets launched a counter-offensive at the fortress near Stalingrad, which lasted from 15 August until three months later, when Hitler lost more than 350 tanks and 400 aircraft, more than 80,000 soldiers and officers, but still could not set foot in the city.
Although the Soviets added another guard, the German air power was too strong, and after September 13, the Germans began to attack the main city, and after more than ten days occupied the city center, starting to surround the entire city from the northeast and southwest. On the same day, the Soviet Union ordered zhukov, the commander of the 62nd Army, as a lieutenant general, and after receiving the order, the lieutenant general's front command directly crossed the Volga River to the other side, occupied the 102nd Heights before the Germans, and used this place as a command to occupy the opportunity.
At that time in Stalingrad, the situation was very grim. After such intensive German artillery fire and air raids, the city had become in ruins, all factories and hospitals had been destroyed, and the people living here were starving, if not dead, and lacking basic means of survival. But almost all those who can move choose to coexist and die with the city, fighting until the last moment, when a tragic slogan was, "Russia is great, and there is no way back!" "Therefore, some fighters chose to die with the enemy after being wounded, such as the Soviet pilot Major Zemlyansky, who drove a plane that was hit by the enemy and burned in the tail, turned himself into a shell and crashed directly into the enemy tank.
On 12 September, Hitler demanded at the meeting that the Germans capture Stalingrad as soon as possible. Thus, the army that had originally attacked the Caucasus region began to march towards Stalingrad, and the next day began to attack the city center.
Zhukov saw that the situation was critical, and urgently dispatched a Guard unit to Stalingrad in the ruins, and as soon as they left the crossing, they began to fight directly, and the situation of the battle in the city suddenly changed. This was one of the worst street battles in history, and according to Soviet soldiers who experienced the war, every house was a battlefield, and sometimes we captured the kitchen, but still competed with the enemy for the living room. We had used light anti-tank guns on the right side of the Volga, and the other shells hit the left, only to find that when the Germans really attacked, they found that the shells had run out.
Zhukov said that Stalingrad in the ruins was turned into a fortress, and the number of defenders was constantly decreasing. In this war, the average survival time of soldiers who have just entered the battlefield is only 24 hours, while the survival of officers is usually only three days, which is almost another Verdun meat grinder. Between the 13th and 26th, battles broke out between the two armies for factories and towns, and there were almost corpses everywhere.
The reason why the Soviet Union adopted this tactic of wounding the enemy one thousand and losing eight hundred, was mainly to eliminate the tactical superiority of the German army, because the German combat was a joint operation, usually coordinated by air aircraft, ground troops and artillery, etc. Only in close contact with the enemy, close hand-to-hand combat, the German army would not use heavy weapons such as aircraft and long-range artillery shells, but this meant face-to-face with the enemy, knife-to-knife duel.
Third, the bloody victory of the Soviet counter-offensive
Three months of bloody fighting did not stop, and in early November, German fire finally advanced to the banks of the Volga River, capturing most of the city and dividing the Soviet forces in two. Later, the Volga River froze, and the Soviet Union was no longer able to transport supplies to the city by water to garrison troops.
But the fighting in Red October and other weapons factories is known to the world, and while the two sides are engaged in gun battles, workers continue to repair production, and even work directly on the front line of the battlefield, next to the roaring bullets. These overhauled tanks were almost launched from the production line to the battlefield, and there was no time to spray paint, and some even did not install accessories such as scopes.
On Singles' Day in 1942, the Germans launched a frontal assault with 5 infantry divisions and 2 panzer divisions, and the two sides repeatedly charged for every house or even a wall, and suffered heavy casualties. Exhausted and exhausted, the Germans were forced to halt their offensive and begin to renovate the next day, while the two divisions of the Soviet 62nd Army were nearly three-quarters shorter and suffered more manpower losses than the Germans.
At the end of September the Soviet Union had begun preparations for a counteroffensive and was secretly massing its forces in the direction of Stalingrad. By mid-November, more than 1.1 million men totaling 143 divisions had arrived, more than fifteen thousand artillery pieces had been brought in, and more than a thousand tanks and aircraft had been deployed. Zhukov wanted to lock the Germans in the city and gradually surround the city from the outside. Stalin approved the plan and named it Operation Uranus.
After 20 November, the 51st, 57th, and 64th Armies counterattacked from the south and broke through the German Fourth Army line, where the Romanian cavalry was completely annihilated. It is said that when the news of the Red Army's counteroffensive reached the German headquarters, Zeitzler, the chief of staff of the army, urged Hitler to withdraw all his troops from Stalingrad to protect the strength of the German army. However, The Commander of the Air Force, Goering, assured Hitler that supplies for the Sixth Army could be guaranteed by airdrop. However, it turned out that faith and commitment were useless in the face of facts, and eventually the airdrop became a bear, and the German army only had 300 tons of transportation on the line per day, which could not meet the daily military demand of 700 tons.
Under the bad weather and the strong firepower of the Red Army's air defense forces, the airdrop plan failed miserably, and according to records, the German army received only 10% of the supplies, and the entire army group began to face the risk of food shortages. On 21 November, Hitler appointed Marshal Manstein as commander and asked him to retake the positions he had lost. Manstein believed that the German army needed to break through to the south, but Hitler announced in his speech on the 30th that the German army would not retreat.
On 12 December, Manstein launched a desperate counterattack, and the German Fourth Panzer Army, spearheaded, broke through the Red Army line on the Aksay River on the 16th. However, Manstein found that he was almost surrounded by the Red Army, so he decided to break through to the south, but Paulus did not dare to retreat privately, so he refused to break through with insufficient fuel, and he gave up his last chance.
On 27 December, the Soviets launched an attack that repelled the Fourth Panzer Group, and Manstein's winter storm plan failed. At that time, the temperature suddenly dropped to more than -40 degrees Celsius, and the ice on the surface of the Volga River was able to carry transportation, so the Soviet army was well supplied, and the encircled German air passage was not smooth and had fallen into a desperate situation.
The distribution of food in the Sixth Army of the German Army was already below the minimum standards for life, the ammunition for artillery began to be scarce, all medicine and fuel were exhausted, thousands of people suffered from typhoid fever and dysentery, completely lost their combat effectiveness, more frostbite, and every day there were deaths caused by non-war factors. In this case, many middle-ranking officers began to persuade Paulus to break through, but he did not dare to bear the charge of disobeying Hillert's orders, and still chose to continue to hold out. Later, under the persuasion of Zeitzler, Hitler finally agreed to withdraw his troops.
In early 1943, the Soviets launched a new offensive, completely cutting off the German Sixth Army from the main force, and this lone army was completely plunged into the Jedi. On 8 January, the Soviets issued an ultimatum to Paulus for surrender. Paulus called Hitler, but the other side rejected all possibilities of his surrender, and the German army began to shrink from the outside in.
On January 22, 1943, the Soviets finally captured the former German air port - Gumenrac Airfield, and the air supply was completely interrupted, but the German army still stubbornly resisted at this time, so more fierce street fighting broke out here again. Paulus reported to Stalin that he again asked permission to surrender, but Hitler replied that he was asked to hold out until the last man and not to allow surrender. By the 30th, Hitler had awarded Lubbs the post of Field Marshal, motivating him to continue fighting. Paulus realized that Hitler had committed suicide by making him commit suicide, because no marshal had ever been captured in German history.
Paulus telegraphed to Hitler that he would hold out until he was fighting until he was a soldier. However, when the Red Army captured the headquarters, Paulus immediately surrendered. According to statistics, more than 90,000 prisoners of war were credited with surrender, but many of them were severely malnourished and forced to work in prisoner-of-war camps after being captured, most of them eventually died of overwork, and finally less than 6,000 returned to their homeland after the war. A number of senior officers were also sent directly to Moscow, where they were used by the Soviets for political propaganda, and Paulus joined them in issuing an anti-Hitler manifesto, which was an even more serious blow to the morale of the German army.
Although the victor of the Battle of Stalingrad was the Soviet Union, the losses of the Red Army were far higher than those of the German army, which was a bloody duel, and the German army that lost the initiative on the battlefield gradually declined, and after this time, the Battle of Stalingrad was forever written in the annals of World War II, becoming the beginning of the reversal of the power situation in World War II.