It was nearly unimaginable to the world when Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered his German forces to the Soviet Union on February 2, 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad, a major Second World War battle began with the German’s offensive on July 17, 1942 and ended with the German surrender on February 2, 1943. It was on August 5, 1942 that Adolf Hitler ordered an attack on the city of Stalingrad. This battle went down as one of the bloodiest battles in history, taking large tolls on both sides and most importantly marking the turning point for Hitler in the Second World War. The “master race” had taken its first major blow, proving to the world that they were not invincible. And in fact, Germany would not rise again after this truly devastating event. This was due to devastating losses from the battle, mistakes in propaganda and low morale.
Codenamed Operation Blue, Hitler split his forces into two, one to capture the oil fields in Caucasus and the other to capture Stalingrad. On August 23, 1942 Axis tanks raced to Stalingrad with little resistance as German planes bombarded the city of Stalingrad. The Germans had heavy machinery while the Soviets did not even have Anti-air machines, making it seem all though the Germans were unstoppable. For within the first few months, German forces would have occupied ninety percent of the city. However, as the weather changed into a freezing Soviet winter, the Soviets would start gaining the upper hand. It was the Red Army’s cue to launch Operation Uranus in November, for they had just received supplies and the weather was in their favor. As the operation proved a success, the Soviet forces now encircled the German forces just as the Soviet winter began to demonstrate its full power. From t...
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Hitler’s conduction of the Battle of Stalingrad was his biggest mistake. The decisions that Hitler made during the Battle of Stalingrad influenced the outcome of following battles and World War 2. Adolf Hitler kept sending men into the front line even though generals advised him to withdraw the troops and surrender. According to William L. Shirer, “When General Zeitzler got up enough nerve to suggest to the Fuehrer that the Sixth Army should be withdrawn from Stalingrad, Hitler flew into a fury. ‘Where the German soldier sets foot, there he remains!’"(The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Document 1) Hitler aspires to take over the world so a loss could make his leadership appear to be weak and expose flaws to the rest of the world creating a downward spiral of his reputation, of being
The battle of Stalingrad has often been referred to as the turning point of World War II. Stalingrad, now called Volgograd is located on the river Volga in the southern part of western Russia. It was of extreme importance because it was the last stronghold protecting the vast oil fields that lay beyond it to the east. Hitler believed his Operation Barbarossa would be an easy victory, claiming that troops would be home for Christmas. There was much symbolism in Hitler’s decision to attack Stalingrad and that was due to that it was named after the Russian leader Stalin and would cause a great loss of morale in the Russian army if the German army could capture it. The German 6th Army ran into incredibly fierce resistance on the part of the Russians. As the battle waged on for nearly 3 months the daily bloodbaths of the street battles began to take their toll on both sides. Russia’s use of snipers began to cost the Germans more and more lives everyday. Most famous of...
On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler gave the green light for the commencement of Operation Barbarossa to capture the heart of USSR, Moscow, in order to gradually diminish the power of the Allied forces in WWII. However, Hitler’s masterminded plan eventually began falling apart due to his own carelessness and over-confidence. For instance, Hitler miscalculation of postponing the operation to focus on other matters by several weeks proved to be crucial as the ferocious Russian winter arrived significantly earlier causing many German soldiers to freeze to death, while the Russians accustomed to the weather used it to their advantage (Royde-Smith). Hitler also underestimated Stalin’s ability to prepare enough troops due to his belief of German superiority,
Military historians have described Stalingrad was not only noteworthy as it was a turning point of the Germany’s invasion on Eastern Front and even of the entire Second World War. The ultimate defeat of Germany in Stalingrad was resulted from Hitler’s military misjudgment and indecisiveness in setting single operational objectives, which paralyzed the whole German forces and turning the tide of war in the Russians’ favor. The initial missions of the offensive in 1942 were the advances of forces to cut off the west bank of Volga River, which served as the important link for the transport of Soviet oil supply from the Transcaucasus oil fields to the Red Armies in Central Russia. Before Stalingrad, the plan went well and achieved substantial opening successes in the capture of few important territories.
The Great War, now known as World War II, devastated Europe, leaving political and economic instability in Germany to aid the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist (Nazi) Party. World War II began when Hitler invaded Poland on the 17 September 1939. The war lasted from 1939 to 1945 and directly involved over 100 million people. With an estimated death toll of 75 million, World War II is the deadliest conflict in history. Although there can be no definite turning point, many historians consider the Battle of Stalingrad to be the greatest and most significant battle in the war. The Soviet Union’s massive success in this battle marked the war turning in favor of the Allies.
The Germans power struck fear into the Allied countries, which drove Allied leaders to initiate the D-day invasion. Hitler was aware of the Invasion of Normandy, but he wasn’t sure when it was going to take place. Since he was confident in his military power and the Allied forces had dissipated across the Mediterranean, he disregarded the threat. But in November of 1943, Hitler could no longer ignore the invasion. He started taking defensive maneuvers by reinforcing the French beaches, placing mines, and barricading any entrance into France to protect his French territory. The German troops were also at an advantage because, “It [, Omaha,] was defended by the best German troops in the area, tough combat veterans who had recently been sent to Normandy for more training” (Bigelow et al. 267). This scared the Allied leaders because their troops were dropping like flies. During this time, the Russians h...
Westwood, J. N., “Endurance and Endeavour: Russian history, 1812-1980”. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 1981.
“Stalingrad is the scene of the costliest and most stubborn battle in this war. The battle fought there to its desperate finish may turn out to be among the decisive battles in the long history of war…In the scale of its intensity, its destructiveness, and its horror, Stalingrad has no parallel. It engaged the full strength of the two biggest armies in Europe and could fit into no lesser framework than that of a life-and death conflict which encompasses the earth”
After a two year stalemate, both the Russians and Germans awaited major confrontations that would define the momentum for either side. Up until this point in the war, although the Germans had captured many European countries and were victoriously advancing with their keen tactics, such as the blitzkrieg and their cogent weapons, battles on the Eastern front seemed impossible to win. Upon a dismal loss at the Battle of Stalingrad earlier in 1943, German morale was greatly lowered and the German forces finally apprehended the strength of the Russian troops. The momentum would finally be settled with the decisive battle near the town of Kursk, a town on the Moscow-Rostov railway, in Southern Russia. The goal of the Battle of Kursk was to regain German morale and to pinch off a large salient in the Eastern front, which would make Russians much more vulnerable to German attack. Being such an important battle to the overall success of the Germans, they formulated several unique plans; however, due to the lack of good judgement, these plans were doomed from the very start.
Bartov, Omer. The Eastern Front, 1941-45: German troops and the barbarisation of warfare. Palgrave, 2001.
On the 22nd June 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union under Directive 21. Under the codename “Operation Barbarossa”, it was recorded as the largest military operation ever seen in history as it involved more than 3 million Axis soldiers and 3,500 armoured vehicles. Throughout the war Operation Barbarossa was a conflict that demoralised the Germans and significantly contributed to the Allied victory.
Alder, Peter. "Stalin: Man of Steel." Prod. Guido Knopp. Dir. Oliver Halmburger. Perf. Ed Herrman. The History Channel, 2003. Videocassette. Youtube. 15 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 May 2015.
Stalin, Joseph (1946): Interview with Pravda; both taken from Judge, Edward H. and Langdon, John W. (2011): the Cold War. A global History with Documents (2nd ed.); Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education
On June 22, 1941, the world’s biggest military, which is Barbarossa Operation, was beginning. Barbarossa is the code name German used in World War II to invade the Soviet Union. Hitler who was the German Führer sent his army across the borders of the Soviet Union, starting nearly 4 years of the most violent and cruel conflict humanity has ever experienced. His army was divided in three groups which was the army group North, led by von Leeb, Von Bock commanded the Centre group army and Von Rundstedt led the south group army ( The Biggest Military Adventure in History, 2011).. They breached Russia on a front spreading from the Baltic Coast to the Black Sea. On The Führer’s instructions, one and a half million soldiers of the Wehrmacht destroyed