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Battle of stalingrad turning point of ww2
Battle of Stalingrad, the turning point of WW 2
Battle of stalingrad turning point of ww2
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Battle of Stalingrad
"The siege of September 13, 1942 to January 31, 1943 will inspire forever the hearts of all free people. Their glorious victory stemmed the tide of invasion and marked the turning point in the war of the Allied nations against the forces of aggression." Franklin D Roosevelt. The battle of Stalingrad is most famously known for its outcome on the war it was named one of the bloodiest battles in history; it involved two major military leaders Hitler and Stalin. Tactics, logistics, and employment of mass are a few of the major details that played a role in the battle. Without this battle history as we know it would be very different.
In September of 1942, the German commander of the Sixth Army, advanced his troops to the city of Stalingrad where Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to secure the oil fields and take Stalingrad. Stalingrad was a target location due to its manufacturing and center of communications for parts of Russia. Hitler had extra motivation to take Stalingrad because the significance of the name, it was named after the Soviet Russian leader Stalin. Russia had been war torn and devastated from previous attacks and battles from the Germans, they knew they had to persevere and hang on along enough to defeat the German Army. The Soviets did have somewhat of a warning of the German attack, they shipped out cattle, grain, and other main supplies, but most of the civilians stayed. Hitler was very confident he could take this city down without losing major causalities. While Hitler was planning the attack the Soviet Marshall Zhukov was planning a major counterattack. Marshall Zhukov had 6 armies of 1 million men ready to attack the Germans. Both the Germans and Soviets had flaws in their attacks but, t...
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...itler was very methodical in planning and execution his war plans, he didn’t stay humble and got to ambition and overshot his execution and logistics which lead to the end of the Nazi empire. I believe if he concentrated his force, didnt stretch his supply line, attacked not in the winter, and surrender or pulled out sooner he could have possibly won the war or lasted longer. The battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest battles with both sides loosing enormous amounts of casualties. This attempt by Hitler to capture three major cities changed the course of history and helped it for the better so we think. "Surrender is forbidden. 6 Army will hold their positions to the last man and the last round and by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution towards the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western world." –Hitler.
Health and diseases also had an incredibly large impact on the outcome of the battle of Stalingrad and is also a factor as to why the German’s were so ineffective. Due to the mass amount of deaths due to bleeding out. German officials had developed a tactic in which stated that the German soldiers were to restrict from eating before fighting. This was developed as restricting would reduce the amount of blood loss if a soldier were to become injured. This tactic weakened the German soldier’s immune systems and caused many of their soldiers to die due to malnourishment. The deaths that related back to malnourishment hastily came to light, causing German officials to desperately try to refeed their soldiers; prompting the deaths of many German
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 and the battle of Okinawa were turning points for the Americans and their allies during World War II. The battle of Stalingrad started in summer of 1942, and Germany was in dominating position at first. However, German army was not ready for the coming of winter. German soldiers did not have enough clothes and food. At the mean time, Soviet Union had new tanks and soldiers. This led to the victory of Soviet Union and Allies. The battle of Stalingrad was a significant battle because it was the first battle that Allies captured the German military leader alive. It stopped the German invasion of Soviet Union and inflicted serious damage on Germany. Germany was in defensive position since it lost this battle, and the war
The Germans took an unrealistic approach in the decision making process for the battle. During the debate in the German High Command about what to do in the summer of 1943, two options were introduced. The realistic option, which was supported by the best German field commanders and many soldiers, was to compensate for the large Russian numerical advantage by fully utilizing the superiority of the German commander and soldiers in tactics, command and fighting, by a strategy of dynamic mobile defense that would cause great losses to the Russians in a series of local clashes. This would delay the Russians and was a realistic goal as it was easily achievable. However, Adolf Hitler wanted to follow the enthusiast-optimistic option of having a major decisive battle against a large portion of the Russian armour in order to destroy them. He thought that the best suited place for such a battle was the Kursk salient, where the Russians had already established battle grounds. In fact, aerial photos taken by German airplanes clearly revealed that the Russians had already built dense and deep fortifications at the Kursk salient in order to counter an attack. Also, it was evident that many Russian tanks were moved deeper behind the front line. Finally, the Blitzkrieg tactic that was often used by the Germans would have to be changed.
The autobiography Red Road From Stalingrad, written by Second World War soviet Infantryman Mansur Abdulin, is a story that describes his horrible experiences in the soviet army. During the first part of the book, Abdulin goes into detail concerning his progression from a committed Bolshevik child, working in a siberian mine, to his fervor in volunteering to the army, and finally to his first skirmishes with the “Fritzes,” or German forces. From the start of the book propaganda plays a role in shaping Abdulin. He describes a childhood conversation between his father and the local villagers“ Tell us frankly, Comrade Abdulin,- you being a party man- is there a god or isn’t there? Then they would wait for his answer, catching their breath. ‘Unfortunately,
The time would soon come for Hitler to seek out his revenge on the nation that delayed his imminent world domination. One year after the siege at Leningrad, Hitler’s once indestructible Axis power had begun to weaken. Hitler began to see his dream fading away. He realized that to maintain hope, he and his army must remain on the offensive, so he decided to go after his most glaring defeat, which was Russia.
Michael Cherniavsky main focus of his article was to examine how and why the Germans lose in Russia. According to Cherniavsky ” Unlike Hitler, the generals did not understand ( and still do not) that their great victories in the West were due mainly to non-military factors, that armament production, morale, and training are not militarily determined." ( Cherniavky, par.33). Within this article , Cherniavsky goes into detail about how and why the Germans lost. Some examples given by Cherniavsky were the Russian Climate, the inexhaustible manpower, the primitiveness of Russian communicators, and the Russian himself as a human being. The main point of this article was to share more information about the war and how there is much more to the defeat then shown. It was not all obvious and not all military problems that occurred, "Both Hitler and his generals, however, underestimated hopelessly the resources available to the Russians for their attack."( discussion post). Three myths that Cherniavsky claims that are present when defending the loss of the Germans is because of the climate ( they were not prepared to fight during winter, the number of causalities, and errors made by Hitler himself such as inexhaustible man power Russian
The main words that I noticed reoccurring in Jones’s book is courage, morale, inspiration, leadership and pride for their country. Overall, out of all those great qualities morale is most significant. Jones makes the argument that morale was the factor that the Russians the boost to push back the Germans and sustain their city. I believe those were all contributing factors for the final stand and victory of the Russian army in Stalingrad. Moreover, a series of battles lost or won can deplete an army rather quickly especially if you don’t have the available resources such as tanks, guns or troops. At that point what do you have? Hopefully your comrades or a commander that you believe can inspire you by his great leadership and bring your fellow comrades together. However, the red army had more than that they had a brotherhood, a love for their country and the will to never give up or retreat. It is nearly impossible to have those types of characteristics still standing after seeing the amount of casualties continuing to raise and your city dwindling away. In order for the Russians to make a stand their mindset had to change. As the Germans continued to push the Russian forces back and surround them the Russians soldiers had to make a choice give up or fight. Often times the Germans told the Russians soldiers to surrender and there is no way they will win, but the Russians refused to give in. Thus, referring to the three reasons they never gave up the slogan “ there is no land beyond Volga “, soldiers morale and great commanders that cared for their
That is mostly true. The historical significance of this battle is, it weakened the German Army. The whole 6th German Army was taken out in the battle. Because of the extreme losses experienced in the Battle of Stalingrad, Germany was forced to pull a lot of forces from the Western Front to replace the casualties. This battle was significant because it caused the Germans to lose a lot of manpower in the West, which allowed the Allies to gain some ground. Furthermore, the Axis Powers never gained the strategic advantage on the Eastern Front after the battle. The Battle of Stalingrad weakened Germany so much on both fronts that it widely considered as the beginning of the end for Germany in World War 2. This is because Germany began to lose much of its annexed and occupied territories after this battle. Simply, the Battle of Stalingrad is historically significant because it severely weakened the German Army, which made it easier for the Allies to push them
But the sheer size in numbers of the Russian people allowed them to overcome the Germans with help from the winter and the industrial might of the country, the Russians put the Germans on the defensive. The successful defense of the Russians at Stalingrad stopped the advance of the Nazi’s into Russia The Russians surrounded the Nazi’s and annihilated a complete German army, cutting off any route for supplies and reinforcements. Stalingrad was the turning point for the war on the eastern front and from there on the Germans were on the retreat, the Russians slowly recaptured Kursk in February of 1943 and in the following year Orel and Kiev were under Russian control. By January, 1945 the Red Army had fought their way from Moscow and over into Germany and took the the capital city of Berlin along with the surrender of the German people and the suicide of Adolf Hitler. Even though Operation Barbarossa was Hitler’s master plan to conquer Russia, it ended up being his biggest failure and led to the deaths of millions of innocent people while bringing a quick end to his thousand year
With the development of technology such as long-range bombers and pilotless weapons, tactics such as the German Blitzkrieg were born. The military tactic of the blitzkrieg is to go in quickly on air and bomb the area below them. This causes mass destruction and chaos quickly without the need for ground troops. In the Battle of Stalingrad, the Germans began their attack by bombing the city before sending in their ground troops to take over the remains. By doing so, they catch their enemy off guard and destroy their first means of defence, saving their own troops the danger of that and protecting their lives. As a result, there was less casualties in the attack than if there would have been a confrontation between the troops. Although the new tactics helped protect troop lives, they also caused more deaths on those that they were being used against including innocent civilians. Advancement in technology helped new military tactics to be created affecting the amount of troop casualties in
The battle of Stalingrad took place in the city of Stalingrad and occurred on July 17th 1942 and lasted until February 2nd 1943. The important leaders associated with this battle are General Friedrich Paulus from the German army as well as General Georgy Zhukov from the Soviet Union army. On August 25th 1942 Stalingrad was officially under siege by the Germans Army. September 3rd 1942 Germans enact an offensive aimed at the heart of Stalingrad. September 6th 1942 the strategic Black Sea port city Novorossiysk falls to the Germans. January 1st 1943 German forces at Terek retreat.
When Hitler was in power, he was slowly trying to take over Europe. Going into Russia was arguably Hitler’s downfall, which was when the Battle of Stalingrad occurred. The Battle of Stalingrad began on July 17, 1942, and continued on until February 2, 1943. The people of Russia think that Stalingrad was the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, while most historians recognize it to be the greatest of all of World War II. This battle stopped the Germans from advancing into the Soviet Union and marked when the Allies took over the war and began to overpower Germany. With combined military and civilian casualties of nearly 2 million, the Battle of Stalingrad was determined to be one of the bloodiest battles in history (History.com).
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
Regardless of Allied bombing, the superiority of the Russian army was sufficient to win the war. Overy highlights the fact that “Soviet forces destroyed or disabled an estimated 607 Axis divisions between 1941 and 1945” demonstrating the Russian’s effectiveness in battle even before Allied dominance of the skies. Secondly, the Allied bombing campaign adversely affected the Germans too late in the war to be credited with successes on the Eastern Front. By the time strategic bombing of Germany had a big enough impact to divert resources away from the Eastern Front, Russia was already on the front foot and were positioned to win the war. This is demonstrated by the fact that at the time of Russian victory in Stalingrad (February 1943) British bombing was not yet sufficiently damaging to divert essential German resources away from the Eastern Front. In summary, it must be argued, that despite the inefficiencies of the bombing campaign, it was of enormous significance to the Russian army. Although the strategic bombing campaign alone cannot be credited with Allied victory, it did prove to be the greatest single advantage enjoyed by the Allies as it was instrumental in securing Allied success at D-Day and on the Eastern Front and therefore its significance cannot be