The Importance Of The Battle Of Stalingrad In 1941

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In 1941 Germany invaded the USSR. Hitler thought it would be a quick victory which would give him control of the west and force the British to surrender so that he could win the war. However, the German forces were unable to defeat the USSR . This was because of many factors ; Soviet winter, mismanagement of the Axis powers, the battle of Stalingrad and Hitler’s underestimation of the strength of the Soviet Forces. But it was the Soviet winter and cold conditions that ultimately lead to Hitler’s defeat
Hitler originally had planned to invade the USSR in the May of 1941 but he was unable to do so because of Mussolini’s decision to invade Greece (Source 6). Mussolini invasion of Greece was unsuccessful and the Italian forces suffered huge losses. Hitler was forced to help Mussolini, his ally, which in turn lead to the invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbosa) being put on hold until Hitler’s troops had returned from the war in Greece. (Source 1) Because of this Operation Barbosa was moved to the June of 1941, which was closer to the Soviet winter.
Hitler had underestimated the length of the war (Source 4) and this meant that the German soldiers were forced fight through the harsh Soviet winter. Hitler wanted his forces to invade Stalingrad as he knew the political advantage he would gain if he controlled the city named after Stalin (Source 5). The battle of Stalingrad is seen as the turning point in the Second World War. During the battle of Stalingrad the German forces sustained many loses from which they never recovered despite previous victories in Leningrad and Kiev.
During the battle at Stalingrad the German soldiers lacked the supplies needed for a war in winter. They were unprepared and the long journey on foot to Stalingr...

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...nd east. This meant that an already weak army form the winter conditions was weakened even more. Supplies , arms and troops were even further divided to help fight in the pacific while the Japanese did not aid the Germans because of a pact signed with Stalin( Source 6). While the USSR and the USA were both new to the war and still had vast amounts of resources. (Source 4) This was largely due to Stalin’s 5 Year (Source 8) Stalin could produce arms at a rapid rate (Source 6)
Although all these factors contributed to the USSR victory , it was the winter weather that lead to the USSR defeat. The onset of winter gave the Soviet forces an advantage over the Germans as they were trained for war in those conditions and bought time for Stalin to mobilize troops. This gave the USSR an advantage which allowed them to beat the German forces and liberate Nazi occupied zones

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