Battle of Stalingrad Summary On August 23, 1942, Hitler and General Friedrich Paulus sent out their troops to seize the oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains and the City of Stalingrad. Stalin­grad was the worst defeat the Soviets in­flicted on Axis forces up to that time. The Battle of Stalin­grad bled the Ger­man Army dry and turned the war in the East deci­sively against Nazi Ger­many. Neither Ger­many nor the Soviet Union could have fore­seen the horror that would face each other at Stalin­grad. In 1942, Germany's Fall Blau was initially aimed at capturing or interdicting shipments of oil from the Caucasus to the rest of the Soviet Union. At that time the Germans expected that their advance into the Caucasus would be so rapid that the Russians would not be able to severely damage the oil wells, and the … (The first had been Opera­tion Bar­ba­rossa begun the previous June, which had been in­tended to knock the Soviet Union out of the war.) 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Right: German bombers flatten Stalin­grad’s indus­trial center, November 16, 1942. Photo from Septem­ber 23, 1942. Six armies of over a million men led by Marshal Zhukov surrounded the city. His first task was to secure the oil fields in Caucasus. From the start of Operation Barbarossa, when German troops invaded the USSR in June 1941, until the end of the war, Azerbaijan produced 75 million tonnes of crude oil, 80% of the … After the Soviet breakthroughs in the region around Stalingrad, the German forces in the Caucusus were put on the defensive. The Russians could simply not afford to lose the battle. It was also a large industrial city producing large amounts of armaments for the Soviet war effort. Only 6,000 POWs lived through their ordeal to return to their homeland after the war. Hitler had expected the city fall quickly. They had made great inroads into the oil fields of the Caucasus (south-west Russia) which could have fuelled the war effort. At the end of the war Stalingrad was In 1945 Stalingrad was officially proclaimed a Hero City of the Soviet Union for its defense of the motherland. Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History by Peter G. Tsouras enables the reader to know details about the history of the battle of Stalingrad. Despite the setbacks of the previous year, Hitler wanted to go on the offensive. Contributor: C. Peter Chen ww2dbase The southern Russian city of Stalingrad was a major industrial city, producing tanks, among other equipment, for the Soviet war effort. Their eastern push into the Soviet Union had been so successful. The book's exhaustive detail in numerous battles shed light on event that might have change the the direction of … Operation Barbarossa, launched in June 1941, failed to achieve Hitler's objective of decisively defeating the Soviet Union in a single campaign. The summer offensive would be aimed instead at the southern USSR, especially the oil fields in the Caucasus. After all the city was an important centre for Soviet Union communications and transport to southern Russia. My main interests include the Second World War and Communism, especially in Russia and the former Yugoslavia. The Eastern Front and the Mediterranean The Battle of Stalingrad • Hitler wants to capture Caucasus oil fields and destroy Stalingrad • Soviets defeat Germans in bitter winter campaign - Over 230,000 Germans, 1,100,000 Soviets die • Battle a turning point: Soviet army begins to move towards Germany 2 SECTION NEXT The … Ranging from July 1942 to February 1943 the battle is considered by many historians to have been the turning point in the war in Europe. Photo from late August 1942. Leading up to the Battle of Stalingrad, the German Wehrmacht had already suffered multiple setbacks in Russia. Stalin sent Soviet reinforcements but they had to cross the Volga River and many of them drowned under the weight of their clothing and weapons. In order to encourage his army, Hitler made Paulus his Field Marshal on January 30, 1943 . The Battle of Stalin­grad bled the Ger­man Army dry and turned the war in the East deci­sively against Nazi Ger­many. Left: Beginning on August 23, 1942, the Luft­waffe bombed Stalin­grad block-by-block for five straight days. Germany had launched Operation Barbarossa, its ill-fated invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941. For the same reason, however, Stalin ordered that his city had to be saved at all costs. The Battle of Stalingrad … Paulus’ Sixth Army was inex­o­rably drawn into a Soviet quag­mire from which it was nearly im­pos­sible to escape. However, German forces occupied vast swathes of Soviet territory and industry, and the war was still going fairly well for the Germans. Captured German soldiers after the Battle of Stalingrad, January 1943. German army at the Battle of Moscow. The Wehrmacht's drive into the Caucasus in August 1942 seemed unstoppable, and taking the oil cities of Maikop, Grozny, and Baku would have solved one of Germany's most serious strategic problems. Thus they con­verted multi­story apart­ment houses, fac­tories, ware­houses, corner res­i­dences, and high-rise office buildings into strong­holds bristling with ma­chine guns, anti­tank rifles, mor­tars, mines, barbed wire, sni­pers, and small 5–10 man units of sub­machine gun­ners and gre­na­diers pre­pared for house-to-house, hand-to-hand combat. Copyright © 2012–2020 World War II - Day By Day. Finally, the city was also named after the Soviet Union’s leader and Hitler’s hatred of Stalin meant he could not let it go unconquered. Whilst at least initially, the Germans took control of much of the city they couldn’t fully control it. Things changed on July 9th when Hitler launched a huge attack to take both Moscow and the remaining oil fields in the Caucasus in one move. Instead Hitler turned his attention to Stalingrad. Stalingrad—situated on the Volga River, 566 miles southeast of Moscow—was a large industrial city but of limited strategic significance. The failure of the German army was a full-blown disaster. In the spring of 1941 the Armed Forces High Command activated the so-called Oil Detachment Caucasus for the purpose of taking over the oil fields. For the hero­ism of its defenders, Stalin­grad was one of four cities awarded the title “Hero City” in 1945. More than 1,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the city, but Stalin forbade any evacuation from the city, even of children. By September 1942, the German army began to advance on the city. Likewise, Russians could not let the Germans get hold of the oil fields in the Caucasus - The Russian Army was led by Zhukov with around 1,000,500 men, who were fighting against Paulus' army of 1,011,500 men. Nevertheless, Hitler demanded his soldiers fight to the last bullet but by January they had no choice but to surrender. Left: A reconnaissance photo of a rail­way station burning in Stalin­grad, late August 1942. -Germans wanted the oil fields of the Caucasus region-begins sept. 1, 1942-Germans capture much of the city in street fighting-nov 23, 1942 Germans get trapped in the city-German commander Von Poulus ordered to fight to the death-between jan 31 and feb 2, 300,000 German troops surrender-a major turning point on the eastern … I am currently studying for a PhD in History, a subject I am fascinated by. Some 105,000 enemy pri­soners were led away, most to their deaths. Soviet Union. The Battle of the Caucasus is a name given to a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area on the Eastern Front of World War II.On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, Russia, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union, and the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately … They had made great inroads into the oil fields of the Caucasus (south-west Russia) which could have fuelled the war effort. Battle of the Caucasus is similar to these military conflicts: Case Blue, Operation Little Saturn, Eastern Front (World War II) and more. (Fall Blau) of which the battle became a part. It shrank further following Allied landings in North Africa (Opera­tion Torch) in Novem­ber 1942, when Ger­mans were forced to with­draw air­craft from the East­ern Front in an ulti­mately failed attempt to save Axis fortunes in the Mediterranean. Undeterred, Hitler mounted “Operation Blue” in the spring of ’42 to seize both the rich oil fields in the Caucasus and the region’s rail junction and industrial center in Stalingrad. Dispatching some 3 or 4 million soldiers to the Eastern Front, Adolf Hitler hoped for a rapid victory.It was an all-out effort to crush the Soviet threat by capturing Ukraine to the south, the city of Leningrad — p… This is not to mention the 40,000 civilians killed as well. The German Army may have been able to use all of its force to break out of the trap and escape during the first stage of the Russians counter-attack but Hitler forbade them to do so. For example, Caucasus campaing , this book mainly focuses on, was largely overlook ,for the Battle of Stalingrad,notwithstanding the main strategic goal of the operation was obtaining the source of oil field in Baku. One rail­way station changed hands 14 times in six hours. This left the German army completely outnumbered and surrounded. Right: Stalingrad’s desperate defenders realized that their best defense con­sisted of an­choring their defense lines in numer­ous buildings. The Ger­man armored ad­vance resembled a knife slicing through a stick of butter—a re­run it seemed of the sum­mer of 1941, when the Red Army fell apart on the first armored im­pact. The Germans captured the city probably the the second week in November 1942. After all, the Russians had already been shocked and devastated by the German Blitzkrieg during Operation Barbarossa. The Soviet supply line along the Volga River would be a secondary objective. In December of 1941, after suffering multiple losses, the Soviet Union counterattacked German forces in the Battle of Moscow, successfully … The objective of this operation was to reach the Caucasus oil fields, and Glantz thinks the Germans could have achieved that, had they only concentrated their forces on this goal (vol. Operation Uranus … Stalingrad was men to be part of a large defensive front so that the Germans wouldn't be attacked from the rear while going for the oil fields. Russians consider it to be one of the greatest battles of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. The 199-day battle for con­trol of Stalin­grad pro­duced a monu­mental two million casualties on both sides. The great irony was that Hitler may not have needed to take Stalingrad. In addition, Germany also wanted to invade the region’s oil fields. Suddenly they were faced with hand-to-hand combat, often only yards away from the enemy. Stalin­grad proved to be a major turning point in the Euro­pean war, and for the first time the West­ern Allies began to hope the Soviets might tri­umph in their tita­nic con­fron­ta­tion with the Nazi in­vaders. In 1942, the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) launched Operation Edelweiss which was aimed at advancing to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. Germans plan to capture the Russian oil fields. V olgograd sits just above the Caucasus, an industrial city on the west bank of the Volga. Moreover, he also wanted to take control of the fertile oil fields situated in the Caucasus. Topic. Soviet military operation… In September 1942, General Paulus (Germany) advanced towards Stalingrad, assisted by the Fourth Panzer Army. Ignoring the Soviet capi­tal Mos­cow, whose fierce defense com­bined with a brutal win­ter had pre­vented its cap­ture earlier in the year, Fall Blau (Operation Blue in English) was in­stead directed south toward the stra­tegic Cau­casus oil and mineral fields and im­por­tant centers of Soviet war indus­try. The Ger­mans called this ever-present, often un­seen urban war­fare Ratten­krieg (“Rat War”). It’s objective: the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains. Four out of five Soviet aircraft, tanks and trucks used in World War II ran on fuel produced in Baku refineries from oil extracted in the Baku oil fields. It estimated that more than 800,000 Axis forces were killed, wounded or captured. Stalingrad is bombarded from air by artillery. The defensive front was also ment to protect the supply lines transporting oil back to … He gives an entirely different scenario of the battle of Stalingrad. That same day a mas­sive Ger­man air raid on Stalin­grad caused a fire­storm that killed thou­sands of civil­ians and turned the city of 900,000 res­i­dents into a land­scape of rubble and burned ruins. The Luft­waffe also rendered the River Volga, vital for ferrying supplies into the besieged city, un­usable to Soviet shipping. On June 28 th, 1942, Operation Blau/Blue commenced with multiple German and Romanian units were to capture the Caucasus Oil Fields for a plentiful supply of fuels. Stalingrad was located in the Soviet Union and was a major industrial center. The Germans attacked Stalingrad because they prioritized getting the oil fields in the Caucasus. The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most important battles of the Second World War. Animated map shows the Battle of Caucasus and the Crimea. On August 23 Gen. Fried­rich Paulus’ Sixth Army, part of Army Group South (B), entered the out­skirts of Stalin­grad (today’s Volgo­grad), a vital manu­fac­turing and trans­port cen­ter up­stream from Rostov. The German offensive slowed as it entered the mountains in the southern Caucasus and did not reach all of its 1942 objectives. By November the Russians launched a devastating counter-offensive. However, he had not taken into account the stand that the Russians would take in defence of the city named after their leader. For the hero­ism of its defenders, Stalin­grad was one of four cities awarded the title “Hero City” in 1945. The … In order to complete this task, Hitler ordered Paulus to take Stalingrad, with the final target being Baku. On the Soviet side, it is believed well over a million Soviet soldiers were killed. Smelling blood, Presi­dent Franklin D. Roos­evelt announced at the con­clu­sion of the Casa­blanca Con­fer­ence in Morocco between himself, British Prime Minis­ter Winston Chur­chill, and their joint chiefs of staff (January 14–23, 1943) that the Allies would require nothing less than Germany’s “unconditional surrender.”. Neither side could afford to lose the battle for city and thus it descended into one of the most bloody in the whole of the Second World War. Even though armies were diverted to Stalingrad and even Leningrad, the Germans managed to capture Maikop, and came within 50 miles of Grozny. This meant the Germans had to face the Russian winter, where temperatures dropped well below zero. Their eastern push into the Soviet Union had been so successful. After all, the ferocity of the fighting at Stalingrad shocked the Germans, who were used to the relative ease of their Blitzkrieg tactics. The Ger­mans killed 2,500 Soviet sol­diers each day, day after day, three times their losses. Instead Hitler turned his attention to Stalingrad. The Germans loss of such a vast amount of manpower and equipment seriously hindered the rest of their war in Eastern Europe. As the conditions were becoming hostile, Hitler played his last card. The German army was also low on food and ammunition. After August 25, the Soviets stopped recording civil­ian and mili­tary casu­al­ties as a result of air raids. 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