Unseen pictures of Battle of Stalingrad

The Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942. Part of the German 6th Army advancing on Stalingrad.




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THE BATTLE FOR STALINGRAD (Source: BBC)

The tables were turned when Hitler set in motion one of the bitterest conflicts of the 20th century - the Battle of Stalingrad. In the spring of 1942, he launched a two-pronged attack in what he believed would be his final offensive in the East.
One set of troops headed towards Baku and it's rich oil resources, whilst a second group pushed towards Stalingrad and the Volga. After more than a year of bitter defeats, the Soviet army was exhausted and demoralised, but it started to employ a new tactic - the fighting retreat - which put a strain on German supply lines. Soviet soldiers were no longer instructed by their generals to stand their ground at all costs. Instead they retreated - to avoid capture and continue fighting.

The Germans cross the River Volga on their way to Stalingrad. August 23, 1942 German 14 Panzer Corps broke through the front 62 Army in the area Vertyachego and traveled 72 kms per day, and reached the Volga north of Stalingrad.



The Germans moved swiftly forward, reaching the banks of the River Volga. The German soldiers of Army Group B had one last major task - to take the city of Stalingrad on the west bank of the Volga.
And so began the bitter and bloody battle. More than 1,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the city, but Stalin initially forbade any evacuation from the city, even of children. Soviet reinforcements had to cross the Volga from the east and many of them drowned under the weight of their clothing and weapons. The average life-expectancy of a Soviet private soldier during the battle of Stalingrad was just 24 hours.The infamous Penal Units - some of them including political prisoners - took part in suicidal missions as a way of atoning for their 'sins'. By the end of the siege, one million Soviet soldiers had died on the Stalingrad front.
The ferocity of the fighting at Stalingrad shocked the Germans, who were used to the relative ease of their Blitzkrieg tactics. Suddenly they were faced with hand-to-hand combat, often only yards away from the enemy. 'Our principle was to grab hold of the enemy and not let go; to hold him very close - as you'd hold a loved one', says Anatoly Mersko, who served under General Chuikov.
Soviet veteran Suren Mirzoyan remembers the blood lust of the time. 'I was like a beast. I wanted only one thing - to kill. You know how it looks when you squeeze a tomato and juice comes out? Well, it looked like that when I stabbed them. Blood everywhere. Every step in Stalingrad meant death. Death was in our pockets. Death was walking with us.'
As the battle raged, it was also time of terror for ethnic minorities on both sides of the dispute. In Germany, Hitler's 'final solution' reached it's horrific climax in extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau. Life expectancy for many on arrival could be measured in just hours.
In the USSR, meantime, Stalin's ruthless approach to punishing ethnic collaborators in the Soviet Union meant that whole ethnic nations were forcibly exiled to Siberia as punishment for the small number of collaborators in their midst. One of the ethnic groups who suffered most were the Kalmyks from the steppe south of Stalingrad. Stalin ordered every ethnic Kalmyk, including women and children, to be 'relocated' to even more remote regions of the Soviet Union.
Whole families were crammed onto insanitary transport trains. Many didn't survive the long journey. Officially, 93,000 Kalmyks, 68,000 Karachai people, 500,000 Chechens, 340,000 Balkars and 180,000 Tartars were deported. The figures are almost certainly underestimates.


Street fighting in Stalingrad. Initially the Germans were full of confidence. They felt that the city would fall soon, but the Russians surprised them. A nasty surprise, if I may say so.



THE GERMAN SIXTH ARMY

The German 6th Army was a field army which was created after the Franco-Prussian war and the German unification by the second half of the 19th century. The glorious 6th Army had its baptism of fire during World War I and its nemesis during World War II at the hands of the Russian winter, collapsing at the Battle of Stalingrad, for which it is best known. It was mostly composed of infantry elements. As a field army, the German 6th Army was a formation superior to a corps and beneath an army group. It consisted of a headquarters, which usually controlled at least two corps, and a variable number of divisions.

At the outbreak of World War I, the 6th Army was composed of 10 divisions organized around 5 corps; it was commanded by Prince Rupprecht von Bayern. When the French Plan XVII was launched in August 1914, it was deployed in the Central sector that covered Lorraine. In August 1914, in the Battle of Lorraine, Rupprecht’s 6th Army used a feigned withdrawal to lure the advancing armies onto prepared defensive positions and managed to resist the French fierce attack. When the Western Front got bogged down in a stalemate warfare, with the opposing forces forming lines of trenches, the 6th Army was based in Northern France. On September 24, 1915, the 6th Army was the target of the British Army’s first chlorine gas attack of the war. Despite having suffered horrific casualties, the Germans held the line as the British attacks were kept in check.

During World War II, the German 6th Army was reorganized in October 1939, after the Polish Campaign, using elements of the former 10th Army, under the command of Walther von Reichenau. In May 1940, it took part in the invasion of the Low Countries and linked up with the German paratroopers who destroyed the fortifications at Eben Emael, Liège, and fought in the Battle of Belgium. Then the 6th Army participated in the breakthrough of the Paris defenses on June 12, 1940, before acting as a northern flank for German forces along the Normandy coast during the last stages of the Battle of France.

When Operation Barbarossa was launched on June 22, 1941, the 6th Army was the spearhead of Army Group South in its drive into Soviet territory. In January, 1942, Friedrich Paulus was appointed commander of the 6th Army, replacing von Reichenau, who had suffered a heart attack. The new commander led the 6th Army during the ferocious Second Battle of Kharkov, which took place in the spring of 1942. The victory at Kharkov sealed the 6th Army’s destiny as it was selected later that year by the German High Command for the attack on Stalingrad. As the German 6th Amry could not capture the city fast, the Russian winter came and the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, which was a Soviet counter-attack by Soviet that surrounded the Germans in a pincers movement from November 19 to November 23, 1942. Thus 6th Army was trapped. A relief operation, called Operation Wintergewitter, conducted by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein failed to provide the Germans with adecuate military and food supply. By January 31, 1943, the 6th Army of Friedrich Paulus had been reduced from 800,000 men to 85,000, and on February 2, Friedrich Paulus surrendered.

Then came the fierce winter and the even fiercer Russian opposition. Winter, 1942.

Autumn 1942 saw some very heavy fighting. Building to building. Street to street.

The Germans were running out of supplies. The Luftwaffe tried heroically to keep it going but that too stopped when the last airstrip under German control fell. Above two Germans froze to death.
A Russian soldier uses a flame-thrower.

Russians move on the outskirts of Stalingrad

Russian marines join the action

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Quotes about war....

"War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man."
--Napoleon Hill

"We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide."
--Havelock Ellis

'Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
--Mao Tse-Tung (1893 - 1976)

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."
--George McGovern

"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."
--Joseph Stalin

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
--Voltaire, War

In war, truth is the first casualty.
-- Aeschylus

"The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery."
--Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
--Adolf Hitler

"To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization."
--George Orwell

"Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country."
--Bertrand Russell

Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.
--Francis Meehan

Snippets From History

German Soldiers in Russia: Part 1

Hubert Menzel was a major in the General Operations Department of the OKH (the Oberkommando des Heers, the German Army headquarters), and for him the idea of invading the Soviet Union in 1941 had the smack of cold, clear logic to it: 'We knew that in two years' time, that is by the end of 1942, beginning of 1943, the English would be ready, the Americans would be ready, the Russians would be ready too, and then we would have to deal with all three of them at the same time.... We had to try to remove the greatest threat from the East.... At the time it seemed possible.'
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Battle for Berlin, 1945

'We started to fire at the masses,' says one former German machine gunner. 'They weren't human beings for us. It was a wall of attacking beasts who were trying to kill us. You yourself were no longer human.'

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Berlin after it fell to the Russians, 1945

"Vladlen Anchishkin, a Soviet battery commander on the 1st Ukrainian Front, sums up the horror of the whole event, when he tells how he took personal revenge on German soldiers: 'I can admit it now, I was in such a state, I was in such a frenzy. I said, 'Bring them here for an interrogation' and I had a knife, and I cut him. I cut a lot of them. I thought, 'You wanted to kill me, now it's your turn.'
Read More

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Dramatic Pictures: Battle For Stalingrad
"...Effective command no longer possible... further defense senseless. Collapse inevitable. Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops."
General Paulus' radio message to Hitler on January 24, 1943

"...Capitulation is impossible. The 6th Army will do its historic duty at Stalingrad until the last man, the last bullet..."

Hitler's response to General Friedrich Paulus' request to withdraw from the city

READ MORE>>>

Points To Ponder....

The fall of France was shocking. It reduced France to virtually a non-player in the Second World War. The efforts of Charles de Gualle were more symbolic than material. But the martial instincts of the French must never be doubted. Under Napoleon they were a formidable military power. The French definitely have more iron in their blood then say, the Italians [I do not mean it in a derogatory sense. War never makes sense]

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Bias Of Western Historians

Soviet resistance made possible a successful Allied invasion of France, and ensured the final Allied victory over Germany.

It can hardly be called mere 'resistance'! If it hadn't been for the Russians, Hitler would have made mincemeat of British forces in Africa and landed on British shores in no time. Hitler attacked Russia first because it had more land and resources than Britain. It is as simple as that.

READ MORE>>>>
Eastern Front: Bias Of Western Historians