Eighty years ago today, the bloodiest battle in human history came to an end.
Bloodiest certainly relating to the staggering amount of casualties incurred by both sides – estimated to be as high as two million total. An almost unfathomable number in terms of a single military engagement, albeit spread over nearly half a year of fighting.
The Battle of Stalingrad, fought between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on the Eastern European front of the Second World War in 1942-43, was also markedly different in any previous engagement of any previous conflict. The ferocity in which it was waged between two opponents that genuinely despised each other’s very existence was unparalleled, with the industrial city on the banks of the River Volga proving to be a decisive turning point of the entire European Theatre.
And it all started over a name. And two maniacal egos unwilling to back down, no matter the countless lives it cost.
After breaking a non-aggression pact signed with the Soviets in 1939 and launching Operation Barbarossa the previous summer, the German army’s advance across western Russia was gradually slowed at Moscow in the fall of 1942. Invading the vast Soviet Union required a monumental logistical effort in terms of adequate supply lines; fuel was obviously a vital resource needed to keep the Wehrmacht’s tanks and trucks rolling forward. Three years of waging war on three separate fronts was beginning to wear down Germany’s direct resources.
To that end, Adolf Hitler decided to send a large portion of his eastern army south to seize vital oil fields in the vicinity of Baku to help fuel his war machine. While plotting the move, Hitler also sees a golden opportunity to deal an embarrassing personal blow to his nemesis, Joseph Stalin. And so he splits his forces and sends the 4th and 6th German armies to occupy Stalingrad, which of course bears a name carrying some weight with the Soviet leader.
While holding a fairly high level of strategic value as a munitions-producing centre and transport hub, given what we know about Stalin today you can bet that his reasoning for pouring millions of troops into Stalingrad’s defense mostly related to its handle. Hitler and the German forces up until that point had mostly forced the Soviets on the run, further and further into central Russia. Stalingrad evidently was the last straw.
“There is no land beyond the Volga” was the simple statement Stalin relayed to his generals and soldiers. They got the message, but the Red Army would pay dearly over the next 202 days.
Beginning in late August, the early stages of the Battle of Stalingrad saw the Germans literally taking it to the Russians. A lack of adequate supplies and general troop placement confusion had the Soviets scrambling to stage a proper defense; the Soviet Union was often like a clumsy giant when preparing for war – it took a long time to get everything in order, but once it did it was a tall order in stopping it. A heavy bombing blitz courtesy of the Luftwaffe followed by a steady artillery shelling had reduced the city to rubble prior to the German army’s arrival, with Stalingrad’s approximately 450,000 civilians caught with no where to go – Stalin had ordered that no one would leave the city until the battle was won. A great many of those civilians would not survive.
Gen. Friedrich Paulus commanded the German 6th Army, and after a nearly three-month slog had captured about 90 per cent of the now ruined city. Soviet commander Vasily Chuikov was assigned to head the 62nd Army in September, and gradually began to change the tactics of the battle in Russia’s favour. Chuikov knew from previous experience that the Germans preferred to utilize their planes, tanks and artillery in as much of a distanced fight as possible; he would bring the two sides painfully close in an urban combat environment, a process he called “hugging the enemy.”
The tight quarters and seemingly endless supply of hiding places also gave way to another type of soldier taking prominence in the battle – the sniper. The Red Army was among the first to regularly utilize women in combat, with female snipers playing an especially critical role at Stalingrad. It’s been recorded that German soldiers were completely astonished at facing women combatants for the first time on the Eastern Front.
With the Germans bogged down in the city and engaged in vicious building-to-building (and room-to-room) fighting, the Soviets were able to pull off an offensive that completely caught Paulus and the 6th Army by surprise in November 1942. Utilizing what is estimated to be several hundred thousand troops moved secretly into position, the Red Army used a two-pronged pincer manoeuvre that surrounded 265,000 Axis personnel (also consisting of Italians, Romanians and other support troops). Cut off from any sort of reasonable supply other than the flimsy and unorganized efforts of Hermann Goring and his shrinking air force, the Germans were short on ammunition, proper winter clothing and food. And the Russian winter was just getting started.
Despite Germany having no hope for victory, rescue or escape, Hitler demanded that Paulus hang on and fight to the last man. Two more months of bitter hostilities resulted in the capture of the German headquarters and Paulus himself on Jan. 31, 1943. The battle was officially declared a resounding victory for the Soviet Union on Feb. 2; 90,000 Germans would surrender – only about 5,000 ever made it back to Germany. It was Germany’s first true decisive defeat of the Second World War, and aside from the Battle of Kursk later in 1943 and the Battle of the Bulge in southern Belgium between December 1944 and January 1945, the Nazis would largely be on the defensive the rest of the way.
There have been varying estimates of the total casualties sustained in the Battle of Stalingrad. As previously mentioned, it is as high as two million killed, wounded or missing. Between Germany and the Soviet Union, it is believed that approximately one million soldiers and civilians died. To put that into perspective, more died at Stalingrad than the number of Americans that were killed in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, First World War, Korean War and Vietnam War combined. In a single battle. Absolutely shocking figures.
Stalin ultimately won the battle for his namesake, and that victory triggered the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. The brutal dictator died in 1953, and his prized city was renamed to Volgograd eight years later as part of ‘de-Stalinization’ efforts by the Soviet government. In the end, Stalin’s own country recognized that even he wasn’t worthy of having a city named after him. Thirty years of making his own population suffer brutal hardships evidently soured the Soviets on his legacy.
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This is a bi-weekly opinion column; for question or comment contact Dan McNee at dmcnee@midwesternnewspapers.com.
