Occasionally Italian actions were mentioned in official German communiques. The main attack (led by the 14th Panzer and 305th Infantry Divisions) attacked towards the tractor factory, while another assault led by the 24th Panzer Division hit to the south of the giant plant. "L-shaped house" was a five-six-story "Stalinka", from the upper floors from which German spotters could view almost the entire bridgehead of the 13th Guards Rifle Division. Hence it was ineffective in relieving the 6th Army. The German command rightly believed that the tasks of the infantry divisions in the center of the city were fully completed: the Volga shore was reached, the main crossing of the Russians ceased to function. [132] Manstein was tasked to conduct a relief operation, named Operation Winter Storm (Unternehmen Wintergewitter) against Stalingrad, which he thought was feasible if the 6th Army was temporarily supplied through the air. Despite daily artillery and mortar shelling, life continued on the bridgehead. On 31 January, regular programmes on German state radio were replaced by a broadcast of the sombre Adagio movement from Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, followed by the announcement of the defeat at Stalingrad. However, the participants themselves - fighters and commanders of the 13th Guards Rifle Division - attached much more importance to these events than the notorious legend. He telegraphed the 6th Army later that day, claiming that it had made a historic contribution to the greatest struggle in German history and that it should stand fast "to the last soldier and the last bullet". Description. The VVS bases in the immediate area lost 201 aircraft between 23 and 31 August, and despite meagre reinforcements of some 100 aircraft in August, it was left with just 192 serviceable aircraft, 57 of which were fighters. The problem of replenishment quality was very acute in this period: at the end of September, six Uzbeks - what all the people from Central Asia were called in the 62nd Army - were shot for "self-shooting" in the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment. [182] Stalingrad marked the first time that the Nazi government publicly acknowledged a failure in its war effort. Hitler was confident that he could break the Red Army despite the heavy German losses west of Moscow in winter 194142, because Army Group Centre (Heeresgruppe Mitte) had been unable to engage 65% of its infantry, which had meanwhile been rested and re-equipped. Stalingrad - Pavlov's house | WW2Talk Any movement - whether a fighter, running from entrance to entrance, or a civilian in search of food - drew fire. Yes, we felt better. Then we came into the yard. [129] The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that Manstein distorted his record on the matter. The garrison was subordinate to the commander of the 7th rifle company of the 42nd Guards rifle regiment, senior lieutenant II Naumov, whose command post was at the main position of the company, but he often visited the Pavlov House and repeatedly participated in repelling attacks along with his defenders. The mill was put into operation, and flour sales began on 1 August 1900. By the end of July, the Germans had pushed the Soviets across the Don River. Suffering losses, the group retreated again. [58] Civilians, including women and children, were put to work building trenchworks and protective fortifications. [citation needed], A significant historical debate concerns the degree of terror in the Red Army. [200] Britain's conservative The Daily Telegraph proclaimed that the victory had saved European civilisation. In the early parts of the operation, fuel was shipped at a higher priority than food and ammunition because of a belief that there would be a breakout from the city. Choppy overview of the battle with detail on a few specific figures. [5][4] After several days, reinforcements and resupply arrived for Pavlov's men, bringing the unit up to a 25-man understrength platoon and equipping the defenders with machine guns, anti-tank rifles, and mortars. This would allow the Germans in the city to fight on temporarily while a relief force was assembled. Ultimately, however, Romanian armoured warfare proved to be a tactical success, as the Romanians destroyed 127 Soviet tanks for the cost of their 100 lost units. During the preparations for the attack, Marshal Zhukov personally visited the front and noticing the poor organisation, insisted on a one-week delay in the start date of the planned attack. Photograph by D. Zimin and A. Skvorin. Here is a recent article I have translated from Russian which describes the true story of Pavlov's House and the struggles of the 13th Guards Rifle Division in Stalingrad in the Autumn of 1942. A unique video: the State Bank after the August bombing. The German offensive started well. The Germans used aircraft, tanks and heavy artillery to clear the city with varying degrees of success. Fliegerkorps dispatched wave after wave of Stuka dive-bombers to prevent a breakthrough. A massive German air raid on 23 August caused a firestorm, killing hundreds and turning Stalingrad into a vast landscape of rubble and burnt ruins. A colossal monument called The Motherland Calls was erected in 1967 on Mamayev Kurgan, the hill overlooking the city where bones and rusty metal splinters can still be found. [13], After the war Pavlov communicated little with his ex-comrades, with many of them bewildered by his fame and in disagreement with the story that had been built around Pavlov. In 1985 a memorial was erected, listing the names of the garrison. Overy, Richard. The 369th (Croatian) Reinforced Infantry Regiment was the only non-German unit[57] selected by the Wehrmacht to enter Stalingrad city during assault operations. During the defence of Stalingrad, the Red Army deployed five armies in and around the city (28th, 51st, 57th, 62nd and 64th Armies); and an additional nine armies in the encirclement counteroffensive[51] (24th, 65th, 66th Armies and 16th Air Army from the north as part of the Don Front offensive, and 1st Guards Army, 5th Tank, 21st Army, 2nd Air Army and 17th Air Army from the south as part of the Southwestern Front). Stalingrad was practically lost - and, therefore, evidence of the opposite was required, examples of a long and successful defense. Gerhardt's Mill (Russian: ) is a building of historical significance in the Battle of Stalingrad. Two photographs taken by photojournalist S. Loskutov in the fall of 1942 in trenches east of the ruins of the NKVD complex. The northern flank was defended by Hungarian and Romanian units, often in open positions on the steppes. "[119], Because of the total focus on the city, the Axis forces had neglected for months to consolidate their positions along the natural defensive line of the Don River. Equally with men they bore all the burdens of combat life and together with us men, they went all the way to Berlin. It consisted of two Romanian cavalry divisions and the 23rd Panzer Division, which mustered no more than thirty serviceable tanks. Most died of wounds, disease (particularly typhus), cold, overwork, mistreatment and malnutrition. Orlyankin, with a real risk of catching a bullet - the position of the Germans was a hundred meters of open space away on Solnechnaya street. For the Germans it was a mystery how the garrison on the upper floors was supplied. Your email address will not be published. 282,606 in the 6th Army from 21 August to the end of the battle; 17,293 in the 4th Panzer Army from 21 August to 31 January; 55,260 in the. rata kad nemaka vojska duboko je zagazil. The Soviet forces raced west and met on 23 November at the town of Kalach, sealing the ring around Stalingrad. But already the enemy was attacking the station with their battle-cries of 'Urrah! The Stalingrad Tractor Factory continued to turn out T-34 tanks up until German troops burst into the plant. At this moment, Pavlov took a fateful decision - not only to explore the house, but also to try to seize it. [28]:522 In the east, the Germans had stabilised a front running from Leningrad south to Rostov, with a number of minor salients. Stalin was feted as the hero of the hour and made a Marshal of the Soviet Union. Having avoided the military security, the German infantry came close to the positions of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment. It follows a platoon of German Army soldiers transferred to the Eastern Front of World War II, where they find themselves fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad . F. Pavlov was the commander of the assault group that seized the building, and the defense was led by senior lieutenant IF Afanasyev. [93] Women staffed a great many of the anti-aircraft batteries that fought not only the Luftwaffe but German tanks. The Soviet front's composition and names changed several times in the battle. The Stukas claimed 41 of the 106 Soviet tanks knocked out that morning, while escorting Bf 109s destroyed 77 Soviet aircraft. [111], The Soviet bomber force, the Aviatsiya Dal'nego Deystviya (Long Range Aviation; ADD), having taken crippling losses over the past 18 months, was restricted to flying at night. The article took a U-turn from the others and was an excellent example of army agitprop. Out of the ruins, the Germans tossed TNT, grenades and bottles with a combustible mixture at the squatted guardsmen with. The Soviets did not bother employing tanks in areas where urban destruction restricted their mobility. Stalingrad was strategically important to both sides as a major industrial and transport hub on the Volga River. Battle of Stalingrad, (July 17, 1942-February 2, 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russia, U.S.S.R., during World War II. Troops on both sides faced the constant strain of close-range combat. A new building was built on the same site by May 1908. Only a few episodes were hidden for many years in the famous Stalingrad photos taken by the correspondent Georgy Zelma. The man was probably already dying. [141] Transport aircraft also evacuated technical specialists and sick or wounded personnel from the besieged enclave. After being put on public display in Britain, this was presented to Stalin by Winston Churchill at the Tehran Conference later in 1943. The high ground dominated the surrounding area, and German spotters had a good view of the positions of the Soviet troops, the bank, and the river nearby. The soldiers surrounded it with minefields, set up machine-gun positions at the windows and breached the walls in the basement for better communications. There were cases when German soldiers, in order to cross the shot area, changed into women's clothes. The 62nd Army had been cut in two and, due to intensive air attack on its supply ferries, was receiving much less material support. STALJINGRAD (Nemaki Film) - Ceo Film sa prevodom - YouTube When Rodimtsev's division was visited by reporter Vasily Grossman, he talked for a long time with Chekhov, a modest and thoughtful guy, who at the age of 19 became an excellent killing machine. [97] At least three women won the title Hero of the Soviet Union while driving tanks at Stalingrad.[99]. [197], Regardless of the strategic implications, there is little doubt about Stalingrad's symbolism. With the Soviets forced into a 1-kilometre (1,000-yard) strip of land on the western bank of the Volga, over 1,208 Stuka missions were flown in an effort to eliminate them. He had been crouching over another cesspool, and now, noticing us, he was hastily pulling up his pants, and then he slunk away into the door of the basement. Whoever controlled Stalingrad would have access to the oil fields of the Caucasus and would gain control of the Volga. In late October and early November, their weakened opponents practically did not conduct of active fighting in the center of the city. During the Battle of Stalingrad, Gerhardt's Mill became the final frontier, with the Soviet Red Army deterring the army of German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus on the approaches to the Volga. Battle for Stalingrad: the 1943 Soviet General Staff study. Here lay more more [sic?] However, the predictable nature of the relief operation brought significant risk for all German forces in the area. For two months, subdivisions of the 34th and 42nd Guards Rifle Regiments tried to knock out the Germans from these fortified points. 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 51st Army Corps' 295th Infantry Division went after the Mamayev Kurgan hill, the 71st attacked the central rail station and toward the central landing stage on the Volga, while 48th Panzer Corps attacked south of the Tsaritsa River. The Battle of Stalingrad was fought between the German 6th Army and a large number of Soviet Armies lasted from 23 August 1942 until 2 February 1943 for control of the city of Stalingrad in the south-western Soviet Union. The German air arm found itself spread thinly across Europe, struggling to maintain its strength in the other southern sectors of the Soviet-German front. The building was semi-surrounded for 58 days, and during those days it sustained numerous hits from air bombs and shells. On October 24, during the second attack, the Railwaymen's House was shelled by 152 mm howitzers from the right bank of the Volga. [205], The events of the Battle for Stalingrad have been covered in numerous media works of British, American, German, and Russian origin,[206] for its significance as a turning point in the Second World War and for the loss of life associated with the battle. At the start, Stalingrad was no more than a name on the map to us. On August 23, Paulus's mobile formations were spread out on their approach to Stalingrad. Several rooms were covered with fire, a machine gun and 37-mm cannon were destroyed, and the advanced group engaged in a fire fight. Soviet offensives in the central and northern portions of the Eastern Front tied down Luftwaffe reserves and newly built aircraft, reducing Luftflotte 4's percentage of Eastern Front aircraft from 60 percent on 28 June to 38 percent by 20 September. In the post-war memories of Zhukov everything looks somewhat different. Incredible Urban Combat Pictures From Stalingrad - Not One Step Back [97] Women were also snipers at Stalingrad. [3], The house was a four-story building in the center of Stalingrad, built perpendicular to the embankment of the river Volga and overseeing the "9th January Square", a large square named for Bloody Sunday. The northern pocket consisting of the VIIIth Corps, under General Walter Heitz, and the XIth Corps, was now cut off from telephone communication with Paulus in the southern pocket. Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group. [71] During the battle the 62nd Army had the most arrests and executions: 203 in all, of which 49 were executed, while 139 were sent to penal companies and battalions. In that basement[] there were still two hundred Germansdying of hunger and frostbite. The history of the mill began in 1899, when the Gerhardt family of entrepreneurs received permission to build a flour-grinding complex in what is now central Volgograd, overlooking the River Volga. German archives do not support the claim for heavy fighting for the building, and Soviet military archives attach no particular importance to the house as a defensive structure. at Stalingrad Catherine Merridale notes that, seemingly paradoxically, "their response was frequently relief. When asked by Hitler, Gring replied, after being convinced by Hans Jeschonnek,[135] that the Luftwaffe could supply the 6th Army with an "air bridge". The defenders, as well as the civilians hiding in the basement, were eventually relieved by counter-attacking Soviet forces after holding out from 27 September to 25 November 1942.