Combat raged for several days at the giant grain elevator in the south of the city. It has been argued that whilst the house was heavily fortified, there were limited assaults against it and it was amongst the first buildings in Stalingrad to be restored after the war, having received comparatively limited damage. 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". Two groups were created: the group of Lieutenant Zabolotny and Sergeant Pavlov, who captured these houses. The Romanian forces, made up primarily of infantry, were overrun by large numbers of tanks. 6 and a five-story building of a military exchange. [178], More Soviet tanks were destroyed as they overran the Romanian airfields. Nevertheless, they continued to resist, in part because they believed the Soviets would execute any who surrendered. What happened next is known only from the words of Yakov Pavlov himself. Even with the desperate situation of the 6th Army, Army Group A continued their invasion of the Caucasus further south from 19 November until 19 December. "[91] Infantryman Lev Lvovich's explanation, for example, is typical for these interviews; as he recalls, "[i]t was a necessary and important step. One of the mortar companies was commanded by Lieutenant G.E. Snipers on both sides used the ruins to inflict casualties. [189] He remained in the Soviet Union until 1952, then moved to Dresden in East Germany, where he spent the remainder of his days defending his actions at Stalingrad and was quoted as saying that Communism was the best hope for postwar Europe. Seeing no point in continuing, he sent a radio message saying that his command had done its duty and fought to the last man. The exhausted opponents dug themselves deeper into the ground. We did not go into the basement itself what was the use? At night, the small bridgehead was revived and resembled an anthill: the soldiers hastily unloaded the boats with ammunition, and the commanders raised small groups of replenishment for positions. In addition to the main attack on the Krutoy ravine, subdivisions of the 295th Infantry Division attacked the positions of the 3rd battalion of the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment on Republican street, where the battalion was struck from the side of the unfinished "Railwaymen's House" at the junction between the 3rd Battalion of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment and 2nd battalion of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment. It consisted of two Romanian cavalry divisions and the 23rd Panzer Division, which mustered no more than thirty serviceable tanks. Pavlov's House ( Russian: tr. [96] Though women were not usually trained as infantry, many Soviet women fought as machine gunners, mortar operators, and scouts. Pavlov was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union for his actions. Having slowly advanced over 10 days against strong Soviet resistance, the 51st Army Corps was finally in front of the three giant factories of Stalingrad: the Red October Steel Factory, the Barrikady Arms Factory and Stalingrad Tractor Factory. This Army Group was created on 21 November 1942 from parts of Army Group B in order for it to hold the line between. Operation Torch November 8, 1942 Allied landing in French North Africa, Gerhardt's Mill - Stalingrad WW2 Monument. "[50] The battle earned him one of his two Hero of the Soviet Union awards. Memory, Images from the Battle of Stalingrad (Getty), The photo album of Wehrmacht NCO named Nemela of 9. To the south, Army Group A was pushing far into the Caucasus, but their advance slowed as supply lines grew overextended. Hitler told Goebbels that the plight of the 6th Army was a "heroic drama of German history". Historical Memorial Complex "To the Heroes of the Stalingrad Battle" at Mamayev Hill. Bric. (1990). At a minimum, 500 tons were required. Initially, supply flights came in from the field at Tatsinskaya,[142] called 'Tazi' by the German pilots. Chuikov, in a clear order, forbade offensive operations by whole units - companies or battalions - which would result in heavy losses. Starting 23 October 1942, Romanian pilots flew a total of 4,000 sorties, during which they destroyed 61 Soviet aircraft. [95] Many of the Soviet wireless and telephone operators were women who often suffered heavy casualties when their command posts came under fire. Based on Soviet records, over 11,000 German soldiers continued to resist in isolated groups within the city for the next month. [30][31][32], On 23 July 1942, Hitler personally rewrote the operational objectives for the 1942 campaign, greatly expanding them to include the occupation of the city of Stalingrad. Aleksandrov, V.S.Glushchenko, N.Ya. 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 battle commenced in August 1942 and finally ended in February 1943 when the last of the German forces surrendered. The man was probably already dying. Paulus refused, concerned about the Red Army attacks on the flank of Army Group Don and Army Group B in their advance on Rostov-on-Don, "an early abandonment" of Stalingrad "would result in the destruction of Army Group A in the Caucasus", and the fact that his 6th Army tanks only had fuel for a 30km advance towards Hoth's spearhead, a futile effort if they did not receive assurance of resupply by air. Army Group South (A), under the command of Wilhelm List, was to continue advancing south towards the Caucasus as planned with the 17th Army and First Panzer Army. Army Group Don was formed under Field Marshal von Manstein. Both huge structures were heavily fortified and looked more like impregnable fortresses. What is significant - in the first stories about the seizure of house number 61 on Penza Street it was clearly stated that the Germans were not there. [70] Deserters and perceived malingerers were captured or executed after fighting. On 5 September, the Soviet 24th and 66th Armies organized a massive attack against XIV Panzer Corps. He acknowledged the heavy moral sacrifice that giving up Stalingrad would mean, but this would be made easier to bear by conserving the combat power of the Sixth Army and regaining the initiative. How three million Germans died after VE Day. The assault team had to withdraw, during which the company commander was killed and the battalion commander wounded. On 2 February 1943, the German 6th Army, having exhausted their ammunition and food, finally capitulated after over five months of fighting, making it the first of Hitler's field armies to surrender during World War II. The Germans made slow but steady progress through the city. Around 40,000 civilians were taken to Germany as slave workers, some fled during battle and a small number were evacuated by the Soviets, but by February 1943 only 10,000 to 60,000 civilians were still alive. The prisoners included 22 generals. Panikhina. The planned summer offensive, code-named Fall Blau (Case Blue), was to include the German 6th, 17th, 4th Panzer and 1st Panzer Armies. Poor weather prevented effective air action against the Soviet offensive. It fought as part of the 100th Jger Division. The Soviet Air Force, the Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily (VVS), was swept aside by the Luftwaffe. Location of army's units is as it was previously. The Battle of Stalingrad (German: Schlacht von Stalingrad [laxt fn talngat]; Russian: , tr. During the day the streets and ruins of the city were dead. But the division, encircled and pressed to the Volga, stood its ground, holding several blocks in the city center. Photo from the collection of Dirk Jeschke (Dirk Jeschke) provided by Anton Jolie. The LVII Panzer Corps, commanded by General Friedrich Kirchner, had been weak at first. The initial objectives in the region around Stalingrad were to destroy the industrial capacity of the city and to block the Volga River traffic connecting the Caucasus and Caspian Sea to central Russia, as the city is strategically located near a big bend of the Volga. The first was not completed before the war except for the foundation and the northern wing. In spite of the failure of the German offensive to reach the 6th Army, the air supply operation continued under ever more difficult circumstances. The defense of this house alone lasted 58 days. He said that he had been taken by surprise. [117], Recognising that German troops were ill-prepared for offensive operations during the winter of 1942 and that most of them were redeployed elsewhere on the southern sector of the Eastern Front, the Stavka decided to conduct a number of offensive operations between 19 November 1942 and 2 February 1943. On the morning of October 1, his mutilated body was found in the broken staff dugouts. Due to a limited number of available aircraft and having only one available airfield, at Pitomnik, the Luftwaffe could only deliver 105 tonnes of supplies per day, only a fraction of the minimum 750 tonnes that both Paulus and Zeitzler estimated the 6th Army needed. Each time German infantry or tanks tried to cross the square and to close in on the house, Pavlov's men laid down a withering barrage of machine gun and AT rifle fire from the basement, the windows and the roof. The headquarters of the dugouts had a hand-to-hand fight, the Russians and Germans killing each other with furious faces. Choice Reviews Online, 27(05), pp.27-2848-27-2848. The armies in the area were also poorly equipped in terms of anti-tank weapons. Stalingrad (1993) HD quality, English Subtitles Bronne Bruzgo 1.81K subscribers Subscribe 15K Share Save 899K views 2 years ago An HD version of the 1993 cult classic, with updated subs for. A view from the German side. The strike was planned at the most vulnerable point of Rodimtsevs divisions defense - the Dolgiy and Krutoy ravine area, where the joint was with the 284th Rifle Division. But already the enemy was attacking the station with their battle-cries of 'Urrah! [182] Stalingrad marked the first time that the Nazi government publicly acknowledged a failure in its war effort. The day October 1 almost became the last for the defenders of the small bridgehead. In another part of the city, a Soviet platoon under the command of Sergeant Yakov Pavlov fortified a four-story building that oversaw a square 300 meters from the river bank, later called Pavlov's House. The small bridgehead of the 13th Guards Rifle Division in the end turned out to be away from the main events, literally in the backyard of the epochal battle for Stalingrad. Judging by the direction of the trench, the mortar shelling hits the military exchange. To support the offensive, a sapper battalion arrived from the commander of the engineering troops of the 6th Army, Max von Stiotta ( Max Edler von Stiotta ). Hiwi often proved to be reliable Axis personnel in rear areas and were used for supporting roles, but also served in some front-line units as their numbers had increased.[126]. David Glantz indicated[52] that four hard-fought battles collectively known as the Kotluban Operations north of Stalingrad, where the Soviets made their greatest stand, decided Germany's fate before the Nazis ever set foot in the city itself, and were a turning point in the war. [197], At this point, the British had won the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942. Some 1,000 tons of bombs were dropped in 48 hours, more than in London at the height of the Blitz. The plan was to punch through the overstretched and weakly defended German flanks and surround the German forces in the Stalingrad region. [1] [2]. Zhukov. Kleist later said after the war: The capture of Stalingrad was subsidiary to the main aim. Gerhardt's Mill ( Russian: ) is a building of historical significance in the Battle of Stalingrad. School number 6 by September 17 was already burned out during the fighting. Bloody urban warfare began again in Stalingrad, but this time it was the Germans who were pushed back to the banks of the Volga. After the artillery preparation, 18 fighters of the assault group rushed to the huge ruins, but were met by flanking machine gun fire, and then the approaches to the house were fired on by mortars from the rear of the German defense. The northern flank was defended by Hungarian and Romanian units, often in open positions on the steppes. Russia's War (New York: 1997), 201. 691 were here. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked . He told Hitler that he was no longer able to command his men, who were without ammunition or food. Delays in ending the siege pushed back the start date for Blau several times, and the city did not fall until early July. Choppy overview of the battle with detail on a few specific figures. However, according to Adam, "On not one single day have the minimal essential number of tons of supplies been flown in. A retired U. S. Army colonel fluent in Russian, Glantz is the author of numerous books, including The Battle for . Ninety percent of the living space in the Voroshilovskiy area was destroyed. machine gun platoon commander (garrison commander). [1] In the very first nights, an impromptu garrison turned the house into a stronghold of defense (which in many ways contributed to its further successful defense): the approaches to the building from the side of German positions were mined, the house was surrounded by a wire fence, sheltered firing points were created outside the house, a deep passage was dug from the house to the positions of the regiment for the delivery of ammunition and A telephone line completely hidden under the ground, narrow embrasures were made for firing in the windows and in the walls, and the soldiers prepared several reserve positions for each firearm. On the right side of the map in the ravines show are the actions of parts of the 284th Rifle Division. [195] The Turkish Consul in Moscow predicted that "the lands which the Germans have destined for their living space will become their dying space". Writing in his diary on 1 January 1943, British General Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, reflected on the change in the position from a year before: I felt Russia could never hold, Caucasus was bound to be penetrated, and Abadan (our Achilles heel) would be captured with the consequent collapse of Middle East, India, etc. Very close to it were huge five and six-story buildings occupied by the German infantry - the "Railwaymen's House" and "L-shaped house". - Real History Online, The Sword of Stalingrad- An Award From King George VI, The reconnaissance group of Sergeant Pavlov Ya.F., which seized the building. It was also reported that some of the German soldiers were dressed in a Red Army uniform. A year of German gains during Case Blue had been wiped out. When a rising temperature in the evening knocked the man down, it turned out that Chekhov had fled from the hospital, and he had not been operated on yet. The battle started with the South Western Front. [184], The bombing campaign and five months of fighting in the city had utterly destroyed 99% of the city, with the city being nothing more than a heap of rubble.[185]. Luftflotte 4 flew 1,250 sorties on 14 October and its Stukas dropped 550 tonnes of bombs, while German infantry surrounded the three factories. 160 aircraft were destroyed and 328 were heavily damaged (beyond repair). The destruction of an entire army (the largest killed, captured, wounded figures for Axis soldiers, nearly 1million, during the war) and the frustration of Germany's grand strategy made the battle a watershed moment. Pavlovs House is a 4-storey residential building located on Lenin Square in Volgograd , in which a group of Soviet soldiers heroically defended during the Battle of Stalingrad for 58 days. Keystone/Getty Images. Window openings were laid brick and embrasures made their way through the walls. [103], The German onslaught crushed the 37th Guards Rifle Division of Major General Viktor Zholudev and in the afternoon the forward assault group reached the tractor factory before arriving at the Volga River, splitting the 62nd Army into two. The Austrian divisional commander, General Erhard Raus, was summoned to Manstein's royal carriage in Kharkov station on 24 November, where the field marshal briefed him. [80][81], The Red Army gradually adopted a strategy to hold for as long as possible all the ground in the city. The Germans could not go further. Despite this, and with no support available from other units, the AA gunners stayed at their posts and took on the advancing panzers. In addition, the Germans decided to abandon their favorite tactics of massive art and air strikes, followed by a clean-up close quarters. 114,000 Italians and 105,000 Hungarians were killed, wounded or captured (from December 1942 to February 1943). [190] General Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach offered to raise an anti-Hitler army from the Stalingrad survivors, but the Soviets did not accept the offer. In late October and early November, their weakened opponents practically did not conduct of active fighting in the center of the city. For better internal communication, Pavlov's soldiers breached the walls in the basement and upper floors, and dug a communications trench to Soviet positions outside. [25] The victory at Stalingrad energized the Red Army and shifted the balance of power in the favour of the Soviets. In violation of all regulations, the comrade ordered the barrels of mortars to be positioned almost vertically. [136], The director of Luftflotte 4, Wolfram von Richthofen, tried to get this decision overturned. [94] Soviet nurses not only treated wounded personnel under fire but were involved in the highly dangerous work of bringing wounded soldiers back to the hospitals under enemy fire. The authors are architect V. E. Maslyaev and sculptor V. G. Fetisov . The burden of the initial defence of the city fell on the 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment,[58] a unit made up mainly of young female volunteers who had no training for engaging ground targets. The starving encircled forces at Stalingrad made no attempt to break out or link up with Manstein's advance. In mid-October, after receiving reinforcements from the Caucasus theatre, the Luftwaffe intensified its efforts against the remaining Red Army positions holding the west bank. This resulted in a very thin line, with some sectors where 12km (0.621.24mi) stretches were being defended by a single platoon (platoons typically have around 20 to 50 men). The third assault followed on 1 November. Based on the information of the expert Richthofen, he declared that contrary to the example of the pocket of Demyansk the permanent supply by air would be impossible. However, there is another version that Ya. Romanian military actions in World War II. I understand that everyone is familiar with the loadouts and tanks from the Western Front, so I understand why they have been included. When a position was lost, an immediate attempt was usually made to re-take it with fresh forces. On September 23 and 24, the enemy probed the front line - in the course of short skirmishes and clashes, the front line gradually emerged. It uncovers the fact that much of the details of Pavlov's House written in the official histories are made up. 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. These bridgeheads in retrospect presented a serious threat to Army Group B. [108] Determined to crush Soviet resistance, Luftflotte 4's Stukawaffe flew 900 individual sorties against Soviet positions at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory on 5 October. "[150], The Red Army High Command sent three envoys while simultaneously aircraft and loudspeakers announced terms of capitulation on 7 January 1943. [176] According to a contemporary Soviet report, 5,762 guns, 1,312 mortars, 12,701 heavy machine guns, 156,987 rifles, 80,438 sub-machine guns, 10,722 trucks, 744 aircraft; 1,666 tanks, 261 other armoured vehicles, 571 half-tracks and 10,679 motorcycles were captured by the Soviets. Shooting the Red Army men caught unawares, the Germans seized one trench after another, moving quickly forward. In this first photo from the "killed" series, the fighter in the lower right corner is still "alive". Though initially successful, the German attacks stalled in the face of Soviet reinforcements brought in from across the Volga. Two major pockets were formed and destroyed: the first, northeast of Kharkov, on 2 July, and a second, around Millerovo, Rostov Oblast, a week later. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}484257.6N 443153.4E / 48.716000N 44.531500E / 48.716000; 44.531500, Pavlov's House (Russian: tr. A hundred meters from the State Bank were the ruins of the brewery, where the soldiers of the 39th Guards Regiment occupied positions. This second plan was given the name Operation Thunderclap. However, the combination of constant air support operations on the German side and the Soviet surrender of the daytime skies began to affect the strategic balance in the air. It was later rebuilt and a monument made of bricks from its ruins was attached to the building where it stands today in modern-day Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad). Artillery spotters were an especially prized target for snipers. On October 24, during the second attack, the Railwaymen's House was shelled by 152 mm howitzers from the right bank of the Volga. The British historian Antony Beevor noted the "sinister" message from the Stalingrad Front's Political Department on 8 October 1942 that: "The defeatist mood is almost eliminated and the number of treasonous incidents is getting lower" as an example of the sort of coercion Red Army soldiers experienced under the Special Detachments (later to be renamed SMERSH). Of the 210,000 Germans, 10,000 remained to fight on, 105,000 surrendered, 35,000 left by air and the remaining 60,000 died. And we all it's true felt better. Operation Fridericus I by the Germans against the "Isium bulge", pinched off the Soviet salient in the Second Battle of Kharkov, and resulted in the envelopment of a large Soviet force between 17 May and 29 May. If only a narrow link could be established to Sixth Army, he proposed that this should be used to pull it out from the encirclement, and said that the Luftwaffe should instead of supplies deliver only enough ammunition and fuel for a breakout attempt. The battle for the German-Romanian airfield at Karpova lasted two days, with Romanian gunners destroying numerous Soviet tanks. Zhukov states, "Compared with the Germans, the troops of the satellites were not so well armed, less experienced and less efficient, even in defence. [199], The news of the battle echoed round the world, with many people now believing that Hitler's defeat was inevitable. One of a series of famous Stalingrad photographs of G. Zelma. In early November, the 13th Guards Rifle Divisions front was crossed by Moscow journalists DF. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. In that basement[] there were still two hundred Germansdying of hunger and frostbite. In late September 1942, between 30 and 50 soldiers of the 42nd Guards Regiment, 13th Guards Rifle Division secured the large apartment blocks from German control,[4] following its recapture by four soldiers four days beforehand which Yakov Pavlov himself led. [93] Women staffed a great many of the anti-aircraft batteries that fought not only the Luftwaffe but German tanks. horses' skeletons, and to the right, there was an enormous horrible cesspool fortunately, frozen solid. Photo taken at the mouth of the Dolgiy ravine. Since the war, the city has been completely rebuilt, and in 1961 was renamed Volgograd, an effort to erase Stalin's legacy. Soviet forces reached the entrance to the German headquarters in the ruined GUM department store. By the end of October the enemy had almost completely occupied the "Barricades" and "Red October" factories. On October 11, at a section of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment, a group of 35 Red Army soldiers attempted to storm an unfinished four-story structure. [151][152] The German High Command informed Paulus, "Every day that the army holds out longer helps the whole front and draws away the Russian divisions from it. Stalin's Order No. Romanian forces destroyed 62 Soviet tanks on 20 November for the cost of 25 tanks of their own, followed by 65 more Soviet tanks on 22 November, for the cost of 10 tanks of their own. The condition of the troops that surrendered was pitiful. 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. According to eyewitnesses, the color of both buildings was green. The shock groups of the 295th Infantry Division, having crushed through the defenses of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment, reached the Volga near the mouth of the Krutoy ravine. In battle, the commander and commissar of the 2nd Battalion were killed. Sgt. [Note 4], As historian Chris Bellamy notes, the Germans paid a high strategic price for the aircraft sent into Stalingrad: the Luftwaffe was forced to divert much of its air strength away from the oil-rich Caucasus, which had been Hitler's original grand-strategic objective. The speech contained an oblique reference to the battle, which suggested that Germany was now in a defensive war. By 06:00, putting together the collected reserves, parts of the 13th Guards Rifle Division counterattacked. By five o'clock in the morning there was a critical situation at the front of Rodimtsev's division. The start of Case Blue had been planned for late May 1942. German personnel in the pocket numbered about 210,000, according to strength breakdowns of the 20 field divisions (average size 9,000) and 100 battalion-sized units of the Sixth Army on 19 November 1942. 227"not one step back"Sergeant Pavlov was ordered to fortify the building and defend it to the last bullet and the last man. According to the author of the article, this series of photos of Zelma is a kind of reconstruction of the combat operations of the 13th Guards Rifle Division and was shot after the end of the battles, in the spring of 1943.
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