It was nearly unimaginable to the world when Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered his German forces to the Soviet Union on February 2, 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad, a major Second World War battle began with the German’s offensive on July 17, 1942 and ended with the German surrender on February 2, 1943. It was on August 5, 1942 that Adolf Hitler ordered an attack on the city of Stalingrad. This battle went down as one of the bloodiest battles in history, taking large tolls on both sides and most importantly marking the turning point for Hitler in the Second World War. The “master race” had taken its first major blow, proving to the world that they were not invincible. And in fact, Germany would not rise again after this truly devastating event. This was due to devastating losses from the battle, mistakes in propaganda and low morale.
Codenamed Operation Blue, Hitler split his forces into two, one to capture the oil fields in Caucasus and the other to capture Stalingrad. On August 23, 1942 Axis tanks raced to Stalingrad with little resistance as German planes bombarded the city of Stalingrad. The Germans had heavy machinery while the Soviets did not even have Anti-air machines, making it seem all though the Germans were unstoppable. For within the first few months, German forces would have occupied ninety percent of the city. However, as the weather changed into a freezing Soviet winter, the Soviets would start gaining the upper hand. It was the Red Army’s cue to launch Operation Uranus in November, for they had just received supplies and the weather was in their favor. As the operation proved a success, the Soviet forces now encircled the German forces just as the Soviet winter began to demonstrate its full power. From t...
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The battle of Stalingrad has often been referred to as the turning point of World War II. Stalingrad, now called Volgograd is located on the river Volga in the southern part of western Russia. It was of extreme importance because it was the last stronghold protecting the vast oil fields that lay beyond it to the east. Hitler believed his Operation Barbarossa would be an easy victory, claiming that troops would be home for Christmas. There was much symbolism in Hitler’s decision to attack Stalingrad and that was due to that it was named after the Russian leader Stalin and would cause a great loss of morale in the Russian army if the German army could capture it. The German 6th Army ran into incredibly fierce resistance on the part of the Russians. As the battle waged on for nearly 3 months the daily bloodbaths of the street battles began to take their toll on both sides. Russia’s use of snipers began to cost the Germans more and more lives everyday. Most famous of...
On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler gave the green light for the commencement of Operation Barbarossa to capture the heart of USSR, Moscow, in order to gradually diminish the power of the Allied forces in WWII. However, Hitler’s masterminded plan eventually began falling apart due to his own carelessness and over-confidence. For instance, Hitler miscalculation of postponing the operation to focus on other matters by several weeks proved to be crucial as the ferocious Russian winter arrived significantly earlier causing many German soldiers to freeze to death, while the Russians accustomed to the weather used it to their advantage (Royde-Smith). Hitler also underestimated Stalin’s ability to prepare enough troops due to his belief of German superiority,
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“Stalingrad is the scene of the costliest and most stubborn battle in this war. The battle fought there to its desperate finish may turn out to be among the decisive battles in the long history of war…In the scale of its intensity, its destructiveness, and its horror, Stalingrad has no parallel. It engaged the full strength of the two biggest armies in Europe and could fit into no lesser framework than that of a life-and death conflict which encompasses the earth”
The next year, in 1943, another German offensive was launched especially around the approaches of Stalingrad. Stalingrad was almost completely destroyed by the German sixth Army. That was the near end for Germany, but it took several months of destruction and desperate fighting, and millions of millions of deaths for that to happen.
The time would soon come for Hitler to seek out his revenge on the nation that delayed his imminent world domination. One year after the siege at Leningrad, Hitler’s once indestructible Axis power had begun to weaken. Hitler began to see his dream fading away. He realized that to maintain hope, he and his army must remain on the offensive, so he decided to go after his most glaring defeat, which was Russia.
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