A. BACKGROUND.
At the start of 1943, the German Wehrmacht faced a crisis as Soviet forces encircled and reduced the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad and expanded their Winter Campaign towards the Don River. On 2 February 1943, the Sixth Army's commanding officers surrendered and the Red Army captured an estimated 90,000 men. Total German losses at the Battle of Stalingrad, excluding prisoners, were between 120,000 and 150,000. Throughout 1942, German casualties totaled around 1.9 million personnel, and by the start of 1943, the Wehrmacht was around 470,000 men below full strength on the Eastern Front.
On February 2 1943, the Red Army launched Operation Star, threatening to recapture the cities of Belgorod, Kharkov, and Kursk. On February 16, the Soviets recaptured Kharkov on the south of Kursk. The Soviet forces had begun their offensive with the aim of liberating the Ukraine and destroying to surround and destroy German forces in the Orel salient, cross the Desna River and surround and destroy German Army Group Center. The Soviets were confident as they already had the German Sixth Army trapped in the Stalingrad pocket. In conjunction with Operation Star, the Soviets also launched Operation Gallop south of Star, pushing the Germans away from the Donets, taking Voroshilovgrad and Izium, worsening the German situation further. By this time the Stavka believed it could decide the war in Southern Russia, expecting total victory.
Despite Hitler's orders to hold the city, German forces abandoned Kharkov and the Red Army recaptured the city on 16 February. Hitler immediately flew to von Manstein's headquarters at Zaporizhia. Von Manstein informed him that an immediate counterattack on Kharkov would be fruitless, but that he could success...
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Works Cited
Flames of War, The Eastern Front, The Third Battle of Kharkov http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=112&art_id=544&kb_cat_id=34 WWII Database, The Third Battle of Kharkov http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=39 Military Forum, For discussion of the armed forces, military history, weapons and related topics, The Third Battle of Kharkov. http://www.militar.org.ua/foro/manstein-y-la-3-batalla-de-jarkov-t14643.html Historynet.com, Kharkov 1943 http://www.historynet.com/backhand-blow-kharkov-1943.htm Taringa collective Intelligence, the Third Battle of Kharkov, WWII http://www.taringa.net/posts/info/3036662/Jarkov---Tercera-Batalla-2-G-M.html Eurasia 1945,WWII, the Battle of Kharkov 1943 http://www.eurasia1945.com/batallas/contienda/batalla-de-kharkov/ Wikipedia, The Third Battle Of Kharkov.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Battle_of_Kharkov
“In Stalingrad, in addition to its heavy losses, the German army also lost its formidable image of being invincible,” Document 8 reveals.” In fact, with the loss of Stalingrad, the German army began to lose battles all across the Eastern Front and in North Africa”(Document 8: Graphics). The men did not lose their lives in the Battle of Stalingrad did lose the image that had been built for themselves. The following loses after that battle prove that the German army was weakened and could no longer keep all of their word and the image Hitler had built up for them. Without pushing the soldiers to stay at Stalingrad, Hitler and the Germans could have salvaged the war and their reputations. Although the end of World War II was 2 ½ years after the Battle of Stalingrad, the result of the battle influence who won the war. Because the Germans lost at Stalingrad, they began to lose other battles and suffered questioning and disbelief of their previous reputation of being invisible. The biggest mistake Adolf Hitler made was how he conducted the Battle of
By March 26, 1945, Patton’s 3rd Army arrived to the hills overlooking the towns of Aschaffenburg and Schweinheim. While there, Gen Patton received orders from Gen Bradley to start moving further north, and coincidentally, he received military intelligence that his son in law LTC John Waters was being held captive as a POW at the OFLAG XIII-B located in Hammelburg. It was at this time that he ordered the raid to liberate the POWs from the Hammelburg camp. Selected to organize the attack was LTC Creighton Abrams, commander of the Combatant Command B (CCB), 37th Armorer Regiment. He assigned LTC Harold Cohen to lead the attack, but due to a severe case of hemorrhoids, he had to be removed from the mission. After being removed, he recommended CPT ...
The Defense The Third System was the name applied to a string of coastal forts from the Florida Keys to Maine intended to defend the shores of the United States against hostile invaders (Our Georgia History). The parameter was built as a defensive response to the English attack on D.C. and Baltimore and Maryland at the time of the War of 1812. During 1861, Major Olmstead gained command of Fort Pulaski. His goal was to build two lines of defense on the outer coastal area of Georgia. Under his control, he established a series of batteries and forts along the parameter of the island.
The battle of Stalingrad is argued to be one of the most significant strategizing battle for the Germans. If Germany had won Stalingrad there would have been no fight left for the Russians to have. Instead, Germany made a hasty decision to attack in order to prevent Russia from coming up with a strategy which put Germany at a disadvantage. By the end of Stalingrad the Russians had managed to push back the Germans and put them on the defensive. If Russia had lost in their battle against Nazi Germany the United States and Great Britain would have faced a much harsher fight against Nazi Germany. Some would even argue that it would have been next to impossible for America to win against Nazi
Military historians have described Stalingrad was not only noteworthy as it was a turning point of the Germany’s invasion on Eastern Front and even of the entire Second World War. The ultimate defeat of Germany in Stalingrad was resulted from Hitler’s military misjudgment and indecisiveness in setting single operational objectives, which paralyzed the whole German forces and turning the tide of war in the Russians’ favor. The initial missions of the offensive in 1942 were the advances of forces to cut off the west bank of Volga River, which served as the important link for the transport of Soviet oil supply from the Transcaucasus oil fields to the Red Armies in Central Russia. Before Stalingrad, the plan went well and achieved substantial opening successes in the capture of few important territories.
By the time of the counteroffensive, the Germans were outnumbered 1,011,000 to 1,103,000. Zhukov planned an attack from two directions, sweeping in and meeting in the middle. After four days, Soviet attack had met in the middle and had completely surrounded German forces. The Soviet forces were ordered to stay very close to the German troops so that the airstrikes would put their own forces at risk. The German army begged Hitler to allow them to retreat, but he denied them and ordered his men to hold their ground at all costs. This proved to be a pivotal mistake. As winter set in, many German rescue missions were attempted and failed. Temperatures dropped to negative 30 degrees Celsius. Because of the lack of supplies the daily ration for soldiers was dropped from 100 grams of bread a day to 50 grams a day, which is less than 200 calories(). One German soldier said,
World War II was a very unfair time for a lot of people, including innocent civilians and soldiers fighting in battles. The Battle of Stalingrad made a large impact on WWII during the mid-1940’s. During this battle, many soldiers were treated unjustly and unfairly. This paper will focus on the hardships and rough living conditions soldiers had to face during the Battle of Stalingrad. One way that oppression was caused during this battle was though the soldier’s environment and situation of living. The next way is how many innocent civilians were treated in the midst of the battle. The last way was the war in general causing oppression. All of these reasons caused oppression in their own ways and made the battle horrifying
The battle fought between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazi Wehrmacht over the “city of Stalin” for four long months in the fall and winter of 1942-3 stands as not only the most important battle of the Eastern front during World War II, but as the greatest battle ever fought. Germany’s defeat at Stalingrad ended three years of almost uninterrupted victory and signaled the beginning of the end of the Third Reich. In this way, Stalingrad’s significance was projected beyond the two main combatants, extending to all corners of the world.
After a two year stalemate, both the Russians and Germans awaited major confrontations that would define the momentum for either side. Up until this point in the war, although the Germans had captured many European countries and were victoriously advancing with their keen tactics, such as the blitzkrieg and their cogent weapons, battles on the Eastern front seemed impossible to win. Upon a dismal loss at the Battle of Stalingrad earlier in 1943, German morale was greatly lowered and the German forces finally apprehended the strength of the Russian troops. The momentum would finally be settled with the decisive battle near the town of Kursk, a town on the Moscow-Rostov railway, in Southern Russia. The goal of the Battle of Kursk was to regain German morale and to pinch off a large salient in the Eastern front, which would make Russians much more vulnerable to German attack. Being such an important battle to the overall success of the Germans, they formulated several unique plans; however, due to the lack of good judgement, these plans were doomed from the very start.
The battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest and massive battles of World War 2. On June 22, 1941, over two and a half million Russians had been killed,wounded or captured by Germans within one month. Many Russian and German soldiers were killed.
World War II was seen around the globe as a war to end all wars. Combat like this had never been experienced before and it was the largest scale battle in recent history. The death tolls for all sides skyrocketed to heights that had never been reached in any battle ever before. There was one man at the center of it all, one man who came to personify the root of living, breathing evil. That man was Adolf Hitler and to the rest of the world, he was a superhuman military machine who had no other goal but to achieve world domination through destruction. But the roots of the Battle of Stalingrad all began in 1941 when Hitler launched operation Barbarossa. Hitler’s powerful army marched across the east, seemingly unstoppable to any force. Stalin’s Red Army was caught completely off guard and their lines were completely broken apart. A majority of the country’s air force was destroyed when airfields were raided and many of the planes never even got the chance to leave the ground. Hitler’s army finally came to Leningrad where the city was besieged. The city held for 900 days and never gave way to the relentless Germans. At the cost of 1.5 million civilians and soldiers, the Red Army stopped Hitler from advancing further and postponed his plan to sweep over the south. Another cause for the retreat of Hitler was the brutal Russian winter, which Hitler and his army were completely unprepared for and the icy cold deaths would continue to haunt the Germans.
Once the German’s gained knowledge of the resistance forming, they retreated to gain reinforcements. The resistance only grew stronger. Then, on April 19, 1943 the German’s attacked once again, the final liquidation. The members of the resistance buried themselves into bunkers and came out for swift attacks and retreated once again. A majority of ...
As the Soviets fought back the oncoming German army, it was evident that blitzkrieg was unsuccessful. As the Germans had never experienced Russian winters before; they were unaware of the freezing cold temperatures. Without proper clothing and material, this caused devastating effects. With Stalin choosing to stay in Moscow this raised the morale, and was an important aspect that led to the Moscow victory. Christian goes on to state, “A longer, drawn out war allowed Russia to exploit its reserves of raw materials and labour. In this sense, the battle of Moscow was a turning
The Soviet Union’s economy and essential needs would eventually start to fall apart and crumble one by one. "Food supplies fell. Factories faced closures as metal, oil and other raw materials failed to be delivered. Banks ceased to bail out industrial enterprises. The civilian administrative system, which was already creaking under wartime strains, started to collapse. Transport and communication became unreliable. Workers called for higher pay and secure employment. Soldiers in the garrisons supported a peace policy: they were horrified by the possibility of being transferred to the front line (UKEssays). All of the Soviet Union’s power sources has now been hindered. Many areas now seen this as a golden opportunity to bring down the Soviet Union. Stalin was very aware that his death was near because he killed many officials from rival areas. Stalin knew he wasn’t going out without fighting because he had much more pride than that so he ordered his men to fight. Stalin then met Hitler and they signed an agreement to not have any aggressive attacks. Little did Stalin know that Hitler was actually planning a huge attack against Stalin. “Over the next few days, the members would vote on Supreme Commander. It was not until the 10th of July, that Stalin was appointed the position. As the three million German forces crept closer to Moscow, panic began to pervade all of USSR because
The Siege of Leningrad is one of the most deadly and largest artillery battles of World War II. The Siege will claim nearly two million lives including innocent civilians. Two million more will be captured or wounded. Taking place from September 8th 1941 to January 27th 1944, the battle will last eight hundred and seventy-two days (The Siege of Leningrad, 2014). Some reports suggest that over one hundred and fifty thousand artillery shells shot from German Artillery positions into and around the city. The opening of the Eastern front caused Germany to shift some of its forces from Europe to invade the Soviet Union and the eventual loss of the war.