By early 1942, Adolf Hitler’s dream of destroying the Soviet Union seemed closer to realization. German soldiers in boots had paraded victoriously through the streets of the main cities of the communist nation while their comrades besieged Leningrad and threatened the capital of Moscow. Then, at the end of that summer, the Nazi leader attacked Stalingrad. This decision led to Germany’s first major defeat on the Eastern Front and became the turning point of World War II.
“If you look at the whole operation, the Soviets basically wiped out the German Sixth Army and a Panzer army…leaving a huge hole in the Eastern Front,” says Stalingrad historian David Glantz, author of five books on the battle. “The Germans never fully recovered.”
With almost 4 million fighters, the Battle of Stalingrad – from August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943 – eclipsed the battles on the Western Front. The Nazis and their Hungarian, Romanian and Italian allies suffered over a million casualties. More Red Army soldiers (nearly 480,000) died during the five-month defense of Stalingrad than Americans (416,800) during the entire war.
For Soviet citizens, the fierce defense of Stalingrad by the Red Army – named after Joseph Stalin, Hitler’s archenemy, the country’s leader – became a source of enormous national pride. Even the German soldiers recognized the Soviets’ ability to sustain massive casualties and endure combat in brutal winter conditions in defense of the city.
“Dogs fight like lions,” Nazi soldiers often said.
“Everyone in Stalingrad who still has a head and hands, women and men, continues to fight,” wrote a German corporal to his father in October 1942.
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How the Battle of Stalingrad Began
German General Friedrich Paulus (seated) talks with his Sixth Army staff in front of Stalingrad, September 1, 1942.
Roger Viollet via Getty Images
Hitler’s campaign in the southern Soviet Union began as a major offensive in the Caucasus to secure oil from the Nazi war machine. Against the advice of senior commanders, who urged the mercurial leader to concentrate on a target, Hitler diverted the Sixth Army of Army Group South under General Friedrich Paulus to Stalingrad, an important industrial, communications and military center. transport along the Volga.
After the Luftwaffe bombarded the city from the air, the Sixth Army nearly pushed the entire Red Army to the eastern bank of the Volga. But the Germans soon became bogged down in brutal urban warfare amid the rubble of the city.
“Stalingrad is no longer a city,” wrote a German soldier. “During the day, it’s a cloud of burning, blinding smoke. At night, the dogs dive into the Volga and swim desperately to the other side. The animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it long; only men last.
The Soviets, meanwhile, reveled in bleeding the Sixth Army white:[I]If we hadn’t had weapons, we would still have killed with our bare hands the people who had come to take our Volga from us,” said a Red Army sergeant.
On November 19, 1942, the Soviets launched “Operation Uranus,” a counter-offensive to encircle the already beleaguered Sixth Army and its allies. Three days later, the ring closed, trapping 250,000 soldiers in an area about 30 miles wide by 20 miles deep.
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Unable to obtain sufficient supplies by air from the Luftwaffe, the Sixth Army crumbled under relentless attacks. The temperature has dropped so much that the machines have become inoperative. Thousands of Axis soldiers suffered from frostbite and malnutrition. Paulus asked permission to leave the Kessel– the German word for cauldron – but Hitler refused. A rescue effort by the German army from outside the encirclement failed.
German soldiers exposed to bitter sub-zero conditions at Stalingrad, winter 1942-1943.
Photos by History/Universal Images group via Getty Images
In late January 1942, Paulus appealed to Hitler for permission to surrender rather than risk annihilation. “The Sixth Army will hold its position to the last man and the last round,” replied the Nazi leader, “and by its heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution to the establishment of a defensive front and to the salvation of the Western world.”
On January 31, 1943, Paulus left behind waist-deep excrement in his dilapidated headquarters in the heart of Stalingrad and surrendered to the Soviets. When Hitler heard news, the often volatile Führer stared silently at his soup.
U.S. Lend-Lease Program Aids Soviet Victory
The German public was not officially informed of the catastrophic defeat until the end of January 1943. Hitler was so shaken by the disaster that on the 10e anniversary of the coming to power of the Nazis in Germany on January 30, he did not make his usual speech on the radio. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels gave the speech instead.
Besides the staggering human toll of Stalingrad, the Germans lost 900 planes, 500 tanks and 6,000 artillery pieces. With Soviet factories producing more than the Germans, the losses were impossible for the Nazis to make up for.
As the tide turned, the Soviets benefited from lend-lease aid from America. “If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war,” wrote future Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who helped defend Stalingrad (Volgograd today). would not have withstood his onslaught and would have lost the war.
During the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, the Soviets suffered at least 800,000 casualties against 200,000 for the Germans. But the Red Army’s costly victory put the Nazis on the defensive for the rest of the war.
Meanwhile, in North Africa in late 1942, combined British, American and French forces also took the offensive against the Nazis. The June 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy pushed the Germans back from France and eventually Western Europe.
On November 9, 1944, with the Soviets on the verge of the Reich in Eastern Europe, Hitler blamed Stalingrad for the impending demise of Nazi Germany.
As the Red Army marched through Eastern Europe, Soviet soldiers vowed to devastate Berlin like the Germans had Stalingrad.
In May 1945, they had done it.
