Stalingrad?!
- Thread starter Larre
- Start date
To get yourself in the mood, you could always watch the german film \"Stalingrad\". It doesn\'t really say much about \"the big picture\"; the general progress of the battle but it does give some valuable insight in how the battle might have been experienced by some of the individual soldiers (on the german side).
Actually I suggest you include a bit on the horrendous sufferings that soldiers and civilians went through in this battle, rather than just keeping the bird\'s eye view. Nothing wrong with descriptions of commanders and divisions, but the frog\'s perspective adds another dimension which I think most history teachers would appreciate.
As far as the big picture goes, some reflections on Paulus\' and the other german commanders\' roles in the german failure would be interesting. Could they have prevented being surrounded had they not so grossly under-estimated the red army? (and had Paulus been more capable of independent decisions..).
Actually I suggest you include a bit on the horrendous sufferings that soldiers and civilians went through in this battle, rather than just keeping the bird\'s eye view. Nothing wrong with descriptions of commanders and divisions, but the frog\'s perspective adds another dimension which I think most history teachers would appreciate.
As far as the big picture goes, some reflections on Paulus\' and the other german commanders\' roles in the german failure would be interesting. Could they have prevented being surrounded had they not so grossly under-estimated the red army? (and had Paulus been more capable of independent decisions..).
I can give you Russian perspective
I would suggest skimming through this paper
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/info/lec05.shtml
It is interesting in its entirety but there interesting tidbits there on western perception of Stalingrad during the time of Stalingrad.
The major problem with most \"western\" studies of the subject until recently was almost exclusive reliance on either German sources. This created interesting problem - Eastern front was viewed from the perspective of one side, which lost this war and was desperately trying to explain why that happened. It is not entirely the fault of western historians – many Russian archives were not accessible. On the other hand while people who participated in these events were still alive the common perception was that Russian eye-wittiness accounts are not to be trusted because of propaganda influence. Why the same propaganda influence on the other side had been consistently ignore I could write 10 pages assay about J
It is anecdotal, but I trust my source - he claimed that at least two prominent British historians of WWII did not speak or read Russian... Can you imagine a historian of Revolutionary wars who doesn\'t speak English? Me neither...
Anyway, back to Stalingrad. Hitler is tend to blamed by surviving generals for poor planning of the two-pronged offensive in 1942 that resulted in spreading forces to thin between Stalingrad and Caucasus sectors. It is rather easy to blame a dead person who cannot explain his reasoning but the general premise was not so stupid. What he probably wanted (in simple term) is to clear up western shore of Volga and utilize the river as a natural defense line that could be protected by a limited number of troops concentrated in strong-points with overlapping killing fields along shore-line - mini-Normandy in 1942. That would allow him to move troops from Stalingrad region both South, to Caucasus and North, Again we know now that such defense of waterfront doesn’t work – but we do because we have the experience of Allies operations in Normandy, Hitler did not have such information at the time.
Number of things went wrong during planning stages and Beevor touches upon some. One thing though is poor understanding of the theater of operation. Let me give just one example. The area of Volgogradskaya region (former Stalingradskaya region) is 113 000 Km2, just for a comparison, the area of Poland is only 3 times that and Germany has common border with Poland. To get to Stalingrad a German-born train had to travel ~2500 km most of along the hostile territory. If things go real bad on some part of European theater you can transfer troops from one place to another in a day or two, not so much in Russia.
Rigged4Mini
New member
Russian T-34 tanks were built in a factory within Stalingrad during the battle.
Russian tank crews would sit waiting until their tank was finished then get inside, load up a round and drive down a few meters to where the battle was raging.. If knocked out, they would escape from the tank (whichever survived) only to run back to the factory and get in the next waiting tank.
The best way to defeat Russia, was to let Russia defeat themselves. Stalin killed more Russians then Hitler...and Stalin was Russian.
Russian tank crews would sit waiting until their tank was finished then get inside, load up a round and drive down a few meters to where the battle was raging.. If knocked out, they would escape from the tank (whichever survived) only to run back to the factory and get in the next waiting tank.
The best way to defeat Russia, was to let Russia defeat themselves. Stalin killed more Russians then Hitler...and Stalin was Russian.
They didnt underestimate the red army, they just did not have the support. There flanks were held by poorly trained and equiped Ukraninan and Italian units who were in some places left with (around) 1 platton for around 1-2 km of ground to cover. When Franz Halder brought it up, as was Hitlers way he was sacked. All reinforcments were sent by high command into the city droper thus leading to the weakening of the flanks, therefore alowing the Russians to smash through units which in many places had no armour to repulse the Russian attacks.
Not to say that there were no mistakes by the Germans in the city but you can only use what you get given by high command!!!
Rigged4Mini
New member
Adolf Hitler wasn\'t German either...... but he and Stalin still represented Germany and Russia at the time.... for kids who don\'t know the the difference from WW2 and Vietnam...I\'m content with Hitler=German, Stalin=Russian.
=)
