Defensive battles for Stalingrad (July 17 - November 18, 1942)

According to the plan of the German headquarters, the second period of the Eastern Campaign was to begin with a powerful offensive in the southern direction. Here, German troops were supposed to reach the Caucasus and the lower reaches of the Volga in order to deprive the Soviet Union of its main economic resources: coal and industrial enterprises of Donbass, bread from Kuban and the Volga region, oil from Baku. And establishing control over the Volga would deprive the USSR of the main water artery connecting the central and southern regions of the country.

According to some reports, the Germans even used Karl 800 mm self-propelled mortars to shell Stalingrad.

When developing the offensive plan, it became clear that on the north-south axis, Stalingrad, a large industrial city located on the right bank of the Volga and bearing the name of the leader of the Soviet state, was of especially important strategic importance. Being a major communications hub, it controlled most of the Red Army's supplies. Despite the hesitation of some generals, the main task of the German army soon became the capture of Stalingrad.

Situation at the fronts

At the beginning of July 1942, the troops of the Soviet Southwestern Front, which had suffered heavy losses even during the retreat from Kharkov, could not successfully restrain the enemy’s advance. For the same reason, the Southern Front was unable to stop the enemy in the Caucasian direction. On July 12, by order of Headquarters, troops of the new Stalingrad Front stood in the way of the Germans. It included the 62nd, 63rd, 64th armies from the General Headquarters reserve, as well as the 21st army from the liquidated Southwestern Front. To strengthen the new front, the emerging 1st and 4th tank armies and the surviving units of the 28th, 38th and 57th armies were transferred to him. The Volga Military Flotilla also came under the operational control of the front command.

Strengths of the parties

The total forces of the newly created Stalingrad Front, which was tasked with stopping the enemy’s advance towards Stalingrad at any cost, consisted of 160 thousand people, 2.2 thousand guns and mortars, about 400 tanks and up to 460 aircraft. Marshal of the Soviet Union S. Timoshenko was appointed commander of the Stalingrad Front (from July 23, Lieutenant General V. Gordov). In turn, the German command directly allocated the 6th German Army under the command of Colonel General F. Paulus to capture Stalingrad. These forces included up to 270 thousand people, 3 thousand guns and mortars, about 500 tanks and up to 1.2 thousand aircraft.

In close urban combat, assault groups have proven themselves to be very effective. Their blows were short but effective, and their actions were swift and daring

Hero City Stalingrad. Why did German troops decide to destroy the city?

Alexey Bogdanov,
military historian, graduated from Saratov State University with a specialization in Military History
Alexey Bogdanov

The Battle of Stalingrad is probably the most famous battle of the Second World War, not only in Russia, but also on a global scale. In Paris, for example, there is the Stalingrad metro station and the Battle of Stalingrad Square, in Bologna and Lyon - the central streets of the city are named after Stalingrad.

Historians consider the Battle of Stalingrad a turning point not only in the Great Patriotic War, but also in the Second World War. This was the moment of the greatest advance of Hitler’s troops deep into the country and at the same time the point from where the front uncontrollably rushed towards Berlin and no longer changed the direction of its movement.

When planning the summer campaign of 1942, the Germans were forced to clearly realize that Germany's capabilities were no longer what they were a year ago. There were not enough forces and resources for an offensive in all strategic directions at once, as in 1941. The German command realized that it had the ability to organize a general offensive in only one strategic direction. A discussion arose around the choice of this direction among the military elite of the Reich.

There was a proposal to go to Moscow again, the option of a final solution to the problem of Leningrad, and then an attack on Murmansk was proposed, and proposals were made to attack in the southern direction. Hitler put an end to the disputes, reasoning that it would be difficult to achieve success in Moscow - it was best covered, and successful actions in the north did not promise the same benefits as victories in the south. Therefore, the Fuhrer decided to go south - for oil, wheat and ore.

There were serious reasons for this decision. The illusions of the German leadership about a quick war have long since dissipated. It was clear that the war would be protracted and attritional, and the economy of the Reich, constrained by the naval blockade of Great Britain and the United States, was not ready for this. First of all, there was not enough oil. Germany could only obtain natural oil from the Romanian field in Ploesti, but this was not enough.

Before the war, the technology for producing synthetic fuel from coal was developed in Germany; a large number of factories for the production of such fuel were built, but these factories gradually became targets for Allied strategic bombers. Therefore, obtaining Grozny and Baku oil was the cherished dream of the German leadership. In addition to oil, the Reich needed many other fossil resources, and also, of course, food. Therefore, a successful campaign to the south could open a second wind in the German economy, while simultaneously dealing a severe blow to Soviet industry.

German mountain troops in the Caucasus

Photo: Bundesarchiv

For the USSR, 1942 was the most difficult year. During 1941, huge territories, hundreds of factories, and agricultural areas were lost. A large part of the population of the Soviet Union remained in enemy-occupied areas and could not be mobilized into the army or into production. For the Red Army, 1942 became a “hunger year” in terms of ammunition and weapons. All pre-war supplies were used up or lost in 1941. Also, many factories were lost (for example, half of the gunpowder factories), and new ones have not yet become fully operational.

A severe shortage of ammunition plagued Soviet troops throughout 1942. For example, the failure of the Soviet offensives during the infamous Battle of Rzhev was due to the fact that the Germans created a powerful artillery fist (including captured artillery: French, Czech, etc.), and also accumulated a huge amount of shells. The attacking Soviet troops over and over again came under a barrage of artillery fire of all calibers, and there was simply nothing to suppress the German artillery; not only were there not enough guns, but, first of all, shells.

Stalin expected a second attack on Moscow, so the best forces of the Red Army covered this particular direction. Even when the German offensive began in the south, the Soviet command for a long time could not believe that the enemy would remain passive in the Moscow direction.

The German command adopted the Blau (“Blue”) plan. The advancing troops were divided into two army groups: “A” and “B”. Army Group A was advancing into the Caucasus, with Baku as its ultimate goal. Army Group B struck in the direction of Voronezh, then moved along the Don towards Stalingrad and further along the banks of the Volga south to Astrakhan. At the first stage of the operation, the joint actions of Army Groups “A” and “B” were supposed to encircle and destroy significant Soviet forces. After this, Army Group “A” went to the Caucasus on a campaign for oil, and Army Group “B” covered it from the north and northeast, capturing the right bank of the Don and Volga, creating a mutually blocked position with Soviet troops.

In the future, it was planned to strike along the Volga to the north - to Saratov and beyond. Vast fertile lands would fall into the hands of the Germans, and Soviet shipping on the Volga would be interrupted. Having occupied the right bank of the Volga, German troops would have received a strong strategic defensive position, which would be very difficult to knock down.

Stalingrad during an enemy air raid

Photo: Stepan Kurunin / TASS

Stalingrad was not the main target of the 1942 summer offensive. It was simply a geographical point, the most convenient point for access to the Volga, the place where the Don and Volga converged with each other at a minimum distance. In addition, Stalingrad was a powerful industrial center. One of the main Soviet tank factories operated there - the famous Stalingrad Tractor Plant, which had been producing T-34 tanks since 1940. produced artillery systems, and was one of the largest metallurgical enterprises in the USSR. The possibility of capturing or destroying such an enemy industrial center could not but attract the Germans.

On June 28, 1942, the German offensive began. The first stage of the operation was extremely successful for them. The start date of the Battle of Stalingrad itself is considered to be July 17, 1942. The attack on the city was carried out by the sixth German field army under the command of General Paulus. It was opposed by the hastily created Stalingrad Front under the command of Marshal Timoshenko. During the battle on the Great Bend of the Don, Soviet troops managed to delay the enemy's advance for almost three weeks. However, in the twenties of August, units of the 14th Tank Corps were able to cross the Don and on August 23, they quickly reached the outskirts of Stalingrad. The steppe terrain was conducive to fast and deep maneuvers of tank and motorized formations, for which the Wehrmacht became famous.

August 23, 1942 became a black day for Stalingrad. The evacuation of the population was in full swing (about 100 thousand of the city's 400 thousand population were evacuated). No one expected the Germans to appear so quickly; the city was still poorly prepared for defense.

In addition, on August 23, Stalingrad was subjected to a powerful air raid, in which all the strike forces of the German Fourth Air Fleet participated. As a result of this raid, about 40 thousand residents died, and city blocks were reduced to ruins. The city was burning. Many historians believe that this seemingly successful air raid played a cruel joke on the Germans. A city poorly prepared for defense and undestroyed could have been taken by the Wehrmacht on the move. However, having turned the city into ruins, the Germans themselves created convenient positions for Soviet troops for defense and barricades. The most stubborn and most famous defense of the city in history began, which lasted almost three months and made the word Stalingrad a household name.

To be continued

Editorial opinion may not reflect the views of the author

Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad

By July 17, 1942, the troops of the Stalingrad Front occupied the following line of defense: the left bank of the Don to Serafimovich-Kletskaya-Surovikino-Verkhne-Kurmoyarskaya. In the evening of this day, the vanguards of the 6th German Army met at the turn of the Chir River with the advanced units of the 62nd and 64th armies of the Stalingrad Front. These battles marked the beginning of the great Battle of Stalingrad.

Despite the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops, by July 26, armored and motorized German troops broke through the defenses of the 62nd Army and reached the Kamensky area. To counter the breakthrough, the Headquarters ordered the immediate introduction into battle of the newly formed 1st and 4th Tank Armies, which had only 240 tanks, and two rifle divisions. As a result of stubborn fighting, the newly created armies were unable to stop the Germans and only slightly delayed their advance.

Due to the stubborn resistance of the Red Army troops in the Stalingrad direction, A. Hitler, to strengthen the 6th Army, sent the 4th Tank Army to the combat area, which by this time had already occupied a bridgehead on the Manych River, which was important for further advance to the Caucasus . Now it had to advance from the Don through the Kalmyk steppes with the goal of capturing Stalingrad from the south.

Legendary commander

From September 12, 1942, V. Chuikov was the commander of the 62nd (later 8th Guards) Army.
With this appointment, the front command took into account such positive qualities of the commander as determination and firmness, courage and broad operational horizons, a high sense of responsibility and consciousness of one’s duty. Therefore, it was Chuikov who was tasked with defending Stalingrad at any cost. Under his command, the 62nd Army became famous for its heroic six-month defense of Stalingrad. Later, the experience of street fighting was useful to Chuikov during the capture of Berlin. No wonder they called him “General Assault”. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov (1900-1982)

Victory Ring

The Chuikovites survived. Stalingrad remained impregnable to the Germans. Meanwhile, Soviet commanders were preparing an offensive operation codenamed “Uranus”. The decisive role in it was destined to be played by the troops of the Don Front, commanded by Konstantin Rokossovsky, the future marshal, and in those days a colonel general. In November, the initiative passed to the Red Army. Goebbels preached to all of Germany: “The resistance of the Bolsheviks in Stalingrad is nothing more than a primitive animal reaction of resistance among slaves.” But no spells could help Paulus’s army, surrounded in Stalingrad.

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Commander of the Don Front, Colonel General Konstantin Rokossovsky (left) at the observation post

Photo: RIA Novosti/Semyon Alperin

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At the end of autumn, the whole country repeated with hope the name of the city of Kalach-on-Don - after all, it was there on November 23, 1942 that a ring closed around the army of Paulus, freezing in Stalingrad. But it was not possible to immediately destroy the encircled 6th Army of the Wehrmacht. The Soviet command showed restraint, avoiding risky and hasty decisions. Moscow - perhaps for the first time in that war - relied on reliability.

The Germans did not consider themselves defeated. They managed to organize an air bridge to Stalingrad. The blockaded army suffered greatly, but still received ammunition and food. The troops of Army Group Don under the command of Erich von Manstein moved to the rescue of Paulus. They hoped to break through the ring that Rokossovsky had closed around Stalingrad with a powerful blow.

By December 20, Manstein approached the encircled Paulus group by 35–40 km. In a critical situation, after stormy staff disputes, the 2nd Guards Army of General Rodion Malinovsky was transferred from the General Headquarters reserve to the aid of the Stalingrad Front - and soon the situation at the front changed again. Manstein’s breakthrough fizzled out in the bloody pre-New Year battles in the Kotelnikovo area. The writer Yuri Bondarev, who participated in those battles, spoke about them in the novel “Hot Snow.” By the new year it became clear: Stalingrad would become a grave for those who tried to capture it.

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One of the downed Nazi planes on the ruins of the city

Photo: RIA Novosti/Alexander Mokletsov

At the end of December 1942, the plan for the strategic operation “Ring” was discussed at Headquarters, the goal of which was to destroy the encircled Wehrmacht group. On January 9, the Germans were presented with an ultimatum with proposals to end resistance “in the current hopeless situation for you, in order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”

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Photo: RIA Novosti/Georgy Zelma

Konstantin Rokossovsky, whose troops played a decisive role in the offensive operations of the Battle of Stalingrad, spoke in detail about what happened next in his memoirs:

Our attempt to show humanity to the enemy who was in a critical situation was not crowned with success. Grossly violating international rules, the Nazis opened fire on the envoys. All we had left now was to use force.

Paulus delayed surrender. He had 20 days left at his disposal. On the day the ultimatum expired, the offensive of the armies of the Don Front began, which, of course, was not an easy walk.

Finally, in the early morning of January 31, 1943, in broken Russian, the German commander uttered a long-prepared phrase in which he spoke about himself in the third person: “Field Marshal Paulus surrenders to the Red Army as a prisoner.” His headquarters was set up in the basement of a department store. Vadim Sinyavsky, the famous radio journalist, whom many remember as the first Soviet football commentator, told millions of Soviet radio listeners about this capitulation. The winners behaved nobly—even the vanquished recognized this.

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Soviet officers pass by German prisoners. Second from right is the commander of the 62nd Army, Lieutenant General Vasily Chuikov.

Photo: RIA Novosti/Georgy Zelma

Paulus' adjutant, Colonel Wilhelm Adam, recalled:

The appearance of the soldiers of the Red Army seemed symbolic to me - it was the appearance of the victors. Our soldiers were not beaten or shot. Among the destroyed city, Soviet soldiers pulled pieces of bread out of their pockets and gave them to hungry prisoners of war.

In the first days of February, the end of the months-long confrontation took place. The last to capitulate was the 11th German Corps under General Karl Strecker. Headquarters received a report from Rokossovsky:

Author of the quote

Fulfilling your order, the troops of the Don Front at 16:00 on 2.2.43 completed the defeat and destruction of the Stalingrad enemy group... Due to the complete liquidation of the encircled enemy troops, combat operations in the city of Stalingrad and in the Stalingrad region ceased.

Three days of mourning were declared in Germany. Never before have so many German soldiers disappeared without a trace in the vast expanses of a foreign country. And the eloquence of Goebbels, who tried to smooth out the bitterness of defeat, could not drown out the Germans’ sense of disaster.

Photo: RIA Novosti/Yakov Ryumkin

Residents of Stalingrad return to their homes

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And Stalingrad fell silent. For the first time in months. No bombing, no artillery. A deafening silence reigned over the ruins of the city, in which almost half a million people lived before the war... Empty eye sockets of houses, craters and mass graves - this was Stalingrad after the battle. The lens of photojournalist Emmanuel Evzerikhin immortalized the ruins of the Stalingrad fountain “Dancing Children”, created based on the fairy tales of Korney Chukovsky. After the bombing, little remained of the fountain. These photographs show the daily horror of war, grinding down all the brightest and purest things on earth. Nowadays, the fountain has been restored on the Volgograd station square.

Fighting on the outskirts of the city

In the first half of August, fierce battles broke out on the approaches to Stalingrad. Heavy battles took place in the sector of the 64th Army of the Stalingrad Front, but even here the Germans were unable to break through to the city on the move. The troops of the Red Army, relying on fortified lines, heroically defended every inch of land, launched counterattacks, exhausted and bled the enemy troops rushing towards Stalingrad. Having met with fierce resistance from the Soviet troops, whose tenacity, in addition to patriotism, was to a certain extent supported by order No. 227 “Not a step back!” (July 28, 1942), German officers, having lost the euphoria of the successfully launched offensive, began to seriously think about how difficult the upcoming battle for the city would be.

Campaign methods

In the first years of the war, German leaflets, which were also a “pass to capture,” were an effective propaganda tool. In this case, the fact of the capture of Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of Soviet leader I. Stalin, was used. Indeed, as the commander of the 6th artillery battery of the 14th howitzer regiment of the 14th tank division of the 7th mechanized corps of the 20th Army, senior lieutenant Y. Dzhugashvili was surrounded near Vitebsk on July 4, 1941.

German leaflet calling on Red Army soldiers to surrender

The heroic defense of Stalingrad ended during the Great Patriotic War

The defense of Stalingrad during the Great Patriotic War ended on November 18, 1942 . The Nazi troops suffered heavy losses in personnel and military equipment. The plan of the German command, designed to quickly capture the city, was thwarted. The heroic struggle of the defenders of Stalingrad made it possible to successfully complete preparations for the counteroffensive.

The Battle of Stalingrad became one of the most important battles of World War II and the Great Patriotic War between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht with the support of the armies of the Axis countries - Romania, Italy, Hungary, Croatia and Finland. The battle took place on the territory of modern Voronezh, Rostov, Volgograd regions and the Republic of Kalmykia from July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943. The German offensive lasted from July 17 to November 18, 1942, its goal was to capture the Great Bend of the Don and Stalingrad.

The capture of Stalingrad was very important for Hitler for several reasons. One of the main ones was that Stalingrad was a large industrial city on the banks of the Volga, along which and along which strategically important routes ran, connecting the Center of Russia with the southern regions of the USSR, including the Caucasus and Transcaucasia.

Thus, the capture of Stalingrad would allow Germany to cut off the water and land roads vital for the USSR, reliably cover the left flank of the forces advancing in the Caucasus and create serious difficulties with supplies for the Red Army units opposing them. Finally, the very fact that the city bore the name of Stalin, Hitler’s main enemy, made the capture of the city a victory from the point of view of ideology and inspiration of the soldiers, as well as the population of the Reich.

The Wehrmacht offensive on Stalingrad began on July 17, 1942 . By the end of July, the Germans pushed the Soviet troops behind the Don. The defense line stretched for hundreds of kilometers from north to south along the Don. To break through the defenses along the river, the Germans had to use, in addition to their second army, the armies of the Italian, Hungarian and Romanian allies. The Wehrmacht's Sixth Army was only a few dozen kilometers from Stalingrad, and the 4th Panzer, south of it, turned north to help take the city.

On July 28, 1942, Joseph Stalin addressed the Red Army with order No. 227, in which he demanded to strengthen resistance and stop the enemy’s advance at all costs. The strictest measures were envisaged against those who showed cowardice and cowardice in battle.

Practical measures were outlined to strengthen morale and discipline among the troops. “It’s time to end the retreat,” the order noted. - No step back!" This slogan embodied the essence of order No. 227. Commanders and political workers were given the task of bringing to the consciousness of every soldier the requirements of this order.

The stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops forced the Nazis to pull additional forces from other sectors of the front. Thus, the German plan - to break through to Stalingrad with a swift blow on the move - was thwarted, Soviet soldiers stood to the death in the large bend of the Don, and active defense was also carried out on the southwestern approaches to the city. During the three weeks of the offensive, the enemy was able to advance only 60-80 kilometers. Based on an assessment of the situation, the Nazi command made significant adjustments to its plan.

Nazi troops resumed their offensive on August 19, striking in the general direction of Stalingrad. On August 22, the German Sixth Army crossed the Don and captured a 45-kilometer-wide bridgehead on its eastern bank, in the Peskovatka area, on which six divisions were concentrated.

On August 23, the enemy's Fourteenth Tank Corps broke through to the Volga north of Stalingrad, in the area of ​​the village of Rynok, and cut off the 62nd Army from the rest of the forces of the Stalingrad Front. The day before, enemy aircraft launched a massive air strike on Stalingrad, carrying out about 2 thousand sorties. As a result, the city suffered monstrous destruction - entire neighborhoods were simply wiped off the face of the earth.

On September 13, the enemy went on the offensive along the entire front, trying to capture Stalingrad by storm. Soviet troops failed to contain his powerful onslaught. They were forced to retreat to the city, where fierce fighting broke out on the streets.

At the end of August and September, Soviet troops carried out a series of counterattacks in the southwestern direction to cut off the formations of the enemy's 14th Tank Corps, which had broken through to the Volga. When launching counterattacks, Soviet troops had to close the German breakthrough in the Kotluban and Rossoshka station area and eliminate the so-called “land bridge”. At the cost of huge losses, Soviet troops managed to advance only a few kilometers.

The forces of the Luftwaffe 4th Air Fleet carried out the longest and most destructive bombardment of Stalingrad on August 23, 1942. German aircraft destroyed the city, over 90 thousand people died, more than half of the housing stock of pre-war Stalingrad was destroyed, the city turned into burning ruins.

The situation was aggravated by the fact that after the high-explosive bombs, German bombers dropped incendiary bombs. A huge fire whirlwind formed, which burned the central part of the city and all its inhabitants to the ground. The fire spread to other areas of Stalingrad, since most of the buildings in the city were built of wood or had wooden elements.

In the northern part of the city, near the Gumrak station, the German 14th Tank Corps met resistance from Soviet anti-aircraft batteries of the 1077th regiment of Lieutenant Colonel V.S. German, whose gun crews included girls. The battle continued until the evening of August 23. By the evening of August 23, 1942, German tanks appeared in the area of ​​the tractor plant, 1-1.5 kilometers from the factory workshops, and began shelling it.

At this stage, Soviet defense relied heavily on the 10th Rifle Division of the NKVD and the people's militia, recruited from workers, firefighters and policemen. The tractor plant continued to build tanks, which were manned by crews consisting of plant workers and immediately sent off the assembly lines into battle.

From September 13 to 26, Wehrmacht units pushed back the troops of the 62nd Army and broke into the city center, and at the junction of the 62nd and 64th armies they broke through to the Volga. The river was completely under fire from German troops. Every ship and even a boat was hunted. Despite this, during the battle for the city, over 82 thousand soldiers and officers, a large amount of military equipment, food and other military cargo were transported from the left bank to the right bank, and about 52 thousand wounded and civilians were evacuated to the left bank.

The struggle for bridgeheads near the Volga, especially on Mamayev Kurgan and at factories in the northern part of the city, lasted more than two months. The battles for the Tractor Plant and the Artillery Plant became famous throughout the world. While Soviet soldiers continued to defend their positions by firing at the Germans, factory workers repaired damaged Soviet tanks and weapons in the immediate vicinity of the battlefield, and sometimes on the battlefield itself.

A specific feature of battles at enterprises was the limited use of firearms due to the danger of ricocheting: battles were fought with the help of piercing, cutting and crushing objects, often hand-to-hand.

German military doctrine was based on the interaction of military branches in general and especially close interaction between infantry, sappers, artillery and dive bombers. In response, Soviet soldiers tried to position themselves tens of meters from enemy positions, in which case German artillery and aviation could not operate without the risk of hitting their own. Often the opponents were separated by a wall, floor or landing.

In this case, the German infantry had to fight on equal terms with the Soviet infantry - rifles, grenades, bayonets and knives. The fight was for every street, every factory, every house, basement or staircase. Even individual buildings were included on the maps and given names: Pavlov's House, the Mill, the Department Store, the prison, the Zabolotny House, the Dairy House, the House of Specialists, the L-shaped House and others.

The Red Army constantly carried out counterattacks, trying to recapture previously lost positions. Mamaev Kurgan and Stalingrad-I station changed hands several times. The assault groups of both sides tried to use any passages to the enemy - sewers, basements and tunnels. On both sides, the combatants were supported by a large number of artillery batteries, up to 600-mm mortars.

Soviet snipers, using the ruins as cover, also inflicted heavy losses on the Germans. Sniper Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev during the battle destroyed 225 enemy soldiers and officers, including 11 snipers.

On the morning of October 14, the German Sixth Army launched a decisive offensive against the Soviet bridgeheads near the Volga. It was supported by more than a thousand aircraft of the 4th Luftwaffe Air Fleet. The concentration of German troops was unprecedented - on a front of only about 4 kilometers, three infantry and two tank divisions were advancing on the tractor front. Soviet units stubbornly defended themselves, supported by artillery from the eastern bank of the Volga and from the ships of the Volga military flotilla.

However, the artillery on the left bank of the Volga began to experience a shortage of ammunition in connection with the preparation of the Soviet counteroffensive. By November 9, cold weather began, the air temperature dropped to minus 18 degrees. Crossing the Volga became extremely difficult due to ice floes floating on the river, and the troops of the 62nd Army experienced an acute shortage of ammunition.

By the end of the day on November 11, German troops managed to capture the southern part and break through to the Volga in a 500-meter wide area; the 62nd Army now held three small bridgeheads isolated from each other, the smallest of which was Lyudnikov Island. The divisions of the 62nd Army, after suffering losses, numbered only 500-700 people. The German divisions also suffered colossal losses; in many units, more than 40% of their personnel were killed in battle.

Fighting on two fronts

Due to the fact that the line held by the Stalingrad Front stretched for 700 km and difficulties in controlling troops arose, on August 5 the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command decided to divide this front into two: Stalingrad and South-Eastern. Lieutenant General V. Gordov remained the commander of the Stalingrad Front, replacing Marshal of the Soviet Union S. Timoshenko. The front included the 21st, 62nd, 63rd and 4th tank armies, as well as the newly formed 16th Air Army under the command of Major General S. Rudenko. The South-Eastern Front included the 51st, 57th, 64th, 1st Guards and 8th Air Armies. Colonel General A. Eremenko was appointed commander of the front.

In impotent rage

On August 23, German aviation carried out the first massive raid on Stalingrad, in which the air corps of the 4th Air Fleet of Field Marshal von Richthofen took part together with squadrons of three-engine Ju-52 and long-range bombers stationed in Kerch and Orel. Stalingrad was engulfed in flames. This act of terror was undertaken to demoralize the city's defenders.

Ruins of Stalingrad

Stages and main events of the Battle of Stalingrad

On the Stalingrad Front, the Red Army was commanded by Marshal S.K. Timoshenko, then Lieutenant General V.N. Gordov, and then Colonel General A.I. Eremenko.

On the enemy side, the army was commanded by Lieutenant General F. Paulus.

Fighting on the approaches to Stalingrad (July 17 - September 12, 1942)

Since July 17, fighting took place near Stalingrad between Hitler's and Red armies. But Hitler’s armed forces (Wehrmacht) approached the main defensive line of the city only on July 23.

Since the enemy was almost twice as numerous as the Red Army, the soldiers had to retreat. The enemy reached the Don and had every chance of breaking through to Stalingrad from the southwest.

Therefore, on July 28, 1942, Stalin issued the order “Not a step back.” The soldiers were ordered to “cling to every piece of Soviet land and defend it to the last possible opportunity.”

On August 23, Hitler's army broke through to the Volga River, on which Stalingrad stood. On the same day, Stalingrad was subjected to heavy bombardment by the enemy. The city was burning, buildings were destroyed.

Its residents also stood up to defend the city: they defended the city and built barricades.

Defense of Stalingrad (September 13 - November 18, 1942)

The defense of the city itself began in the first half of September, when the enemy entered the city from the northern side.

September 12 was marked by battles already on the streets of the city. An important moment had arrived: the Red Army was fighting for every house; it had to prevent the enemy from capturing Stalingrad.

Until November 18, the enemy continued to advance into the city. He was either thrown back, or the Red Army had to retreat due to the constant bombardment of the city.

The Wehrmacht managed to occupy part of Mamayev Kurgan, a hill in the center of Volgograd.

On the top of the Mamayev Kurgan, for which there were fierce battles, the sculpture “The Motherland Calls” was erected in 1959. The sculpture depicts a woman who, with a sword in her hand, calls on everyone to defend the Motherland. In front of the mound there is a monument “Stand to Death”. This is a soldier with a machine gun, whose lower body is in the ground, because he does not intend to take a single step back.

One of the hottest battles was the battle for the Stalingrad Station, which was recaptured from the enemy more than 10 times. Hitler's army either occupied it or lost it again after counterattacks by the Red Army.

The other is for a residential building, which was later named “Pavlov’s House” in honor of the soldier commander Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov.

Bombs were dropped on the house, the enemy fired mortars and artillery. But Hitler’s army failed to occupy it.

A residential building in the center of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), which was named “Pavlov’s House” in honor of the feat of Ya.F. Pavlova and his soldiers. The house was built anew, because it was almost completely destroyed: only part of one of the walls remained. The defense of the house lasted 58 days. The enemy failed to occupy it.

The defense of the city of Stalingrad lasted more than two months.

Counter-offensive of the Red Army (from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943)

In mid-November, Hitler's army had no choice but to take a defensive position.

On November 19, 1942, the Red Army launched a counteroffensive. The operation was called "Uranus".

The task was to take Hitler’s army into a “cauldron” (encirclement). By November 30, this was done. The encirclement line of all enemy troops at Stalingrad was 450 kilometers.

Operation Uranus. The diagram shows how the Soviet troops advance and how they encircle Paulus’s 6th Army at Stalingrad.

The resistance of Hitler's troops continued until February 2, 1943, when Paulus's army was finally defeated and surrendered.

It is noteworthy that Paulus several times asked Hitler for permission to break through to the southwest with the remnants of his army, but he refused each time.

Paulus, who at that time had been promoted to the rank of field marshal, understood that remaining in place without sufficient reserves was tantamount to suicide. But Hitler stood his ground: the field marshal was ordered to remain at Stalingrad and was forbidden to capitulate.

Breakthrough to the Volga

By mid-August, the situation in the Stalingrad area still remained extremely tense. On the western side, German troops were 70 km from the city, and on the southern side - only 20 km. After many days of fierce battles, on August 23, the 14th Tank Corps of the 6th German Army broke through to the Vertyachey area and, cutting the Stalingrad defense into two parts, reached the Volga north-west of the city. Dozens of German tanks broke through into the area of ​​the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.

The enemy's breakthrough to the Volga further complicated and worsened the position of the units defending the city. The Soviet command took measures to destroy the enemy group that had broken through to the Volga. Counterattacks by troops of the Stalingrad Front from the north-west on the left flank of the 6th German Army stopped its advance. However, units of the 62nd Army found themselves cut off from the main forces of the Stalingrad Front, as a result of which the Headquarters transferred them to the South-Eastern Front.

On the morning of August 24, part of the forces of the German 14th Tank Corps again went on the offensive in the direction of the tractor factory, but this attack was repulsed with the participation of armed workers of the Stalingrad factories. At the same time, the troops of the Stalingrad Front attacked the Germans from north to south, forcing them to divert a significant part of the troops from Stalingrad. This maneuver managed to somewhat weaken the enemy’s attack on the city’s defenders, and its 14th Tank Corps found itself cut off from its rear and was forced to receive supplies by air for several days.

At the command post of the 62nd Army. From left to right: Chief of Army Staff Major General N. Krylov, Army Commander Lieutenant General V. Chuikov, Member of the Military Council Lieutenant General K. Gurov, Commander of the 13th Guards Division Major General A. Rodimtsev

On the southern approaches to the city, troops of the South-Eastern Front successfully repelled attacks by the German 4th Tank Army until August 29. Only on August 29, the troops of this army managed to break through the front of the 64th Army in the area of ​​​​the city of Abganerovo and, advancing in a northern direction, create a threat to the rear of the 64th and 62nd armies. By August 30, the troops of the South-Eastern Front, under pressure from superior enemy forces, began to retreat to the internal defenses of Stalingrad.

By the end of September 12, the front line was already 2-10 km from the city. On this day, Headquarters entrusted the defense of Stalingrad to the troops of the 62nd Army, led by General V. Chuikov, and part of the forces of the 64th Army, which was commanded by General M. Shumilov from August 4. In turn, A. Hitler, in order to free up all the forces of the 6th German Army to attack Stalingrad, hastily moved the 3rd Romanian Army to the Don line.

Stalingrad - the last frontier

On February 2, Russia celebrates the Day of Military Glory of Russia - the Day of the defeat of Nazi troops by Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad. As you know, the Battle of Stalingrad played a vital role in the history of the Great Patriotic War. It was with the defeat of Nazi troops at Stalingrad that the turning point in the war began, ending with the complete defeat of Nazi Germany.

Adolf Hitler planned to gain control of Stalingrad and thereby cut the main arteries connecting the central part of the RSFSR with the Caucasus. The Fuhrer hoped that the capture of Stalingrad would intensify the offensive in the Caucasus and significantly weaken the units of the Red Army defending it. We should not forget about the symbolic component of the Stalingrad operation. The city on the Volga bore the name of Stalin and its capture and subsequent renaming, according to Hitler, should have been a severe blow to the pride of the Soviet leader. For the attack on Stalingrad, colossal forces of the Wehrmacht and SS troops were concentrated, plus the armies of Hungary, Italy, Romania, Finland and Croatia allied to Hitler.

The German offensive lasted from July 17 to November 18, 1942. More than 430 thousand Nazi troops and soldiers of the Allied armies were thrown into Stalingrad, and the Fuhrer increased the number of the group as the fighting became more and more fierce. By November 1942, more than 987,300 military personnel of the Wehrmacht and allied armies were concentrated in the Stalingrad area, including over 400 thousand soldiers and officers of Nazi Germany, 220 thousand soldiers and officers of the Italian army, 200 thousand military personnel of Hungary, 143 thousand military personnel of Romania, 20 thousand Finnish military personnel (this is about the personality of Marshal Mannerheim and Finland’s participation in the war on Hitler’s side - not only the Finnish army was noted for the blockade of Leningrad in those terrible years) and 4 thousand military personnel of the Croatian army.

The number of Red Army forces participating in the Battle of Stalingrad was significantly smaller. By the time the Nazi offensive began, the command of the Red Army concentrated 386,000 people; by November 1942, the number of Soviet troops in the Stalingrad area totaled 780 thousand people. On July 12, 1942, on the basis of the field command of the troops of the Southwestern Front, the Stalingrad Front was formed, which included the 21st, 62nd, 63rd and 64th armies. Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko, who had previously commanded the Southwestern Front, was appointed commander of the front. However, after 20 days, on July 23, 1942, Timoshenko was replaced as front commander by Lieutenant General Vasily Gordov, who had previously commanded the 21st Army. But Gordov also held on to a responsible position for two months, making, in the opinion of the higher command, a number of mistakes.

On August 13, 1942, Colonel General Andrei Eremenko, a former non-commissioned officer of the tsarist army, a participant in the Civil War, who had passed through the Red Army from an ordinary Red Army soldier to a general, was appointed commander of the Stalingrad Front. Before his appointment to the Stalingrad Front, Eremenko commanded the South-Eastern Front. Under the command of Eremenko, for more than three months, Soviet troops held back the Nazi offensive at Stalingrad.

The command of Hitler's 6th Army, which played a key role in the Battle of Stalingrad, was carried out by Friedrich Paulus, who was considered one of the most talented military leaders in Germany. It was Paulus's 6th Army that was surrounded by the Red Army in besieged Stalingrad. Although Paulus warned the Fuhrer that it was better to leave Stalingrad in order to avoid a catastrophic defeat of the German troops, Hitler gave orders to hold out until the last. This, in fact, signed the verdict of Paulus’s army. Although Friedrich Paulus himself was promoted to field marshal on January 30, 1943. This decision of Hitler was more of a psychological nature - the Fuhrer emphasized that not a single German field marshal had ever been captured.

In fact, in the current situation at the front, this implied a requirement for Paulus, in the event of final defeat, to commit suicide or fall in battle. However, Paulus chose a different path. The morning after being awarded the rank of field marshal, January 31, 1943, Paulus submitted a request to the Soviet command to surrender. The Chief of Staff of the 64th Army of the Red Army, Major General Ivan Laskin, arrived for negotiations, and brought Field Marshal Paulus to Beketovka - to the commander of the 64th Army, Lieutenant General Mikhail Shumilov. The German commander who surrendered was interrogated for the first time. Paulus was then taken to the front commander, Colonel General Konstantin Rokossovsky. However, Field Marshal Paulus refused to Rokossovsky’s proposal to order the units of the 6th Army continuing to resist to capitulate. He replied to the Soviet commander that he was now a prisoner of war and could not give orders to the current command of Wehrmacht units and formations. However, the Nazi resistance in Stalingrad was suppressed even without Paulus's order.

On February 2, 1943, Hitler's troops in Stalingrad were completely defeated. Germany lost its entire strength of 32 divisions and 3 brigades, the 6th field and 4th tank armies of the German army, the 8th Italian army, and the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies were destroyed. About 91 thousand soldiers and officers were captured. However, German propaganda reported in Germany that the 6th Army died on the battlefields in its entirety. For Nazi Germany, the defeat at Stalingrad was the beginning of the end. Of course, the leadership of the Third Reich could not predict the consequences of the Stalingrad disaster of the Wehrmacht, but it was the defeat at Stalingrad that radically changed the course of not only the Great Patriotic War, but the entire Second World War as a whole.

In addition to the Wehrmacht, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, and Croatian troops took part in the Battle of Stalingrad. All of them also suffered a crushing defeat, but if the Germans were motivated by the idea of ​​Greater Germany, then in the allied countries the population was increasingly thinking about why their compatriots were dying at the front. In the Battle of Stalingrad, 22 Romanian, 10 Italian and 10 Hungarian divisions and a Croatian regiment were defeated. The command was forced to send two Romanian corps, which were part of the 4th Tank Army of the Wehrmacht, to Romania, since the personnel were completely demoralized and incapable of further participation in hostilities. After Stalingrad, Hitler had to abandon the use of troops of the allied states at the front - Hungarian, Romanian and Slovak units began to be used only in the rear.

Moreover, anti-war and anti-Hitler sentiments intensified in the Axis countries, not only among ordinary citizens, soldiers and officers, but also among representatives of the military-political elite. The Battle of Stalingrad forced Turkey, which Germany considered its potential ally, to abandon plans to start a war with the Soviet Union and invade Transcaucasia. In Romania, which supplied Germany with huge amounts of oil, the economic situation seriously deteriorated, and dissatisfaction with the regime of Ion Antonescu, who actually ruled the country, began to grow. But the most difficult situation has developed in Italy. Here, many representatives of the highest military circles, including Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio, began to show dissatisfaction with the policies of Benito Mussolini. Soon even the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, joined the conspiracy against Mussolini. All these events were a direct foreign policy result of the Battle of Stalingrad.

The victory of the Red Army incredibly increased the international prestige of the Soviet Union. All over the world, people tensely watched the epoch-making battle unfolding on the Volga. When Hitler's army surrendered, there was no limit to the jubilation of the population of the European countries occupied by the Nazis and their allies. The Soviet victory was also highly appreciated by the leaders of the countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition. Franklin Roosevelt sent a congratulatory message to Joseph Stalin, and the English King George VI presented the Soviet leader with a sword with the inscription: “To the citizens of Stalingrad, strong as steel, from King George VI as a sign of the deep admiration of the British people.” Winston Churchill gave this sword to Stalin at the Tehran Conference.

It was after the Battle of Stalingrad that the United States and Great Britain made the final decision to land troops in Europe. In the summer of 1943, the Allies landed in Sicily and soon a military coup took place in Italy, overthrowing the power of Benito Mussolini. Hitler's key ally in Europe, Fascist Italy capitulated to the Western powers on September 3, 1943, and on October 13, 1943, the new Italian government, created under the leadership of Marshal Pietro Badoglio, declared war on Hitler's Germany.

For the Soviet people and the Red Army, the battle in Stalingrad became one of the greatest events of the Great Patriotic War. Representatives of all the peoples of the Soviet country fought with the Nazis on the streets of Stalingrad, so the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad contributed to the further unity of Soviet society. For their heroic participation in the battles of Stalingrad, dozens of soldiers and officers of the Red Army were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijani Lieutenant Colonel Azi Aslanov, who commanded the 55th separate tank regiment, Georgian Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Diasamidze, who commanded the 1378th Infantry Regiment, Russian Lieutenant Colonel Timofey Pozolotin, who commanded the 17th Guards Tank Regiment, the Chechen machine gunner Khanpasha Nuradilov, who died heroically, and the machine gun commander who died from wounds. company captain Ruiz Ibarruri is a Spaniard, the son of the legendary Spanish revolutionary Dolores Ibarruri…. It is impossible to list all the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad - both those awarded and those who remained undecorated. Stalingrad became a symbol of the victory of the Soviet army and Soviet people over the Nazi occupiers.

The city liberated from the Nazis lay in ruins. As a result of the battle, 90.5% of the pre-war housing stock of Stalingrad was destroyed, industrial enterprises, social institutions, transport infrastructure, and communications were destroyed. The Soviet state was faced with a colossal task - to restore Stalingrad, to make it not just suitable for people to live, but a modern and comfortable city, repaying the debt to the townspeople for the hardships they had suffered. The first restored object of Stalingrad was the famous Pavlov's House. It was here, in a four-story building, that a group of Red Army soldiers heroically defended themselves for 58 days. First, on September 27, 1942, a group of four soldiers under the command of Sergeant Yakov Pavlov - commander of the machine gun squad of the 7th company of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment - captured a four-story building and fortified itself in it, repelling enemy attacks, and on the third day they arrived in the building reinforcements - a machine gun platoon of Lieutenant Ivan Afanasyev.

The number of defenders of the building increased to 26 people. This was a unique cross-section of the Soviet people - people of different ages and nationalities who demonstrated true heroism: Russian sergeant Yakov Pavlov and lieutenant Ivan Afanasyev, Ilya Voronov and Terenty Gridin, Ukrainian corporal Vasily Glushchenko, Kazakh Talibay Murzaev, Tajik Mabulat Turdyev, Kalmyk Garya Khokholov, Jew Idel Hayt, Georgian Niko Mosiashvili, Uzbek Kamoljon Turgunov, Tatar Faizrakhman Ramazanov and other heroic defenders of the House of Pavlov were, first of all, Soviet people and fought for the liberation of their common homeland from the occupiers.

For two months, Red Army soldiers defended a key point, preventing the Nazis from approaching the Volga. Despite the fact that the house was shelled by artillery and air strikes were carried out on it, the Red Army soldiers did not leave the building. Yakov Pavlov ended the war near Stettin with the rank of junior lieutenant, and on June 17, 1945 he was awarded the high rank of Hero of the Soviet Union. Fate was less favorable to another commander, Ivan Afanasyev. Senior Lieutenant Afanasyev, who lost his sight as a result of a concussion, was never awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. Only in the post-war period, thanks to the efforts of his colleagues, did the general public become aware of this man’s feat.

Discussions are still ongoing about whether it was worth renaming the city, which went down in world history as Stalingrad, to Volgograd. Let us recall that the renaming of the city took place on November 10, 1961, and on May 8, 1965, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Great Victory, Volgograd received the status of a Hero City. The memory of the Battle of Stalingrad and its heroes is immortalized in monuments, names of streets and squares, educational institutions, but most importantly, even now, 75 years after the defeat of the Nazis at Stalingrad, February 2 remains a very significant date for all true patriots of our country.

Fights on the city streets

Three days from September 13 to 15 became the most difficult for the defenders of Stalingrad. Despite the active actions of units of the 66th, 24th and 1st Guards Armies of the Stalingrad Front and the incessant air raids of the 16th Air Army, the Germans managed to bring additional tank units to the city. The enemy, regardless of the casualties, broke through the ruins of the city step by step closer and closer to the Volga. With the last of their strength, the soldiers of the 62nd and 64th armies of the South-Eastern Front held back this pressure.

The Red Army soldiers of the 62nd Army steadfastly and courageously took on the blow of the entire accumulation of enemy manpower and military equipment. Particularly fierce battles broke out for Mamayev Kurgan, the railway station, the tractor factory and the artillery. For example, the station alone changed hands 13 times.

The struggle on the city streets, unprecedented in its tenacity and intensity, did not stop until February 2, 1943. From September 13 to September 26, 1942, the fighting took place mainly for the central and southern parts of the city. The main objects for which particularly fierce battles unfolded were Mamayev Kurgan and the train station, which changed hands about 13 times. From September 27 to October 8, battles took place for factory villages and in the Orlovka area, and from October 9 to November 18 - for, "Red October" and the Stalingrad Tractor.

Specifics of street fighting

According to historians, A. Hitler, considering the liquidation of the enemy in Stalingrad a matter of political prestige, doomed his troops to protracted street battles, which turned into a disaster. In urban areas, the Germans lost all their advantage in maneuvering tank units, while the Soviet infantry could inflict heavy losses on them. It soon became clear that “capturing the city on the move,” as Hitler had planned, was out of the question. Soviet soldiers, who had undergone special training in street fighting, turned every building in the city into an impassable obstacle. These days everything was mixed up - the concepts of front and rear were absent.

Soldiers of the Red Army. Reconstruction

House with a name

Pavlov's house became a real symbol of courage, perseverance and soldierly valor. Before the war, it was a four-story building on Lenin Square, typical of those years. It was called Pavlov's house after Sergeant Ya. Pavlov, the commander of the assault group that captured this house. For almost two months, a group of Soviet soldiers held the heroic defense of this half-destroyed building. The Germans attacked several times a day, and each time the revived ruins met them with heavy fire. The commander of the 62nd Army, V. Chuikov, later recalled: “This small group, defending one house, destroyed more enemy soldiers than the Nazis lost during the capture of Paris.”

German soldiers in street battles. Modern reconstruction of the events of the Second World War. Photo collage

Stalingrad dead end

While making their plans, the German command did not take into account the fact that the destroyed city was turning into a magnificent defensive structure. The skeletons of residential buildings, plants and factories, fragments of walls and the remains of foundations easily turned into firing points. The defenders did not need to dig trenches and erect concrete pillboxes. Any pile of broken bricks became a fortified barricade in the path of the enemy. At the same time, Soviet soldiers used their advantages with exceptional skill. The invaders were bogged down in urban battles, suffering gigantic losses. By the end of autumn 1942, the Germans were exhausted and stopped. The defensive stage of the Battle of Stalingrad is over.

Why was Germany so eager to reach Stalingrad?

After the defeat near Moscow, the Wehrmacht no longer had the opportunity to attack along the entire front. Therefore, the German command chose one direction as a strategic goal for the summer of 1942 - the Caucasus with its rich resources, and above all oil, which was like air necessary for the German army to continue hostilities. A new blow to the Red Army should, according to Hitler, lead Germany to final victory.

On April 5, 1942, he signed Directive No. 41. It set the task “to take Leningrad in the north, and to make a breakthrough to the Caucasus on the southern flank of the front.” On April 11, a plan for an offensive operation was prepared under the code name “Blau” - an offensive in the Voronezh direction of the Weichs group (2nd field and 4th tank armies) and in Ostrogozh of the 6th Army. According to the plan of the German command, the Weichs group, upon reaching Voronezh, was supposed to turn south and encircle, together with the 1st Tank Army advancing to the east, the main forces of the Soviet Southwestern Front. After this, it was planned to divide the German forces of Army Group South into two independent ones - “A” and “B”, which were supposed to advance in the direction of Stalingrad and the North Caucasus.

Hitler gave the order to take Stalingrad at any cost. The city on the Volga was an important transport and industrial center. But not only that. Probably, the Fuhrer saw Stalin's city as the most important symbol for the Soviet people.

After the victory near Moscow and the offensive of our troops in the winter of 1941-1942. combat operations could develop more successfully for us than in the first months of the war. However, the offensive operations of the Red Army in the spring of 1942 ended unsuccessfully. After the defeat of Soviet troops near Kharkov and Kerch, the strategic initiative in the south passed to the enemy. The successful spring-summer offensive of the German Army Group South developed quickly. Part of the German Army Group B was moving towards Stalingrad.

The Battle of Stalingrad began on July 17, 1942 on the distant approaches to the city in the big bend of the Don. The resistance offered to the enemy here allowed the Soviet Supreme High Command to pull up reserves to the defense lines and restore the combat effectiveness of units and formations that escaped the encirclement and made a difficult retreat. However, the enemy moved deeper and deeper into our territory. We were losing rich industrial and agricultural areas, and oil fields were under threat.

The dramatic situation that had developed at the front was revealed with utmost directness by Order No. 227 of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of July 28, 1942. The order was read out to units of the active army, and became popularly known as “Not a step back!” The document revealed the threat looming over the country, but it expressed confidence in the Red Army's ability to defeat the enemy. He also introduced tough measures for violation of order in the troops, organization and discipline: it provided for the removal from posts and trial of commanders who allowed their units to leave without permission, and the creation of penal units where military personnel convicted by a military tribunal were to be sent.

More and more forces and means entered the fight: hundreds of units and divisions, thousands of aircraft, tanks, and guns. Using numerical superiority, the enemy overcame the Don line and broke through to the Volga. The resistance of the Soviet troops forced the Nazi command to strengthen the 6th Army. By July 22, it already had 18 divisions, numbering 250 thousand combat personnel, about 740 tanks, 7,500 guns and mortars. The troops of the 6th Army supported up to 1,200 aircraft. As a result, the balance of forces increased even more in favor of the enemy. For example, in tanks he now had a twofold superiority. By July 22, the troops of the Stalingrad Front had 16 divisions (187 thousand people, 360 tanks, 7,900 guns and mortars, about 340 aircraft). The battles were fought south and north of Stalingrad.

Hitler also decided to turn part of the forces of General Hoth's 4th Panzer Army from the Caucasian direction to Stalingrad. German tank crews were tasked with crushing the Soviet defenses on the southern approaches to the city. The chief of staff of the OKW operational leadership, General A. Jodl, said: “The fate of the Caucasus will be decided at Stalingrad.”

On August 23, the 14th Tank Corps of the Wehrmacht, unexpectedly for the Soviet side, broke through at the junction of the 4th Tank and 62nd Army of the Stalingrad Front. Having walked along the rear of the Soviet troops for about 60 km, he reached the Volga north of Stalingrad in the Market area. The workshops of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant were under fire from German guns. On the same day, German aircraft carried out a heavy bomb attack on the residential areas of Stalingrad. The city was almost completely destroyed. Modern researchers believe that at least 40 thousand civilians died from bombs and giant fires that broke out after the raid. By the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, only 32 thousand people remained in the city.

On August 15, fighting began for the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, located almost within the city. The Soviet command tried to urgently restore the situation and close the gap in the defense, but to no avail. The Germans gained a foothold and gradually began to move south, deeper into the area of ​​the factory floors.

In order to improve command and control, units of the 62nd Army of General V. Chuikov, cut off from the main forces of the Stalingrad Front, were transferred to the South-Eastern Front. The 64th Army, after stubborn fighting on the outskirts of the city, retreated to the middle defensive line and took up a tough defense there. From the end of August, fighting began on the eastern outskirts of Stalingrad, and in mid-September the enemy managed to break into the city neighborhoods (or rather, into their ruins). Bloody battles began in the city itself. Its defense at this critical time was led by the Chief of the General Staff, General (Marshal since 1943), A. Vasilevsky, who was with the troops. Communication between troops and the eastern bank was provided by ships of the Volga military flotilla and river fleet vessels.

The Soviet leadership closely watched the development of the struggle. Members of the State Defense Committee, Supreme Command Headquarters, and the government were sent to Stalingrad. Extraordinary measures were taken to strengthen the defense. Counterattacks were launched against the advancing enemy troops.

The heroic resistance of the Soviet fronts undermined the enemy's offensive impulse. By mid-November, the advance of the Nazis in the Stalingrad area and on its territory was stopped. The main strike force of the Nazi Wehrmacht was drained of blood, and the Reich's reserves were exhausted. The success of the defensive period of the Battle of Stalingrad was ensured by the courage and combat skill of the troops, behind whom the whole country stood.

The Soviet Supreme High Command prepared a counteroffensive with great skill. A targeted accumulation of forces and resources was carried out, and command personnel were trained. Troops, units and formations were provided with weapons and military equipment. The organizational structure of the Armed Forces was improved. Guards armies with great striking force and firepower were created. Tank and mechanized corps were formed. The structure of the Air Force was improved.

On November 19, 1942, Red Army troops launched a counteroffensive between the Volga and Don rivers. On the evening of November 21, Moscow radio broadcast an emergency message from the Sovinformburo, which said:

“The other day, our troops located on the approaches to Stalingrad went on the offensive against the Nazi troops. The offensive began in two directions: from the northwest and from the south of Stalingrad. Having broken through the enemy’s defensive line with a length of 30 km in the north-west (in the Serafimovich region), and in the south of Stalingrad - with a length of 20 km, our troops, in three days of intense fighting, overcoming enemy resistance, advanced to

60-70 km... Thus, both railways supplying enemy troops located east of the Don were interrupted. During the offensive of our troops, six enemy infantry and one tank divisions were completely destroyed. Heavy losses were inflicted on seven enemy infantry, two tank and two motorized divisions. In three days of fighting, 13 thousand prisoners and 360 guns were captured, as well as many machine guns, mortars, rifles, vehicles, and a large number of warehouses with ammunition, weapons and food. The enemy left 14 thousand corpses of soldiers and officers on the battlefield. The troops of Lieutenant General Romanenko, Major General Chistyakov, Major General Tolbukhin, Major General Trufanov, and Lieutenant General Batov distinguished themselves in battles. The offensive of our troops continues."

On November 23, the strike groups of the Soviet fronts united in the Kalach area and closed a ring around 22 divisions and 160 separate units with a total number of more than 300 thousand people from the enemy’s 6th field and 4th tank armies. Hitler's army had never known such a shock. Its defenses were broken through a 300-kilometer area. The depth of advance of Soviet troops in the first 12 days of Operation Uranus ranged from 40 to 120 km. Soviet mechanized formations, having created a dense ring of encirclement around the German group at Stalingrad, rushed further to the west, to Rostov. Soon, Soviet troops in the North Caucasus also went on the offensive. The Wehrmacht command hastily began to withdraw its forces from there, fearing that they would end up in a new, even more extensive cauldron in the Kuban. The initiative for military operations again, as in the winter of 1941/42, passed to the Soviet military leadership.

The newly formed Wehrmacht Army Group Don, under the command of Field Marshal Manstein, attempted to break the blockade of the encircled troops (Operation Wintergewitter). Then on December 14, the Soviet command made another important decision. The main blow, which the Southwestern Front was supposed to deliver in the direction of Rostov-on-Don in order to slam the trap behind all German troops in the Caucasus (Operation Saturn), was now directed against the Kotelnikov group of the enemy.

By December 19, units of the 4th Tank Army of the Wehrmacht encountered the 2nd Guards Army, which had just been transferred from the Headquarters reserve under the command of R.Ya. Malinovsky, which included two rifle and one mechanized corps. During the Kotelnikovsky operation, the enemy failed to relieve the encircled forces.

At the beginning of January, the time came to liquidate the Paulus group itself. Despite the fact that it was already thoroughly drained of blood and did not receive proper supplies by air (Soviet anti-aircraft gunners shot down a huge number of enemy transport aircraft that were heading to Stalingrad on Goering’s orders), the German soldiers were still determined to resist. On January 4, 1943, the Supreme High Command Headquarters approved an operation plan to destroy the encircled enemy, codenamed “Ring.” The start of the offensive was planned for January 10. On January 8, General Headquarters representative General N. Voronov and the commander of the Don Front troops, General Rokossovsky, sent an ultimatum to Paulus with a proposal to stop resistance and capitulate, but it was rejected.

On the morning of January 10, Soviet troops went on the offensive. The operation developed quite successfully, despite enemy resistance. By the end of January 25, the German group was squeezed into a small area of ​​territory in the ruins of Stalingrad. In two weeks, the encircled enemy lost more than 100 thousand people, lost its last airfields, but, at the request of Berlin, continued to stubbornly resist. On January 24, F. Paulus reported to his high command: “Further defense is pointless. Defeat is inevitable. In order to save those still alive, the army asks for immediate permission to surrender." There was a refusal. But this was a refusal to the already doomed. On January 31, 1943, Paulus, who the day before was awarded the rank of field marshal by Hitler (via radio), surrendered along with his headquarters. On February 2, 1943, the remnants of the enemy group capitulated. 24 generals and 91 thousand Wehrmacht troops were captured. 140 thousand enemy soldiers and officers were buried by our troops on the battlefield. The irretrievable losses of the Red Army in the Stalingrad offensive operation amounted to 155 thousand people.

It should be noted that Paulus’s refusal to capitulate to Soviet troops at the beginning of January 1943 was essentially a death sentence for both German soldiers killed in battle and captured. The overwhelming majority of the enemy soldiers captured in Stalingrad by the beginning of February turned into living corpses - frostbitten, sick, exhausted people.

After the end of the battles in the city, the Sovinformburo began to transmit a long list of Wehrmacht units and formations destroyed in the Stalingrad encirclement; reading it took more than one minute. The Soviet people rejoiced. Such a bright and obvious victory was inspiring. In Germany, on the contrary, three days of mourning were declared, which became the external reaction of the German leadership to the events that took place. “The possibility of ending the war in the East through an offensive no longer exists,” Hitler said at a meeting of the Wehrmacht’s senior command staff on February 1, 1943.

The gigantic confrontation at the turn of the great Russian Volga River - one of the largest in the Second World War - ended in a crushing defeat for the enemy.

The Red Army launched a general strategic offensive. Nazi troops were expelled from the North Caucasus. On the northwestern section of the Soviet-German front, the blockade of Leningrad was broken. The offensive was also carried out in the western direction. Hundreds of Soviet cities and workers' settlements, thousands of villages and hamlets were liberated from the Nazi occupiers.

The Battle of Stalingrad made a decisive contribution to achieving a radical turning point during the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War. It convincingly demonstrated to the whole world that the USSR was the leading force in the anti-Hitler coalition in the war against Nazi Germany and its allies.

The Battle of Stalingrad caused a gigantic echo throughout the world. Under its influence, the national liberation struggle of the peoples enslaved by fascism sharply increased.

Roosevelt sent a letter to Stalingrad: “On behalf of the people of the United States of America, I present this letter to the city of Stalingrad to commemorate our admiration for its valiant defenders, whose courage, fortitude and dedication during the siege from September 13, 1942 to January 31, 1943 will forever inspire the hearts of all free people. Their glorious victory stopped the tide of invasion and became a turning point in the war of the allied nations against the forces of aggression.”

British Prime Minister W. Churchill, in a message to J.V. Stalin on February 1, 1943, called the victory of the Soviet Army at Stalingrad amazing. King George VI of Great Britain sent Stalingrad a dedicatory sword, on the blade of which the inscription was engraved in Russian and English:

"To the citizens of Stalingrad, strong as steel, from King George VI as a sign of the deep admiration of the British people."

Pavlov Yakov Fedotovich - commander of the machine gun squad of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment of the 13th Guards Rifle Division of the 62nd Army of the Don Front, guard senior sergeant.

During the defensive battles in Stalingrad on the night of September 27, 1942, following the order of the company commander of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment of the 13th Guards Rifle Division (62nd Army, Don Front), Senior Lieutenant Naumov I.I., reconnaissance group ( Corporal Glushchenko V.S., Red Army soldiers A.P. Aleksandrov, N.Ya. Chernogolovy), led by the commander of the machine gun squad, Sergeant Pavlov Ya.F., captured in the city center the miraculously surviving 4-story residential building No. 61 of the Stalingrad Regional Consumer Union on Penzenskaya Street , in order to gain a foothold in it and prevent the breakthrough of German troops to the Volga River.

For 58 days (from September 27, 1942 to February 2, 1943), the legendary garrison of Soviet guardsmen, representatives of six nationalities of the peoples of the Soviet Union, held the “Pavlov’s House” and did not give it up to the enemy. And when the Nazis managed to destroy one of the walls of the fortified house, the soldiers joked: “We have three more walls. A house is like a house, only with a little ventilation.”

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated June 27, 1945, senior sergeant Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 6775).

Zaitsev Vasily Grigorievich - sniper of the 1047th Infantry Regiment of the 284th Infantry Division of the 62nd Army of the Stalingrad Front, junior lieutenant. His words went down in history: “For us, the soldiers and commanders of the 62nd Army, there is no land beyond the Volga. We have stood and will stand to the death!”

Only in the period from November 10 to December 17, 1942, in the battles for Stalingrad, V.G. Zaitsev destroyed 225 enemy soldiers and officers, including 11 snipers, and his comrades in arms in the 62nd Army - 6000. Zaitsev was especially glorified by sniper a duel with a German “super sniper”, whom Zaitsev himself calls Major König in his memoirs (according to Alan Clark, the head of the sniper school in Zossen, SS Standartenführer Heinz Thorwald).

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated February 22, 1943, for the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against the German invaders and the courage and heroism shown, junior lieutenant Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.

Last attempts

On October 14, German troops, after powerful aviation and artillery preparation, launched another assault on the city. Several divisions were advancing on an area of ​​about 5 km. This enemy offensive, which lasted almost three weeks, led to the most fierce battle in the city. Heavy street battles broke out for every house, inside every house for every floor, every apartment, every basement. Both sides suffered heavy losses.

On November 14, the German command made the last attempt to capture the city. The Germans managed to occupy the southern part and, south of it, in a narrow area, made their way to the Volga. But this was the last success of the Wehrmacht. The defensive stage of the Battle of Stalingrad is over. During it, German troops lost about 700 thousand killed and wounded, over 2 thousand guns and mortars, more than 1 thousand tanks and assault guns and over 1.4 thousand combat and transport aircraft. The losses of the Red Army troops amounted to about 644 thousand killed and wounded.

Reward for valiant defenders

On December 22, 1942, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the medal “For the Defense of Stalingrad” was established. The medal was awarded to all participants in the defense of Stalingrad (servicemen of the Red Army, Navy and NKVD troops, as well as civilians who took a direct part in the defense), involved in the battles from July 12 to November 19, 1942. In total, this medal was awarded about 760 thousand people.

Medal "For the Defense of Stalingrad"

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The victorious offensive of Soviet troops near Stalingrad

The offensive period of the Battle of Stalingrad is calculated from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943.

From the very beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff were looking for a solution that would allow them to defeat the enemy’s Stalingrad and Caucasian groups. Guided by the proverb: “One mind is good, but two are better,” the Headquarters requested proposals from front commanders. But neither K.K. Rokossovsky nor A.I. Eremenko could offer anything worthwhile.

Rokossovsky outlined his thoughts regarding a new offensive to link up with the 62nd Army fighting in Stalingrad. A.I. Eremenko also did not make proposals worthy of attention. But his answer needs to be considered in more detail, since A. I. Eremenko and N. S. Khrushchev argued that their plan was implemented at Stalingrad. Perhaps Khrushchev, with his level of thinking, was even convinced of this. In fact, such statements are completely untrue.

The action of the troops according to Eremenko’s plan could only disturb the Germans, but did not solve a single problem of defeating the enemy group. A.V. Isaev wrote the following about A.I. Eremenko’s plan: “In this version, this is not so much a counterattack as a raid on the enemy’s rear. Its success seems more than doubtful... The plan of the commander of the Stalingrad Front did not ensure the formation of a strong “cauldron”. The enemy still had at his disposal the railway running from Stalingrad to the west through Surovkino and Oblivskaya” [1, p. 270-271].

G. K. Zhukov, in his book “Memories and Reflections,” one might say, attributes the idea of ​​the plan that led to the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad to himself and dates the conversation with Stalin on this topic to September 12. But the failure of the offensive of the Stalingrad Front occurred on September 18, when, having used relatively large forces, Soviet troops were unable to break through the German defenses and after that they began to look for other solutions. And the decision itself to attack the flanks was correct, but far from new. This is a classic battle. J.V. Stalin took part in the development of such plans back in 1919 during the defeat of Denikin. The point was not this, but where to launch flank attacks and with what forces.

The solution to this issue belongs not to Zhukov, and certainly not to Eremenko, but to Headquarters, that is, Stalin and the General Staff. G.K. Zhukov also admits this in one of his assessments, pointing to the key role of the Supreme Command Headquarters in preparing the operation. He wrote: “The main and decisive role in the comprehensive planning and ensuring the counter-offensive at Stalingrad undeniably belongs to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff” [2, p. 421].

“A truly balanced and workable plan was prepared by the Soviet high command... All claims by Eremenko and Khrushchev for the authorship of Uranus are ridiculous at best. Regarding the actions of the northern group, their plan was simply monstrous" [1, p. 274 – 275].

The offensive operation of the Soviet troops on a scale unprecedented for the Soviet army was called, as is clear from the above, “Uranus”. A.V. Isaev called the plan of this operation simple and even elegant, which corresponds to the expression “everything ingenious is simple.”

The Soviet General Staff rose to the occasion and developed a detailed plan for the operation. He resolved thousands of issues and assigned tasks to the troops. Each of the 1 million 103 thousand people, according to the calculations of the General Staff, received everything necessary for the offensive and to ensure the offensive of the Soviet troops.

The rear services and front-line officers did titanic work, secretly concentrating people and equipment in the indicated places. A great contribution to the development of the plan and preparation of the operation was made by the head of the Main Logistics Directorate of the Red Army, General A.V. Khrulev and the head of the artillery department, at that time General N.D. Yakovlev, as well as aviation generals A.A. Novikov and A.E. Golovanov, and General of the Armored Forces Ya. N. Fedorenko.

On October 25, according to the plan, the Southwestern Front was created under the command of Lieutenant General N.F. Vatutin. The Southwestern Front and its 5th Tank Army were assigned the main role in the entire operation.

The strike group of the Stalingrad Front, located south of Stalingrad, was much less saturated with weapons compared to the Southwestern Front, since it could only be supplied from the eastern bank of the Volga with a weak railway network.

The Don Front had limited goals. The troops of the 62nd and 64th armies of the Stalingrad Front, located in the city and pressed to the Volga, were just right to hold back the onslaught of German troops. Only with the successful development of events could they begin to push the Germans away from the Volga with the available forces.

In preparation for the operation, the shortcomings in the formation of mechanized corps were taken into account. “Compared to the tank corps, the proportion of motorized rifles in the mechanized corps has increased significantly. If the tank brigade had a staff of 1,107 people, then the mechanized brigade had 3,707 people. The tank brigades at Stalingrad actually had approximately 70-80 trucks, and the mechanized brigades had 250-350 trucks.

Most often, mechanized corps in the Red Army were of mixed composition: three mechanized brigades and one tank brigade. Organizationally, tanks in mechanized corps were united into tank regiments, which could be used separately from mechanized brigades" [1, p. 283-284].

The Headquarters entrusted the Chief of the General Staff A. M. Vasilevsky with the responsibility of coordinating the actions of all three fronts of the Stalingrad direction.

According to the developed Operation Uranus, the strike group of the Southwestern Front under the command of N.F. Vatutin deployed on bridgeheads on the left bank of the Don near Serafimovich and in the Kletskaya area. Its task was to break through the defenses of the 3rd Romanian Army and develop an offensive towards Kalach, Sovetsky before meeting with a group of troops of the Stalingrad Front in the area of ​​​​the indicated settlements.

The strike group of the Stalingrad Front deployed south of Stalingrad in the defile of lakes Tsatsa and Batsmantsak. The task of the Stalingrad Front was to defeat units of the 6th Romanian Army Corps and develop an offensive on Sovetsky, Kalach before meeting with the troops of the Southwestern Front. Both fronts also had other combat missions.

In any case, the Germans did not have time to transfer their main forces across the Don against our advancing armies. In addition, they could not leave Stalingrad and throw units located in the city against the Soviet troops.

After the meeting of groups of Soviet troops of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts near the cities of Kalach and Soviet, the main forces of the German troops found themselves surrounded.

The task of the Don Front was to encircle the enemy’s Trans-Don grouping, that is, the German divisions occupying defenses west of the Don River, cutting them off from the main German forces located between the Volga and Don rivers near Stalingrad and in the city itself. The Don Front was supposed to strike on both banks of the Don. This was the originality of the operation plan for the Don Front.

To really imagine the strength of the Soviet troops before the offensive, it is enough to consider the strength of the Southwestern Front alone. “By the beginning of the counteroffensive, the Southwestern Front consisted of twenty-three rifle divisions, three tank, one mechanized and two cavalry corps, three tank regiments, one motorized rifle, one tank brigade, as well as thirty-nine artillery regiments, seven mortar regiments and seven rocket artillery regiments of the RGK.

An auxiliary strike to support the 5th Tank Army from the west was carried out by three rifle divisions of the 63rd Army (soon to become the 1st Guards Army)” [1, p. 277].

The troops of the Southwestern Front had the following numbers: combat troops - 331,948 people, including the 1st Guards Army - 142,869 people, 21st Army - 92,056 people, 5th Tank Army - 90,600 people .; other connections - 6423 people.

In total, the combat troops, including the rear, numbered 389,902 people. and were armed with 2,705 field guns, 5,582 mortars, 218 RA BMs, and 721 tanks.

The cavalry corps were mainly tasked with creating an external front of encirclement. They came to Stalingrad, making marches up to 564 kilometers long. Any tank corps on a march of this distance would be out of action.

“In total, the three Soviet fronts participating in the operation had 1 million 103 thousand people, 15,500 guns and mortars, 1,463 tanks and self-propelled guns, 1,350 combat aircraft.

Opposing the Soviet troops, the 8th Italian, 3rd Romanian, 6th German, 4th Panzer German and 4th Romanian armies of Army Group B under the command of Colonel General M. Weichs numbered over 1 million 011.5 thousand people, 10,290 guns and mortars, 675 tanks and assault guns, 1,216 combat aircraft" [3, p. 683].

From the above data it is clear that the number of Soviet troops and enemy troops was approximately the same, and the enemy Soviet troops were defeated because they had more guns and tanks and an original, deeply thought-out, carefully developed plan for a major military, well-prepared operation. This is where the success of the Soviet offensive lies.

Soviet troops gained superiority in armament thanks to the skillfully carried out evacuation of industrial enterprises and people in 1941 and the rapid commissioning of enterprises in a new location. This is a huge merit of the Soviet government headed by I.V. Stalin. The troops of Germany and its allies lost a lot of equipment and personnel in offensive operations near Stalingrad and in the city itself in the period from July 17 to November 18, 1942. The losses amounted to: “about 700 thousand people, over 2 thousand guns and mortars, more than 1 thousand tanks and assault guns and over 1.4 thousand combat and transport aircraft” [3, p. 683]. Only the constant replenishment of Nazi troops with personnel and weapons allowed them to conduct offensive battles.

On November 19, 1942, the troops of the Southwestern and Don Fronts went on the offensive. This day went down in the history of the USSR as Artillery Day. Before joining the troops of the Stalingrad Front in the area of ​​the city of Kalach-on-Don, the troops of the Southwestern Front had to fight more than 100 kilometers. In the path of the main attack of the Soviet armies, in addition to the Romanian troops, there was the strongest reserve of the German high command - the tank corps of F. Heim.

Soviet units fought with the 22nd Panzer Division of Geim's corps in the Peschany area all day long and only defeated the enemy in the evening. The Soviet troops simply bypassed the remnants of the German tank division and continued moving forward. Subsequently, F. Geim, for not delaying the advancing Soviet troops, was arrested and sent to prison, where he remained until 1944.

On the third day of the offensive, November 21, formations of troops of the 5th Tank and 21st Army completed the encirclement of the main forces of the 3rd Romanian Army. On November 22, Soviet troops captured the crossing at Kalach. This was a huge success, since the successful completion of the operation largely depended on the successful crossing of the Don, which separated the fronts. By the evening of November 22, tankers captured the second crossing near Kalach.

On November 20, 1942, the troops of the Stalingrad Front went on the offensive. Successfully advancing, on November 22 they captured the city of Sovetsky. On November 23, the troops of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts united in the area of ​​Kalach-on-Don, Sovetsky, closing the encirclement ring. From that time on, all communications that connected the 6th Army with other forces of Army Group B were cut by Soviet troops. In the Raspopinskaya area, a large group of Romanian troops capitulated on November 23.

Simultaneously with the movement to unite, the troops of the indicated fronts directed part of their forces to create an external encirclement front: cavalry corps and rifle formations of the 1st Guards Army, the 5th Tank Army of the Southwestern Front and the 51st Army of the Stalingrad Front, which, developing an offensive on southwestern and southern directions, created an external front of encirclement of the entire Stalingrad enemy group.

The Don Front, under the command of K.K. Rokossovsky, did not have enough strength to complete the assigned task - cutting off the Trans-Don group from the 6th Army of Paulus. Paulus evacuated the army corps from the right bank of the Don, and the encircled German troops received additional forces to strengthen the defense.

Despite the fact that the Don Front was unable to complete its task, it attracted significant enemy forces, inflicted significant losses on the German troops and, thus, through its military operations contributed to the successful military operations of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts.

Paulus's army could not resist the Soviet units surrounding it because it was saving its Trans-Don group. The Headquarters and the Soviet General Staff calculated everything very well, tying Paulus’s army hand and foot at a great distance from the Soviet advancing troops, the 62nd Army located in Stalingrad, and the offensive of the Don Front troops.

Thus, during the advance of Soviet troops near Stalingrad, the enemy was put in a hopeless situation. The bulk of the German troops were in Stalingrad and between the Volga and Don rivers, and Soviet troops were advancing beyond the Don.

The hopeless situation of the German troops was explained by the following above-mentioned reasons:

- firstly, the Germans, in any case, did not have time to transfer their main forces across the Don against the advancing Soviet armies of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts;

- secondly, the German command did not have enough forces, since part of the German troops were in Stalingrad and with their withdrawal, the Soviet units of the 62nd Army, pressed to the Volga, would go on the offensive and occupy the entire city;

- thirdly, the Germans could not withdraw troops from Stalingrad for the reason that they stormed the city for several months, had huge losses, almost took the city, and suddenly abandoned it, thereby declaring that all the casualties associated with the storming of the city were in vain;

- fourthly, the offensive along the banks of the Don by the troops of the Soviet Don Front did not allow the Germans to transfer their troops across the Don, located between the Don and Volga rivers, since they repelled the offensive of the Soviet troops of the Don Front and saved their Trans-Don group of troops.

Residents of Russia should be proud of Stalin, the Soviet military leaders who put the enemy armies in a hopeless situation at Stalingrad, and ungrateful descendants do not even know the brilliant plan for the offensive operation at Stalingrad, developed by the General Staff of the Supreme Command Headquarters. They don’t talk about this either in schools, or in institutes, or in the media.

With the approach of rifle formations, a continuous internal front of encirclement was created. On November 24, Soviet troops began to destroy the encircled enemy group. But even by November 30, having tightened the encirclement ring and more than halved the territory occupied by the encircled German troops, they were unable to cut through and destroy the enemy on the move.

The reason why the Soviet troops did not have enough strength to eliminate the encircled group will become clear later. And it could only arise because of shortcomings in the work of Soviet intelligence, which, firstly, did not identify Heim’s tank corps in a timely manner, and secondly, misled not only the front troops, but also the Headquarters, even when developing the operation, determining the number German troops, according to the operation plan to be surrounded, number 85-90 thousand people.

In fact, the Red Army troops surrounded 330 thousand people, soldiers and officers of Germany and its allies (22 divisions and 160 separate units). Intelligence significantly underestimated information about military equipment (especially artillery and tanks) and other weapons that the encircled German troops had.

About the state of the German troops at the end of November, Wieder Joachim wrote in his book “Disaster on the Volga”: “Our army, whose strength before the encirclement was approximately 330 thousand people, now, after the losses suffered as a result of the Russian breakthrough, numbered, according to our data, about 280 thousand people, including Romanians, as well as some units that were not previously part of the army, but fell into the “cauldron” with us. Among those surrounded were representatives of absolutely all German lands (one of the army corps was formed in Vienna). All of them were henceforth connected by a single unkind fate. Words of order were addressed to them, promising salvation: “Hold on! The Fuhrer will help you out! And the soldiers blindly believed in the coming deliverance. Their fighting spirit had not yet been broken, and the mood in the units remained much more optimistic for a long time than in the headquarters” [4, chapter 4].

During the attempt to liquidate the encircled troops, a more than 500-kilometer external encirclement front was formed, passing along the Krivaya, Chir, and Don rivers north of Kotelnikov. To make it clear to the reader, we can say that the continuous internal front of the encirclement was located with a front to the east, towards the encircled 6th Army of Paulus and part of the 4th Panzer Army of Hoth. His task was to force the surrounded troops to lay down their arms and surrender.

The external front was located facing the west, and its task was: firstly, to push the enemy troops as far as possible from the encircled group; and secondly, to repel all possible attacks from the outside in order to relieve the encircled troops.

List of materials used

1. Isaev A.V. Stalingrad. There is no land for us beyond the Volga. M., 2008. – (War and us).

2. Zhukov G.K. Memories and reflections. M., 1970.

3. The Great Patriotic War 1941-1945: encyclopedia. – Editor-in-Chief M. M. Kozlov. M., 1985.

4. Joachim Wieder. Disaster on the Volga [Electronic resource]. URL: https://e-libra.ru/read/144211-katastrofa-na-volge.html

Photo: transportation of the Soviet 203-mm howitzer B-4 by the Voroshilovets tractor.

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