Thanks to Russian gains in nearby fighting, including in Rostov-on-Don, miles from Stalingrad, the Axis forces — mostly Germans and Italians — were stretched thin. Through Operation Little Saturn, the Russians began to break the lines of mostly Italian forces to the west of the city. At this point, German generals abandoned all efforts to relieve their beleaguered forces trapped in Stalingrad.
Still, Hitler refused to surrender even as his men slowly starved and ran out of ammunition. By February , Russian troops had retaken Stalingrad and captured nearly , German soldiers, though pockets of resistance continued to fight in the city until early March. Most of the captured soldiers died in Russian prison camps, either as a result of disease or starvation.
The loss at Stalingrad was the first failure of the war to be publicly acknowledged by Hitler. In the end, many historians believe the Battle at Stalingrad marked a major turning point in the conflict. It was the beginning of the march toward victory for the Allied forces of Russia, Britain, France and the United States. In February , Russians gathered in what is now known as Volgograd to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the conclusion of the battle that had ravaged their city.
Barnes, T. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler predicted a quick victory, but after initial success, the brutal campaign dragged on and eventually failed due to strategic blunders From July 10 through October 31, , pilots and support crews on both sides took to the On August 23, —shortly before World War II broke out in Europe—enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the Dunkirk is a small town on the coast of France that was the scene of a massive military campaign during World War II.
The French military resistance ended when German forces occupied Paris in June and France was subsequently occupied by Germany under an armistice signed between the nations. France remained under Axis occupation until liberated by the Allied forces in Battle of Kolubara The Battle of Kolubara or the Battle of Suvobor turned into one of the worst military disasters when a strong Austria-Hungarian invasion force was turned back by a poorly-equipped Serbian Army.
The battle resulted in more than , casualties. It involved the deployment of , Austria-Hungarian troops and , Serbian forces. The battle proved the successful Serbian counteroffensive capabilities against well-equipped Austria-Hungarian forces.
The Tet Offensive was one of the biggest military combats of the Vietnam War. North Vietnam and the Viet Cong lost over 45, troops, while over 20, soldiers of South Vietnam and allies were killed and wounded in the action. Over 14, civilians died and 24, were wounded during the conflict.
The Tet Offensive proved to be a turning point in the Vietnam War. The conflict had a heavy impact on the US government and ultimately led to the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam, although it was a tactical victory for the South Vietnam and US forces. The battle resulted in over 26, casualties. Allied forces launched Operation Market Garden in September to create a 64 mile-long airborne corridor allowing the entry of tanks and troops into Northern Germany.
Over 20, paratroopers and more than 13, glider pilots, 5,t of equipment, 1, vehicles and guns were dropped during the operation making it the biggest airborne operation of those times. Allied troops successfully captured a number of bridges during the initial stages of the operation, but experienced fiercer German resistance than expected.
The Allies failed to cross the Rhine River in sufficient force and, as a result, suffered over 17, casualties. The German casualties and losses were estimated at about 9, The casualties of Syria and Jordan accounted for 2, and respectively.
In one of the few places where Beevor shows some insight into the class nature of the Soviet resistance, he--as one might expect--uses the term "Stalinism" and "Socialism" interchangeably.
Substitute the latter term for the former and Beevor's comments seem utterly appropriate:. All right-thinking people had to accept that Fascism was bad and must be destroyed by any means. Fascism was totally devoted to the destruction of the Communist Party, therefore it should lead the struggle.
When Vilsmaier's soldiers finally arrive at the outskirts of Stalingrad in the summer of , the sight that awaits them is enough to make them get back on the train and head back for Germany. In all directions, sprawled on the ground, are the bandaged and bloody casualties of the preceding months' fighting, who moan and weep inconsolably. If the Russians are "untermenschen," these soldiers are certainly not "obermenschen. Stalin had decided to hold the line at the city named after him, no matter the expense.
This meant enacting one of the most shocking measures known in modern warfare: all Russian soldiers running away from the fighting would be shot by specially assigned NKVD operatives. If a Russian had a choice between dying from a German bullet and one made in his own country, he would likely opt for the former. While the workers state promised the chance of a better future, merciless discipline was required to hold the line in the here and now so as to make that future possible.
A combination of class consciousness, patriotism and ultra-Spartan discipline helped to forge the Red detachments in Stalingrad into a Nazi-killing machine. Furthermore, the Soviet Union had something that Germany sorely lacked: sheer numbers.
Vast numbers of inexperienced youth were drafted into action, with very little training. This led to enormous casualties in face of the better trained and equipped Wehrmacht. Even schoolchildren were mustered into action.
Supervised by teachers, they carried the earth on wooden stretchers. A German aircraft suddenly appeared. The girls did not know where to hide, and the explosion from a bomb buried two fourteen-year-old girls. When their classmates dug them out, they found that one of them, Nina Grebennikova, was paralysed with a broken back. Her shocked and weeping friends cleaned off the wooden stretcher, and carried her on it to a Stalingrad hospital, next to where the Tsaritsa gorge opens on to the Volga.
In early autumn the fighting had concentrated in the rubble strewn streets of downtown Stalingrad. Hitler had vowed not to allow another "Verdun" to take place, referring to the most famous and costly trench warfare episode in WWI, but this is exactly what the Battle of Stalingrad turned into. Instead of trenches, Soviet soldiers and their Nazi counterparts fought from behind shattered buildings, often no more than fifty feet apart. In a long scene in the middle of Vilsmaier's film, such action is dramatized in a vivid fashion.
The Germans are huddled in one bombed out factory building and the Soviets face them in another. Between them is a courtyard strewn with the bodies of the already dead and dying. As the German officers order their troops to attack the Soviet stronghold, each successive wave of attackers is mowed down by Soviet fire. What the film does not portray is the heroism of the Soviet defenders who were vastly outnumbered.
The defenders from the 35th Guards Division cheered and joked when reinforcements from a marine infantry platoon commanded by Lieutenant Andrey Khozyanov reached them during the night of 17 September. They had two old Maxim machine-guns and two of the long Russian anti-tank rifles, which they used to fire at a German tank when an officer and an interpreter appeared under a flag of truce to ask them to surrender. German artillery then ranged on to the vast structure preparing the ground for the Saxon 94th Infantry Division, whose insignia were the crossed swords of Meissen porcelain.
Knowing that they could not expect resupply, they conserved their ammunition, rations and water carefully. The conditions in which they continued to fight over the next two days were terrible. They were choked with dust and smoke, even the grain in the elevator had caught fire, and they soon had almost nothing left to drink.
They were also short of water to fill the barrel jackets of the Maxim machine-guns. Presumably the marines resorted to their own urine for the purpose, as was so often the practice in the First World War, but Soviet accounts avoid such details.
Both Maxims were put out of action. The defenders, unable to see inside the elevator for smoke and dust, communicated by shouting to each other through parched throats. When the Germans broke in, they fired at sounds, not at objects. That night, with only a handful of ammunition left, the survivors broke out.
The wounded had to be left behind. Although a fierce fight, it was hardly an impressive victory for the Germans, yet Paulus chose the huge grain silo as the symbol of Stalingrad in the arm badge he was having designed at army headquarters to commemorate the victory.
While this urban trench warfare proceeded through the end of , the Soviet Union was operating munitions factories twenty-four hours a day in the Eastern part of the country not yet under Nazi control, as it drafted a huge new army to dislodge the invaders. The stubborn fighting in Stalingrad prevented the Nazis from moving eastward. After the new Soviet forces were assembled, a top-secret decision was made to surround Paulus's Sixth Army from the north and the south.
This counter-attack coincided with the full brunt of the Russian winter that the German army was ill-prepared for. Not only were the Nazis short of food, ammunition and water, they lacked winter combat gear. Since Hitler had gambled that the fighting would be long over prior to the onset of winter, his ill-equipped soldiers began to suffer frostbite and worse. To survive, many removed the underclothing of dead Soviet soldiers or wrapped rags around their shoes.
In the final section of the film, Vilsmaier depicts his soldiers, now whittled down to a haggard and ailing group of ten or so, trudging through the deep snow trying to escape both the fighting and the inclement weather.
Although it is impossible to feel any kind of sympathy for these killers, we do understand his main point, namely that WWII was a catastrophe for the German people both physically and spiritually. In the context of various reactionary ideological trends in recent years, which range from German historiography minimizing the horrors of the Nazi regime to Reagan's placing a wreath at Bitberg, Vilsmaier deserves applause.
However, the film did not receive a positive response, especially from critics in Great Britain and the United States who objected to any attempt to humanize German foot soldiers.
They took exception particularly to several incidents that showed them taking mercy on Russian soldiers or civilians. Obviously they still adhere to the Manichean worldview of WWII in which "our" side never raped, plundered or murdered innocent civilians. Another possible factor was worry over the uncompromisingly antiwar vision of the movie.
If the new Germany was to take its place in helping to once again "civilize" the East, it would be necessary to instill a fighting mood among its youth. Alluding to the possibly subversive effect of the film, Peter Millar wrote in the January 31, London Times:. On a wet Friday night, an audience of noisy, mostly young, Berliners who had rolled in from the Kurfurstendamm, beers and popcorn in hand, filed out after the credits in stunned silence.
If, despite the international pressure to ''play a grown-up part'' in UN peacekeeping efforts, no German government can raise a majority for sending troops to Bosnia, Stalingrad will have played its part. Stalingrad is expected to open in London in late spring. Turning now to the importance of Stalingrad for the Soviet people, it would be useful first of all to consider the role of composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose music not only symbolizes the powerful will of the Soviet people to resist fascism, but the difficulties they faced in trying to build socialism under the rule of a capricious dictator.
In , when the Nazis were at the gates of Leningrad, Shostakovich was serving as a volunteer firefighter. Although he was the Soviet Union's most respected composer, he occasionally found himself on Stalin's wrong side. Leningrad, considered an Old Bolshevik stronghold, had suffered from the purges more than any other city. Shostakovich, who had enjoyed the patronage of Marshal Tukhachevsky, had every reason to live in fear after his compatriot was executed.
While the Seventh Symphony was characterized by the sort of upbeat and optimistic mood found in most of Shostakovich's large-scale works, the Eighth Symphony was decidedly subdued, introspective and mournful--as befits a musical work composed in what appeared to be the final days of the socialist republic. The work was condemned as "formalist" after WWII and never received the kind of popular and critical acclaim of his other work.
However, it certainly is true to the spirit of as well as being one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century. It is something that never fails to confound bourgeois musicology, how one of the great composers of the modern epoch could have attained such sublime levels while being forced to follow the rules of artistic commissars.
Shostakovich's sphinx-like visage, always seen behind thick eyeglasses, was the perfect counterpart to his artistic psyche, one that resists superficial interpretations.
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