November 1942, the head of the Luftwaffe assured Adolf Hitler that the abandoned and surrounded German soldiers of the 6th army were going to be ok.
The Luftwaffe he said would begin an air assault and create breaks in the Soviet encampments for them to escape through.
He was wrong and the whole lot of what was left of the German 6th army surrendered to the Soviets
To his credit it was the Luftwaffe who was critical in the initial success of the German offensive into the city.
They obliterated several of the Soviet offensives lines helping to draw out the battle.
It was the steady flow of reinforcements via the Volga River that turned the tide of the Battle of Stalingrad.
The Germans had not planned for a siege and did not expect a Soviet winter battle.
The Battle of Stalingrad was the end of the Third Reich and signaled a shift in German wartime strategy from blitzkreig to oh-shits-krieg.
More than 2 million were killed over a period of 5 months making the Battle of Stalingrad the largest battle of WW2.
That’s nearly 400,000 deaths a month and close to 13,000 a day.
What’s less known is that the German forces included in the battle were also made up of her Axis allies.
This included Romania, Croatia, Italy, and Hungary. To the Germans these were lesser forces and they held them mostly in contempt for a lack of experience.
They were right to, because they were less experienced.
Where the Germans failed to prepare and the Soviets soon exploited was for the devastating effects of a Soviet winter of the coming months.
The Germans also relied on the Axis allies to maintain a northern blockhead to deter Soviet counter attacks.
This was a terrible mistake.
The Battle of Stalingrad
August 1942 the Germans began their assault on the city of Stalingrad.
Ground forces came from the 6th army and were supported by a Panzer division.
Before the initial push German Luftwaffe reduced the entire city to ash and bricks.
This set the entire city on fire and smoke was everywhere.
The Luftwaffe later played a critical role in bombing incoming ferrys and landing positions to and from the Volga River.
After 4 months of intense fighting that largely took place in houses throughout the city the Germans pushed the Soviets back to the Volga River.
The homes were not vacant as Stalin made the decision to prohibit the people of Stalingrad to leave.
His idea was to encourage the soldiers to fight harder to defend these people. Most of them died as a result.
The sky belonged to the Luftwaffe who constantly battered Soviet tanks and anti aircraft weapons.
The Soviet air force was quickly eliminated despite a continuous flow of reinforcements.
Soviet Counter Attack
The counter attack was part of the Soviet’s biggest advancement yet, known as Operation Uranus.
It was a success and it was mostly a result of targeting the less prepared German allies’ troops from the rear.
This allowed the Soviets to circle the main German force and eventually cause them to surrender.
It was the attitude of the Soviet commander they were to take back the city at all costs or die.
Hundreds of deserters were executed or sent to labor camps as punishment.
End of the Third Reich
The significance of the battle of Stalingrad stands as the turning point of the engagements on the Eastern Front.
It was Germany’s greatest defeat and was a permanent disabling of Hitler’s grand scheme to invade Russia.
Even more destructive than losing an entire army was the morale turn for the German military.
The early victories of the invasion of Poland and France combined with the Nazi rhetoric of invincibility of the bloodline had created an iron morale.
The effects were felt all the way up the chain of the German high command. Adolf Hitler abstained from addressing the country in his upcoming speech.
He instead had propaganda minister Goebbels do it for him. By his own admission in relation to the defeat at Stalingrad, Germany was no longer an invader.
This meant the turning point for German war strategy. The Third Reich was now on the defense.
A turn which would pit every man, woman, and child in Germany against the incoming eastern Soviets and Allies from the Western Front.
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