10 Fatos Sobre Stalingrad

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10 Facts About the Battle of Stalingrad

1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment

This regiment like many other anti-aircraft regiments in the Soviet Union at the time

was made up entirely of young women, some of them not long out of high school. The1077th is known for their fierce interception of the German 16th Panzer Division. On

August 23rd 1942, the German 16th were tasked with destroying the Stalingrad TractorFactory, which had been refitted to manufacture tanks. The attack came from the

northern quarter of the city and as the Soviets were not expecting an attack from thisquarter, the 1077th were completely unprotected by infantry. Armed with only thirty

seven M1939 Air Defense Guns and facing an onslaught of German tanks, the young

women of the 1077th did the only thing they could, improvise and fight. They droppedtheir anti-aircraft guns to the lowest elevation and fired out across German tanks and

submachine-gunners, for two days they fought before finally being overwhelmed by the

sheer number of Germans. The Germans, arriving at the positions they had been

receiving such intense fire from were shocked to find the bodies of young women. The

1077th were no more but not before destroying 83 tanks, 15 infantry vehicles, killing 3battalions of infantry and shooting down 14 aircraft. The Germans had yet to know it

but the resistance put up by the 1077th would be a sign of things to come.

Stalingrad Tractor Factory


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As mentioned above the Stalingrad Tractor Factory had been refitted to produce tanks,

primarily the T-34. Being short on trained tank crews, most of the T-34s were driven

straight off the production line and into battle by volunteer factory workers. A lot of the

time in the rush to drive back the Germans the T-34s went off the floor lacking paintand gun sights, crewed by the very people who a short time ago were putting them

together. As quickly as the Panzer Divisions would destroy them, the tractor factory

would push wave after wave of new tanks out the door and into battle. This makeshift

battlefield production line proved invaluable in holding off the Nazi invasion untilreinforcements and a counter-attack could be planned. The Stalingrad Tractor Factory

was rebuilt after the war during Soviet restoration and stands today under the nameDzerzhinsky Tractor Works, up until it was declared bankrupt in 2005, it manufactured

both tractors and military equipment.

Mamayev Kurgan


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Very few spots on earth could lay claim to the shear loss of life experienced on it than

Mamayev Kurgan, originally a 100 metro Tartar burial mound it became the focal point

for the German Sixth Armys attack on Stalingrad city centre. Originally captured

briskly by the Germans on September 13th 1942, the very next day it was the site of a

huge Soviet counterattack from 13th Guards Rifle Division which by September 16thhad recaptured the hill. The cost was almost all of the 10,000 men that had went in two

days previously. Over the next few weeks, the hill changed hands time and time again.So fierce was the fighting atop Mamayev Kurgen that at the battles end there would be

around a thousand pieces of shrapnel and bone per square metro, the hill itself so

scorched by shelling and gunfire that grass hadnt even begun to grow almost a year

later. In fact what was once a hill had become almost completely flattened during the

numerous attempts to capture and hold it. In a poignant example of the horrors of war,

in an excavation of the area in 1944 at the beginning of Soviet restoration, two soldiers

from either side were found who having impaled the other with a bayonet to the chest,

were then buried by an exploding shell, preserved amidst a battle that ended over a year

previously.

Pavlovs House


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Junior Sergeant Yakov Pavlov was only twenty four years old when he was ordered to

lead an assault on an apartment building adjacent to the River Volga, little did he knowduring what turned out to be a disastrous assault that the very building he was sent to

seize would soon be named in his honor. At the assaults end Pavlovs thirty strong

platoon numbered only four men, with no reinforcements in sight, Pavlov and his

remaining men proceeded to fortify the apartment building. It would be a week before

reinforcements would arrive but the Junior Sergeant and four weary soldiers held tight,repelling wave after wave of German attackers from mounted machine guns and

destroying enemy tanks with an anti-tank rifle placement on the roof. The

reinforcements brought their number to twenty five, together they dug a

communications and supply trench although adequate supplies were a rarity and they

ended up having to resort to using insulating wool from the roof as bedding. Twentyfive poorly supplied soldiers of the Red Army would successfully hold what came to be

known as Pavlovs House for three months against numerous attacks from the GermanSixth Army. At times the fighting was so intense they would have take it in turns to run

outside and kick down the stacks of corpses mounting at the front of the building to stop

the attacking Germans from using them as cover.

Air Support


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By November 22nd a successful pincer movement by the Red Army had almost the

entire German 6th Army trapped inside Stalingrad. Around 230,000 troops in total now

found themselves at the mercy of their top command. Sealing their fate Hitler would

now make his second major mistake in Stalingrad (the first one being attacking it).

Firstly and inexplicably he insisted that they not try and break out of the Soviet ringencircling them, he refused to acknowledge that retreat was an option and instead

announced that the German 6th Army would now receive their supplies by air. From theoutset this was destined to be a disaster, the huge numbers of troops by far outweighed

the amount that could feasibly be airdropped. It was estimated the besieged 6th Army

would require at least 800 tons daily to ensure operational functionality, measuring this

against the maximum amount that could be delivered of 117 tons and becomes obvious

just how dire the situation was to become for the trapped German Army. In reality, the

numbers didnt even begin to factor in other variables, including weather conditions and

aircraft being shot down, the Luftwaffe only managed to deliver around 94 tons of

supplies daily. To compound this further, most of the deliveries were hopelessly

unsuitable for the situation on the ground, one delivery in particular dropping 20 tons of

Vodka and summer uniforms in the middle of a bitter Russian winter.

Generals


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Beyond the obvious suffering of the troops on the ground level, Stalingrad also took a

heavy toll on the generals in charge of leading them. Besieged on either side by two

leaders of varying insanity and stubbornness, being a general during the Battle of

Stalingrad was far from a walk in the park. General Vasily Chuikov, a lieutenant general

in the Red Army and one of the key figures in the battle of Stalingrad developed stressinduced eczema of such a severity that he was forced to completely bandage his hands

(pictured 2nd from left). General Paulus, in charge of the German 6th Army developed atic in his right eye that would eventually take hold of entire right side his face. The

German Chief of the Army General Staff, Kurt Zeitzler, so appalled by the conditions

the troops were facing since the airdrop strategy began, reduced his rations to those of

the ground force in Stalingrad, after losing 26 pounds in two weeks, an irritated Hitler

forced him to begin eating regular meals again.

Vasily Zaytsev


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Aside from Simo Hayha, Zaytsev is the most well known sniper in history and the

Battle of Stalingrad was where he cut his teeth. Like most of histories greatest snipers, a

simple farm boy, he was born in the Ural Mountains and honed his skills hunting deer

and wolf with his grandfather. Originally serving in the Soviet Navy as a clerk, which

seems like a gross misappropriation of his skills, he volunteered to be sent to the frontline at the outset of the German invasion. Zaytsev was much more than just a

sharpshooter though, his improvisation of the equipment at hand was ingenious.Predating modern anti-material rifles by decades he attached a Mosin-Nagant scope to

an anti tank gun so that he could take out enemies who were taking cover behind walls,

the 20mm round proving proving brutally effective for this task. He established a sniper

school in a factory in the middle of Stalingrad, bear in mind this was during the battle

itself, his 28 students going on to kill and estimated 1000-3000 soldiers during the

course of the war. Almost blinded during a mortar attack, his sight was restored by a

Professor Filatov, a pioneering eye surgeon and he went straight back out to the front

line, finishing the war in Seelow Heights, around 60 miles from Berlin. He died in 1991,

aged 76, ten days before the dissolution of the Soviet Union which hed fought to

protect. His final request was to be buried at Stalingrad alongside his fallen comrades,after initially being buried in Kiev he was reburied in 2006 in Volgograd (present day

Stalingrad) with full military honors.

Living Conditions


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Living conditions on the ground in Stalingrad were unimaginably terrible, at the

beginning of the battle, a regular Red Army conscript had a life expectancy of just 24

hours, this increased marginally if you were a Soviet officer to around 3 days. The

Soviets initially after being caught on the back foot, had to endure hardships that today

we would find hard to comprehend, cannibalism was a common occurrence amongst thestarving and besieged populace. Rats became a staple of most peoples protein intake,

soldiers and citizens alike would go around picking dead horses clean of meat. Initially

a poor supply chain meant that the Soviets had to strip their dead comrades of their

uniform to outfit the continual stream of new draftees. This however was turned on itshead when the battle turned in the Soviets favor, the now trapped German 6th Army

began referring to the pocket they inhabited within Stalingrad as The Cauldron.Fighting had ground to a bitter floor by floor affair, the average engagement would

involve the Soviets holding a living room adjacent the to Germans in the kitchen.Slowly starving to death, they resorted to slaughtering the 10,000 horses they had

brought to the battle as a source of food. The Germans also had another problem to

contend with, the cold, ill equipped for winter warfare as Hitler had arrogantly thoughtthe battle would be over by the winter, the Germans now had to face temperatures of

minus 30 degrees celsius (for comparison the temperature in your freezer is about minus

18 to 19 degrees celsius). Too weak to attempt the breakout that Hitler ordered too late,

those who hadnt been killed or starved, simply froze to death.

Echelon and Armstrong thanked this.

Viva La Revolution ........

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Re: 10 Facts About the Battle of Stalingrad------------------------------------

Surrender

Despite having been promoted to Field Marshall by Hitler (an encouragement to

commit suicide as no German Field Marshall had ever been taken alive), General Paulus

surrendered on January 31st, followed shortly by the remainder of the Axis forces on

February 2nd. This being the Soviet Union during the reign of Stalin, POWs werent

going to be afforded any small mercy (Stalin wasnt known for looking after his own
http://www.defence.pk/forums/member.php?u=33623


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people too well). The German prisoners were immediately sent on a series of death

marches to gulags or put to work rebuilding Stalingrad, weakened by starvation, disease

and wounds, 75,000 German prisoners of war died within three months of their

surrender. In an attempt to reduce the death rate, the Soviets abandoned the death

marches and put the remainder on transports, however this did little to help and the

amount of survivors again plummeted from 35,000 to around 17,000. In total, of the110,000 captured just 5,000 returned home to a divided Germany in 1955, a full 13

years after the battle had ended.

Aftermath

Only at the end did it become apparent the scale of destruction and death that hadoccurred at Stalingrad, estimates vary but the death toll is generally accepted to be

somewhere between one and two million, though not universal it is generally accepted

to be the single largest death toll in any battle in mankinds history. By the end of whatturned into a decisive Soviet victory the city of Stalingrad was comparable structurally

to Hiroshima or Nagasaki, what had started as an attempt to seize a city had descended

into madness amongst nothing but rubble. It has been noted that the city was important

to both Hitler and Stalin for propaganda purposes, to capture or lose a city named after

the Soviet leader wouldve proven a major coup or a disaster in morale to eachprospective side. In the end it became irrelevant, Nikita Krushchev, one of the generals

who fought in Stalingrad and later the Soviet Premier changed the citys name toVolgograd in 1961. Around this time a huge statue was erected in memory of the battle,

named The Motherland Calls it is comparable in height to the Statue of Liberty and

stands on what remained of Mamayev Kurgen. Volgograd today has a population of

around one million and is an important industrial hub within modern Russia.


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10 Fatos Sobre Stalingrad