The battle of Stalingrad is a defensive stage. In the Stalingrad cauldron were destroyed
July 17, 1942 the vanguards of the divisions of the 6th german army met at the turn of the Chir and Tsimla rivers with the forward detachments of the 62nd and 64th armies of the Stalingrad Front. The battles of the detachments marked the beginning of the great Battle of Stalingrad.
The heroic struggle of the Soviet soldiers continued for six days. With their perseverance and steadfastness, they did not allow the enemy to break through to Stalingrad on the move.
When the formations of the Stalingrad Front entered into single combat with the 6th German Army in the big bend of the Don, the enemy realized that he would meet strong resistance in this direction. Soviet troops. On July 23, the Nazi command issued Directive No. 45. It specified the tasks for the troops advancing towards the Volga and the Caucasus.
Army Group "B" (2nd, 6th German and 2nd Hungarian armies), which included 30 divisions, was ordered to defeat the grouping of Soviet troops in the Stalingrad region, capture the city and disrupt transportation to the Volga; subsequently strike along the river to the southeast and reach Astrakhan.
Army Group "A" (1st, 4th tank, 17th, 11th field armies), which had 41 divisions, was supposed to surround and destroy the forces of Soviet troops in the area
south and southeast of Rostov-on-Don, and cut the Tikhoretsk-Stalingrad railway with advanced units. After the destruction of the grouping of Soviet troops south of the Don, it was planned to develop an offensive in three directions for the complete mastery of the Caucasus.
More and more forces were consistently drawn into the battle for Stalingrad. If the enemy launched the first attack on Stalingrad with the forces of one 6th Army, then a week later he returned the 4th Panzer Army to this area. In September-November, these armies operated on a narrow front directly in the Stalingrad region. By that time, only two armies remained in the Caucasus - the 17th and 1st tank armies. Thus, in the course of the struggle on the Eastern Front, there was a redistribution of forces between the "main" - Caucasian and "providing" - Stalingrad directions.
The transformation of the Stalingrad region into the center of the struggle in 1942 took place not according to the plans of the leadership of the Nazi Wehrmacht, but contrary to them, at the behest of the Soviet command. The Soviet Army forced the enemy to accept a decisive battle near Stalingrad, where he did not expect it and was not ready for it.
The growing resistance of the Soviet troops forced the enemy to significantly strengthen the 6th Army. It included the 14th Tank Corps, previously intended for an offensive in the Caucasian direction, and the 51st Army Corps was returned from the 4th Tank Army.
In total, by July 23, the enemy concentrated 26 divisions against the Stalingrad Front. The enemy had both a numerical advantage and an advantage in technology.
On July 23, enemy troops resumed their offensive. Inflicting enveloping blows on the flanks of the defending grouping of Soviet troops, the enemy expected to encircle the 62nd Army, go to the Kalach region, and from there break through to the Volga.
The troops of the Stalingrad Front, defending in the great bend of the Don, during the first week of August fought fierce battles to hold bridgeheads on the right bank of the Don. However, under the pressure of superior enemy forces, they were forced to retreat to the defensive bypass of Stalingrad, and in some areas even leave this line.
On August 5, the Headquarters considered it necessary, in order to ensure firm command and control of the troops fighting defensive battles in a wide zone, to divide the Stalingrad front into two - Stalingrad and South-Eastern.
On August 10, the armies of the two fronts fought heavy and intense battles on the outer defensive contour. They were in the following position. The section from the mouth of the Ilovlya River to the area north of Vertyachego-Lyapichev is the 62nd Army. The 64th Army, leaving small detachments on the Aksai River, defended the Logovskaya and Plodovitoe sector with its main forces. The 57th Army was at the same frontier - from Plodovitoe to Raigorod. Northwest of Stalingrad along the middle reaches of the Don from
Pavlovskaya to the mouth of the Ilovlya River was defended by the 61st and 21st armies.
The main efforts of the Eighth Air Army, General T. T. Khryukin, were aimed at destroying enemy manpower and equipment on the battlefield, covering troops and important objects. The fight against the enemy in the air took place in difficult conditions. On the southwestern approaches to Stalingrad alone, the aircraft of the enemy's 4th Air Fleet made up to 1,000 sorties daily.
The number of sorties of the 8th Air Army, despite the great tension of its flight personnel, was usually 2.5 - 3 times less than that of the enemy.
In mid-August, the struggle near Stalingrad entered a new stage, the main content of which was the defensive battle of the Soviet troops on the Stalingrad contours created on the near approaches to the city.
The fascist German command, realizing that the 6th and 4th Panzer Armies, which had delivered strikes at different times, could not break through to Stalingrad, began preparations for a new offensive operation to capture the city as quickly as possible. The enemy regrouped troops, pulled up reserves.
In the course of preparing a new offensive, the aviation of the 4th Air Fleet was relocated to airfields located closer to the Volga, which allowed enemy aircraft to make several sorties a day.
On August 15, the Headquarters transferred the Stalingrad Military District to operational subordination to the commander of the South-Eastern Front in order to ensure the junction of the Stalingrad and Caucasian directions and defense on the approaches to the Volga in the Stalingrad-Astrakhan section.
By this time, the alignment of forces had changed slightly, but the position of the Soviet troops remained very difficult, and the enemy still dominated the air and with even greater force on the ground.
On August 15-17, fierce battles of the Soviet troops unfolded on the near approaches to Stalingrad, which continued with unrelenting tension until September 12.
In the battles on the near approaches to Stalingrad, the Nazi troops had to overcome the ever-increasing resistance of the Soviet troops. In order to advance 100-120 km, the Nazis had to fight intense battles for 63 days, during which time they lost 87 thousand soldiers and officers, over 350 tanks, 400 aircraft, but they could not take Stalingrad.
On August 21, heavy fighting broke out. Despite the strong opposition to the advancing enemy and the mass heroism of the Soviet soldiers, the Nazi troops managed to expand the bridgehead to 45 km by the end of the next day. Having concentrated on it 6 divisions, 250 - 300 tanks, a large number of artillery, the enemy, with the support of aviation on August 23, struck in the direction of Vertyachiy,
Borodin. This day was difficult and memorable for the defenders of Stalingrad.
On August 29, after regrouping, the enemy troops broke through the defense front of the 64th Army northwest of Abganerovo and, advancing to the north, created a threat to the rear of the 64th and 62nd armies. On this occasion, there is a remark from the guards lieutenant I.F. Afanasyev: “After the regrouping, the enemy undertook four strikes in four directions simultaneously on the defense front of the 57th and 64th armies.
The first blow was delivered through height 118, Solyanka in the direction of Krasnoarmeysk.
The second blow is to the south of the junction 55 kilometers, through the sheepfolds at the junction of the 57th and 64th armies in the direction of st. Tundutovo - Beketovka.
The third strike was from the Gromoslavka area in the direction of Zeta-Gavrilovka-Elkhi-Elshanka.
The fourth blow - from the area southwest of the Red Don in the direction of Buzinovka - Rokotino - Voroponovo.
Only on the second day of this offensive did the Nazis manage to break through the defenses of the 64th Army.
With the release of German troops to the inner contour, there was an immediate danger of their rush to Stalingrad. Urgent measures were required to divert part of the enemy forces from the city, to weaken his pressure on the heroically fighting divisions of the 62nd and 64th armies, to buy time to organize the defense of the city itself and pull up reserves from across the Volga.
In this situation, the Stavka decided to immediately strike at the enemy from the area north of Stalingrad, where in early September the 24th and 66th armies arrived from the Stavka reserve. The 1st Guards Army was re-equipped.
Significant assistance to unearthly troops was provided by the air force. In September, the 16th Air Army, newly created as part of the Stalingrad Front, began to operate. Long-range air strikes intensified.
On September 12, the defensive battle of the Soviet troops on the Stalingrad contours ended. In the course of it, the troops of the Stalingrad and South-Eastern fronts thwarted the plan of the fascist command with simultaneous attacks by the 6th and 4th tank armies to capture the city and stop the enemy in front of the positions of the city bypass. The situation remained extremely difficult. The enemy, covering Stalingrad from the northeast and southwest, was 2-10 kilometers from him.
On the same day, the commander of the 62nd Army, Lieutenant General V. I. Chuikov, was appointed. Having received a new appointment, Chuikov, having crossed the Volga from the front headquarters to the right bank, immediately went to the command post of the 62nd Army, which was at that time at an altitude of 102.0 - the Mamaev Kurgan that went down in history. At that time, Volgograd, or rather Stalingrad, was in a very difficult position. People were starving, freezing, all houses, factories, hospitals and other institutions, if not turned into a handful of ashes or completely destroyed, were in a very difficult situation. The Soviet army also carried
huge losses, but stood to death, because everyone knew that there was nowhere to retreat further. If the enemy captures Stalingrad, then the Soviet army simply would not have any chances to win this battle, and if it did, it would be so meager that it would be almost impossible.
September 12 at a meeting at the headquarters of the Wehrmacht near Vinnitsa, Hitler strongly demanded at any cost and as soon as possible to capture Stalingrad. To storm the city, the troops of Army Group "B" were significantly strengthened by the transfer of formations from the Caucasian direction and the West. As a result, only during the first half of September, nine divisions and one brigade were sent to the Stalingrad region.
On the morning of September 13, the Nazi troops began an assault on the central part of the city, where the 62nd Army was defending, which General V. I. Chuikov took command of on September 12. The southern districts of the city were defended by the 64th Army of General M.S. Shumilova.
September 14, the enemy managed to break into central part city near the station Stalingrad-1. In order to destroy the enemy that had broken through, on the night of September 15, the 13th Guards Rifle Division under the command of General A.I. Rodimtsev was urgently transferred to the city. The guards went on the attack straight from the crossing. They stopped, and in some areas threw the enemy back, freeing several quarters from the Nazis.
The fascist German troops began the assault on the city on the morning of September 13. In the period from 13 to 26 there was a struggle for the central part of the city. From September 27 to November 8, battles unfolded for industrial settlements and in the Orlovka region, and from November 9-18 - for the Tractor Plant, the Barrikady and Krasny Oktyabr factories.
The names of the soldiers of the garrisons of the House of Sergeant Ya. F. Pavlov and the House of Lieutenant N. E. Zabolotny, whose exploits became a symbol of great courage and mass heroism of the soldiers of the Soviet army, received worldwide fame.
On the night of September 27, 1942, the reconnaissance group of the 7th company of the 42nd guards rifle regiment The 13th Guards Rifle Division, consisting of Sergeant Ya. F. Pavlov, knocked out the enemy from a 4-storey building on Penzenskaya Street and held him for almost three days.
The defense of this legendary house, which went down in the history of the Great Patriotic War as an immortal monument of military glory, lasted 58 days. And this is not the only case of heroism in the history of Stalingrad. The defenders of Stalingrad fought not only with amazing courage and self-sacrifice, but also with increasing skill.
In preparation for the general assault, the German command mobilized all possible forces. Almost all the replacements that arrived on the Soviet-German front were sent to Stalingrad.
The opponents intended to inflict the main blow on the tractor plant and the Barrikady and Krasny Oktyabr plants. Their actions were supported by up to 1 thousand aircraft.
On October 10, the Nazis launched violent attacks against the units defending the tractor factory. The attacks followed one after another, the German command planned to capture the Tractor Plant and, having dismembered the 62nd Army, destroy it.
Having suffered heavy losses, on October 15, the enemy captured the Tractor Plant and broke through to the Volga in a narrow 2.5-kilometer section. The position of the troops of the 62nd Army deteriorated significantly. Colonel Gorokhov's group was cut off from the main forces of the army. And yet, the Nazi generals and their divisions did not comply with the Fuhrer's order. Soviet soldiers thwarted the plan to capture the city.
At the final stage of the defensive battle, a struggle began for the Krasny Oktyabr and Barrikada factories, as well as in the area of the Rynok village. The Soviet units lacked manpower, fire weapons, people were tired of continuous battles. The maneuver by the forces and means of the defending troops was limited. Concerning most artillery had to be placed on the eastern bank of the Volga.
Meanwhile, the Nazis captured the dominant heights and shot through the area not only with artillery, but also with rifle and machine-gun fire to the entire depth of the defense. Thousands of aircraft stormed the positions of Soviet soldiers from the air. But the defenders of Stalingrad steadfastly held the line.
The whole world followed the course of the battle on the Volga with great attention. The word "Stalingrad" did not leave the pages of the press, it spread over all continents on the air. Everywhere people felt and understood that the outcome of the war was being decided in Stalingrad.
The whole country came to the aid of the defenders of Stalingrad. New units and formations of all types of troops were formed. More has been coming military equipment new samples.
As a result of the strengthening of the power of the Soviet state, the army exhausted and bled the fascist hordes. This created the conditions for the transition of the Soviet troops to the counteroffensive, the beginning of which marks a new period in the Great Patriotic War.
Battle of Stalingrad - 20th century Cannes
AT Russian history there are events that burn with gold on the tablets of her military glory. And one of them - (July 17, 1942–February 2, 1943), which became Cannes of the 20th century.
The gigantic scale battle of the Second World War unfolded in the second half of 1942 on the banks of the Volga. At certain stages, more than 2 million people, about 30 thousand guns, more than 2 thousand aircraft and the same number of tanks took part in it from both sides.
During Battle of Stalingrad
The Wehrmacht lost a quarter of its forces concentrated on the Eastern Front. His losses in killed, missing and wounded amounted to about one and a half million soldiers and officers.
Battle of Stalingrad on the map
Stages of the Battle of Stalingrad, its prerequisites
By the nature of the fighting Battle of Stalingrad briefly divided into two periods. it defensive operations(July 17 - November 18, 1942) and offensive operations (November 19, 1942 - February 2, 1943).
After the failure of the Barbarossa plan and the defeat near Moscow, the Nazis were preparing for a new offensive on the Eastern Front. On April 5, Hitler issued a directive that spelled out the goal of the 1942 summer campaign. This is the mastery of the oil-bearing regions of the Caucasus and access to the Volga in the region of Stalingrad. On June 28, the Wehrmacht launched a decisive offensive, taking the Donbass, Rostov, Voronezh ...
Stalingrad was a major communications hub connecting the central regions of the country with the Caucasus and Central Asia. And the Volga is an important transport artery for the delivery of Caucasian oil. The capture of Stalingrad could have catastrophic consequences for the USSR. The 6th Army under the command of General F. Paulus was actively operating in this direction.
Photos of the Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad - fighting on the outskirts
To protect the city, the Soviet command formed the Stalingrad Front, headed by Marshal S. K. Timoshenko. began on July 17, when units of the 62nd Army entered the battle with the vanguard of the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht in the bend of the Don. Defensive battles on the outskirts of Stalingrad lasted 57 days and nights. On July 28, People's Commissar of Defense I.V. Stalin issued Order No. 227, better known as "Not a step back!"
By the beginning of the decisive offensive, the German command significantly strengthened Paulus's 6th Army. The superiority in tanks was twofold, in aircraft - almost fourfold. And at the end of July, the 4th Panzer Army was also transferred here from the Caucasian direction. And, nevertheless, the advance of the Nazis to the Volga could not be called fast. In a month, under the desperate blows of the Soviet troops, they managed to overcome only 60 kilometers. To strengthen the southwestern approaches to Stalingrad, the Southeastern Front was created under the command of General A.I. Eremenko. Meanwhile, the Nazis began active operations in the Caucasian direction. But thanks to the dedication of the Soviet soldiers, the German offensive deep into the Caucasus was stopped.
Photo: Battle of Stalingrad - fighting for every piece of Russian land!
Battle of Stalingrad: every house is a fortress
August 19 became black date of the Battle of Stalingrad- the tank grouping of the Paulus army broke through to the Volga. Moreover, cutting off the 62nd Army defending the city from the north from the main forces of the front. Attempts to destroy the 8-kilometer corridor formed by the enemy troops were unsuccessful. Although soviet soldiers were examples of amazing heroism. 33 fighters of the 87th Infantry Division, defending the heights in the area of Malye Rossoshki, became an insurmountable stronghold in the path of superior enemy forces. During the day, they desperately repulsed the attacks of 70 tanks and a Nazi battalion, leaving 150 dead soldiers and 27 wrecked vehicles on the battlefield.
On August 23, Stalingrad was subjected to the most severe bombardment by German aircraft. Several hundred aircraft struck industrial and residential areas, turning them into ruins. And the German command continued to build up forces in the Stalingrad direction. By the end of September, Army Group B had more than 80 divisions.
The 66th and 24th armies were sent to help Stalingrad from the reserve of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. On September 13, the assault on the central part of the city began with two powerful groups supported by 350 tanks. A struggle for the city, unparalleled in courage and intensity, began - the most terrible stage of the battle of Stalingrad.
For every building, for every inch of land, the fighters fought to the death, staining them with blood. General Rodimtsev called the battle in the building the most difficult battle. After all, there are no familiar concepts of flanks, rear, an enemy can lurk around every corner. The city was constantly subjected to shelling and bombing, the earth was burning, the Volga was burning. From oil tanks pierced by shells, oil rushed in fiery streams into dugouts and trenches. An example of the selfless valor of the Soviet soldiers was the almost two-month defense of Pavlov's house. Having knocked out the enemy from a four-story building on Penzenskaya Street, a group of scouts led by Sergeant Ya. F. Pavlov turned the house into an impregnable fortress.
The enemy sent another 200,000 trained reinforcements, 90 artillery battalions, 40 engineer battalions to storm the city ... Hitler hysterically demanded to take the Volga "citadel" at any cost.
The battalion commander of the Paulus army, G. Welz, later wrote that he recalls this as nightmare. “In the morning, five German battalions go on the attack and almost no one returns. The next morning, everything repeats again ... "
The approaches to Stalingrad were indeed littered with the corpses of soldiers and the skeletons of burnt tanks. No wonder the Germans called the path to the city "the road of death."
Stalingrad battle. Photo of killed Germans (far right - killed by a Russian sniper)
Battle of Stalingrad - "Thunderstorm" and "Thunder" against "Uranus"
The Soviet command developed the Uranus plan for defeat of the Nazis at Stalingrad. It consisted in cutting off the enemy strike group from the main forces with powerful flank strikes and, having surrounded it, destroyed it. Army Group B, led by Field Marshal Bock, included 1011.5 thousand soldiers and officers, more than 10 thousand guns, 1200 aircraft, etc. The structure of the three Soviet fronts that defended the city included 1103 thousand personnel, 15501 guns, 1350 aircraft. That is the advantage Soviet side was insignificant. Therefore, a decisive victory could only be achieved through the art of war.
On November 19, units of the South-Western and Don Fronts, and on November 20 of the Stalingrad Front, from two sides, brought down tons of fiery metal on Bock's locations. After the breakthrough enemy defense troops began to develop an offensive in operational depth. The meeting of the Soviet fronts took place on the fifth day of the offensive, November 23, in the Kalach, Sovetsky area.
Unwilling to accept defeat Battle of Stalingrad, the Nazi command made an attempt to unblock the encircled army of Paulus. But the operations "Winter Thunderstorm" and "Thunderbolt" initiated by them in mid-December ended in failure. Now the conditions were created for the complete defeat of the encircled troops.
The operation to eliminate them received the code name "Ring". Of the 330 thousand who were surrounded by the Nazis, by January 1943 no more than 250 thousand remained. But the group was not going to capitulate. She was armed with more than 4,000 guns, 300 tanks, 100 aircraft. Paulus later wrote in his memoirs: “On the one hand, there were unconditional orders to hold on, promises of help, references to the general situation. On the other hand, there are internal humane motives - to stop the fight, caused by the plight of the soldiers.
On January 10, 1943, Soviet troops launched Operation Koltso. entered its final phase. Pressed against the Volga and cut into two parts, the enemy grouping was forced to surrender.
Battle of Stalingrad (column of captured Germans)
Stalingrad battle. Captured F. Paulus (he hoped that he would be exchanged, and only at the end of the war did he find out that they offered to exchange him for Stalin's son, Yakov Dzhugashvili). Stalin then said: “I don’t change a soldier for a field marshal!”
Battle of Stalingrad, photo of the captured F. Paulus
victory in Battle of Stalingrad had for the USSR a huge international and military political significance. She marked a turning point in the course of the Second World War. After Stalingrad, the period of expulsion of the German occupiers from the territory of the USSR began. Becoming a triumph of Soviet military art, strengthened the camp of the anti-Hitler coalition and caused discord in the countries of the fascist bloc.
Some Western historians, trying to belittle the significance of the battle of Stalingrad, put it on a par with the battle of Tunisia (1943), near El Alamein (1942), etc. But they were refuted by Hitler himself, who declared on February 1, 1943 in his headquarters: “The possibilities of ending the war in the East by means of an offensive are no longer exists…"
Then, near Stalingrad, our fathers and grandfathers again "gave a light" Photo: captured Germans after the Battle of Stalingrad
Introduction
The Battle of Stalingrad made a decisive contribution to achieving a radical change in the course of not only the Great Patriotic War, but the entire Second World War.
As a result of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet Armed Forces wrested the strategic initiative from the enemy and held it until the end of the war.
The defeat of the fascist bloc at Stalingrad shocked the whole of fascist Germany and undermined the confidence of its allies.
The battle included the Wehrmacht's siege of Stalingrad, a confrontation in the city, and a counteroffensive by the Red Army, as a result of which the Wehrmacht's VI Army and other German allied forces in and around the city were surrounded and partly destroyed, partly captured. According to rough estimates, the total losses of both sides in this battle exceed 2 million people.
For Soviet Union, who also suffered heavy losses during the battle, the victory at Stalingrad marked the beginning of the liberation of the country, and the victorious march through Europe, which led to the final defeat Nazi Germany in 1945.
The victorious outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad was of great military and political significance. It made a decisive contribution to the achievement of a radical turning point not only in the Great Patriotic War, but in the entire Second World War, and was the most important stage on the path to victory over the fascist bloc. Conditions were created for the deployment of the general offensive of the Red Army and the mass expulsion of the Nazi invaders from the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The victory at Stalingrad further raised the international prestige of the Soviet Union and its Armed Forces and was a decisive factor in the further strengthening of the anti-Hitler coalition.
The outstanding victory on the banks of the Volga and Don clearly showed the whole world the increased power of the Red Army and high level her martial arts. During the Battle of Stalingrad, strategic defensive and then offensive operations of a group of fronts were brilliantly carried out with the aim of encircling and destroying a large enemy grouping. The history of wars has not yet known operations of this magnitude.
For many years, the Battle of Stalingrad has attracted the close attention of the widest circles of the domestic and world public, people of science and art, civilians and military men, and, above all, true patriots of their homeland, who cherish the memory of her glorious dramatic past, who are sick of her present and are concerned future. The bibliography of the Battle of Stalingrad numbers many hundreds historical research, memoirs of its participants, essays by war correspondents, works of art. Highlight the works of historians Soviet period, works of foreign historians and works of modern foreign researchers.
Defensive period of the Battle of Stalingrad
On the eve of the second year of the Great Patriotic War the situation of the Soviet Union remained difficult. His material and human losses were enormous, and the territories occupied by the enemy were extensive. However, the strategy of "lightning" war of fascist Germany against the USSR failed. In a grandiose armed confrontation on the outskirts of Moscow, the Red Army troops defeated the main grouping of the Wehrmacht and threw it back from the Soviet capital. The battle near Moscow has not yet finally decided the outcome of the struggle in favor of the USSR, but it became the beginning of a radical turning point in the course of the Patriotic and Second World Wars.
According to the plans of the German command, the forty-second year was to be a decisive year in the war, because Hitler was sure that the United States and England would not undertake the landing of their troops in Europe this year, he still had his hands untied for action in the east.
However, the defeat near Moscow, the losses of the summer of forty-one, inflicted by the Red Army on the invaders, could not but affect. Despite the fact that by the spring of the forty-second year, the Nazi army had increased in numbers, received a significant technical equipment, the German command did not find the strength to attack along the entire front.
Hitler undertook a campaign in the Caucasus with the aim of capturing oil sources, access to the border of Iran, to the Volga. He apparently expected that at a distance from the center of the country the resistance of the Soviet troops would not be so thorough.
By entering the Caucasus, Hitler hoped to draw Turkey into the war, which would give him another twenty or thirty divisions. By accessing the Volga and the Iranian border, he hoped to draw Japan into the war against the Soviet Union. Only this can explain such a broadcast character of his directive for the spring-summer campaign of the forty-second year.
Let us turn to the text of this directive, known as Directive No. 41. Already the introduction does not contain an analysis of the current situation on the Soviet-German front, but propaganda idle talk.
The directive begins with these words: “The winter campaign in Russia is drawing to a close. Thanks to the outstanding courage and readiness of the soldiers of the Eastern Front for self-sacrifice, our defensive actions were crowned with a great success of German weapons. The enemy suffered huge losses in men and equipment. In an effort to capitalize on an apparent initial success, he used up most of the reserves intended for further operations this winter.
“The goal is,” reads the directive, “to finally destroy the forces still at the disposal of the Soviets and to deprive them, as far as possible, of the most important military and economic centers. First of all, all available forces should be concentrated to carry out the main operation in the southern sector in order to destroy the enemy west of the Don, in order to then capture the oil-bearing regions in the Caucasus and cross the Caucasian ridge.
And here comes the disclaimer. "The final encirclement of Leningrad and the capture of Ingermanland are postponed until a change in the situation in the encirclement area or the release of other forces sufficient for this create appropriate opportunities."
This reservation shows that Hitler, having at his disposal forces greater than those with which he began his campaign in Russia, did not dare to operate along the entire front, but concentrated everything in the south.
As General Chuikov wrote: “The directive is a document of a secret nature, a document that a limited circle of people had the right to get acquainted with, this is a document in which there is no place for propaganda formulations. He must accurately and soberly assess the situation. We see that in its premise the German command completely misjudges our forces, and tries to portray its defeat near Moscow as a military success. Underestimating our strength, Hitler at the same time overestimates his own.
Adventurist in its essence, Hitler's policy could not be based on deep foresight and calculation. All this fully affected the formation of the strategic plan, and then the development of a specific plan of operations in 1942. Difficult problems arose before the creators of the fascist strategy. The question of how to attack and even whether to attack at all on the Eastern Front became more and more difficult for the Nazi generals.
Preparing the conditions for final defeat Soviet Union, the enemy decided first of all to capture the Caucasus with its powerful sources of oil and the fertile agricultural regions of the Don, Kuban and North Caucasus. The offensive in the Stalingrad direction was supposed to ensure, according to the enemy's plan, the successful conduct "in the first place" of the main operation to conquer the Caucasus. In this strategic plan of the enemy, the acute need of fascist Germany for fuel was very strongly reflected.
So, the German military command no longer had confidence in the success of the offensive - the miscalculation of the Barbarossa plan in relation to the assessment of the forces of the Soviet Union was obvious. Nevertheless, the need for a new offensive was recognized by both Hitler and the German generals. The command of the Wehrmacht continued to strive for main goal- defeat the Red Army before the Anglo-American troops begin fighting on the continent of Europe. The Nazis did not doubt that the second front, at least in 1942, would not be opened in a completely different way than a year ago, the time factor could not be missed. There was complete unanimity in this.
In the spring of 1942, writes G. Guderian, the question arose before the German high command in what form to continue the war: to attack or defend. Going on the defensive would be an admission of our own defeat in the 1941 campaign and would deprive us of the chances of successfully continuing and ending the war in the East and West. 1942 was last year, in which, without fear of immediate intervention by the Western powers, the main forces of the German army could be used in an offensive on the Eastern Front. It remained to be decided what should be done on a front of 3,000 kilometers long in order to ensure the success of an offensive carried out by relatively small forces. It was clear that on most of the front the troops had to go on the defensive.
The specific content of the plan for the summer campaign of 1942 at a certain stage and to some extent was the subject of discussion among the Nazi generals. “The commander of Army Group North, Field Marshal Küchler, initially proposed to carry out an offensive on the northern sector of the Soviet-German front in order to capture Leningrad. Halder ultimately also stood for the resumption of the offensive, but, as before, he continued to consider the central direction decisive and recommended that the main attack on Moscow be carried out by the forces of Army Group Center.
The fascist German high command decided to launch a new offensive on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, hoping to defeat the Soviet troops here in successive operations piecemeal. Thus, although when planning the campaign of 1942 Hitler's strategists for the first time began to show hesitation, nevertheless, as before, the top military and political leadership of the Third Reich came to a single point of view.
On March 28, 1942, a secret meeting was held at Hitler's headquarters, to which only a very limited circle of people from the highest headquarters were invited.
According to the plan of the Hitlerite military-political leadership, the Nazi troops in the summer campaign of 1942 still had to achieve the military and political goals set by the Barbarossa plan, which in 1941 were not achieved due to the defeat near Moscow. The main blow was supposed to be delivered on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front in order to capture the city of Stalingrad, enter the oil-bearing regions of the Caucasus and the fertile regions of the Don, Kuban and Lower Volga, disrupt communications connecting the Center of the country with the Caucasus, and create conditions for ending the war in their favor . Hitler's strategists believed that the loss of Donbass and Caucasian oil would seriously weaken the Soviet Union, and the exit of Nazi troops in Transcaucasia would disrupt its ties with its allies through the Caucasus and Iran, and help draw Turkey into the war against it.
Based on the tasks set, changes were made to the structure of command and control of troops on the southern wing of the German Eastern Front. Army Group South was divided into two: Army Group B and Army Group A.
For the offensive in the Stalingrad direction, the 6th Field Army was allocated from the Army Group "B". On July 17, 1942, it included 13 divisions, 3,000 guns and mortars, and about 500 tanks. She was supported by the aviation of the 4th Air Fleet.
The capture of Stalingrad was very important to Hitler for several reasons. It was the main industrial city on the banks of the Volga, i.e. a vital transport route between the Caspian Sea and northern Russia. The capture of Stalingrad would provide security on the left flank of the German armies advancing into the Caucasus. Finally, the very fact that the city bore the name of Stalin, Hitler's main enemy, made the capture of the city a winning ideological and propaganda move. Stalin also had ideological and propaganda interests in defending the city that bore his name.
An assessment of the situation showed that the immediate task should be an active strategic defense of the Soviet troops, the accumulation of powerful trained reserves, military equipment and all the necessary materiel, followed by a transition to a decisive offensive. These considerations were reported to the Supreme Commander B.M. in mid-March. Shaposhnikov in the presence of A.M. Vasilevsky. After that, work on the summer campaign plan continued.
The General Staff correctly considered that, while organizing a temporary strategic defense, the Soviet side should not, at the same time, conduct offensive operations on a large scale. Stalin, who was poorly versed in matters of military art, did not agree with this opinion. G.K. Zhukov supported B.M. Shaposhnikov, but believed, however, that “at the beginning of summer in the western direction, the Rzhev-Vyazma grouping, which held a vast bridgehead relatively close to Moscow, should be defeated.”
At the end of March, the Headquarters again discussed the issue of a strategic plan for the summer of 1942. This was when considering the plan submitted by the command of the South-Western Direction for a large offensive operation in May by the forces of the Bryansk, South-Western and Southern fronts. “The Supreme Commander-in-Chief agreed with the conclusions and proposals of the Chief of the General Staff, but ordered, simultaneously with the transition to strategic defense, to provide for the conduct of private offensive operations in a number of areas: on some - in order to improve the operational situation, on others - to forestall the enemy in the deployment of offensive operations. As a result of these instructions, it was planned to conduct private offensive operations near Leningrad, in the Demyansk region, in the Smolensk, Lvov-Kursk directions, in the Kharkov region and in the Crimea.
How to evaluate the fact that such an authoritative military figure as B. M. Shaposhnikov, who headed the higher military establishment country, did not try to defend his proposals on the issue, on the correct solution of which so much depended? A. M. Vasilevsky explains this as follows: “Many, unaware of the difficult conditions in which the General Staff had to work during the past war, can rightly blame its leadership for failing to prove to the Supreme Commander the negative consequences of the decision to defend and come on at the same time. Under conditions when there was an extremely acute shortage of trained reserves and material and technical means, the conduct of private offensive operations was an unacceptable waste of energy. The events that unfolded in the summer of 1942 showed with their own eyes that only a transition to temporary strategic defense along the entire Soviet-German front, the refusal to conduct offensive operations, such as Kharkov, for example, would save the country and its armed forces from serious defeats, would allow we will go over to active offensive operations much earlier and recapture the initiative in our own hands.
By the beginning of the second year of the war, the Red Army and the rear of the country, which ensured its struggle, had forces and means, if not in everything sufficient, then in the main, to prevent a new deep penetration of the Nazi troops into the vital regions of the Soviet Union. After the successes of the winter offensive of the Red Army, the Soviet people gained confidence in the inevitability of the defeat of Nazi Germany. On the eve of the summer-autumn campaign of 1942, there was no negative "impact on the struggle of the Red Army and the entire people of the factor of surprise, which took place at the beginning of the war. Temporary factors gradually lost their effectiveness, while permanent factors exerted a growing influence in all spheres of the struggle. All the experience of the participation of Soviet troops in the modern big war acquired a more noticeable role.
Its first year was a serious test for the entire command and political staff, most of which acquired both hardening and the skill that comes only with practice. In the fire of war, knowledge was improved, the abilities and talents of those who led the combat operations of the troops were tested. The names of many military leaders and political workers became known throughout the country. On the battlefields, the combat and moral power of the Soviet Armed Forces was tested, which under difficult conditions thwarted the plan for a "blitzkrieg" war of fascist Germany against the USSR. The mass heroism of Soviet soldiers became the norm for their actions in the Great Patriotic War.
At the same time, by the spring of 1942, the Red Army did not have enough trained reserves, and the formation of new formations and associations was significantly limited by the level of production of the latest types of weapons. Under these conditions, the most expedient use of available forces and means acquired special significance, since the enemy had greater opportunities to continue the aggressive war. In this regard, the Soviet side received a very real idea of the strength and professional qualities Wehrmacht troops, about the features of their actions in offensive and defensive operations.
The Soviet Supreme High Command correctly assessed the overall balance of forces in the USSR's war against fascist Germany, but the immediate prospects for the development of armed struggle depended on the adoption of correct strategic decisions.
The Soviet Supreme High Command for May-June 1942 scheduled a temporary transition to strategic defense with the task of completing the reorganization of troops and re-equipping them with new military equipment, as well as replenishing reserves. To give the defense an active character, the plan provided for a series of offensive operations in separate directions, primarily in the Crimea and near Kharkov, with the aim of disrupting the enemy's preparations for a summer offensive with preemptive strikes. However, in the spring of 1942, events began to develop unfavorably for the Red Army.
On May 8, after preparations, the enemy again went over to the offensive, in which the main forces of the 11th Nazi Army, supported by the 8th Aviation Corps and the 4th Air Fleet, took part. At the same time, the enemy landed a small boat landing in the area of the Feodosiya Gulf. Having broken through the defenses of the troops of the Crimean Front, the Germans launched a successful offensive.
It became more and more obvious that the enemy had managed to regain his strength and was stubbornly seeking to seize the strategic initiative he had lost. The armed forces of the enemy not only repulsed the blows of the Soviet troops, but also launched active offensive operations. The position of the troops on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, where the German command concentrated a significant part of its reserves, especially worsened. In May and June, the enemy additionally transferred a number of divisions here, including from France.
The course of the struggle took on an increasingly unfavorable character for the Red Army. Almost simultaneously with the retreat from the Crimea, an unsuccessful operation for the Soviet troops unfolded in the Kharkov region.
Despite the heroic resistance of the defenders, the enemy troops, taking advantage of their vast superiority in tanks, artillery and aviation, by noon advanced 20 kilometers deep into our defenses in the Izyum and Barvenkovsky directions, penetrating the southern outskirts of Barvenkovo and the area of Gola Dolina.
The Nazi pilots, supporting the ground troops, showed great activity that day, making about 200 sorties. Aviation of the Southern Front was able to carry out only 67 sorties.
The events associated with this offensive were widely considered in the historical literature and in the memoirs of prominent Soviet military leaders. As General Chuikov wrote: “This offensive ended in a tragic failure. The Nazi offensive on the Volga, Voronezh and the Caucasus was planned much earlier, it made it possible for the enemy to break our defenses and develop it in depth and breadth. The Hitlerite command successfully used the current situation.
What were the reasons for this failure? Former Hitler General Kurt Tippelskirch writes: “For the planned German offensive, the Russian attempt to thwart it was only a welcome beginning. The weakening of the defensive power of the Russians, which was not so easy to achieve, should have greatly facilitated the first operations, but additional preparations were still required, which took almost a whole month before the German armies, having regrouped and replenished everything necessary, were able to launch an offensive.
On the evening of May 17, the command of the South-Western Direction requested reinforcements for the Southern Front from the Headquarters. Reserves were allocated, but they could arrive in the combat area after two or three days, that is, on May 20-21. With this in mind, the General Staff made a proposal to immediately suspend the operation. However, the Headquarters considered that the measures taken by the command of the direction were capable of rectifying the situation. On May 18, the situation on the Barvenkovsky ledge deteriorated sharply, and A. M. Vasilevsky again raised the question of terminating the operation. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the Commander-in-Chief of the direction again rejected this insistent recommendation.
May 19 only Military Council Southwestern Front I realized the full depth of the danger that had arisen and began to take measures to repel the advancing enemy, but time had already been lost. On the evening of that day, the Headquarters decided to stop the offensive and turn a significant part of the forces of the 6th Army of the Southwestern Front to repel the enemy strike and restore the situation. But, as the subsequent course of events showed, this decision turned out to be belated.
On May 23, the troops of the army group "Kleist" and the 6th Army of Paulus, advancing in converging directions, united in the area 10 km south of Balakleya. The Kharkov grouping of Soviet troops, operating on the Barvenkovsky ledge, was surrounded west of the river. Seversky Donets. In the following days, from May 24 to May 29, these troops with heavy fighting in separate detachments and groups broke through from the encirclement and crossed to the eastern bank of the Seversky Donets, the 28th Army of the Southwestern Front, unable to withstand the onslaught of the enemy, by May 22 retreated to starting line.
The serious failure of the Soviet troops in the Kharkov region had far-reaching consequences. The Nazis achieved results here that dramatically changed the balance of forces on the southern wing of the front.
Thus, in May and June 1942, events at the front developed, if not in full accordance with the general plan of the German high command, then, in any case, on the whole they were unfavorable for the Soviet side. Carrying out the planned operations, stage by stage, the enemy consistently approached the implementation of a decisive offensive on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front.
The unsuccessful outcome of the struggle on the Kerch Peninsula and especially near Kharkov in May 1942 turned out to be very sensitive for the entire South-Western strategic direction. The enemy again managed to seize the initiative. Having broken through the front of the Soviet troops, by mid-July he went to the big bend of the Don. The situation in the Stalingrad direction sharply worsened.
The Soviet Supreme High Command took a number of urgent measures to organize defense in this direction. It advanced the 62nd, 63rd, 64th armies from the reserve, deploying them at the line of Babka, Serafimovich, Kletskaya, Verkhnekurmoyarskaya. On July 12, the Stalingrad Front was created. In addition to the three above-mentioned reserve armies, it included the 21st, 28th, 38th, 57th combined arms and 8th air armies of the former Southwestern Front, and from July 30 - the 51st Army of the North Caucasian Front. True, most of these armies were badly battered in previous battles, had a large shortage in personnel, weapons and military equipment. The front commander immediately withdrew the 28th, 38th, 57th armies to his reserve. Soon, on the basis of the 38th and 28th armies, the formation of the 1st and 4th tank armies of mixed composition began. The Stalingrad Front received the task, defending in a strip 530 km wide, to stop the further advance of the enemy and prevent him from reaching the Volga.
The system of defensive lines of the army included the supply line, the main line of defense and the army line. Such a formation was determined by the transition to the defense in the absence of direct contact with the enemy. The leading edge of the support strip was removed from the main strip by 15-20 km. The main line of defense had a depth of 4-6 km. The army line was being prepared only within the width of the second-echelon division's defense zone (up to 15 km). The total depth of the army defense, taking into account the location of the reserves, reached 30-40 km. Six anti-tank regions were created in the directions of a probable enemy offensive, in each of which there were one or two anti-tank artillery regiments. An army anti-aircraft artillery group covered the crossing over the Don.
In all units and formations, areas of fixed barrage fire and concentrated fire were prepared in front of the front line, in the depths of the defense, at the junctions of division units and with neighbors. The basis of the engineering equipment of the area was separate trenches for the rifle squad, mortar, gun. In front of the front line, wire and mine-explosive barriers were installed with a density of up to 800 anti-tank and 650 anti-personnel mines per 1 km of the front.
Thus, the defense in the Stalingrad direction in the summer of 1942 had a number of characteristic features. It was organized in a short time and on a broad front. Compared to the defense in the Battle of Moscow, the depth of the operational and tactical defense slightly increased, and tactical densities increased. Artillery and anti-tank reserves became stronger. However, the terrain in engineering terms was not prepared enough. The absence of trenches and communication passages reduced the stability of the defense. The army line was equipped and occupied by troops only in one sector, which was about 17% of the width of the army's defense zone. Weak was anti-tank and especially air defense.
The defensive actions of the Soviet troops in the Stalingrad direction were carried out for 125 days. During this period, they carried out two consecutive defensive operations. The first of them was carried out on the outskirts of Stalingrad in the period from July 17 to September 12, the second - in Stalingrad and to the south of it from September 13 to November 18, 1942.
By the end of June, the Nazi command had completed preparations for the attack on Stalingrad. Army Group "B" was supposed to surround the Soviet troops west of the Don and connect with Army Group "A" in the Stalingrad area. Initially, the forces in these groups were distributed as follows. Group A, commanded by Field Marshal List, included the 1st tank, 17th and 11th field German armies, as well as the 8th Italian.
Group B was commanded by Field Marshal von Bock. It included the 4th tank, 2nd and 6th field armies and the 2nd Hungarian. In addition, the 3rd and 4th armies of the Romanians approached from the depths.
In total, the enemy concentrated about 900,000 soldiers and officers, 1,260 tanks, over 17,000 guns and mortars, and 1,640 combat aircraft in the zone from Kursk to Taganrog. This amounted to 50% of the enemy's tank and motorized formations located on the Soviet-German front, and 35% of all his infantry troops.
On our side, this strike force was opposed by the troops of the Bryansk, Southwestern and Southern fronts. The total strength of our troops on these three fronts was 655,000 men. We had 740 tanks, 14,200 guns and mortars, over 1,000 combat aircraft.
On the morning of June 28, the 2nd field and 4th tank armies of the German army and the 2nd Hungarian went on the offensive against the left wing of the Bryansk Front.
Stalingrad was still far away, the Germans rushed to Voronezh, but the battle of the forty-second year began, gradually drawing more and more forces into the bloody mill.
On July 17, at the turn of the Chir and Tsimla rivers, the forward detachments of the 62nd and 64th armies of the Stalingrad Front met with the vanguards of the 6th German army. Interacting with the aviation of the 8th Air Army, they put up stubborn resistance to the enemy, who, in order to break their resistance, had to deploy 5 divisions out of 13 and spend 5 days fighting them. In the end, the enemy drove the forward detachments from their positions and approached the main defense line of the troops of the Stalingrad Front.
The Soviet command managed to open the enemy grouping, determine the direction of his main attack, and also take a number of measures to improve the defense, including the regrouping of part of the forces and means of the 62nd Army on its right flank. The resistance of the Soviet troops forced the Nazi command to reinforce the 6th Army. By July 22, it already had 18 divisions, numbering 250 thousand people combat strength, about 740 tanks, 7.5 thousand guns and mortars. The troops of the 6th Army supported up to 1200 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. Under such conditions, the battle began in the large bend of the Don, which lasted from July 23, when the enemy reached the main line of defense of the troops of the Stalingrad Front, until August 10. The enemy tried to surround and destroy them in the large bend of the Don with sweeping blows on the flanks of the 62nd and 64th armies, to reach the Kalach region and break through to Stalingrad from the west. To solve this problem, he created two shock groups: the northern one.
Leaving its 2nd Army near Voronezh, the Nazi command turned the 4th Panzer Army in a southeasterly direction towards Kantemirovka. At the same time, the enemy's 1st Panzer Army from Army Group "A" on July 8 launched an offensive from the Slavyansk, Artemovsk area to Starobelsk, Kantemirovka, inflicting a second butt blow on the Southwestern and Southern fronts. By mid-July, the troops of the 6th and 4th tank armies reached the large bend of the Don and occupied Bokovskaya, Morozovsk, Millerovo, Kantemirovka, and the formations of the 1st tank army went to the Kamensk area. “A battle is unfolding in the south ... - General Halder noted in his diary. - In the western sector, the enemy is still holding out, there are few successes. The troops of the 1st and 4th tank armies, moving from the north, reached the Donets near Kamensk. To the north of here, the enemy is fragmented into small groups, which are destroyed by mobile formations advancing from the north in cooperation with infantry divisions. During these offensive operations, the enemy sought to encircle and destroy the troops of the Southwestern and Southern fronts. But he failed to do so.
The headquarters of the Soviet Supreme High Command, having unraveled the plan of the German command, took measures to withdraw troops from the threat of encirclement. The troops of the Southwestern Front, engulfed by the enemy from the northeast and east, retreated behind the Don to Stalingrad with heavy fighting. The troops of the Southern Front withdrew from the Donbass to the lower reaches of the Don in order to take up defense along its left bank from Verkhne-Kurmoyarskaya to Rostov. In the face of a superior enemy, it was necessary to save troops to organize defense in more favorable conditions. To do this, it was necessary to gain time at the expense of wasting space.
At dawn on July 23, the northern strike group went on the offensive, and on July 25 the southern shock group. Using superiority in forces and dominance of aviation in the air, the enemy broke through the defenses on the right flank of the 62nd Army and by the end of the day on July 24 reached the Don in the Golubinsky area. As a result, up to three Soviet divisions were surrounded. The enemy also managed to push the troops of the right flank of the 64th Army. A critical situation developed for the troops of the Stalingrad Front. Both flanks of the 62nd Army were deeply engulfed by the enemy, and his exit to the Don created a real threat of a breakthrough by the Nazi troops to Stalingrad.
In order to restore the situation, the front commander, with the permission of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, brought into battle the 1st and 4th tank armies, which had not yet completed the formation, which, together with the 13th tank corps attached to the 62nd army, received the task of defeating the enemy grouping that had broken through. However, the counterattack of the tank armies was hastily organized and launched at different times, with weak artillery and air support and the absence of air cover. The 1st Panzer Army went on the offensive on July 27, and the 4th Panzer Army two days later. In the course of fierce three-day battles, they inflicted heavy damage on the enemy and delayed his advance. The 13th Panzer Corps broke through to the encircled troops and, with the assistance of the 1st Panzer Army, ensured their access to the main forces of the 62nd Army. On July 30, the enemy was also stopped on the right flank of the 64th Army, where the 23rd Tank Corps and two rifle divisions counterattacked. However, the situation again became more complicated due to the fact that at that time the Nazi troops broke through the defenses of the Southern Front and rushed to the North Caucasus.
On July 28, 1942, People's Commissar of Defense I.V. Stalin turned to the Red Army with Order No. 227, in which he described with severe frankness the situation that had arisen on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, demanded to strengthen resistance to the enemy and stop his offensive at all costs. “The most severe measures were envisaged for those who would show cowardice and cowardice in battle. Practical measures were outlined to strengthen morale and fighting spirit and discipline in the troops. “It’s time to end the retreat,” the order noted. -- Not one step back!" This slogan embodied the essence of Order No. 227. Commanders and political workers, party and Komsomol organizations were tasked with bringing to the consciousness of every soldier the requirements of this order.
The stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops forced the fascist German command on July 31 to turn the 4th Panzer from the Caucasus direction to Stalingrad. On August 2, its advanced units approached Kotelnikovsky. In this regard, there was a direct threat of an enemy breakthrough to the city from the southwest. Fighting unfolded on the southwestern approaches to it. To strengthen the defense of Stalingrad, by decision of the front commander, the 57th Army was deployed on the southern face of the outer defensive bypass. The 51st Army was transferred to the Stalingrad Front.
The period from 5 to 10 August was perhaps one of the most intense during the defensive battle. The fascist German troops managed to reach the outer defensive bypass and liquidate the bridgehead of the Soviet troops on the right bank of the Don in the Kalach region. At Abganerov on August 6, the enemy broke through the outer contour and advanced to a depth of 12-15 km. On August 9-10, the forces of three rifle divisions and the tank corps of the 64th Army launched a counterattack on it. The peculiarity of this counterattack was that it was delivered by a compact grouping to the flank of the enemy on a 9-km front. This made it possible to achieve a threefold superiority in forces over him. The counterattack was preceded by a 30-minute artillery and short air preparation. As a result of the counterattack, the enemy, who had penetrated our defenses, was defeated, and the lost position was restored. The fascist German troops on this sector of the front went over to the defensive and subsequently did not take active actions here for a whole week.
The situation in the zone of the 62nd Army was difficult. On August 7-9, the enemy pushed her troops across the Don River, and surrounded four divisions west of Kalach. Soviet soldiers fought in the encirclement until August 14, and then in small groups they began to break through from the encirclement. Three divisions of the 1st Guards Army, approaching from the Headquarters Reserve, launched a counterattack on the enemy troops and stopped their further advance.
Thus, the enemy's plan - to break through to Stalingrad with a swift blow on the move - was thwarted by the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops in the large bend of the Don and their active defense on the southwestern approaches to the city. During the three weeks of the offensive, the enemy was able to advance only 60-80 km. Based on an assessment of the situation, the fascist German command made significant adjustments to its plan. It decided to reach the Volga and take Stalingrad by attacking in converging directions from the Trekhostrovskaya, Vertyachiy area to the east with the forces of the 6th Army and from the Abganerovo area to the north with the forces of the 4th Panzer Army. Having carried out intra-army regroupings and having advanced reserves from the depths, the enemy began the struggle to seize bridgeheads in the small bend of the Don.
As a result of intense fighting on the distant approaches to Stalingrad from July 17 to August 17, the German 6th Army pushed the Soviet troops back to the left bank of the Don, first in the sector from Vertyachey to Lyapichevo, and then in the Trekhostrovskaya area. Having retreated to the eastern bank to the outer defensive contour, the Soviet units and formations continued to offer stubborn resistance, not allowing the enemy to force the Don.
On August 19, the Nazi troops resumed their offensive, striking in the general direction of Stalingrad. On August 22, the German 6th Army crossed the Don and captured on its eastern bank, in the Peskovatka area, a bridgehead 45 km wide, on which six divisions were concentrated. On August 23, the 14th tank corps of the enemy 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. In this regard, on August 30, the 62nd Army was transferred to the South-Eastern Front by the decision of the Supreme Command Headquarters.
On the eve of the enemy aviation dealt a massive blow to Stalingrad from the air, making about 2 thousand sorties. In air battles over the city on August 29 Soviet pilots and anti-aircraft artillery shot down 120 German aircraft. However, they failed to protect Stalingrad from enemy air attacks. As a result, the city was subjected to terrible destruction - entire neighborhoods were turned into ruins or simply wiped off the face of the earth.
On August 20-28, troops of the 63rd, 21st, 1st Guards and 4th Tank Armies launched counterattacks from the north to the flank of the 6th German Army, captured and expanded a number of bridgeheads on the right bank of the Don. And although they failed to eliminate the enemy's breakthrough to the Volga, the position of the defenders of Stalingrad was somewhat relieved. The enemy had to redirect large forces to repel the attacks of the main forces of the Stalingrad Front from the north. Therefore, he was forced to suspend his attack on Stalingrad, limiting himself to reaching the northwestern outskirts of the city.
On August 23, the 4th Panzer Army penetrated the defenses of the South-Eastern Front to a depth of 25 km. However, counterattacks by the reserves of the 57th and 64th armies stopped the further advance of the enemy. After the regrouping, the fascist German troops resumed their offensive and on August 29 broke through the front of the 64th Army northwest of Abganerovo, threatening the troops of the 64th and 62nd armies to reach the rear. By order of the front commander, the 64th and 62nd armies were withdrawn to the inner contour on September 2. Fierce fighting on this line continued until September 12.
During the first stage of the defensive period of the Battle of Stalingrad, the troops of the Stalingrad and South-Eastern fronts not only delayed the 6th and 4th tank armies of the enemy for a considerable time, but also inflicted significant damage on them in terms of manpower and equipment.
The close interaction of the military branches played a large role in disrupting the plans of the German command. So, Soviet aviation, despite the numerical superiority of the enemy in the air, covered ground troops from attacks by his aircraft, bombed crossings where the Nazis tried to force the Don, exhausted the enemy’s forces and slowed down the pace of advancement of his grouping. During the struggle on the distant approaches to Stalingrad, Soviet pilots made 16,000 sorties and destroyed at least 20% of the aircraft of Richthofen's 4th air fleet operating in the Stalingrad direction. Soviet air reconnaissance established in advance the concentration of an enemy tank group south of Stalingrad, which greatly helped the troops of the 64th Army in disrupting the enemy offensive.
Bombers bombarded columns of Nazi vehicles. At the same time, artillery and tanks standing in shelters opened massive fire. In just three days, more than 5 thousand sorties were made in the area of the tank group. The enemy attacks were thwarted. New Soviet formations approached the battlefield. The exit of the 6th and 4th tank armies of the enemy to the outer contour on the outskirts of Stalingrad and the transition here Soviet armies to a tough defense marked the end of the defensive battle of the Red Army in the big bend of the Don. Its main result was the disruption of the enemy's plan to take Stalingrad on the move. As a result of this battle, the Nazi command was forced to reconsider its initial ideas about Stalingrad as an object of an auxiliary strike and transfer significant forces to the Stalingrad direction, which were originally intended to capture the Caucasus.
Waging a stubborn struggle in the Don steppes, on the distant approaches to Stalingrad, Soviet soldiers showed courage and self-sacrifice in a difficult situation.
In the second half of August, the fascist German command was again forced to change the plan for the offensive of its troops on Stalingrad.
This time, the enemy decided to launch two attacks at the same time in converging directions - from the northwest and southwest of Stalingrad. The northern grouping was to seize bridgeheads in the small bend of the Don and advance in the direction of Stalingrad from the northwest. The southern grouping struck from the area of Plodovitoe, Abganerovo along railway to the north, where the troops of the 64th and 57th armies held the defense on the enemy's path to Stalingrad.
The left flank of the German 4th Panzer Army was provided by two Romanian divisions. On August 12, the 24th Panzer and 297th Infantry Divisions from the 6th Army were transferred to this army. The enemy also strengthened the northern grouping at the expense of the 8th Italian army that arrived in the Stalingrad direction. The latter advanced to the Don in the area from Pavlovsk to the mouth of the river. Khoper, replacing the divisions of the 29th Army Corps that were here. However, not really trusting the troops of their allies, the Nazi command of the three divisions of the 29th Army Corps included two in the Italian and one transferred to the 2nd Hungarian Army.
During the fighting on the outskirts of Stalingrad, the German command became more and more tangibly convinced of the growing resistance of the defenders of the Volga stronghold, but the enemy at that time still did not doubt the successful achievement of his goal. On August 19, 1942, Paulus signed the order "On the attack on Stalingrad." The 6th Army was tasked with forcing the Don between Peskovatka and Trekhostrovskaya and delivering a blow with the main forces to the area north of Stalingrad to the Volga. This blow was to be accompanied on the southern flank by the advance of part of the forces across the river. Rossoshka in its middle reaches, in order to south-west of Stalingrad "to connect with the mobile formations of the neighboring army advancing from the south," i.e., the 4th Panzer. The order indicated the tasks of the army formations in mastering the central, southern and northern parts of Stalingrad.
In West German historiography, the plan for the capture of Stalingrad, set out in the Paulus order, is assessed as vicious in its operational basis. So, Hans Doerr considers his main drawback to be planning two strikes at the same time. The main miscalculation of the German command was, of course, not in this, but in their general underestimation of the strength of the Soviet resistance.
However, by the time under review, in the Stalingrad direction, the Nazis still had significant superiority in the means of armed struggle. By mid-August, the Stalingrad and South-Eastern fronts were opposed by the 8th Italian, 6th and 4th German tank armies, about 39 divisions in total.
The troops of the Stalingrad Front, deployed in a 480-kilometer zone, were seriously weakened in past battles. Only 63, 21st and 1st guards army were satisfactorily staffed. The 33rd Guards and 96th Rifle Divisions, which emerged from the encirclement, were being reorganized, and the 23rd Tank Corps was being completed. The operational density of defense in the armies was insufficient.
The troops of the South-Eastern Front, defending the strip from Logovsky to Lake. Sarpa, also had insufficient forces and means. A particularly large shortage in personnel and weapons was in the 64th and 51st armies. The operational density of defense in the armies ranged from 20 to 50 km per division.
The Stalingrad and South-Eastern fronts had fewer forces and means for the struggle than the enemy. The presence of a large number of vehicles among the Nazis created an advantage in maneuver.
The heroic defense of the Soviet troops in the Stalingrad direction forced the Nazi high command to transfer more and more forces to reinforce Army Group B. In August 1942, the 8th Italian army was put into battle on the Middle Don, in September - the 3rd, and in October - the 4th Romanian army. As a result, the combat strength of Army Group B increased to 80 divisions. At the same time, Army Group A, operating in the North Caucasus, decreased from 60 to 29 divisions from July to October. To capture Stalingrad, the Nazi command set the 6th Army the task of inflicting two strikes: one with the forces of four divisions from the Aleksandrovka area in an easterly direction, the second with the forces of three divisions from the area of st. Sadovaya in the northeast direction, cut through the front of the defense of the Soviet troops and capture the city. The rest of the troops of the 6th field and 4th tank armies, located northwest and south of Stalingrad, were supposed to conduct holding operations and provide for the flanks of the shock groups.
The troops of the shock group of the 6th German Army crossed the entire interfluve and by 4 p.m. on August 23 broke out to the Volga near the northern outskirts of Stalingrad, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe villages of Latoshinka, Akatovka, Rynok. Following the 16th tank division of von Wittersheim's corps, motorized enemy troops also reached the Volga.
In an effort to intensify the blow and cause panic among the inhabitants of the city, the enemy in the afternoon of August 23 conducted the first massive raid on Stalingrad by aircraft of the 4th Air Fleet. Starting the bombardment of the city at 16 o'clock. 18 min. Moscow time, several hundred enemy planes made more than 2,000 sorties that day. German bombers flew echelon after echelon, dropping thousands of high-explosive and incendiary bombs. Columns of smoke, dust and fire rose above the city. The flames, fanned by a strong wind, engulfed the houses, spreading from street to street.
Enemy planes mercilessly destroyed residential buildings, schools, hospitals, museums, theaters with fierce bombardments, trying to wipe Stalingrad off the face of the earth. On the banks of the Volga, oil storage facilities pierced by fragments of bombs blackened, and flaming oil spilled down the river. The piers were on fire, and steamships were destroyed by fire in the Stalingrad roadstead. On this day, the city suffered significant damage. Hundreds of civilians died in the fires and under the rubble of buildings. However, the enemy made a mistake, hoping to cause panic among the defenders of Stalingrad. Anti-aircraft artillery guns fired at enemy aircraft. 105 Soviet fighters boldly repulsed the air attack, conducting air battles. In just one day on August 23, 120 Nazi bombers were shot down in the Stalingrad area in air battles and anti-aircraft artillery. The civilian population waged a selfless fight against fires. Enemy air raids on the city were repeated incessantly in the following days. Stalingrad became a front.
The breakthrough of German troops to the Volga northwest of Stalingrad created an immediate threat of their capture of the city. The military situation was further complicated by the fact that formations and units of the 62nd Army, covering the northern outskirts of Stalingrad, continued to fight on the left bank of the Don a few tens of kilometers from the city. They had to regroup in difficult combat conditions and take up new defensive lines.
The railway lines approaching Stalingrad from the north and northwest were cut by the enemy. was broken and waterway along the Volga. Thus, the situation with the communications, through which the fronts and the city were supplied with everything necessary for organizing defense, became even more complicated.
The situation that arose was undoubtedly critical for the defenders of Stalingrad, but none of them thought about surrendering the city to the enemy. On August 23, when the German troops broke through the defenses of the outer bypass and, having made a 60-kilometer throw, ended up near the northern outskirts of the city, a directive from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command was received in Stalingrad, which offered to liquidate the enemy group that had broken through with the available forces. It ended with the words: "The most important thing is not to panic, not to be afraid of an impudent enemy and to maintain confidence in our success."
The leaders of the defense took all necessary measures to disrupt the further advance of the fascist troops.
Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky said:
“The morning of the unforgettable tragic August 23 found me in the troops of the 62nd Army. On this day, the fascist troops managed to reach the Volga with their tank units and cut off the 62nd Army from the main forces of the Stalingrad Front. Simultaneously with the breakthrough of our defenses, on August 23 and 24, the enemy undertook a fierce mass bombardment of the city, for which almost all the forces of his 4th air fleet were involved. The city turned into ruins. Telephone and telegraph communications were broken, and during August 23 I had to conduct short talks with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief openly by radio twice. I could make a detailed report to him about the situation and our requests late at night on August 24, after the HF telephone connection across the Volga was restored. A.M. Vasilevsky reported at the same time that Stalingrad would remain in our hands, that the command of the front, the City Defense Committee, V.A. Malyshev and he himself are not only in the center of the city, but continue to take all measures to defend it from the enemy. The representative of the Headquarters said what is required to complete this task.
Break through german tanks and motorized infantry were met by troops, as well as armed detachments of the working people of Stalingrad. The actions of units of the 10th rifle division of the NKVD troops were supported by air defense artillery battalions, which occupied firing positions in the immediate vicinity of the city.
As a result of stubborn seven-day battles from August 21 to August 27, the troops of the 4th Panzer Army of Gotha, at the cost of significant losses, captured Art. Abganerovo. However, the enemy failed to break through the front of the troops of the 64th and 57th armies.
The command of the 4th Panzer Army was forced to regroup its forces in order to continue the further offensive. Hans Dörr in his book "The March on Stalingrad" recognizes the major failure of the Nazi troops on the southern approaches to the city. “The army,” he writes, “stopped only 20 km from the Volga: again the decisive moment came not only for the actions of the 4th Panzer Army, but for the entire battle for Stalingrad.
When the 4th Panzer Army went on the defensive at Tundutovo station on August 20, it was in close proximity to an important piece of terrain, possibly of decisive importance for the entire Stalingrad operational area, the Volga uplands between Krasnoarmeysk and Beketovka.
Krasnoarmeysk was the southern cornerstone of the defense of Stalingrad and at the same time the final point of the only communication linking the western bank of the Volga with Astrakhan by land. At no other point would the appearance of German troops be so unfavorable to the Russians as here.
For the 4th Panzer Army, the decision to stop the offensive in the immediate vicinity of the target in order to try another way to break through to Stalingrad and organize interaction with the 6th Army was a heavy blow. The army commander gave the order to withdraw from the front at night in parts of the 48th tank corps and to secretly concentrate it behind the left, bent back flank of the army in the area northwest of the Abganerovo station for delivering a sudden blow to the north in the area west of Stalingrad. This meant refusing to take control of the group of heights in the Krasnoarmeysk region, and renouncing the converging strikes against the enemy planned by Army Group B.
From September 12, when the enemy came close to the city, its defense was entrusted to the 62nd and 64th armies. Superiority in forces and means was on the side of the enemy. It was especially significant in the 40-kilometer defense zone of the 62nd Army from the village of Rynok to Kuporosnoe, where the enemy had an almost double superiority in men and artillery and almost six times in tanks. The removal of the front edge of the Soviet troops from the Volga did not exceed 10-12 km. This limited their maneuver with forces and means both from the depths and along the front.
On September 13, the enemy went on the offensive along the entire front, trying to capture Stalingrad by storm. The Soviet troops failed to hold back his powerful onslaught. They were forced to retreat to the city, on the streets of which fierce fighting ensued. From September 13 to 26, a stubborn struggle took place mainly in the central part of the city. On September 14, the Germans broke through to the station, and in the Kuporosnoye area they reached the Volga. The 62nd Army was cut off from the 64th Army. At this critical moment, the 13th Guards Rifle Division was transferred from the left bank of the Volga to Stalingrad, arriving to reinforce the 62nd Army from the Reserve of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. After crossing the Volga, she immediately counterattacked the enemy and drove him out of the city center, and on September 16 from Mamaev Kurgan. Until September 27, there was a fierce struggle for the station, which changed hands 13 times. At the cost of heavy losses, the enemy managed to somewhat push back the troops of the 62nd Army in a sector up to 10 km wide. Having received reinforcements, the Nazi troops on September 27 began the second assault on Stalingrad, which lasted until October 8. This time the main blow of the enemy was directed against the troops of the 62nd Army, who were defending the industrial settlements "Red October" and "Barrikada". In early October, the Germans managed to capture the Mamaev Kurgan, industrial settlements and eliminate the ledge of the front in the northwestern part of the city, facing them. During this period, the defenders of Stalingrad were greatly assisted by the counterattacks of the 1st Guards, 24th and 66th Armies north of the city that almost did not stop throughout September. Significant enemy forces were pinned down by the troops of the 51st and 57th armies, who at the end of September undertook a private offensive operation south of Stalingrad.
On September 28, the Stalingrad Front was renamed the Don Front, and the South-Eastern Front - the Stalingrad Front. This corresponded to the tasks of the forthcoming counter-offensive of the Red Army near Stalingrad, for which the Supreme Command Headquarters had been preparing since mid-September 1942. To support the troops defending the city on the eastern bank of the Volga, a front-line artillery group was formed consisting of 250 guns and mortars. The general leadership of the military operations of the Soviet troops in the Stalingrad direction, on behalf of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, from the very beginning of the battle, was headed by Deputy Supreme Commander General of the Army G.K. General Staff Red Army Colonel-General A.M. Vasilevsky.
The resistance of the Soviet troops in the area of Stalingrad continued to grow. In 12 days, the Germans advanced only 400-600 meters in the area of industrial settlements. But the enemy, preparing for the "general assault", also continued to build up his forces. In October, Hitler's headquarters sent 200,000 reinforcements to the Stalingrad region, up to 30 artillery battalions and about 40 assault engineer battalions specially trained for combat operations in the city. By mid-October, the Nazis had created superiority over the 62nd Army in men and artillery by 1.7 times, in tanks - almost 4 times and in aircraft - more than 5 times, and for the third time they threw their troops into the assault on Stalingrad Stalingrad. They received an order to destroy the Soviet troops in Stalingrad and completely take possession of this city, or rather, its ruins, since Stalingrad as a city had practically ceased to exist by that time, it had been destroyed.
In order to assist the defenders of Stalingrad, the troops of the Don Front on October 19 went on the offensive. To repel it, the enemy was forced to withdraw significant forces from the assault on the city. At the same time, the 64th Army launched a counterattack from the south in the Kuporosnoye area. The offensive of the Don Front and the counterattack of the 64th Army greatly facilitated the position of the 62nd Army and did not allow the enemy to complete the capture of the city.
On November 11, the Nazi troops made their last, fourth attempt to storm Stalingrad. On this day, they managed to capture the southern part of the territory of the Barrikady plant and break through to the Volga in a narrow area. The 62nd Army was divided into three parts. Its main forces firmly defended the territory of the Krasny Oktyabr plant and the narrow coastal part of the city. The group of Colonel Gorokhov defended the area of the Market, Spartanovka, and the division of Colonel Lyudnikov held the eastern part of the territory of the Barrikady plant. Thus, by the end of the defensive period of the Battle of Stalingrad, the 62nd Army basically held its positions in Stalingrad. The front line by this time passed north of the Tractor Plant, through the Barrikady plant and further through the northeastern quarters of the central part of the city. The 64th Army staunchly defended the approaches to the southern part of Stalingrad.
The enemy did not reach his goal. In fierce battles on the outskirts of Stalingrad and in the city itself, its offensive capabilities were completely exhausted.
The myth about the invincibility of the Nazi Wehrmacht in summer conditions was dispelled. Here, near Stalingrad, Hitler's strategists could no longer refer to "General Frost", who allegedly "stole" their victory in the Battle of Moscow in the winter of 1941/42. On the Don and Volga in the summer of 1942, it was a sin for the heat-loving Nazi warriors to complain about the lack of heat - on some days the air temperature rose above + 30 ° C. So, as the experience of the summer-autumn campaign of 1942 showed, the matter was not at all in climatic conditions, but in something completely different. Having repulsed all the blows of the enemy, the Soviet troops created favorable conditions for a counteroffensive near Stalingrad.
The turning point in World War II was the great Summary events is not able to convey the special spirit of solidarity and heroism of the Soviet soldiers who participated in the battle.
Why was Stalingrad so important to Hitler? Historians identify several reasons why the Fuhrer wanted to take Stalingrad at all costs and did not give the order to retreat even when the defeat was obvious.
Large industrial city on the banks of the longest river in Europe - the Volga. Transport junction of important river and land routes that united the center of the country with the southern regions. Hitler, having captured Stalingrad, would not only cut the important transport artery of the USSR and create serious difficulties in supplying the Red Army, but would also reliably cover the German army advancing in the Caucasus.
Many researchers believe that the presence of Stalin in the name of the city made its capture important for Hitler from an ideological and propaganda point of view.
There is a point of view according to which there was a secret agreement between Germany and Turkey on its entry into the ranks of the allies immediately after the passage for the Soviet troops along the Volga was blocked.
Stalingrad battle. Summary of events
- The time frame of the battle: 07/17/42 - 02/02/43.
- Participated: from Germany - the reinforced 6th Army of Field Marshal Paulus and the Allied troops. From the side of the USSR - the Stalingrad Front, created on 07/12/42, under the command of first Marshal Timoshenko, from 07/23/42 - Lieutenant General Gordov, and from 08/09/42 - Colonel General Eremenko.
- Battle periods: defensive - from 17.07 to 11.18.42, offensive - from 11.19.42 to 02.02.43.
In turn, the defensive stage is divided into battles on the distant approaches to the city in the bend of the Don from 17.07 to 10.08.42, battles on the distant approaches in the interfluve of the Volga and Don from 11.08 to 12.09.42, battles in the suburbs and the city itself from 13.09 to 18.11 .42 years.
Losses on both sides were colossal. The Red Army lost almost 1,130,000 soldiers, 12,000 guns, and 2,000 aircraft.
Germany and the Allied countries lost almost 1.5 million soldiers.
defensive stage
- July 17th- the first serious clash between our troops and enemy forces on the banks
- August 23- enemy tanks came close to the city. German aviation began to regularly bomb Stalingrad.
- September 13- assault on the city. The glory of the workers of Stalingrad factories and factories thundered all over the world, who repaired damaged equipment and weapons under fire.
- October 14- The Germans launched an offensive military operation off the banks of the Volga in order to capture the Soviet bridgeheads.
- November 19- our troops went on the counteroffensive according to the plan of operation "Uranus".
The entire second half of the summer of 1942 was hot. The summary and chronology of the events of the defense indicate that our soldiers, with a shortage of weapons and a significant superiority in manpower from the enemy, did the impossible. They not only defended Stalingrad, but also went on the counteroffensive in difficult conditions of exhaustion, lack of uniforms and the harsh Russian winter.
Offensive and victory
As part of Operation Uranus, Soviet soldiers managed to surround the enemy. Until November 23, our soldiers strengthened the blockade around the Germans.
- 12 December- the enemy made a desperate attempt to break out of the encirclement. However, the breakthrough attempt was unsuccessful. Soviet troops began to compress the ring.
- December 17- The Red Army recaptured the German positions on the Chir River (the right tributary of the Don).
- December 24- ours advanced 200 km into the operational depth.
- Dec. 31 - soviet soldiers moved another 150 km. The front line stabilized at the turn of Tormosin-Zhukovskaya-Komissarovsky.
- January 10- our offensive in accordance with the plan "Ring".
- January 26- The 6th German Army was divided into 2 groups.
- January 31- destroyed the southern part of the former 6th German army.
- February 02- liquidated the northern group of fascist troops. Our soldiers, the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad, won. The enemy capitulated. Field Marshal Paulus, 24 generals, 2500 officers and almost 100 thousand exhausted German soldiers were taken prisoner.
The Battle of Stalingrad brought great destruction. Photos of war correspondents captured the ruins of the city.
All the soldiers who took part in the significant battle proved to be courageous and brave sons of the Motherland.
Sniper Zaitsev Vasily, with aimed shots, destroyed 225 opponents.
Nikolai Panikakha - threw himself under an enemy tank with a bottle of combustible mixture. He sleeps forever on Mamayev Kurgan.
Nikolai Serdyukov - closed the embrasure of the enemy pillbox, silencing the firing point.
Matvey Putilov, Vasily Titaev - signalmen who established communication by clamping the ends of the wire with their teeth.
Gulya Koroleva - a nurse, carried dozens of seriously wounded soldiers from the battlefield near Stalingrad. Participated in the attack on the heights. The mortal wound did not stop the brave girl. She continued to shoot until the last minute of her life.
The names of many, many heroes - infantrymen, artillerymen, tankers and pilots - were given to the world by the Battle of Stalingrad. A brief summary of the course of hostilities is not able to perpetuate all the feats. Entire volumes of books have been written about these brave people who gave their lives for the freedom of future generations. Streets, schools, factories are named after them. The heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad must never be forgotten.
Significance of the Battle of Stalingrad
The battle was not only of grandiose proportions, but also of extremely significant political significance. The bloody war continued. The battle of Stalingrad became its main turning point. It can be said without exaggeration that it was after the victory at Stalingrad that mankind gained hope for victory over fascism.
INTRODUCTION
The Battle of Stalingrad, one of the greatest battles of the Great Patriotic War, was a turning point in the course of World War II. Interest in Stalingrad is not weakening, and the disputes of researchers do not subside. Stalingrad is a city that has become a symbol of suffering and pain, a symbol of the greatest courage. Stalingrad will remain in the memory of mankind for centuries. The battle of Stalingrad is conditionally divided into two periods: defensive and offensive. The defensive period began on July 17, 1942 and ended on November 18, 1942. The offensive period began with the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops on November 19, 1942 and ended with victorious volleys on February 2, 1943. More than 2 million people participated in the battle at certain stages.
DEFENSIVE BATTLES
(on the distant approaches from July 17 to August 10, 1942, on the near ones - from August 10 to September 13, 1942)
By the middle of the summer of 1942, the battles of the Great Patriotic War had reached the banks of the Volga. In the plan of a large-scale offensive in the south of our country (Caucasus, Crimea), the command of fascist Germany also includes Stalingrad (Hitler's directive No. 41 of April 5, 1942). Purpose: to take over the industrial city, whose enterprises produced military products (factories "Red October", "Barrikada", Tractor); reach the Volga, along which in the shortest possible time it was possible to get to the Caspian Sea, to the Caucasus, where the oil necessary for the front was extracted. Hitler plans to carry out this plan with the forces of one 6th Paulus field army in just a week - by July 25, 1942. On July 14, 1942, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Stalingrad region was declared under a state of siege. July 17, 1942 was the day of the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad. The Kletsky, Surovikinsky, Serafimovichsky, Chernyshkovsky districts of our region were the first to meet the enemy. Well-prepared, armed, numerically superior to ours, the Nazi army, at the cost of any losses, sought to get to Stalingrad, and the Soviet soldiers, at the cost of incredible efforts, had to hold back the onslaught of the enemy. The forces of the advancing enemy were opposed by the Stalingrad Front. It was created by decision of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command on July 12, 1942. It included: 62nd, 63rd, 64th, 21st, 28th, 38th, 57th combined arms armies, as well as 8 I'm an air force.
The complexity of the situation also consisted in the fact that our troops experienced an acute shortage of anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery, in a number of formations there was not enough ammunition. Most of the divisions that arrived from the Headquarters Reserve did not yet have combat experience, other divisions were exhausted in previous battles. The open steppe nature of the terrain allowed enemy aircraft to strike at the Soviet troops and inflict great damage in people, weapons and military equipment. The battles for the main line of defense were preceded by the battles of the forward detachments. They also included cadet regiments. Having just left the walls of military schools, young officers went on their first attack as ordinary soldiers.
17. Radical change-Staling., Battle of Kursk, Battle for the Dnieper
During the year from November 1942 to November 1943, a radical turning point was made during the Great Patriotic War, when the strategic initiative passed into the hands of the Soviet command, the armed forces of the USSR switched to a strategic offensive.
The main events of the second period of the war were:
3) Battle for the Dnieper (September-November 1943);
4) Liberation of the Caucasus (January - February 1943).
The historical counteroffensive of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad began on November 19, 1942. The troops of the Southwestern, Don and Stalingrad fronts surrounded 22 enemy divisions with a total number of 330 thousand people. In December, a group of troops was defeated on the Middle Don, trying to break through the boiler from the outside and help the encircled. Thus, as a result of successful hostilities, the 6th German Army under the command of Field Marshal Paulus was completely blocked and surrendered. The defeat of the Nazi troops at Stalingrad was of great importance during the Second World War.
The final stage of the Battle of Stalingrad developed into a general offensive of the Soviet troops. In January 1943, a second, but this successful attempt was made to break the blockade of Leningrad. For seven days, the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts overcame a 15-kilometer section occupied by German forces. The Nazis resisted desperately, clinging to every line, settlement, transferring reserves and counterattacking, but they failed to survive. On January 18, at 9:30, a long-awaited meeting of Soviet troops took place in the area of workers' settlements, and by the end of the day, the entire southern coast of Lake Ladoga was liberated from German troops.
In order to combine the efforts of the troops and the fleet defending Novorossiysk and the Taman Peninsula, on August 17, the Novorossiysk Defensive Region (NOR) was created, which received the task of preventing the breakthrough of Nazi troops to Novorossiysk either from land or from the sea. The defenders of Novorossiysk thwarted the plans of the Germans, and they failed to completely capture the city, although the enemy forces were many times superior.
In early 1943, the Soviet command developed an operation plan to liberate Novorossiysk. This plan included amphibious assault, which landed on the outskirts of Novorossiysk - Stanichka on the night of February 4, 1943. The Soviet paratroopers managed to occupy an area on the coast 4 km long and 2.5 km in size. deeper. After the approach of reinforcements on the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, the area called Malaya Zemlya was expanded to 28 km. Only through a large concentration of troops, the Germans managed to stop the expansion of the bridgehead by our troops.
For seven months, from February 15 to September 16, 1943, Soviet troops held a small piece of land on the shore of the Tsemes Bay. The Western Group of Forces of the 18th Army, which defended Malaya Zemlya, played important role in the liberation of Novorossiysk on September 16, 1943 and the defeat of the Nazi troops operating here. The victory near Novorossiysk marked the beginning of the expulsion of the enemy from the Taman Peninsula and ensured the victorious end of the battle for the Caucasus.
The radical change begun at Stalingrad was completed during the Battle of Kursk and the battle for the Dnieper. The Battle of Kursk (Orel - Belgorod) is one of the largest battles of the Second World War. The German leadership planned in the summer of 1943 to conduct a major offensive operation ("Citadel") in the Kursk region. The Germans hoped to defeat the southern wing of the Soviet troops, thereby changing the situation in their favor. Up to 50 divisions were concentrated for the operation, including 16 tank divisions. From the Soviet side, the troops of the Central, Voronezh, Stepnoy and others took part in the Battle of Kursk. Thus, the balance of forces in favor of the Red Army averaged 1.3 - 1 for all types of weapons and personnel.
The battle lasted from July 5 to August 23. The offensive of the German troops in the first stage battle of Kursk ended on July 12 with a tank battle near the village of Prokhorovka - the largest tank battle in history. The defeat of the main enemy groupings followed. On August 5, Orel and Belgorod were liberated. On August 23, the Battle of Kursk ended with the liberation of Kharkov.
The counter-offensive near Kursk developed in August into an offensive of the Soviet Army along the entire front, the troops advanced 300-600 km to the west. The left-bank Ukraine, Donbass were liberated, bridgeheads to the Crimea were captured, the Dnieper was forced. During the offensive, our command correctly assessed the positions of the Dnieper, and did not allow the Nazi troops to gain a foothold on its opposite bank. To do this, our troops were ordered to advance at a high pace, and without giving the Nazis time to consolidate their positions on the river, take it on the move.
The bridgeheads that we managed to take on the move were small at first, but during the battles two large strategic bridgeheads were formed on the Dnieper: in the Rechitsa - Korosten - Kyiv region (the capital of Ukraine was liberated on November 6, 1943) and in the Kremenchug - Znamenka - Dnepropetrovsk region. Thanks to this, favorable conditions were created for an offensive in Belarus and full release Right-bank Ukraine in 1944