Stalingrad
During the 20th Century man had grown so intelligent and greedy that we started the single largest war man has ever witnessed, The Second World War. It killed almost 52 million people and left almost all of Europe destroyed. The single event that sparked it was Hitler’s greed for power and conquest. By 1939 Austria and Czechoslovakia had fallen into his hands and on September 1st 1939 he attacked Poland and then the following year he took France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Holland, Denmark and Norway. Then on June 22 1941 he attacked the Soviet Union. When his entail attack “Operation Babarossa” failed he launched “Fall Blau” witch sparked the largest single battle in history, the Battle of Stalingrad and turned the tied of the war and stopped Hitler from grabbing a hold of the USSR.
In the summer of 1941 the German Whermacht was advancing with staggering speed though the Soviet landscape. The German spearhead groups called “Armee Gruppe” advanced and encircled millions of men. (6) By October the Germans reached the outskirts of Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. Just as the Germans get ready to encircle the Capital, winter sets in, the temperture drops as much as 30 celsius in a day! By this time the Soviets have lost over 70 million people, 10 million pounds of metal ore, and over 800 million pounds of bread!(8) Still on December 5th Stalin orders an offencive to push back the German army. By Febuary 1942 the Germans hold the front stable but are pushed back ~100 KM from Moscow.
When Hitler realized that he could not take Moscow he started planning the next major offencive for 1942. By the time the Germans stoped the offencive for the winter Hitler had the final bugs worked out. (10) When Hitler tells his generals they are outraged and think that an offence on Moscow would throw the Soviets into cival war and the would give up soon after. Hitler strongly disagrees with this and thinks that he will pay too many casualties for not a large reward.
The plan for “Fall Blau” called for “Heeresgruppe Sud” to use the doctrian of
Blitzkried (or lighting war) to overrun Soviet possitons and reach the cities of Buka and Stalingrad. Buka was an extremely important position because it produced over 50 percent of the soviet oil and the Germans by this time realzed that they would need more and more oil to support their Panzer devisons.
In the middle of July the German armies advanced, as the 6th and 4th panzer armies established positions on the Don, at the same time Italian, Hungarian and Romanian armies occupied the baches to provent the soviets from counter attacking. Mean while the German 17th army advanced into the caussacs along with the 1st Panzer army. (10)
By October of 1942 the Hungarian, Romania and Italian expedisanry forces were holding the Don from a possible Soviet counter attack, the German 6th army had entered Stalingrad and elements of the 4th panzer army where ordered to hold the line and never to leave Stalingrad. When Hitler sees how well the 4th and 6th armies are doing he orders elements of the 4th panzer army to move down to the south to support the German offencive. A week later for a strange reson Hitler takes personal command of “Heeresgruppe Sud” and splits it up into two different blocks called, “Herresgruppe Sud-A and Sud-B” This way he belives that the units will be more mobile and will be able to stike from different directions. Soon he thinks his plan is working so e pulls back the whole 4th panzerarmy to the north in to Stalingrad while the Romania and Italian troops cover the flanks.
Hitler, by this time, thinks his operation is a great succsess and takes the Soviets by surprise. He blives that its impossible for the Soviets to launch an offencive, but he is wrong. He did not know the Soviets seacret wepon, massive reserve troops. Stalin calls down over 100 Divisons from all over the Soviet Union, from Moscow, to the Far East defence force. This sets motion to the great battle of Stalingrad.
As the small isolated pocets hold Stalingrad the German airforce attacks almost every building in the city down to the ground. The Russians hold out fiersly and try offencive opparation to break though the small pockets but they don’t know the truble brewing to the north of them.
2007-02-25
15:37:03
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11 answers
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asked by
B-O-O
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