The Battle of Stalingrad

This is episode 34 – the final in this series. A big thank you to my listeners who have posted reviews as well as comments over the past 9 months. And those who have sent me email and twitter notices of support thank you so much too. So to the story at hand. Last episode you remember that Field Marshal Paulus surrendered with the men in the southern pocket inside Stalingrad. That was not the end of it all. We left off with Russian Generals Voronov and Rokossovsky interrogating Paulus. Before...

General Paulus had moved his headquarters right into the city as we heard last episode, setting them up in the basement of Stalingrad’s department store called Univermag. That was a multi-story building that overlooked the Square of the Fallen Soviet Heroes. By the late afternoon of the 25th January 1943, the Russians had driven a wedge through the middle of the German pocket. At dawn on the 26th January ranks of the 21st Army met up with Rodimtsev’s 13 Guards Rifle Division north of the...

These are the last days of the men trapped inside the frozen city, starving and out of ammunition. General Paulus had finally realized the futility of trusting Goering and Hitler – far too late for his men. While the initial figure trapped had been close to 250 000, many had died or been taken prisoner – by the 25th January there were more like 100 000 men inside the final tomb of the Sixth Army. The wounded alone numbered more than 20 000 and most were not being treated at all, they lay in...

The Russians had launched Operation Koltso or Ring on the 10th January which was aimed at ending the saga, but the Germans were still determined to fight on despite running out of ammunition, food and reinforcements. Zhukov’s plan was to punch a hole through the Kessel and to split the Stalingrad city area from those German units out on the Steppe. While they drove the Germans from the nose of the Kessel as we heard last episode, they stalled initially in the main aim of splitting up the...

This is episode 30 and we’re dealing with the events starting in the first week of January 1943, through to the end of the second week. The Sixth Army is surrounded in Stalingrad and faces another major assault planned by the Russians. Before they go ahead, however, Joseph Stalin wants to give the Germans a chance to surrender. There is no escape for the 249 000 men despite their prayers for a miracle and Stalin and Stalin’s generals want done with the Sixth Army so they can focus on the...

On the 28th December 1942 Joseph Stalin was fuming back in Moscow. There were at least seven Russian armies tied down trying to defeat General Paulus and they had still not taken the city back from the Germans. He was also growing very tired of hearing the mostly exaggerated reports from his field commanders including impossible boasts such as “3 250 tanks captured and 1 800 aircraft destroyed”. The Germans didn’t even have 1 800 in the area, let alone three thousand tanks. Stalin seemed to...

Manstein’s attempted break-in to Stalingrad has ground to a halt. He needs Paulus to push back from the inside and the Sixth Army commander is like a bunny in the headlights – waiting for Adolf Hitler to give him permission. But the Führer has long decided that its death or glory in Stalingrad, no retreat, despite the Sixth Army being surrounded by the Russians after the Operation Uranus success. We concentrated last week on the push to try and dent the iron ring around Paulus and 249 000...

General Hoths’ 6th Panzer division is about to roll into Myshkova where he would be joined by the 17th Panzer Division. They had started Operation Winter Storm on the 12th December in a last ditch push to save the Sixth Army trapped in Stalingrad and by the 14th had made good progress. The Russian force guarding the approach route was the 51st Army but it had been reduced to about half its strength since the break-through in November where they’d been part of the Red Army that had enveloped...

This is episode 26 and Field Marshal Manstein is saddling up with a view to saving the Sixth Army and General Paulus trapped inside the Kessel or cauldron in an operation called Winter Storm. Russian General Zhukov has a surprise of his own and its called Operation little Saturn. With all these operations going on, we’ll need to do a little historical surgery to make sure it’s not too confusing. What was apparent to Field Marshal Manstein as he took charge of the remnants of the Axis forces...

Already Field Marshal Manstein is planning to use the Fourth Panzer Army, the remnants of the Axis forces such as the Italians, Romanians, Hungarians and others into a semblance of a powerful force to smash into the Russians west of Stalingrad in an attempt to free Paulus and his men. Adolf Hitler had already denied Paulus permission to try to break out so by the 24th November the Sixth Army commander and General Schmidt flew back to their new headquarters at Gumrack inside the Kessel or...

The German Sixth Army was facing Six Russian armies in an attack that took the German’s by surprise as Operation Uranus unfolded in the third week of November 1942. The Romanians were not as surprised as the Germans because they’d been warning General Paulus and OKW headquarters about signs of the build-up for weeks. And we know that Luftwaffe General Von Richtfhofen had also reported on the signs but Paulus and Hitler seemed to be of the opinion that whatever it was – the signs of tanks and...

This episode is all about the Russian’s fighting back as they launch Operation Uranus. Remember the Germans have been battering away at the Barrikady and Mamaev Kurgan and still have not managed to chase the 62nd Army off the West bank of the Volga river. The Red Army is clinging onto tiny bits of land, despite General Paulus and the Sixth Army throwing everything they have at the isolated Russian troops. The Rattenkrieg has shredded the Germans – and back in Berlin Goebbels has just...

The struggle by the Sixth Army to take the remnants of the Russian 62nd Army clinging onto the banks of the Volga river is about to take another turn with General Paulus ordering a further assault starting the 11th November. This followed the German High Command’s realization that they had to do something urgently to beef up Paulus’ exposed flanks. The German’s had formed a salient or wedge as they pushed towards Stalingrad and it was ripe for the plucking. The 48th Panzer Corps had been...

General Paulus’ Sixth Army has been stymied in its quest to drive the Red Army out of the city – his last attack which began in mid-October has stalled. He’s running low on both men and ammunition. The meat grinder that is Stalingrad has caused a 60% casualty rate in some German divisions – sometimes higher. There are few reinforcements. But that’s not true of the Russians who are building up two forces. One to the north of Stalingrad near the Don River, and the other south of the city. It...

General Paulus’ Sixth Army has fought its way right up to the edge of the Volga River. Russian positions had been reduced to a few pockets of stone, seldom more than three hundred yards deep bordering on the right bank of the Volga. The Krasny Oktyabr or October plant as its also known had fallen to the Germans who had paved every foot of the factory floor with their dead. The Barrikady plant was half lost, the Germans were at one end of the foundry facing the Russian machine guns in the now...

A terrible battle had been waged inside the Red October plant since the big push began by the German Sixth Army on the 14th October. The Tractor Factory and the Barrikady plant were the centres of carnage which has become part of the mystique of Stalingrad where men were fighting for each workshop and canteen, each small room, each bombed out building. It was worse than hand-to-hand, it was tooth and nail. And in some cases, literally as men tore at each other with blunt instruments like...

It's the middle of October 1942 and the Sixth Army just cannot take Stalingrad as the Russians hold onto the West Bank of the Volga despite being outnumbered and outgunned. The most critical assault of the entire battle had just been joined – and that was the German attack which began at dawn on the 14th October. For the next three days it represented the point at which had the German’s succeeded, Stalingrad would have fallen immediately and the course of the war may have been different....

This is episode 17 and we’re into the second week of October 1942 where the Sixth Army continues to batter the Russian 62nd Army on the banks of the Volga. Russian soldiers are grimly hanging on to their slither of land. To the south, the German 4th Panzer army has been hammering away trying to push the Russians across the mighty river but things are not going swimmingly. Last episode we heard how General Paulus as growing more strained as each day passed and Stalingrad refused to fall....

This is episode 16 which deals with the fighting in the city in the last week of September and first week of October 1942. Remember last episode we covered the ongoing battles around the Nail Factory, Mamaev Hill and the Grain elevator. The 62nd Army had experienced panic in the last week of September as the German divisions pushed hard against the Volga River bank, cutting off parts of the army. But reinforcements from Siberia had been rushed across the Volga River into Stalingrad and...

This episode is about a grain elevator while Adolf Hitler loses his patience once more and fires General Halder. I had the fortune to study American Landscape History at Harvard University with one of the most incredible thinkers of modern times – Professor John Stilgoe. He would present his two hour lectures using hundreds of slides – and one of his fascinating topics was grain elevators. Only countries with food surplus have grain elevators for storage and since then, I’ve kept a sharp eye...