By Lyubov Tsarevskaya
The city of Stalingrad on the Volga is now known under a different name - Volgograd. 60 years ago it was the scene of the most fierce of battles with the Nazis that became a turning point in the Second World War.
The tremendous losses of the first year of the war against the Soviet Union made the German command reject the idea of advancing in all directions and in the 1942 summer campaign it decided to move south. Hitler was planning to capture the rich regions of the Don and Volga Rivers and the Caucasus in order to paralyze the Soviet economy. The southern territories were also attractive for their flat steppes that allowed the use of tanks. The main targets were Stalingrad and the Caucasus. By capturing Stalingrad the Nazis were planning to establish control of the Volga and in due course move on along the river to the north to cut Central Russia from the Urals and surround and capture Moscow.
At the approaches to Stalingrad the German command amassed a powerful force outnumbering the Soviet army in manpower and military hardware. The offensive began on July 17th 1942. After a month-long battle in the curve of the Don and Volga the 6th German army of Field Marshal von Paulus broke through into the city. The battles raged on day and night for every single piece of land. Soviet soldiers and officers knew that the battle was a decisive one in the war and performed feats of heroism on a mass scale. The fierce battles lasted 200 days and nights. And despite the seemingly hopeless situation the Russian soldiers held out. Worn out in door-to-door battles, the German army never accomplished its plan of capturing the city and was too weak to launch a major offensive. The Soviet army, in contrast, was getting stronger receiving fresh reinforcements and increasing its fighting efficiency. As he described the battle, Hitler's associate Joseph Goebbels said that more and more reinforcements in manpower and hardware came out of the vast steppes of Russia as if by a miracle, as if an unseen magician was producing Bolshevik people and hardware in any quantities out of Ural clay.
The Battle of Stalingrad was a clash of both military and intellectual forces. Following a thoroughly elaborated plan, the Soviet command carried out a successful operation that resulted in a siege of the Paulus army. The besieged fought with desperation of the doomed. The popular belief among the Germans was that Russian captivity was akin to death. For humane considerations, on January 8th 1943, the Soviet command proposed an honourary surrender and guaranteed that all German soldiers and officers who would surrender would stay alive, return to their homes after the war, keep their uniforms, signs of distinction and other personal belongings and get decent food and medical help. But the German command declined the ultimatum. So the Soviet troops began to destroy the besieged German force. The Nazis were sustaining heavy losses. Field Marshal Paulus informed Hitler over the radio that a disaster was imminent and asked for an immediate permission to surrender to save what remained of the German force. Hitler's response was a categorical "no", which meant the Germans had to fight to the last man and bullet. In the early hours of morning on January 31st, 1943 Paulus and his entire headquarters were captured. And February 2nd saw the surrender of the last German group. And the Battle of Stalingrad, which marked the beginning of the expulsion of Hitler's troops from the Russian territory, was over.
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