Posted on 11/09/2017 5:06:39 AM PST by C19fan
It is now fashionable to demonize Russia, but most Americans have forgotten key aspects of 20th-century history, including the Russians’ fight to stop the march of Nazi Germany. Seventy-five years ago this month, the Soviet Red Army surrounded — and would soon destroy — a huge invading German army at Stalingrad on the Volga River. Nearly 300,000 of Germany’s best soldiers would never return home. The epic 1942–43 battle for the city saw the complete annihilation of the attacking German 6th Army. It marked the turning point of World War II.
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Russians would have lost many fewer people had Stalin not purged the Red Army in 1938. The Russians won in spite of Stalin.
Ironically, thanks to the Iron Curtain, Central Europe was able to stay fairly homogenous (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary), as opposed to Western Europe.
I have the move Stalingrad. The 1993 German production.
Something about seeing the file with the German and Soviet languages spoken and English subtitles. Just like with Downfall. Anyhow, a great film for any WWII history buff.
The conditions on both sides were brutal. Really drives home the old saying. War is hell.
Those countries west of the old Iron Curtain are the ones being overrun by Middle Easterners and Africans.
I am Choctaw and find it a bit tough reading some of the first-hand accounts from both sides about the “Indian wars.” But I find those accounts easier to read than accounts of the Stalingrad campaign. I get cold reading about it even in the warmth of my living room.
Brutal.
Most unlikely.
First, Germans were consistently victorious before the U.S. invasion of North Africa forced Hitler to withdraw troops from Russia to bolster Rommel in Africa.
By 1944, fully one third of German forces were defending the western front, troops who could well have kept Hitler victorious in the East for years longer.
Second and more important, without the US/UK second front, Stalin would certainly do what he seriously considered anyway: made a separate peace with Hitler, thus locking in Hitler's gains and freeing his forces (as in the First World War) to face any threats the West might pose.
They did try to take Moscow, unsuccessfully. Both sides were exhausted and the hostilities stalled. Then fresh Russian troops arrived from Siberia and Russia Far East, well fed well clad and repelled the Germans from Moscow. Actually, the Germans came so close to Moscow, they could see it throgh the binoculars and shelled it with artillery. The Battle of Moscow is deemed to have taken the steam out of the the Germans’ offensive while the Battle of Stalingrad broke the back of the German army. And then there was Kursk and many other great battles.
To me, one of the most interesting aspects of the Stalingrad battle was the treatment of the surrendered 6th German army. Many thousands died along the frozen march to Siberia.
Many more died there until a very few—I believe the number was under 5000—were finally sent home in the mid 1950’s. The Soviets were not signers of the Geneva accords pertaining to the treatment of POW’s.
I do not know if any of those march-to-Siberia survivors are alive today.
I believe some of the wounded who were flown out of the besieged German pocket in Dec ‘42 and Jan ‘43 are still living.
The word is out about Russia... holding US POWs in both WWII and from Korea, along with the murder of anyone who opposed Stalin or his minions to the tune of 78M people.
Had a friend in college whose wife was a Red Diaper Baby—her dad fought in the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. She was named Victoria—after the victory at Stalingrad.
Also, because the US fought the Japanese, Japan was reluctant to engage the Soviet Union and fight at two fronts. When Stalin learned that Japan was not going to wage war against it, he relocated some fresh Siberian divisions to the west, which helped defeat the Germans in the Battle for Moscow. Not to diminish the decisive role and huge sacrifices of the Russian soldiers and civilians in defeating the Nazi Germany.
Also interesting is how Germans treated the Russian POW’s.
Trying to find information about German POWs in Russia prior to the internet was almost impossible.
I had always been interested in what happened to the millions of Germans who were sent East after the war. Treatment, conditions, deaths etc.
There was testimony made by a former Russian prisoner of the gulags to congress back in the 1970s. He stated that after the 1956 release of German POWs there were still many in Russia. Quite a few on Wrangel Island.
But that may have just been rumor. Who knows.
Visiting Mamayev Kurgan is on my bucket list.
Hitler declared war on the US, with the expectation that the Japs would help him with the Soviets.
The Japs weren’t that stupid.
When a foreign movie is made by foreigners, it always works far better in the original language with subtitles than if dubbed in English.
In 1939 there were a series of battles around Khalkhin Gol, Mongolia, in which Soviet Gen. Zhukov outnumbered Japanese forces more than two-to-one, out-maneuvered & decisively defeated them.
From these battles many Japanese took away the lesson: don't mess with Stalin.
But as late as 1941 the Japanese army still wanted to re-fight and defeat the Soviets.
Had they done so (instead of uselessly attacking Pearl Harbor) they would find a much easier time accumulating adequate forces against Russians who were now fighting Hitler.
The result could force Stalin to make peace while preventing American entry to the war.
Fortunately for us, Japanese were in a hurry, underestimated US response to Pearl Harbor, and overestimated Hitler's prospects without them against Stalin.
William Hoffman
DIARY OF A GERMAN SOLDIER
1942
September 16th:
Our battalion, plus tanks, is attacking the elevator, from which smoke is pouring - the grain in it is burning, the Russians seem to have set alight to it themselves .Barbarism. The battalion is suffering heavy losses. There are not more than sixty men left in each company . the elevator is occupied not by men but by devils that no flames or bullets can destroy.
September 18th
Fighting is going on inside the elevator. The Russians inside are condemned men;the battalion commander says; “The commissars have ordered those men to die in the elevator”
If all the buildings of Stalingrad are defended like this , then none of our soldiers will ever get back to Germany.
I had a letter from Elsa today. She’s expecting me home when victory’s won.
September 20th:
The battle for the elevator is still going on.The Russians are firing on all sides. We stay in our cellar; you can’t go into the street. Sergeant-Major Nuschke was killed today running across a street. Poor fellow , he’s got three children.
September 22nd:
Russian resistance in the elevator has been broken . Our troops are advancing towards the Volga. We found about forty Russian dead in the elevator building. half of them were wearing naval uniform - sea devils. One prisoner was captured seriously wounded, who can’t speak, or is shamming.
Zhukov, in his memoirs, says that they didn’t like the American tanks. Claimed they would not start in the cold weather.
The Japanese had bitter experience with Zhukov in China in 1930s and didn’t want any of it again.
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