Remembering Stalingrad 75 Years Later

Townhall.com ^ | November 9, 2017 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Kaslin]

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.

Before Stalingrad, Adolf Hitler regularly boasted on German radio as his victorious forces pressed their offensives worldwide. After Stalingrad, Hitler went quiet, brooding in his various bunkers for the rest of the war.

During the horrific Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted more than five months, Russian, American and British forces also went on the offensive against the Axis powers in the Caucasus, in Morocco and Algeria, and on the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific.

Yet just weeks before the Battle of Stalingrad began, the Allies had been near defeat. They had lost most of European Russia. Much of Western Europe was under Nazi control. Axis armies occupied large swaths of North Africa. The Japanese controlled most of the Pacific and Asia, from Manchuria to Wake Island.

Stalingrad was part of a renewed German effort in 1942 to drive southward toward the Caucasus Mountains, to capture the huge Soviet oil fields. The Germans might have pulled it off had Hitler not divided his forces and sent his best army northward to Stalingrad to cut the Volga River traffic and take Stalin's eponymous frontier city.

[oh8eleven]

Yeah, I've read the book at least three times over the years (out of local libraries) and I noticed the different covers.
Don't know why ...

[dfwgator]

The best result would have been Stalin being overthrown in a coup, probably with Khrushchev at the helm, and then the Russians winning. I still think had the Nazis put all their efforts into taking Moscow, Stalin would not have survived it.

Khrushchev was no angel, but a lot more pragmatic than Stalin, and not nearly as ruthless.

[oh8eleven]

Khrushchev was no angel ...
As a little kid growing up in the 50s and 60s, I was was scared $hitless of Khrushchev.
What gave me some amount of relief was knowing that Eisenhower could kick his @ss :)

[dfwgator]

I do think of all the members of the Politburo, he was the one who could have convinced the others to do away with Stalin. Beria would have been the problem, though.

[SkyDancer]

Thanks - will look into it.

[alexander_busek]

[...] as they found out when they were both repatriated from German POW camps or simply returned home as veterans when the war ended.

Am currently reading Nicholas Stargardt's "The German War" (which I can wholeheartedly recommend).

Interestingly, there were more Soviet "Fremdarbeiter" working together with and for the Nazis than there were Soviet P.O.W.s. - sometimes quite willingly.

There were also entire brigades - called "Legionen" - of Ukrainian, Baltic, Muslim, and Tatar nationalists who had believed that it would be to their benefit to fight for the Nazis.

Regards,

[warsaw44]

That always blew me away: Russian POWs freed by advancing Soviet army is sent back into battle and at the end of the war the survivors are sent to the gulag.

The figure I read many years ago was well over 1 million sent to the camps back home.

[dfwgator]

Stalin saw the war as a great opportunity to reduce the “excess” Soviet population.

He was more than happy to allow Hitler to take care of his “Jewish Problem” for him.

[Mr. Mojo]

Also the book “War of the Rats,” by David L. Robbins.

Zaytsev vs. Thorvald

[BobL]

I guess VDH is now a paid Russian troll too. LOL.

[Axenolith]

“Enemy at the Gates” the movie essentially excerpted a small portion of the book.

Anthony Beevor’s “Stalingrad” was pretty good also.

[tumblindice]

By the end of the year they were trying to disguise their helmet outline.

[Sloane_Ranger]

The defense of Sgt. Pavlov’s House

https://owlcation.com/humanities/World-War-2-History-Pavlovs-House-in-Stalingrad-They-Shall-Not-Pass

[BobL]

“In part, it had no choice. Germany was intent on not just absorbing Russia, but wiping it out or enslaving millions of its citizens.”

And what, exactly, was Stalin doing to the Russian people at exactly the same time...same thing!

In fact, one book that I read on Russia during the war (us paid Russian trolls have to learn their history well) mentioned that the people there, initially, somewhat welcomed the invasion, as Stalin was actually at his worst (if you can believe that) just before the invasion. He was basically rounding up, torturing, and then shipping off anyone who had a parking ticket, or was accused by their neighbor of J-Walking. Hitler didn’t seem much worse, and the roundups did slow down once the attack started. In fact, there was a train full of Russian military officers heading for the gulags (and certain death) that got turned around once Germany attacked...seemed these ‘anti-revolutionaries’ (as Antifa calls us, and them) still had some value back home, as in to defend their country.

[SoCal Pubbie]

There is a lot of “what if” speculation out there but the truth is that Germany never had a realistic chance of winning WWII, and mostly by luck did they win such a stunning victory in France. Invading Russia was a bridge too far and declaring war on the United States was a suicidal decision.

[Axenolith]

I ran into a guy at Costco last fall who’s dad was airlifted out of Stalingrad wounded on one of the last flights out with wounded before the air bridge was shut down. After recoverery he got sent to the Leningrad area and fought the rest of the war from there back to Germany and lived through that. Talk about an exceedingly lucky dude...

[GOPJ]

What Americans should always remember that if the Russians at such a great cost to themselves had not fought the Germans so long and so well and not destroyed the best of the German army, American casualties in WWII would have been much Simply put, many Americans who live today, simply would not have come to exist.

God Bless the brave Russians on this one ... they showed vile Germans how tough they were... and yeah, saved millions of lives in the process.

[Rebelbase]

IIRC, out of the 300,000 Germans captured at Stalingrad only around 5,000 survived the camps and were repatriated to Germany 10 years later.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

"They showed vile Germans how tough they were... and yeah, saved millions of lives in the process"

I assume there is some irony being conveyed here? The vast majority of Russian and German soldiers weren'y T vile, but simply draftees, sent to a massive charnal field by brutal dictators. Soviet generals literally used waves of unarmed human meat to soak up and deplete German ammunition stocks.

[GOPJ]

The Man He Killed

Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although

He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.

Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half a crown.