The encirclement of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad in mid-November 1942 and its final collapse in February 1943 was a signature defeat for Hitler, as more than 100,000 of his soldiers were marched off into captivity. Frank Ellis tackles this oft-told tale from the unique perspective of the German officers and men trapped inside the Red Army's ever-closing ring of forces. This approach makes palpable the growing desperation of an army that began its campaign confident of victory but that long before the end could see how hopeless their situation had become.
Highlighting these pages are three previously unpublished German army division accounts, translated here for the first time by Ellis. Each of these translations follows the combat experiences of a specific division—the 76th Infantry, the 94th Infantry, and the 16th Panzer—and take readers into the cauldron (or Kessel) that was Stalingrad. Together they provide a ground-level view of the horrific fighting and yield insights into everything from tactics and weapons to internal disputes, the debilitating effects of extreme cold and hunger, and the Germans' astonishing sense of duty and the abilities of their junior leaders.
Less than 5,000 survived to return to Germany.
My suspicion has always been that this war is pretty much going Russia’s way and has been since the beginning. The Globalists have milked the whole deal and scored $40B from the US and a lot of cool equipment that can probably be sold afterwards. The Globalists wanted Ukraine to win, of course, but that wasn’t going to happen. So they just made the best of things and ran a scam. But the game is just about over now.
It’s not a great book/article whatever. It’s not bad, but the original aspect of it doesn’t add to the body of work about what went on there.
Here are the important factors:
1) It was all about oil. And of course still is. Stalingrad(today’s Volgograd) was the chokepoint of flow of oil north to Moscow from the Caspian Sea. Hitler knew it. Stalin knew it. It was this, not the name of the city, that compelled the Russians to refuse to yield.
2) An astonishing number of horses were present and essentially decided the battle. Germans brought horses not suited to the weather. The Russians brought steppe ponies, far sturdier breed. These animals hauled the vast majority of supplies.
3) The Romanian oil fields fueled the 6th Army. Russia, as always, had infinite fuel.
4) Hitler was not a moron. The 6th Army was the victim of high level politics. Herman Goering told Hitler there was no reason to dispatch another army to break the encirclement because the Luftwaffe could provide entirely sufficient supplies from the air. It could not. It wasn’t even close, but Hitler had to listen to the advice of his experts and that’s what he was told.
5) The Russians had a spy in the German High Command and he had a communications channel to another spy in Switzerland, who erected big antennas and often Stalin knew of High Command orders before the 6th Army did.
6) The Germans numbered well over 100K, but more important, the Italians and Hungarians and Croatians and Romanians sent huge numbers of men. Remember, this was a paycheck and food and the Great Depression didn’t end like a light switch was flipped. Anyway, the German High Command had to always position those armies to keep the Italians between the rest, or they would start killing each other. The Soviets knew it and always knew where the Italians were. Consequence — this battle won the war. Long before serious US involvement. Germany lost 100s of thousands of troops to death or capture. No country can survive that.
All but one of the bridges out have been blown. If they are not careful they will have another Mariupol on their hands.
Ukraine is all about M.I.C. Moolah. Big War doesn’t care if we send billions in weapons to the Ukes, or blow them all up in a huge pile. So long as they make NEW billions to “replace” them for our arsenal.
That encirclement and cauldron technique happened in a big scale at least 20 or 30 times in WWII. That is what the krauts were trying to do in the Battle of the Bulge.
The Russian Defense Ministry does a daily briefing, and the counts of UKA and “ nationalist” fighters killed has been in the range of 200-300 per day, at minimum. Thus Zelensky’s count is low. The final Donbas fall is going to be catastrophic with estimated 15K troops encircled with no retreat order and few options
UKR units leave their dead where they fall. Captured men have stated they are ordered to count missing troops as “ deserters” so their families receive no pensions.
The number of POWs is not announced but is over 10,000 based on regional reporting.
Then defend the land bridge to Crimea.
Stalemate.
First there appears a crack.
Then the entire wall suddenly crumbles.
While the dug in Ukrainian defense has been a surprise to everyone, there was never any doubt as to the final outcome.
Once the battle of Donbas is complete, Odessa will be next.
thanks for posting this
those who don’t read Daily Mail were probably aware of this
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Another bad day for Z.
Liman is now completely under control of the Russians.
Here’s update from Defense Poolitics Asia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGJoBGctXBI
Shades of World War I!
I wish you had posted the source of that. I love to read these historical accounts.