Battle Of Stalingrad Essay

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-1943 is book written by the British military historian, Antony Beevor. Stalingrad covers the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. Stalingrad was a city in Russia where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union fought for control. This was part of Adolf Hitler’s plan to crush the Soviet Union and extend his Third Reich into Russian territory. The battle lasted from August 1942 to February 1943. However, the battle ended up with the destruction of the entire German 6th army and with a victory for the Soviet Union. Beevor has won three awards for this book. I wish to give brief summaries of the five sections of the book and give reviews on their main content.

Captain Dennis W. Dingle’s dissertation, presented before the faculty of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in 1977, concerns the significance of the Soviet Union’s decisive victory at Stalingrad and its impact on the outcome of the Second World War. While much of this information is irrelevant for the purpose of answering the thesis question I have proposed, it does contain indispensable statistics showcasing the economic and military might of the two most pertinent combatant nations in the Second World War in the timeframe of December of 1941 and July of 1943.

As Germany advanced on the city of Stalingrad, Hitler decided to rush the battle and try to finish it quickly. Because of this mindset, his army was severely underprepared to fight a drawn out battle in the Russian winter. German general Blumentritt recalled “The railheads (train tracks) were as much as 200 kilometers behind the front, and the bare nature of the countryside meant that there was little timber (wood) available for constructing defenses. There were no proper trenches or fixed positions” (Document 3). The Soviets had a major advantage over the Germans of the aspect of being resupplied. While they could receive support from nearby or within the city, Germany had to rely on supplies coming from a long way out. If supply shipments were cut off by the Soviets, the Germans were forced to continue fighting with limited resources. Also, the Battle of Stalingrad is a prime example of how much changed between the first and second world war. The vast majority of World War I was fought out of trenches, with soldiers moving very little. World War II was fought in the style of urban warfare, surrounded by streets and buildings, nearly the polar opposite of trench warfare. The Germans were not trained to fight an urban style battle, and thus struggled upon reaching the city of Stalingrad. When the cold Russian winter came, German suffering reached an all time high. A soldier named Wilhelm

The battle of Stalingrad was a very intense battle for the Russians as the Germans closed in on them with support from the sixth panzer division and bombings from the Luftwaffe. This battle lasted from April to February, and was mostly house to house fighting. The Germans managed to push the defending Russians back to the Volga River. The Russians were desperate, so they formed the idea of “Project Uranus”. This was a plan to surround the Germans on two sides with the Mongolians and the Romanians. Finally, in February, the attacking German forces were repelled and Stalingrad was held. If the Germans had taken Stalingrad, they could attack the Russians on two

On the whole, this is the most significant point that will be discussed because simply, the Eastern Front is where the war was won and it also facilitated the landing of the allied troops in Normandy – D-Day. Stalin had been longing for the opening of the second front to draw German tanks and infantry away from the Eastern Front. The crucial aerial bombing meant that Germany had to withdraw anti-tank guns from the Eastern front and instead, use them to fight the British bombers in the sky. This was evident with the AA Defence System (88mm tank guns) which could no longer inflict damage upon the Red Army and the Soviets. Similarly, the Germans had to divert money and manpower (infantry) to provide a significant enough opposition to discourage the Allies from continuing with their long range offensives. As well as diversion of resources, the priority of the German manufacturers shifted greatly whereby the number of fighters increased on the German front from 1405 to 1650 in 1943-44, but decreased on the Eastern Front from 445 to 425 in 1943-44. The switch of bombers to fighters meant that troops on the front line did not have a protective air force. This, along with the minimalised production of weapons, reduced the war effort served by the Germans on the Eastern Front. The only fight which the Germans could put up there was defensive which inevitably, gave

The Russians had surrounded Germany that was within the city. Everyone worked hard and fought fiercely. The Russians knew if Germany took Stalingrad, it would be just that much harder to win the war. Everything rested upon the soldiers who fought, and won this battle. This was the turning point in the war.

The battle of Stalingrad raged from August 1942 until the German surrender on 2 February 1943. Significantly, it was the first catastrophic defeat to befall the Wermacht Army who not only lost the battle but were severely humiliated. Indeed, the German Army never fully recovered from this blow to its morale. Upwards of 270,000 troops were killed and 91,000 prisoners were taken by the Red Army; included in this latter number were 23 German Generals. Conversely, morale in the Red Army soared as a consequence of Stalingrad giving the Russians increased strength and confidence. This battle represented a turning point in the Second World War.

Stalingrad was a battle during World War II started on June 22 1941 that eventually led to a significant loss to the Axis forces. The battle started as retaliation from Adolf Hitler after his defeat in the Battle of Barbarossa. The Battle of Stalingrad was a battle of pride, morale and not based off of any tactical or strategic advantage. The battle raged on in four main operations that lasted only 199 days. This loss in Stalingrad dealt a significant blow to the Axis Powers that would lead to the overall defeat of Adolph Hitler and his military during World War II. Operation Barbarossa; initiated by the Axis powers and they quickly advanced deep into Russia. The Axis Powers believed they could defeat the Soviet Union as soon as the winter had passed but they began receiving heavy attacks during the winter with as much as 65% of the infantry being attacked. The Axis Powers had time to re-equip and rest their forces prior to the end of the winter. Moscow was the end state for the operation and the Axis Powers used a Blitzkrieg style of warfare to attack the least obvious Point of Entry. Adolph Hitler expected the Soviet Union to surrender as soon as the end state became successfully captured. Hitler understood that taking Moscow would be very costly to his Armies. Hitler developed a plan to cut the Soviet Union of their fuel by taking the Caucasus Oil Fields. Operation Blau had the goal of capturing the Caucasus oil fields then continue to push his army south. The forces

The Battle of Stalingrad is considered the turning point of the Second World War as the German forces failed to overcome the defense of the Russian army leading to their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Russians. It is commonly believed that this loss was due to Hitler’s lack of trust in his own generals and his selfish desire to conquer an essentially useless piece of land. American writer Edwin Palmer Hoyt believes that if Hitler had granted his generals more flexibility, then Von Paulus could have saved some of his divisions from complete annihilation. Another perspective of the outcome is that it stemmed from Stalin’s decision to allow for how own generals and commanders to take control over the battle while he put his focus on other things which would lead to the Soviet domination over the German army in a seemingly hopeless situation.

One may wonder why Stalingrad was so important to Hitler. Well, Stalingrad was the capital of the Soviet Union, the heart of their industry and their largest city. As an industrial city, Stalingrad contained numerous factories that provided tanks, guns and ammunition for the Soviet war effort. Without the war supplies and the oil fields in Caucasus, nothing would be supporting the Soviet forces. And more importantly, a World War Two database describes Stalingrad as a “city [that] bore the name of Hitler’s nemesis, Joseph Stalin, [which] would make the city’s capture an ideological and propaganda coup” (http://en.allexperts.com). As both Hitler and Stalin recognized, taking Stalingrad would prove essential to their country’s propaganda, boosting their nation’s morale and destroying the others. Stalingrad was named after Stalin and thus symbolic to both sides of the war. Basically, to the Germans, taking Stalingrad meant the crushing the Soviets; taking them out of the war once and for all.

They were relying on the capture of the Russian oil fields to supply their army with fuel after their stockpiles had run out. Their lack of fuel is evident even in this battle as Friedrich Von Paulus, who was commanding the sixth army’s assault on Stalingrad, advance towards the city was very slow due to the fuel rations and at one point his army was even brought to a complete halt outside Kalach, as they had completely exhausted their fuel supply. The outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad exacerbated the Germans shortage of fuel, limiting the vital supply for their planes and tanks. Without fuel, the German panzer tanks and the mighty German Luftwaffe would be useless, thus rendering two of Germany’s greatest assets worthless. The Germans could not win the war without a reliable source of fuel. Therefore, the Battle of Stalingrad was a turning point in World War Two because it stopped the German advance into Russian thus denying them access to the Caucasus oil wells, exacerbating Germany’s fuel crisis and crippling the German army.

In “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway, Santiago is an old man who catches an enormous fish after an unfortunate streak. He shows incredible strength in all that he does. His perseverance is what kept him going to break his unlucky streak. Santiago is sometimes prideful which lead him astray. Santiago is a strong, perseverant, and prideful man.

The German army lead the offensive into Stalingrad using the German 6th Army and their elite 4th Panzer tank Army. The Luftwaffe, the German

The U.S. Constitution underlies the two important principles of freedom and equality among all the citizens of our nation. There is no question that it took decades of fighting, court hearings, and social movements for this country to achieve the level of freedom and equality in which we have today. However, there is still major gender inequality that is occurring in our very own nation. It sounds crazy that gender inequality occurs in America this day in age, it often gets overlooked and ignored even though we have women activist groups and clear statistics to prove, that the inequality of women is still a major issue in this country.

Over the years, technological advances have afforded all of us great opportunities and have granted us access to certain things that we otherwise wouldn't have had. One of the most popular forms of technology used worldwide is the use of cell phones. Although they are helpful, the creation and development of cell phones have been both a gift and a curse. Having a cell phone in class can be beneficial for the student when it comes to urgent communicating. Cell phones provide a swift way to reach out to a person if a problem occurred in someone's family. However, the downside of having a cell phone in class is that it causes many distractions for the student, classmates, and the teacher. The usage of cell phones is creating a vast problem mainly when used in school; they are a distraction, anyone can easily chat, and they can take away from peer-to-peer interactions in class. Cell phones can distract a student from learning if someone's cell phones continuously make noises from text messaging and phone calls. When surfing the internet and social media during class, you can miss the whole class lecture and possibly put yourself in a position to fail that class. Cell phones take away from peer-to-peer interactions in class which can affect them individually, and it can also affect the ones around them.