The Battle of Stalingrad Led to a Significant Loss to the Axis Forces in World War II

Stalingrad - Site of critical World War II Soviet victory that reversed Germany's advance to the East. In late 1942, Russian forces surrounded the Germans, and on Feb. 2, 1943, the German Sixth Army surrendered. First major defeat for the Germans in World War II.

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.

Stalingrad and the Turning Point on the Soviet-German Front, 1941-1943 is partitioned into seven distinct chapters: Introduction; Background; Geography, Politics and National Will; The Economies of

“While the German army had success the first day, it was Hitler’s desire to occupy the entire city that cost him the battle” (Background). Despite being in a favorable position early on, Hitler decide to continue to push on and quickly take over the city of Stalingrad. Logically, Hitler would have been content with the position he had, and held it for some time. Despite throwing large amounts of men into the fighting the Germans only made small amounts of progress, losing absurd amounts of men and supplies to take over a single building. Once Hitler had started this push, however, he could not pull out of it. It would be a defeat in his eyes, and avoiding defeat was more important to him than the lives of his men. “Fresh divisions were thrown in and were soon ground to pieces in the inferno (a fiery hell). To Hitler [Stalingrad’s] capture was now a question of personal prestige” (Document 1). After a certain point, a victory under his name became won important to Hitler than the territory won in the battle. Especially due to the city's importance to Stalin himself, it was more of a personal battle for Hitler than a battle between nations. The Battle of Stalingrad became a test of Hitler’s prestige and what he was willing to do to protect it. The answer to that question would turn out to be too much, as the Soviets would be on the front foot for the

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

Operation Barbarossa was another crucial battle in World War II. It began on June 22, 1941 and ended on December 5th. It was when Germans invaded the Soviet Union in hopes of advancing farther. The Germans had three million soldiers, 3,500 tanks, and 150 divisions cross into the Soviet Union. The Soviets destroyed the German advance. It was considered the most crucial turning point in the

The battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the eastern front of world war two where Nazi Germany and all of its associates fought the Soviet Union over control over the city of Stalingrad. The battle of Britain was a large scale battle in which the Britain’s fought the Germans to protect the UK.

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.

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.

Sunday June 22nd 1941 the Wehrmacht's launched operation Barbarossa; a full scale invasion of the Soviet Union. After the success their blitzkrieg attack on France the Nazi’s planned to do the same except on a much larger scale. The high command was confident that it would be a swift and decisive victory for them because they believed the Russian’s to be primitive. The first part of the German attack went as planned for Stalin didn’t believe the German’s would actually attack. The Wehrmacht captured Leningrad, Kiev, and central Russia with little to no resistance and now had their sights set on Moscow. However just as the officer’s claimed to “see the spirals of the Kremlin” the soviet counter offensive pushed them back with brutal Russian

The Battle of Stalingrad marked the end of Germany’s advances into Eastern Europe and Russia. After Germany's failure to take Stalingrad, their Eastern front army was practically destroyed and they were forced to flee outside of the Soviet Union. This became a turning point for World War Two as it put the Russians on the offensive. Consequently, this directly aided in the destruction and conquering of Germany by the Allied Forces throughout 1944 and 1945. Germany was, essentially, surrounded with the Americans and British in the West, and the Russians in the East.

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.

Explain why one event during World War Two in Europe was a turning point in the conflict

<br>The plan to capture the Soviet Union, operation Barbarossa, was initially very successful. The German attack, comprising 134 divisions or just over 3 million soldiers, took the Russians by surprise and they quickly advanced towards Moscow. But the rough country and appalling roads were taking its toll, and the German advance started to slow. Hitler himself took control of the campaign. Hitler was a very determined man. He was very determined to avenge the loss and humiliation of world war

During World War II, the battle of Stalingrad began in the city of Stalingrad, Russia and was fought between August of 1942 and February of 1943. http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-stalingrad It is still considered today to be one of Russia’s greatest battles in which the Russian army defended itself from invasion by the German army. This battle essentially stopped Germany’s determined advance into Russian territory. This marked a huge turning point in the war for the Allies. It was a very important war because it crippled the German offensive as well as destroying much of its army.