Urban Operations: An Historical Casebook
The Battle of Stalingrad
S.J. Lewis
Looking at the big picture I’ve thought of one thing, Zeitzler; under no circumstances must we give it (Stalingrad) up we should never get it back again. We know what that means. I can’t lay on any surprise operations. Unfortunately it’s too late now. It would all have gone quicker if we hadn’t hung about Voronezh. Then we’d have got through in the first rush, but it’s ridiculous to imagine that we can do it a second time after having withdrawn and abandoned our equipment.
Adolf Hitler[1]
Originally it was Tzaritzin, but became Stalingrad in 1925. In 1961, the city was renamed Volgograd. Each spring, when the earth thaws, artifacts, skeletons, and unexploded ordnance are revealed by the change of season. The artifacts can be sold in the West for hard currency, so children scour the Stalingrad battlefields for treasure. About six children a year are killed and wounded by the old shells, numbers to be added to the one to two million killed there in late 1942 and early 1943.
The Russian state established Tsaritsyn in 1589. About 934 kilometers southeast of Moscow, it rests on the west bank of a bend of the Volga River. A fortress on Russia’s southern flank, Tsaritsyn grew as a trading center, although it was repeatedly threatened by the Cossacks. In 1774, Yemelyan Pugachev’s rebels briefly captured the city. It grew in importance in the 19th century as more goods were shipped down the Volga. From Tsaritsyn, materials were shipped overland to the Don River. By 1897, the city had a population of 55,914, a harbor, several schools, and eight banks. In 1917, Bolshevik forces captured the city, bringing into question its future as a financial center. In the Russian Civil War, the Red Army defeated the White Army outside the city. In 1925 after Stalin’s assumption of power, the city was renamed Stalingrad. The population at the start of World War II was 600,000, although by July 1941, refugees had swollen that sum to about 900,000.[2]
There is no escaping that in World War II Stalingrad was a decisive campaign from which the Axis never recovered. It was in fact one of three “hammer blows” delivered against the Axis in November 1942. The first two were in North Africa: the British victory at El Alamein and the Anglo-American invasion of Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers. The third blow was the Soviet Operation Uranus, which would lead to the destruction of the German 6th Army. Stalingrad also represents one of the high points in the art of campaigning, clearly a decisive battle of annihilation with profound strategic implications. Consequently, the campaign has been analyzed extensively at the operational level. In spite of the importance of Stalingrad at the strategic and operational levels, however, it is at the tactical level that Stalingrad serves as a lens magnifying not only patterns of past warfare, but also a possible glimpse into how warfare will be fought in the future. These profound changes are a continuation of long-term trends stemming from the French Revolution and the subsequent industrialization of western society and warfare. Conventional warfare in Stalingrad required ever-greater numbers of troops, which in turn produced very high casualties. The increased number of troops required more ammunition, particularly for certain weapons systems. The logistical systems consequently had more supplies to deliver. There were also more casualties to be evacuated. Air forces were especially important, not only in supporting tactical actions, but also in interdicting lines of communication. But perhaps the most significant development, at least at Stalingrad, was the tendency for urban operations to increasingly impinge on the operational and strategic levels of warfare.[3]
Carl von Clausewitz created the construct of “absolute war” as an intellectual tool against which he could measure gradations of violence. Perhaps the closest war ever came to “absolute,” however, was the Battle of Stalingrad. Fighting in Stalingrad demonstrated the increasing lethality of the battlefield, primarily through improved technology. It also led to a diminution of command and control, with leadership devolving further and further down the hierarchy. And concomitantly, smaller tactical units needed specialized weapons and equipment, which made them far more significant than their numbers would suggest.
Little of this was known when the Russian 1941/42 winter offensive stalled in the March thaw, signifying the failure of the Barbarossa offensive that had begun the previous June. In January, Hitler had relieved the commander in chief of the German Army and assumed those duties himself. He had never abandoned the idea of an offensive into southern Russia to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus Mountains. Hitler consequently issued Directive Number 41 on 5 April 1942. Code named Operation Blue, it directed that the remaining Soviet military units west of the Don River be eliminated and Russia’s vital economic areas be seized. It was an overly complex operation consisting of several phases, based upon wishful thinking, inadequate intelligence, and a presumably passive enemy. Both the Russian and German armies, however, were recovering from the previous year’s fighting.[4]
The Germans did not have enough replacements to fill the depleted ranks, so only the divisions in southern Russia were built back up to their tables of organization and equipment (TO & E). One should note, however, that after several weeks of combat, TO & Es had very little to do with combat on the Eastern Front. The Fuehrer believed that the previous year’s losses could be made up by his allies, some fifty divisions from Italy, Rumania, Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia. On the map, they looked impressive, but their troops lacked motivation, skill, and equipment. Their infantry divisions did not possess even one weapon that could knock out a heavy Russian tank.[5]
Since 22 June 1941, the Red Army had also suffered enormous losses, and it had yet to overcome Stalin’s massive purge of the officer corps from the late 1930’s. During 1942, the Red Army began to change from being an infantry force into one using increasingly larger mechanized formations.[6]
Before Operation Blue started, the Red Army on 12 May launched a major offensive near Kharkov. Army Group South, commanded by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, countered with a double envelopment that trapped some 240,000 Soviet troops in the Izyum Pocket. Through the summer of 1942, Army Group South conducted the pre-selected phases of the operation, even though the Soviets on 19 June captured documents compromising the plans. Hitler became more and more confident as the German armies advanced across the broad steppes. Von Bock began to worry, however, noticing that Russian units were withdrawing. The German Army was largely dependent upon railroads for supply. It could operate comfortably up to the Dnepr River. Any advance further into southern Russia, however, had to be improvised and would be subject to interruptions. The farther they advanced into southern Russia, the more problematical their supply would become. In early July, the Germans reorganized, with Wilhelm List’s Army Group A fielding the 1st Panzer, 11th and 17th Armies. Hitler replaced von Bock with Maximilian Freiherr von Weichs and redesignated Army Group South as Army Group B. It consisted of the 2nd Hungarian, 4th Panzer, 2nd, and 6th Armies. Hitler’s interference in army operations also increased. He issued Directive #45 on 23 July, which sent Army Group A south to the Caucasus region, which left the 6th Army unsupported to advance on to Stalingrad (see Map 1). It also allowed the Soviets to withdraw most of their troops from the Don Bend.[7]
With his early tactical success in the south, Hitler concluded that he was triumphant. He dispatched the 11th Army, the only reserve in southern Russia, north to Leningrad. As the remaining German forces in the area began to fan out, enormous logistical problems ensued. The steppes did not have the infrastructure to support a western European type army; conspicuously absent were reliable double tracked railroads and bridges leading to Stalingrad from the west. All the German motorized forces periodically ran out of fuel. The chief of staff of the 4th Panzer Army, whose divisions were to fan out into the Caucasus, described the logistical situation as catastrophic.[8]
Stalingrad had not originally been a major factor in German planning and the 4th Panzer Army could have reached it much earlier. But Hitler became increasingly fascinated with the city with his issuance of Directive No. 45, a decision that still mystifies historians. It would now constitute the foundation for his conquest of the Caucasus. The German 6th Army under Friedrich Paulus was to seize Stalingrad from the west. Hitler changed his mind and directed the 4th Panzer Army to assist Paulus by advancing on Stalingrad from the south. It moved forward against tough resistance, only reaching the suburbs south of the city on 10 September 1942. The previous fighting had already reduced its infantry divisions’ strength by 40-50%.[9]
General Paulus issued his order for the attack on 19 August. The 6th Army headquarters expected both difficult fighting in the city and also Soviet counterattacks with armor from north of the city. The XIV Panzer Corps would conduct the main thrust towards the northern suburbs of Stalingrad. The LI Corps would cover the Panzers’ right flank, while the VIII Corps covered the left or northern flank. Even farther north, the 6th Army’s XXIV Panzer Corps maintained a bridgehead over the Don River near Kalatch. The main effort north of Stalingrad planned to cut the city’s main LOC north along the Volga, although German planners knew this would not cut off all supplies. In the tradition of the German General Staff, the plan had no contingent scenarios – it provided no details on fighting in the city. The previous year, Hitler had prohibited the German Army from fighting in Leningrad and Moscow and German doctrinal literature tended to downplay the subject. Thus the German Army had little if any training or experience for city fighting.[10]
On 21 August, the 6th Army seized a bridgehead over the Don River at Wertjatschij and two days later the XIV Panzer Corps began its 96.5 km dash eastwards. Breaking through scattered opposition, the 16th Panzer Division broke into Rynok the evening of Sunday, 23 August, looking down on the broad Volga north of Stalingrad. They seized Rynok from Red Army antiaircraft units, all female units that had been deploying north and east of Stalingrad during August. Throughout the remaining hours of the day, troops of the 16th Panzer Division observed the start of the Luftwaffe’s bombing of Stalingrad.
Luftflotte IV, tasked with supporting the advance into southern Russia, fielded half the air assets on the Eastern Front. It, too, was drawn to Stalingrad; its VIII Air Corps supported the army with an average of 1,000 sorties a day. Throughout the 23rd Colonel General Wolfram Freiherr Dr. von Richthofen’s Luftflotte IV pounded the city, burning down the wooden houses in the southwest corner. The large petroleum facility burned for days. The walls of the white four and five story apartment buildings remained standing, but the bombs burned the interiors, collapsing the floors. The waterworks and communications center were also knocked out. The many Soviet antiaircraft units only managed to bring down three aircraft, a consequence of insufficient training and very limited ammunition. The aerial bombardment during the week killed an estimated 40,000 Russians. Although the Luftwaffe created considerable destruction, Anthony Beevor observed: “Richthofen’s massive bombing raids had not only failed to destroy the enemy’s will, their very force of destruction had turned the city into a perfect killing ground for the Russians to use against them.”[11]
Von Richtofen’s forces were able to maintain air superiority until late October, by which time they had been considerably weakened by combat and mechanical failures. Simultaneously, the Russian Air Force began to receive considerably more and better aircraft, while their anti-aircraft forces continued to improve. Most authors, including the official historians, maintain that both air forces limited themselves largely to ground support of the army, reconnaissance and very short-range bombing. As we shall see, however, there is reason to suspect that air operations by both sides were more important and extensive than suggested by the popular or official histories. No less an observer than General Vasili I. Chuikov, before fighting even began in Stalingrad, noted how the Luftwaffe ranged across the steppes, striking communications centers and troop concentrations. As historian R.J. Spiller observed, however, we will probably never know the specific sortie patterns of Luftflotte IV and the Red Air Force.[12]
The XIV Panzer Corps remained in its exposed position for several weeks, since the 6th Army’s infantry divisions were strung out for some 322 km behind it. While the German infantry divisions marched forward, the Red Army repeatedly counterattacked the XIV Panzer Corps. The German infantry divisions reached the heights above Stalingrad on 10 September 1942. From there, they observed the 56 km long complex of houses, apartment dwellings and factories pinned against the 1000-meter- wide Volga by the unending brown steppes. At many points, the city was only 2 km wide. Also visible were several of the Volga’s islands and tributaries.
An observer with an eye for tactics would have noticed how the steppes are cut up by innumerable steep-sloped gullies, which in Russian are called balka. The Tsaritsa Gully was the major balka, which separated the southern third of Stalingrad from the northern two-thirds of the city (see Map 2). At the mouth of the balka was the old town center, where the Tsar’s officials and businessmen had maintained their two story houses. South of the Tsaritsa was a residential sector. Its train station was near the grain silos, across from the large island in the Volga. North of the Tsaritsa was the city center, which had its own train station, several plazas, the post office and waterworks. This area housed the local Communist Party headquarters. To the north was the large petroleum complex along the Volga. West of the oil complex was Stalingrad’s dominant feature, the Mamayev Kurgan (on German maps Height 102), on the northern edge of the residential sector, which overlooks the Volga River. To the west of Mamayev Kurgan was the airport. The northern sector was the industrial region. Running south to north were the Lasur Chemical Factory (which from the air resembled half a tennis racket), the Red October Metallurgical Factory, Bread Factory No. 2, the Red Barricade Armaments Factory, and, at the extreme north, the Tractor Factory.
In spite of the pulverization of the city and the continued combat operations, there were still 300,000 to 350,000 civilians in Stalingrad. Most of them lived in holes, cellars, and home-made bunkers. Since even the German Army was incapable of its own logistical support, many of them faced eventual starvation. Most of those remaining were women, children, and old men. German authorities knew the civilians required evacuation, but were unable to carry out the movement. By mid-October some 25,000 had fled the rubble, walking towards Kalatch. Some of the outskirts of the city still stood, mostly grimy workers’ houses. Other than several major streets, most of the roads were unpaved. Streets running east and west could be hit by Russian artillery units that deployed en masse east of the river. Streets running north and south were under Russian small-arms fire.[13]
Besides the enormous military problem of taking Stalingrad, General Paulus also had to safeguard his northern flank along the Don River. He never solved this task because the Soviets held a number of bridgeheads, from which they launched numerous offensives. Three Soviet armies launched the first offensive on 24 August. Although they suffered great casualties, they succeeded in slowing down the arrival of German divisions in Stalingrad.[14]
Three weeks into the German summer offensive, Josef Stalin remained convinced that the main attack would be against Moscow. He responded clumsily in fits and starts, first splitting Stalingrad between two Front headquarters. In mid-July, however, he corrected this error and created the Stalingrad Front under General A. I. Yeremenko, consisting of the 28th, 51st, 57th, 62, and 64th Armies. The Russians also deployed the North Caucasus, South, Southwest, and Bryansk Fronts in southern Russia. Most men of military age in Stalingrad had already been drafted, but local Communist Party (CP) officials mobilized some 200,000 men and women to serve in “Workers Columns” and unneeded workers were placed in militia battalions. Stalin ordered that Stalingrad would not be given up and dispatched the dreaded secret police (NKVD) to enforce discipline. The latter soon controlled all the boats on the Volga and allowed no one out of the city. Luftwaffe General von Richthofen noted on 2 August that Stalingrad seemed to act like a magnet, drawing Russian forces from all directions.
The last major headquarters left in Stalingrad was Chuikov’s 62nd Army. While the German 6th Army methodically attacked Stalingrad, Chuikov ferried over the Volga the equivalent of nine rifle divisions and two tank brigades. As the struggle wore on and he gained greater strength, he increasingly resorted to aggressive counterattacks, with anywhere from 200 to 800 men. Sometimes these attacks were supported by tanks. This hyperactive form of defense forced the Germans to repeatedly shift from offense to defense and made the battle of attrition ever more costly.[15]
Stalin’s advisors tried but could not stop him from launching several major counteroffensives from bridgeheads north of Stalingrad. Three reserve armies filled with untrained conscripts began an attack on 5 September, but were checked with substantial losses. The Soviet Union had already suffered millions of losses, including most of its prewar military. The Germans also occupied most of its industrial and manpower centers.[16] In spite of this, the Soviets still possessed numerical superiority in men and weapons systems. A German intelligence report of 20 September 1942 estimated the Soviets had 4.2 million soldiers, 3 million of those deployed at the front. Factories continued to produce enormous numbers of tanks and airplanes and, just as importantly, a new military elite had begun to emerge from the earlier disasters of the war: hard men who understood the German’s weaknesses and were not afraid of the Germans or of taking casualties. Related to this development was the reemergence of the Soviet General Staff, which had arduously compiled lessons learned, from which their recipe for victory evolved. One action symptomatic of the emergence of the new Soviet military elite occurred on 9 October 1942, when the Red Army gave commanders relative autonomy, reducing the old co-responsibility of the political commissar. In late 1942, however, the Soviet military was still recovering from its serious wounds.[17]
As the 6th Army deployed and attacked Stalingrad in September, a crisis occurred in the German High Command. Hitler had become increasingly nervous over what he perceived to be the slow advance into the Caucasus. Consequently, on 10 September, he fired Field Marshal Wilhelm List and personally assumed command of Army Group A. The mood was tense at Hitler’s headquarters at Vinitsa in the Ukraine, aggravated by the hot, humid weather. Hitler had never liked the Chief of the General Staff, so General Franz Halder’s relief was perhaps unavoidable under the circumstances. Halder managed to last until 24 September, when Hitler replaced him with a relatively junior officer, General Kurt Zeitzler. When the latter arrived to assume his new job, he lectured the General Staff that the only problem Germany faced was the General Staff’s lack of faith in the Fuehrer. So, while the fighting for Stalingrad raged, Hitler consolidated his power at the expense of the military professional class.[18]
Soon after the arrival of his infantry divisions on 10 September, Paulus launched a concerted attack on the city. It progressed rapidly through the suburbs, but slowed in the inner city. The Germans seized Mamayev-Kurgan on 13 September, but it changed hands repeatedly through the following months. For both sides casualties climbed precipitously. The Soviets threw in the 13th Guard Division, which sacrificed many of its 10,000 men in grinding down the German advance. This was the first of four German attacks in Stalingrad. It faltered on the 19th and 20th, as a result of massive casualties and dwindling ammunition. This pattern reoccurred in the three subsequent attacks. The first, from 22 September to 6 October, reached the Volga at the mouth of the Tsaritsa. Then the attack from 14 October to early November from the north reduced the Soviet hold in Stalingrad to two small bridgeheads. The final futile assault from 11 to 17 November was against the two small bridgeheads.[19]
On 23 September, a German General Staff officer visited the 295th and 71st Infantry Divisions in the center of the town. He noted that the Soviet troops remained as physically close to the Germans as possible to reduce the effectiveness of the latter’s firepower. The Soviet troops were ever alert and whenever they thought they spotted a German weakness, they immediately counterattacked. They were particularly tough now that there was little room left to retreat. The German officer observed that after the heavy artillery bombardment, troops quickly emerged from their cellar-holes ready to fire. In spite of German countermeasures, the Soviets continued to move supplies across the Volga at night.
The two German divisions he visited were old battle tested formations that had been considerably weakened by infantry casualties. He observed that their combat power was dropping daily and the average strength of an infantry company was ten to fifteen men. Losses were particularly high for the officers and NCOs. Although replacements had arrived, they were insufficient in number and considerably lacking in experience, training, and soldierly bearing. When an officer fell, the men drifted back to their starting point. To get them moving forward again, a higher-ranking officer had to intervene and lead them. The soldiers were particularly dependent on the divisional Sturmgeschutze, heavily armored tracked vehicles whose 7.5cm gun was designed to take out point targets for the infantry. The small bands of infantry did not want to attack without a Sturmgeschutz, and viewed it as a failure in leadership if one was not provided to them. This German officer concluded that attacking through the ruins had exhausted the infantry, and that they were too tired and dulled. With so few troops, there was no rest because every soldier had to be deployed. There were no reserves.
It was especially hard to get necessary supplies forward to the combat infantry. Their diet suffered considerably. The surviving infantry expressed bitterness toward the perceived luxury of the Luftwaffe. They had also become resentful towards the special food bonuses that the armored units received. The officers maintained that it was pointless to offer the infantry propaganda, since none of the promises could be kept. Out in the steppes of southern Russia, all supplies had to be brought from Germany. Besides food, the infantry’s major requirement was 8cm mortar shells, one of the few ways to get to the enemy’s holes in cellars and gully cliffs.[20]
Senior officers noted that they had managed to get into a battle of attrition with the Russians and although their casualties were very high, those inflicted on the Russians were much greater. As soon as the city was captured, however, the divisions would have to be rested and reorganized. They also stated that it was critical to secure sufficient fodder and straw for the horses.[21]
In the last week of September, Paulus launched his second attack into Stalingrad. He exchanged divisions with his northern flank and used the new units to renew the offensive. It pushed the Soviets back in the northern sector of Stalingrad, but casualties and ammunition expenditures were so high that Paulus called off the offensive. The German 6th Army did not begin its third offensive until 14 October. Paulus sent four divisions supported by armor to assist in taking the northern factory complexes. This created a crisis for the defenders, when on the second day the Germans captured the tractor factory and reached the Volga. In spite of the heavy rain, snow, and the consequential mud, the attack made remarkable progress, capturing the ruins of several blocks of houses, the Red October Factory, and some other burned out hulks. But at the end of the month, the attacks fizzled out from the high casualties and insufficient ammunition. Chuikov’s garrison had been reduced to two small pockets, and the block ice in the Volga had created a logistical nightmare, but the Germans were spent. Paulus launched the fourth and final attack on 11 November, based upon the arrival of five engineer battalions. The attack advanced very slowly against tough resistance. It, too, expired after several days, and on the 19th, the Soviets launched their counteroffensive that would surround and destroy the German 6th Army.[22]
As autumn wore on, Fremde Heere Ost’s prediction began to become a reality as more and more Soviet units appeared in Southern Russia. The Germans used all source intelligence, but much of their success at the operational and tactical levels resulted from their ability to intercept Soviet radio traffic. They could pick up newly deployed units; however, the Germans did not know the scope of the deployment or where or when the Soviets would attack. Hitler thought the attack would be against Rostov. Fremde Heere Ost still believed the major attack would be against Army Group Center, even though more and more units appeared in the south. Finally, they detected a new Soviet Southwest Front Headquarters and on 12 November concluded that an attack in the near future against Rumanian Third Army could cut the railroad to Stalingrad. If that happened, it would threaten the German forces farther east, forcing their withdrawal from Stalingrad.[23]
To summarize developments, Hitler had sent the strongest force available towards an objective that would not necessarily win the war. That force could not be logistically supported and advanced into an ever-expanding space against an opponent that was gaining, not losing strength. He had sent his most powerful army into Stalingrad where it basically destroyed its combat power in costly attacks that played into the enemy’s hands. And finally, even though intelligence indicated the probability of a major Soviet counter offensive, the German military leadership resorted to merely cosmetic measures.[24]
Stalin had dispatched two of Stavka’s most capable representatives, Generals A. M. Vasilevskiy and G.K. Zhukov, to oversee operations in Southern Russia. On 4 October, they conducted a conference that began the planning process for what would be Operation Uranus, the counteroffensive against the German 6th Army. Lieutenant General N.F. Vatutin activated the Southwest Front HQ. It fielded five armies along the Don northwest of Kletskaya. The Don Front kept three armies in the central sector. The Stalingrad Front deployed some five armies in the southern sector. Some one million men and 900 tanks were to conduct a classic double envelopment of the German 6th Army by breaking through the hapless 3rd and 4th Rumanian Armies.[25]
Luftflotte IV had been weakened considerably by the intensive months of combat. By October, the Russian Air Force wrested air superiority from the Germans, as both more and newer equipment arrived. In addition, as the Germans captured more and more of Stalingrad, the Red Air Force could more easily bomb the city. Stavka also dispatched General A. A. Novikov to help coordinate air operations for Uranus (see Map 3). He became such a valued team member that when he stated that the air forces were not yet prepared, Zhukov delayed the opening of the offensive.[26]
Timing was critical for the counteroffensive. Zhukov and Vasilevskiy waited for the German 6th Army to expend its combat power in Stalingrad. They also waited for the Anglo-Saxon offensives to succeed in North Africa. By waiting until 19 November, they allowed the ground to freeze, giving their armor greater mobility. The Soviet’s artillery preparation was short but powerful, lasting only 90 minutes, after which the offensive jumped off at 0850. The Rumanian defense broke rather easily, allowing Soviet armor to begin the exploitation about 1400. Both Rumanian armies collapsed and there were no Axis reserves to stem the tide. The Soviet forces continued their advance nearly unopposed and on 22 November met at Kalach, encircling Paulus’s 6th Army. Some Soviet forces wheeled in against Stalingrad, while others expanded the advance westward to limit any Axis relief efforts.[27]
As has been oft recounted, the German military was unable to orchestrate a breakthrough and the Luftwaffe was never capable of even approaching Goering’s promise to sustain the garrison. At Hitler’s headquarters General Warlimont observed, “On 18 December the Italian Eighth Army collapsed, a decisive factor in the fate of Stalingrad; less than a month later, on 15 January, the Hungarian Second Army disintegrated and on the same day the German ring around Leningrad was broken___.”[28] Paulus and his army were doomed.
The remnants of the 6th Army deployed into positions resembling an egg 40 kilometers wide and 50 kilometers long, surrounded by the Don Front’s seven armies. Despite the Axis and Soviet propaganda, the position could hardly be viewed as a fortress, since few if any fortifications were in the open steppes west of Stalingrad. Only a small portion of the German defense was in the remains of Stalingrad. In spite of the profound weakness of the 6th Army units, the Soviets achieved little success when, in early December, the Don Front attacked the weakest sector of the line in the west and south. As Earl Ziemke and Magda Bauer observed, this probably occurred because the Soviet units had also been weakened by nearly six months of unbroken combat. German signals intelligence also contributed, continuing to intercept Soviet radio messages and alerting threatened sectors in time to stave off disasters. The 6th Army could ill-afford such pyrrhic victories because its limited strength was wasting away.
The final Soviet offensive began on 10 January, after a particularly heavy artillery barrage, which cut most of the German communication wires and cables. The ground attack opened large holes in the German line that could not be closed. Although they had an auxiliary airbase at Gumrak, the only serviceable one was Pitomnik, through which casualties, specialists, and vital items departed the trap in exchange for a woefully inadequate flow of food, medicine, petrol, and ammunition. Soviet units overran Pitomnik on 12 January, ending resupply in the pocket, after which the defenders’ position was hopeless. Paulus noted that artillery ammunition would run out on 13 January. Hitler still prohibited a surrender, however, so the slaughter continued. Final resistance ended on 2 February 1943. The 6th Army ceased to exist.[29]
The new Chief of the German Army Personnel Office, General Rudolf Schmundt, was not particularly affected by Stalingrad. Before the offensive began, the German Army had already suffered losses it could not replace. By 3 October 1942, about 30% of the army’s regular (prewar) officers had left the service, been killed or received a debilitating wound. On 26 November, however, Schmundt expressed concern over agitation within the Rumanian government in light of the Rumanian Army’s recent collapse. Most of Schmundt’s time was taken up with reforming the officer corps into a younger, more National Socialist body. Being one of the Fuehrer’s most ardent supporters, he was ideally suited for this task. Finally, several days before Paulus’s surrender, Hitler directed Schmundt to assist in creating a new 6th Army and 20 divisions. Word also arrived that one of Germany’s most decorated heroes, General of Infantry Karl Eibl, had been killed while leading his XXIV Panzer Corps in Southern Russia. A subsequent investigation revealed that someone in an Italian infantry column had thrown a hand grenade at him. Schmundt had been correct—Germany’s allies had become somewhat agitated.[30]
Evaluating Stalingrad proved difficult both for participants and for historians. The experience was simply too big. Many participants had not seen a large city destroyed, so the intensity and duration of violence was overwhelming. Soviet and National Socialist propagandists assisted in making a large confusing phenomenon even more difficult to understand. One should not be surprised, therefore, when subsequent accounts tend to focus on exaggeration and the uniqueness of the fighting. Stalingrad has had a remarkable ability to distort perceptions for a long time. It is perhaps too easy to become fixated on the more exotic ways to kill another human being, i.e. with knives, blunt objects, and telescopic rifles. Outside of a few new weapons systems, the nature of the fighting and destruction remained identical to that of Flanders and the Somme in World War I. Veterans of those battles, however, were rare at Stalingrad.[31]
At Stalingrad, military operations absorbed more and more troop units. This probably resulted from the infinitely greater compartmentalization that limited not only vision, but also the range of direct fire weapons. As a result, more combatants were required to fill or watch those compartments. For the more important compartments, heavy or specialized weapons were required. Combat in urban areas also magnified the dimension of vertical warfare. The massive destruction of Stalingrad limited vertical combat considerably, although any remaining “high ground” remained critical for observation. Some soldiers described the conflict as “the war of rats,” because so much of it was for control of holes and cellars. It was no accident that the German Army sent specially trained engineer battalions to Stalingrad. Their job was to blow up buildings with explosives. Those rapidly advancing attacks limited the amount of vertical warfare. Paulus used this method to create “channels” through the city. But this required even more combatants to guard the long flanks of the channel and to reduce pockets of resistance that had survived the demolitions. All those additional troops required ever more ammunition.
The Soviets and the Germans expended an extraordinary amount of ammunition. Between 10 January and 2 February 1943, the Don Front fired some 24 million rifle and machine gun rounds, 911,000 artillery shells (up to 152mm) and 990,000 mortar shells.[32] The 6th Army in September 1942 expended 23,035,863 rifle and machine gun rounds, 575,828 anti tank shells, 116,932 infantry cannon shells and 752,747 mortar shells. It deployed 14,932 mines and its soldiers expended 178,066 hand grenades.[33] Partisans writing for one side or the other use such figures to assert that the enemy were cowardly or incompetent for such profligate expenditures.[34] Despite the strain upon these mass armies and the lack of training in many units, such high monthly ammunition expenditures for both sides would suggest that other factors were involved.
Those larger numbers of troops fighting in urban terrain and firing greater amounts of munitions produced very high casualties. There remains a lack of clarity regarding Soviet losses, but General Chuikov observed that the divisions had already been considerably weakened before they reached Stalingrad. He noted that by 14 September one armored brigade only had one tank left and two other brigades without any tanks had to be sent across the Volga to refit. One division had two infantry brigades that were full, but the composite regiment of another division only fielded 100 infantrymen. Chuikov stated that another division had a total of 1,500 men—“the motorized infantry brigade had 666 men, including no more than 200 infantrymen; the Guards Division of Colonel Dubyanski on the left flank had no more than 250 infantrymen.”[35] Later, he went on to explain the effect of the high casualties on his units: “It means that our soldiers (even small units) crawled out from under German tanks, more often than not wounded, to another position, where they were received, incorporated into another unit, provided with equipment, usually ammunition, and then they went back into battle.”[36] Early in the battle some 10,000 men of the 13th Guards Rifle Division crossed the Volga, but without their heavy weapons. Chuikov threw them into a counterattack against the Brick Mill and the main train station. The division lost 30% of its men in the first 24 hours. By the time the battle ended, only 320 of the original soldiers were left.[37]
Records of the 6th Army did survive and indicate that the intensity of combat was high, both before reaching Stalingrad and later in the city fighting. It crossed the Don River on 21 August 1942. From then until 16 October, it recorded the following losses:
|
|
Officers |
NCOs & men |
|
Killed |
239 |
7,456 |
|
Wounded |
821 |
30,360 |
|
Missing |
8 |
1,127 |
During this same period, 6th Army recorded capturing 57,800 prisoners of war (POW) and the capture or destruction of 1,950 tanks, 805 guns and 1,969 aircraft. For the period from 13 September to 16 October 1942, during which much of the city fighting took place, it suffered the following losses:
|
|
Officers |
NCOs & men |
|
Killed |
69 |
2,438 |
|
Wounded |
271 |
10,107 |
|
Missing |
3 |
298 |
Paulus’s army not only fought in the city, but also held a defensive front north of the city. On this northern front, the 6th Army captured 5,625 POWs and captured or destroyed 616 tanks and 87 guns. In the city itself, Paulus’s army captured 17,917 POWs while capturing or destroying 233 tanks and 302 guns.[38]
As a rule, Red Army infantry divisions during the course of the war had about 10,000 men, most of whom carried rifles. The dynamics of city fighting wore these units down even further, according to General Chuikov. What city fighting did to a German infantry division can be seen in the soldiers of the 71st Infantry Division available on 19 September 1942.
|
I.R. 191 |
I.R. 194 |
I.R. 211 |
|||
|
1. Comp. |
25 Men |
1. Comp. |
12 men |
1. Comp. |
24men |
|
2. Comp. |
17 Men |
2. Comp. |
22 men |
2. Comp. |
-*) |
|
3. Comp. |
20 men |
14 men |
3. Comp. |
-*) |
|
|
4. Comp. |
32 men |
4. Comp. |
23 men |
4. Comp. |
28men |
|
Staff I. Btl. |
7 men |
Staff I. Btl. |
20 men |
Staff I. Btl. |
-*) |
|
5. Comp. |
10 Men |
5. Comp. |
7 Men |
5.Comp. |
27 men |
|
6. Comp. |
13 men |
6. Comp. |
13 men |
6. Comp. |
22 men |
|
7. Comp. |
12 men |
7. Comp. |
10 men |
7.Comp. |
-*) |
|
8. Comp. |
40 men |
8. Comp. |
23 men |
8.Comp. |
43 men |
|
Staff II. Btl. |
17 men |
Staff II. |
6 men |
Btl Staff II.Btl. |
31 men |
|
9. Comp. |
7 men |
9. Comp. |
8 men |
9.Comp |
-*) |
|
10.Comp. |
13 men |
10.Comp. |
9 men |
10.Comp |
44 men |
|
11.Comp. |
19 men |
||||