Stalingrad: Chances for a Breakout? 

Chuikov's memoir is a great read. 64th Div, and others, were ground down to nothing in the process of "Bleeding White the Hitlerite". The attritional perspective-easier for the historian to integrate into his or her narrative-discounts the planning of Operations and Operational strategy. As German Generalship declined through attrition, Russian Generalship advanced through experience. Even though I am making that point, I still wonder about how much direct influence the two policy makers had on troops at he front. I am still afraid of Stalin . . . and Hitler . . . and Churchill . . . and Missaloony.

Ok, we got this question out of the way so let's move to another: would attempt of breaking out of encirclement pay off more than just staying in the city? Would they inflict more damage/would the losses that happened, and would happen anyway, be less of a waste?

I would rather guard Amy too

Can you make a video assesing if Hitler gave Mainstein full control of the army in the east which he did and the front was stabilized. But then left him in control. Could have Mainstein changed the outcome of the war? If you cannot make a video can you please give your oppinion? Thank you.

Brilliant ! This video helps explain a lot. Many thanks ! I wonder what did the Germans also find as obstacles in the eastern front (Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev...etc)

I get the reference

Watched it last night.

They ate the horses

I LOVE THAT MOVIE :) - Where is our artillery? - YOU ARE the artillery!

Great reference! What a grim movie.

@Alex English Left the chat....

@Alex because some one says nazi scum dosent mean they are communists, of course, the same could be said for the person you replied because they don't know if that member of family member was a nazi.

How about first day of somme

Still slightly better than modern days Detroit though...

How about November 23, there you have more horror in front of you

There are some places which were stigmatized during world war. Auschwitz, Dresden, Stalingrad. That places stand for all terrors and fears that war and hate can bring to the people up to our days.

Not even close

Germans could definitely break through if they used artillery only.

Artillery only would've saved 6th army

Man, that game is so unrealistic. Hoi3 was way better IMO.

Change the divisions trapped in Stalingrad to a paratrooper insignia, and paradrop them back behind your own lines!

Fools. I wouldn't have been encircled in the first place! I would have them surrounded from the inside!

If it wasn't eaten

Or used as a source of fuel to cook said horse.

I would be surprised if any horses ultimately survived the eastern front. If you weren’t human you were basically fucked.

If you were a human you were also fucked tbh

@@andyl8055 horse's had value they could Pull supplies through the mud and snow if you were Russian you could always get more people.

I thought the same about WWII in general. My grandfather has seen horrors beyond your imagination, but still I would have preferred to test my luck in combat rather than hide from constant bombing raids, starve and have to fear torture and rape...

So you have 2 options: 1. Surrender and hope you, as exhausted soldier, won't freeze to death on your way to Gulag. 2. Break out as exhausted soldier, fight the Soviet and hope you don't freeze to death or die by Soviet hand. So both options offers you freezing to death only 2nd one gives you chances of being killed in combat. So your chances for survival are higher if you surrender no matter how brutal the POW treatment is. They were in shit and maybe you would like to break out but I don't think many of them cared at that point. There is a saying the dead ones are lucky because they don't suffer anymore.

My father was there with the Hungarian army, not as a combative soldier as a forced slave labor... According to him about 800 laborers who when there less than a dozen survived. . He survived because exchanged his labor clothing with a dead Hungarian officer. . As he was walking the ice road truck came along, next thing he remembers being in a hospital in Budapest. . Hated Hungarians with a passion, accordingly wishes all would've been killed by the Russians. .

Jason Wilson what a story, interesting!

Or by Feldgendarmarie hand. "Where is your weapon -------- you have lost it" "A bullet will perhaps teach you not to lose it again".

Manstein was promising Paulaus that Army group Don is coming to save him. So yeah he believed he had another chances

@transylvanian: What a load of crap. The soviets even worked their own citizens to death in gulags. Why on earth would they treat enemy troops any better?

@transylvanian: Sounds to me like you're thw victim of pro-soviet propaganda. It's obvious youre pining back for the days of "the glory of the soviet union" more than anything. A pinko commie in other words.

@transylvanian In western penal labour systems, convicts were not purposefully worked to death or put through starvation on purpose like the barbaric soviets did. People also weren't sent to penal labour for the mere act of disagreeing with the ruling communist party, like the vile, disugsting soviets did. What's next? Are you gonna tell me that the Holodomor was just "an accident"?

@transylvanian: Ever heard about the Katyn Massacre? The victims in that were not nazi germans, but polish officers and soldiers. Are you gonna claim that poles would defend or buy into a nazi narrative just because they hate the soviet union?

You’d deny what smart people would say on the basis of ethics (assuming what they’re saying is factual)? How’s that work?

owned

German troops sucked Russian wiener.

Luca Pinne ... totally a supply and demand issue. What's worse, is that upper command new they didn't have resources to aide the breakthrough forces...and YET they sent them anyway. Waist! Waist! Waist! Of men and supplies.

@Sovereign only if yours is small lol!! As a girl, that is all I can do.... haha

@Sovereign ... lmao!! You are way to silly lol

There is a big difference between 400 men breaking out and 200,000. While I do not know the story I will make the assumption that those Lithuanians did not in fact 'break' out, but for the most part 'infiltrated' out, in other words relied on stealth more than combat power to affect their withdrawal. You simply cannot do that with 200,000 men, especially considering so many of them were in effective direct contact with the enemy, thus any withdrawal would have been immediately noticed. I would not be surprised to hear similar stories of small numbers of men being able to extricate themselves from the Stalingrad pocket, but I will make a bet that pretty much all of those that managed it successfully did so by relying on stealth rather than combat/

@@alganhar1 Thank you for your response. To start with, I was not talking about possibility of major breakout of 6th army. It was Unthinkable, and I completely agree with information in this video. However, I just wanted to tell that history is not just black and white. Secondly, you made a logical assumption that was mostly stealthy sneak out from Stalingrad rather than breakout. Well at least from my source it seems that there was fierce fighting involved. Sometimes even hand to hand combat. Also, there is information about that battalions got into artillery fire in some occasions. So, combat was real. You can see that from numbers. Around 700 started and approximately 400 survived. Of course, stealth tactics were used because units moved through swamps and forests avoiding strong points but losses were still high. Another piece of information is that some of battalion’s men got military awards. In my opinion, this should prove that if even Germans consider award worth achievement it sure seems like a quite big accomplishment.

Well the italians tryed to break trough and they did It at the end. And we are talking about an entire army, even if the losses where really heavy

Perhaps I should have been a bit clearer and said that they would have relied *mostly* on stealth, fighting only when it was absolutely neccessary. My mistake. An interesting story however, one I intend to look up. I have heard of a few scattered groups escaping Stalingrad, but they would have numbered a few thousand at best if you add them all up. Even the best encirclement will have enough small gaps that will allow small, determined, and skilled groups to escape.

@@echoofhistory7583 I think you just wanted to bring an anecdote to the table - there's nothing wrong with that but you don't need to put on airs about it.

Those were good books. I listened to the audio versions of both. Also Tigers in the Mud. How the described the Eastern front was insane, couldn't even imagine something like that, and various other "Eastern Front" books.

Beevor's book was awesome

eh a german army was a nice trophy to mount on the wall. dont forget about the political aspects of warfare.

@@arjunvardhan8134 "More than a 100 formations" Why not 200? "After the front, which had come to chaotic movement as a result of the Russian breakthrough, finally stabilized, the intelligence department of the headquarters of our corps gradually managed to get a more or less complete picture of the situation from the enemy. Now, when the entire 6th Army was concentrated in a relatively small area inside the ring, we tried to identify and strike on the cards all enemy strike formations operating against the 6th Army. Only large *Russian formations here at first numbered about 60* - these were mainly rifle divisions and tank brigades, combined into seven armies. To this should be added some of the compounds in reserve, whose presence was not easy to detect. The main forces of the enemy, and above all his artillery, were concentrated in the western sector of the ring, which was defended by parts of our corps. We calculated that enemy formations that surrounded us with a steel ring possess at least threefold numerical superiority and have an awesome amount of heavy weaponry. Our army, however, the number of which before the entourage was about 330 thousand people, now after the losses suffered as a result of the Russian breakthrough, according to our data, there were about 280 thousand people, including Romanians, as well as some units that were not previously part of the army, but trapped with us in the pot. Among the surrounded were representatives of absolutely all German lands (one of the army corps was formed in Vienna). All of them were henceforth bound by one unkind fate. They were addressed the words of the order, promised salvation: “Hold on! The Fuhrer will rescue you! ” Wieder I. "The Catastrophe on the Volga" This Wieder data is not far from the truth. By that time, not three, but two fronts acted against the encircled ones, as the Southwestern acted on the outer ring of the encirclement, and the 51st Army of the Stalingrad Front acted here. On November 27, up to 10 rifle divisions, one tank division and three cavalry corps acted on the external front of the encirclement. The 62, 64, 57th armies of the Stalingrad Front and the 65th, 66th, 21st and 24th armies of the Don Front were active on the inner ring. It should be borne in mind here that they all suffered losses, especially the army of the Stalingrad Front, the composition of each of them, as Wieder himself points out, is not exceeded the composition of the German army corps, and for the most part was inferior to it. Therefore, the final conclusion about the threefold superiority of the Russians is an exaggeration. By December 1, the Stalingrad direction as a whole had the following ratio: Soviet divisions - 68.5, German - 48 (ratio 1.45: 1); 854,776 from the Soviet side, 846,000 from the German side (1: 1); soviet tanks - 797, German - 770 (1: 1); Artillery and aviation ratio was about the same. Triple pre-rise Soviet the side had only large-caliber mortars. The enemy, however, had a qualitative superiority in the field artillery. *Directly against the encircled forces there were 43.5 Soviet divisions* consisting of 479,672 men (1.45: 1 ratio); 465 tanks against 340 (1.3: 1); Cannons and mortars 8491 against 5230 (1.6: 1).

Look up Eastory, he has mapping videos of the nazi Soviet war, it was a lot of units

All of Army Group South was a mess at this time. So yes the longer 6th Army held out the better the strategic situation was.

Several authors on the topic have written that at any given moment after December 7, 1941, at least two-thirds of Wehrmacht soldiers were on the Eastern front.

Every Slav too

thank you!

That's too bad. I hate discord.

can yes, will unlikely. Just for the German side I would need to read around 1000 pages, for the others I would have to find proper books, what you are asking for is basically something along a phd or even more.

@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Could you please do a video on german antiaircraftgun production both total and ratio compered to artilleri and antitankguns relative to the other powers or a video on german fuel production and distribution(germany seem to have a lot of diesel and soviet fuel production look very low) please conside my request it has been very defficult to find anything and the numbers I did finf look odd thank you.

Could you also calculate Pi to 2 billion places while you're at it?

@daniel: for questions may I refer you to the Oberst rank: www.patreon.com/mhv

Germans like to pronounce the letter S as "Sch" or should I say the letter S with caron, known as "Š"

@@Igyzone so that's why their ß or "SS" letter is their regular "s" sound. Thanks for reminding.

Don't russian people also pronounce it the same? St or Sp are usually pronounced sh-t or sh-p in german (some folk in the north of germany refuse to do so, but the rest does) As long as theese letter don't belong to seperate words which are combined into one (like in Hausputz)

Schtalin. Just like in the Hitler Rants meme.

@@Igyzone actually it's the "st" combination that in some regions in Germany is pronounced as "scht" (like "Stalingrad" in the video)

good :)

It's okay, Rocky, you go when you feel like it.

But what would have happen if the breakout would fail and Stalingrad was taken by the Soviets much earlier? Maybe the 6th army bought just enough time for the Axis to stabilize the front, so the Soviets couldn't attack the lines again and encircle Army group A.

Since the Mongols, every threat to Russia came from the West, Poland, Teutonic Knights, Sweden, Prussia, France, Britain & France, Germany-Prussiax3

That might well have been how things were seen from the Soviet standpoint, indeed. Of course it was also an utterly "created" narrative on their part, given their history with various nations and groups within that force involved against them. So while it was how they saw things from their point of view, it certainly wasn't "true", aside from "a certain point of view".

Celebmacil But it was true. The facts are that at Stalingrad, the Red Army alone faced the Germans, Italians, Romanians, Hungarians and Croatians as well as minor units from other countries.

Oh, I'm aware. I'm just stating the mindset of "having to fight them again" as if they were somehow an innocent and unfairly aggrieved party in many of the cases is an... interesting... view to take for the Soviets (or Russians), in context of what they'd been doing to some of those nations for centuries, or even as recently as two years previously, or what they then went on to do once more in the next two to twenty and more years. It's like repeatedly kicking the crap out of all the neighborhood dogs for a decade and then being amazed that they come hunt you down and gang up on you, and feeling like "well, I guess I'd better REALLY kick the crap out of them this time so I don't have to kick the crap out of them again!".

@@Celebmacil "in context of what they'd been doing to some of those nations for centuries," What about examples?

all your quesitions are answered here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pucJTYK7_Yo.html

Thing is, those units were freed up in rather short order, and the Voronyez front absolutely shattered armygroup south. If the Soviet counteroffensive came during the summer, the axis might have even faired better considering a big part of their weakness was the low motorization of theirtransport capacity was very ineffective in the winter.

I am in no way and expert on this topic but as stated in this video, the Germans felt perhaps not "superior" but felt the Soviets were incapable of mounting real determined resistance against them, secondly IIRC German intelligence on the Eastern front was bad in general. The Germans were also firm believers in bewegunskrieg, war of movement, and the initial Fall Blau plan wanted to take Stalingrad to cut off the Soviets from the Volga and Caspian. Suffice it to say, Fall Ball was not a good plan and heavily overstretched limited German resources.

Bullshit....

Stalin was fully committed to the defense of the city which bore his name. Before the battle, he learned from Sorge, a highly successful spy, that Japan was going to abide by the Russo-Japanese Treaty and was not going to mount an invasion of Russia in the far East. Armed with this knowledge he was able to move a tremendous number of troops from the far East to Stalingrad. Previously, Sorge had advised Stalin of the exact date of the planned invasion of Russia by Germany. He was also advised of this by the West but ignored it believing it to be merely a "provocation". Despite his paranoia, Stalin refused to believe that Hitler would violate the Russo-German Non-Aggressive Pact and invade Russia. His shock at the event caused him to escape reality for about a week, with some close to him describing him later as having suffered a breakdown. He made no radio announcements during the first 6 or 7 days after June 22, 1941. His inaction resulted in the loss of thousands of Russian planes while on the ground during this time.

fruler I’ve heard that argument before and it makes some sense. The 6th Army pinned a large concentration of Soviet troops by staying there.

@@CarlosSempereChen i think it is pretty clear from retrospect that they were there in Stalingrad to keep the Caucasus safe, for it oil resources. They didnt even manage to do that. If they wanted they could've probably broke out in November... But that would've caused a collapse of the southern front... Where the oil was. It just turned out to be the most horrific battle in all of german history, possibly world history. THe suffering on all sides was insurmountable, indescribably horrific and brutal. I dont blame Paulus, he had his orders and he followed them like a good general would. He wasn't weak like people described, i would say hes strong for what he did and went through. I think he was a smart highly intelligent man in a bad, no way of winning the battle situation. Hopefully people will have more respect for him in the future and hopefully historians will agree that a breakout wasnt even on the table... 6 armee was to hold the line.

I think you nailed it. The 6th was sacrificed.

Michel van Dijk I agree

Michel van Dijk and sacrificed at a high cost too. Man power is more valuable than technological advancement. Soviets realized this more than the Germans did. Wehrmacht was highly trained, highly advanced. They had 20 years of post ww1 to study their loss and they did and learned from their mistakes more than any other Nation

23rd November as written, sorry misread.

Also, where would you put the troops once they had broken out? Quarters were bad and tight in the city, but could the troops be housed for a Russian winter if they had made it out?

I had heard that, though I had heard it was 400, but I am willing to bet they used stealth and tried to avoid fighting as much as possible. That is not a cowardly thing, but a sensible choice. The main issue though is while you can get 400 - 600 men out by using stealth, moving at night, scouting ahead heavily, avoiding enemy concentrations etc, you CANNOT do that with 200,000 men :) Still, good job by them.

where can I find this information? I was under the impression that no one made it out

There are plenty of examples askjiir. Plenty of examples where breakout was impossible as well. Lets just take one issue, Sixth Army had lost almost all its transportation vehicles, not to mention its tanks. To break out they would have had to *walk* out, taking their heavy equipment would have been impossible, which means almost no anti tank capability. The shortest route to break out was covered by 3 Soviet Armoured Corps.... Want to guess the chances of an army relegated to walking breaking out against an army with superior mobility, superior reserves, and superior supply situation? EDIT: *HAD* Sixth Armies supply situation been much better, its tanks still relatively intact, and its transportation assets relatively intact, then yes, a breakout would have been possible. Given their actual situation however, then no. I do not believe there was aeven the faintest chance of it being successful.

Is that the best you can do? Purile, childish insults? It is obvious your 'knowledge' of modern warfare can be written on the back of a postage stamp in crayon. 1) The Sixth Army did not have the supplies or heavy equipment required to mount your precious breakout. 2) Had they mounted a breakout they would have been trying to break contact from a more mobile enemy. 3) They were outmatched in artillery, ammunition and personnel 4) They were already in direct, and I mean direct contact with the enemy so keeping a breakout secret (its ONLY chance of success) was impossible 5) The Soviets at this time had complete air superiority 6) The Soviets had mobile reserves already close to the only real route of a breakout, the Heer did not. In total, this means any attempted breakout without serious resupply including delivery of adequate transportation (and fuel) for at least anti tank guns was doomed to utter and abject failure. So go away little man, go do some actual reading and research rather that masturbating over your fetishist fantasy. Absolutely pathetic.

Its true.The son of Jonas Semaska is still alive and we have long vid about stalingrad breaking, but nobody translate that spech, because all smarter peoples have brain wash about nazys and bolshevism...

uwu

The Wehrmacht did not intend on crossing the Volga during Case Blue. The main goal was in conquering the caucasian oil fields and Stalingrad was not even near that. The city itself was important as it was a stronghold at the main transportation line of oil into mainland Russia from the oil fields. Now leaving Stalingrad in Sovjet hands would bring the risk of later attacks from this position.

You are missing 1km of Volga river. And overwhelming Soviet forces on the other bank.

I'm no war expert, but looking from the bigger picture, Germans didn't have much time left against the frezzing winter, so surrounding the area and long siege was out of order. There was no other way but to move in full assault.

Move on ------------ where to. Stalingrad was 'The End of The Line'. Outside Stalingrad (Volgograd) even today there is ENDLESS STEPPE which is not very hospitable in Autumn Winter and Spring and sweltering in Summer. I know -- I have lived there for a full 10 months.

air superiority, a given earlier in the war, no longer existed - and distances were a problem even in the air

They are wffectively just as fast on the march as trucks of the time and navigate roadless terrain better, but they take way less weight, need more "maintenance", and are borderline useless in winter.

Horses need food, water, shelter & get tired or scared They do not do starvation well, usually giving up very quickly

That’s exactly it

thx, I will try to check the primary source, but if that is valid, the definition was changed, because the Tiger had only 8.8 cm and was clearly a heavy tank.

so, just emailed with Dr. Roman Töppel, the situation is that the classification changed several times and - surprise - is quite complicated, because well that is the German Way of War ;)

I checked some other sources and the criteria seemed to have changed. According to Heavy Jagdpanzer by Spielberger on May 4, 1943 the Jagdpanther was named "Heavy Assault Gun 8,8 cm."

lol

And that was Glantz yeh :) Good reads from him