Very interesting and informative. My grand fought there for 2.5 months being a lieutenant in 66 Army, commanded a 80mm mortar squad. Was wounded from an artillery shell and that same day was in close quarters melee fight and got 3 bullets in shoulder, survived and after that day the war for him was mostly over. That is why I exist now. It makes me crazy to just think about it.
@@fiddlersgreen2433 If you've never been to see the war memorial and statue you should try to go. You won't regret it. It was an unforgettable experience for me.
These animations of what it might have looked during the attack are amazing! It's really hard to comprehend what battlefields looked like during battle and it's one of the major problems when trying to explain a battle because you have to be able to imagine the layout of cities or fields. You did a terrific job on this. This makes understanding what actually happened at Stalingrad so much easier. Thanks for the brain food!
The lion's share of the research has been done by Ret. Col. David Glantz who painstakingly went through unit records to reconstruct the battle in his 5 volumes, 10k pages Stalingrad "triology".
@@bushyrho1674 I've found all of them on EBay for great prices; there's usually several copies for sale of each title. If you're not willing to wait on the bid process, you can get a copy off Amazon - there's always used editions for sale. Many of them are in 'like new' condition.
On behalf of all military history buffs, WWII history buffs in particular, ever….. thank you for making this. Videos like this are pretty much the best thing ever. I love the detail. I could seriously watch this sort of stuff all day every day, and never be bored.
Great research! I'm actually a Red October district resident, and here in Volgograd we care about our history very much, because noone must forget of how the Victory was achieved. This is very important for us. We have WWII memorials almost on every street. You did just a gigantic job, describing defence of the "Factory Area". With a great respect from City-Hero Volgograd, Russia.
thanks for saving the world, but no thanks for changing a fascist regime with a communist one in eastern europe countries, same horror, worse civilization and behavior from occupying soviet *heroes*.....
Toader Spanache Soviet Union Times we’re not that bad, nowhere near the horror of Nazis. Life after ww2 was pretty good and by 1960s it was comparable to the west at that time.
@@toaderspanache8571 Romanian fascist, learn that: Romania was the shithole of Europe during the Kingdom, in say 1940, as during communism in say 1985. If anything, communists industrialized and modernized the country which in 1940 was 80% peasant illiterate. By 1970's, Romania was fully industrialized and the standard of living improved greatly. USSR has nothing to do with Romania being a shithole even today, it was even a worse shithole before the communists.
@@toaderspanache8571 The only thing the Russians saved were themselves. They never talk about how they were just fine with being allies of the Germans until June 0f 1941 when Hitler decided he didn't need a partner anymore.
Stalingrad campaign has every type of WWII combat; beginning with a sweeping panzerblitz along hot Dusty roads and warfare of movement through stubborn street battles of colossal size; and ends with urban warfare and an attacking army besieged in winter blizzard conditions. The citys distance from Germany is astounding. Both sides fought heroicly and gave it all they had.
Remarkably well done. Anyone who has played Close Combat 3, or the CC5 mods like the Stalingrad mod or Der Kessel mod, will recognise having spent hours fighting in these very factory complexes. I am impressed with how accurate the Close Combat maps are, particularly the Stalingrad and the Der Kessel modification.
Taking those shops was deceiving at first. Mostly ruined and blasted away. But the maneuver and attack,in those blds. Was a nightmare. I had no idea the complexity and terror of such battle.
Semi-relevant but interesting factoid: The Red October Factory was designed by the eminent American Industrial architect Albert Kahn of Detroit who also designed, among other notable buildings, Ford’s River Rouge complex and Ford’s Willow Run Plant where B-24 Liberator bombers were built. In a sense his work impacted, albeit indirectly 2 major WWII battles...Stalingrad and the European bomber campaign. Kahn was the undisputed “dean” of 20th century industrial architecture and did much work in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Coincidentally his chief structural engineer was Harry Ellsberg, father of Dan Ellsberg.
DataWaveTaGo Willow Run was built by Ford but no Ford auto products were produced there. Ford apparently sold it to the government and leased it back for the B24 program. GM bought the plant in the early 1950s.
That is interesting. Parts of Detroit today look a lot like Stalingrad did in December 1942. If anyone ever wanted to make another film about Stalingrad, they could film it in Detroit.
Amber Maynard Perhaps! I will say this though. With this “polar vortex” due to bring near-zero to sun-zero temperatures to the Midwest this week one will get a small taste of “Stalingrad conditions”...on a “warm” day that is. Any “Stalingrad reenactors” up for a camp out at River Rouge this Wednesday...LOL? Don’t forget to bring the lice!
19:25 Felt really surprised to realize I have been there already! Red Orchestra 2, RedOctoberFactory , detailed map, based on photos of the fight involving combats in blocks 10, 9 8, 8a and partially 5.
The inside (after the Battle) is also shown in some British Pathé films. Two are on RU-vid: "Leningrad Restarts Aka Stalingrad Restarts," and "Stalingrad After the War."
@@stray_dog3960 I got the game a Lil bit ago, now that is some realistic game. Bullet drop, you get shot once you bleed out can die. My favorite thing was seeing the artillery rain down and it effected the soldiers in the game to.
Thanks very much for providing students of the battle with a tour de force of a video. Compelling viewing and will need to be watched and studied again and again.
Amazing analysis of this key piece of battle for Stalingrad. Heroic defense of Martevovski bounded the bulk of 6th Army inside Stalingrad, enabling Zhukov to complete preparations for Operation Uranus. Germans were disciplined and methodical, but Russians shown great motivation and courage. It appears that Russian units were not ordinary soldiers, but the best of the best, specially selected and trained for this task. In this "battle of wills", the German will cracked, and was not able to recover further on. I'd like to visit Stalingrad some time, to pay tribute to these heroic defenders
Same here, I am so interested in the stalingrad battle. One of my biggest wish would be to travel back in time to witness it. Unfortunately there are very little footage of the battle. The german movie Stalingrad and Enemy at the Gate help get a better understanding of what it looked like.
Heavily overstated use of the MG42 in Stalingrad, since it was used at Div HQ's primarily. German units made distinction between "Leichter" (light mg) and "Schwerer" (heavy mg) MG's (without tri-pods for "Leichte" and with tri-pods for "Schwere") www.fireonthevolga.com/IR54-MG42.JPG
Absorbing and truly fascinating. My late Father (who retired as a Major in the British Army) fought in the Far East in WW2. I have enough interested in things military since I played with my first Toy Soldiers. I am always fascinated by the history of WW2 especially. Loved this insight into history and military tactics. Will certainly subscribe to this channel.
I’m so enjoying your programs, I’m a retired marine, just 4 years, but I love the history of the Russian army, but we still kick the most ass. Keep it up
Good video. Why dont you make video of Stalingrad buildings or locations that the germans were able to capture? Such as the tractor factory, Or even better the grain elevator? Both these locations had prolonged fighting. Also i would like to suggest putting in some german and soviet soldiers in the 3D parts it would give the videos a more sinister feel to see dead bodies laying around as well as living ones fighting.
A lot of these comments are from brits...they have a difficult time facing the fact that were it not for the Soviets and the Americans they would be speaking German in parliament. Sorry but it’s a fact.
Not really considering Sea Lion couldve never happened and the Germans only made rudimentary planning for it. Any invasion against the largest navy in the world with several dozen destroyers and several dozen Capitol ships at that time against a few token German destroyers and river barges planned for the landing would've been a massacre.
I think most Brits fully appreciate the role of Russia in defeating Germany. The Americans tend to refuse to accept the war was actually won mainly thanks to the "commits."
American financial support of the Russian war effort amounted to $127 billion in 2018 dollars. ¶ _Perhaps most directly, without Lend-Lease trucks, rail engines, and railroad cars, every Soviet offensive would have stalled at an earlier stage, outrunning its logistical tail in a matter of days. In turn, this would have allowed the German commanders to escape at least some encirclements, while forcing the Red Army to prepare and conduct many more deliberate penetration attacks in order to advance the same distance._ ¶ In total, America pumped $500 billion of warfighting aid into the European theatre (2018 dollars) while simultaneously fighting a costly war with the Japanese. ¶ It's kind of ridiculous to pare Britain's allies away from Britain, while leaving the Germany axis fully constituted, and then declaring that Germany would have won. America helped out because it was in the American geopolitical interest not to permit a fascist Germany to gain control of all of Europe, Britain, and half of the Asian steppes. France at the time was heavily fortified and had a large well-trained standing army, and the British had naval supremacy. In France doesn't fall in a few short weeks, Britain doesn't find itself relying on American self-interest to such an immediate and extreme degree. Wheels within wheels. ¶ There was also a point in history where if the Chinese had pressed their immense naval advantage, the British might have ended up speaking Chinese, but not in parliament, because there would not longer have been a parliament, but some other totally different system of government. But the Chinese think differently, and they thought they already controlled most of the world worth having. ¶ But so what? Anyone who studies history knows it can go a hundred different ways. Unless you believe in God's master plan. Then history can only go a few different ways, which are unclear from the human vantage point, but can nevertheless be relied upon to always finally favour the chosen devout.
I like the way they just present the facts and dont play favorites, or throw in politics, as tho that mattered to the poor devil hiding in the ruins.On either side.
There was no need to take Stalingrad whatsoever ... the 6th army could have just dug in on the Don bend and make use of the open terrain before it to conduct a mobile defense in front of the well entrenched positions that could not easily be outflanked in operation Uranus. while Army group A could have pushed to Astrakhan and cut off the oil. The Germans should have thrown everything into Case Blue and should have even allowed for a gradual fighting withdrawal from Rhzev in face of operation Mars to have enough strength to complete case blue. This was the very last very slim chance to finish off the Soviets, after the end of 42 the amount of land-lease and exhaustion of the German army and materiel supplies made victory impossible.
When stalingrad offensive failed the entire southern push was at risk of being encircled! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VA9QBHDtfCQ.html
You have to understand that Case Blue was very optimistic at best. Even if the Germans had somehow captured Baku, the German forces would be increadibly overstretched over the vast predominantly steppe terrain that would be a nightmare to defend and supply through, due to the underdevelopment of the local infrastructure. Moreover, the Soviet side would still maintain over 1 mln fighting force in Armenia, Georgia and Southern Azerbaijan, well fortified in the mountains, maintainig air superiority due to the Luftwaffe simply not having any airfields nearby, and supplyied through Iran by the Allies. The Caucasian Soviet Front would threaten the German supply lines over the whole Southern front of Army Group South which would at that time stretch for 1275km of steppes which are increadibly difficult to defend especially in winter. As for the Astrakhan plan, it was also quite optimistic: the city is further 400 km to the east from Stalingrad and since all railroad jinctions were held by the soviet forces of Stalingrad, the advancing German forces would be supplied by tracks along the Volga river with no air support from Luftwaffe due to the lack of the nearby airfields. The Soviet side also had a significant fleet of gunboats and transports which would again allow the Soviets to harass these supply lines along the river. Also, the oilfields of Baku had no strategic value in themselves for the Germans: they had to somehow transport the oil from Baku to the Reich or Romania, which was impossible since at the time only three major transport routes existed from Baku: via Caspian sea into Volga (which was impossible for Germans due to the lack of German naval presence in the Caspian sea and Soviet-held Stalingrad), via old pipelines and railroads into Armeia and Georgia (again held by 1mln strength, well-fortified Soviet forces) or by railroad northward through Stalingrad railroad junction again held by the Soviets. So, to sum up, even if the Case Blue had somehow succeded, it would put the Germans into the worse postion than before the offensive: the Army Group South would be increadibly overstretched, under the threat of Soviet offensives from five directions (over the Don bend, through the steppes between Volga and Don, over the Volga, in Kuban from Eastern Black-sea coast and in Kalmykia from Caucasus) with only Don bend postitions actually favoring the defenders, while others were increadibly difficult to defend due the opennes of terrain and lack of any infrastructure and shelter for the troops (and you have to keep in mind that mobile defense was not an option for the Germans due to the shortages of fuel). And while the loss of Astrakan and Baku would severely hinder Red Army abilities as well, in the short run the Soviets would probably had enough oil reserves to pull off one last major offensive in winter 1942/1943.
@@slim_senya this is true it was a last ditch effort that they did not take very seriously. Germany is not mobilized for full warfare well into 1943, whereas all of the Allies including Russia are. They planned again to attack simultaneously in the north and the south at the same time (divisions were around Leningrad with Manstein that were sorely missing from the southern front). Keitel still defied the plan and sent most reinforcements to the center where they fought defensively and won against a Russian offensive larger than that launched at Stalingrad (operation Mars and the Rhzev salient). And in the South there was confusion as two contradicting targets were given: Stalingrad (which was of no value) and the oil fields (the main objective). This lost them several weeks, the crucial time when the Russians were in disarray because they still thought the main attack is in the center and this is a diversion. I think the Germans could have pulled it off had they only concentrated on one objective. Would this have meant the war? Not likely. By the end of 42, vast quantities of US land lease started arriving, Russian factories were operational beyond the Urals and beyond any German bomber's reach, mass mobilization was working, and the Russians started to realize that the Germans are not liberators but in fact are much worse than Stalin. The capture of Baku would have made the Russians more reliant on land-lease, possibly adding a year more to the war - and an atomic bomb over Germany.
I believe Wolfs" attack is the one dramatized in the German movie :stalingrad". Wolf is the officer with an artifical hand. I could be wrong but they were a Pioneer Btn and had just arrived from Italy. Great movie anyway. I just wish these movies wold go a little easy on the Anti Hitler stuff because they get kinda preachy. Like Louie Mayer said.."If Ii want to send a message I go to Western Union". These USA lectures are really great. Very accurate. Altho I didnt see my uncles unit 16th Pzr, that was the first to break into the city.
Yes. The thing about Stalingrad or das boot is that they are anti fascist movies, heavily biased which goes without saying for any German war film.. I’d be amazed if we ever got an actual non political film depicting a 2nd world war action. A shame. that said it’s still better than the Hollywood garbage.
@@Mat-threw You are so right Matt. "they" never miss a chance to burden us with their agenda. I think Louie MAyer said it best. "If I wanna send a messsage, Ill go to Western Union" haha I liked the Hitler in "The Last 10 days" better tho. Alec Guiness seemed to nail it. Altho Downfall is hard to find fault with.
Dear lovers of military history, Welcome to the hero city of Stalingrad, Volgograd! We have something to see and what to show you! In Volgograd there is the greatest monument "Motherland Calls" at an altitude of 102.0 known as "Mamayev Kurgan". Also in Volgograd there are memorial complexes "Lyudnikov Island" with a preserved building - the headquarters of Lyudnikov's division and a panoramic museum "Battle of Stalingrad" with the preserved "ruins of Gerhardt's mill", where you can see the "sword of Stalingrad" donated by Great Britain, the rifle of the famous sniper Vasily Zaitsev who acted in Stalingrad and much more interesting! the whole city of Volgograd is a continuous monument! We have a tram in the metro, a huge hydroelectric power station, beaches for 8 months a year with clean water and sand and a very budgetary vacation, hotels are inexpensive, and southern fruits-apricots grow right in the yards. Watermelons and melons ... There is an international airport and train connections! Everything is very cheap and budget! Welcome to Volgograd!
Tremendous amount of detail, but a few glaring inaccuracies: Paulus did NOT surrender 250,000 men. The best estimates put the figure at about 91,000. Many died of starvation, and only five or six thousand survived the war. While it can be argued that the Soviets treated the German prisoners very badly, they were not without justification. The German atrocities committed against the Soviet (mostly Russian; Ukrainian; Belarusian) populace were simply horrific and inhuman, and, yes, the captured Germans paid a terrible price when the Russians took their revenge. I went to Volgograd (Stalingrad) as a tourist. The Mother Russia statue is just incredible. Just the sword that she brandishes is 108 feet long! And I have to say that the experience of standing in the memorial hall, realizing that almost two million people were either dead, wounded, or missing in this battle caused unexpected emotion. I believe it to be the most important battle of the entire war. The Germans were no longer invincible, and the psychological impact of that cannot be overestimated.
The strategic importance of the Volga was that it was the major supply route to Russia from the Caspian sea. It was an important internal supply line as well.
The video commentary is WRONG (51:10) when it says: "Paulus was forced to surrender 250,000 troops". Paulus surrendered on January 31, 1943 a day after Hitler promoted him to the rank of Field Marshal. The Battle of Stalingrad ended on February 2, 1943 with the elimination of straggling German troops. The Russian's took 91,000 German's prisoner. At the start of the battle, the German sixth army had a strength of 250,000.
The 250,000 number comes from one of the later reported ration strength of the forces in the pocket. Its extremely doubtful if actual strength in the pocket was at that level. There isn't proper or trustworthy documentation for exact troop strength in the pocket. The 91,000 surrender number is more reliable and more easily documented due to it being a prisoner count. The exact strength and composition of the forces surrounded at Stalingrad is one of those things that is debated endlessly to no clear resolution because there just isn't enough information to come to a definitive answer. Generally, its estimated that most of the units in 6th army were at about 60% of their authorized strength by November 1942. The other controversy in the number is how to estimate the number of Russians and others fighting for (and with) 6th army. There is an equal or worse problem with how people calculate Axis losses in the "battle of stalingrad". The problem is in how one defines the scope of the battle. At one extreme, you have the actual losses involved in the battle fighting for the city itself. At the other extreme, you have expansive definitions of the "battle" which include every military operation associated with "case blue" starting in June and going all the way to the start of the 3rd battle of Kharkov. Depending on how the scope of the battle is defined, the losses on the German side can range from a couple hundred thousand to well over a million. And this creates endless confusion. There are all sorts of "experts" who read the Wikipedia page on Stalingrad and come away convinced that the urban battle inside Stalingrad cost the lives of 700,000 or more Axis soldiers. David Glantz estimated total losses to 6th army from 21 august to 17 October were around 40,000. And maybe another 20,000 up until the end of the offensive of the city in November. That number has to be discounted by whatever proportion of those losses were associated with defensive operations by 6th army to the north of the city. So you get to a total number on the Axis side for casualties in the urban fighting of maybe 50,000. Which is on the same order of magnitude as the totally defensive losses of the Axis in the Rzhev battles of 1942. As far as what Paulus actually surrendered, that can be debated. Around the 28th of January, the German forces had been split into three pockets. On the 31st, the chief of staff of 6th army (Arthur Schmidt) negotiated the surrender of 6th army headquarters. Paulus attempted to play out an elaborate story where he was "taken by surprise" and did not surrender. By the end of the battle Arthur Schmidt was de-facto running things at sixth army headquarters. He negotiated the surrender of the headquarters (and Paulus) with the Russians. Paulus and Schmidt refused to surrender and forced a divisional commander (Roske) to do it instead. The other two pockets eventually gave up under conditions that approached mutiny. In the central pocket, the LI corps command (von Seydlitz-Kurzbach) told his subordinate officers several days before that surrender was a personal choice for them to make. He was releived of command but eventually fled from the german lines under fire. The northern pocket held out the longest, but eventually surrendered after the commander had been notified that some of his junior officers intended to negotiate surrender of the pocket on their own.
@@Jim-Tuner Hey Jim great info. Can I trouble you for a source? I have had a hell of a time with the numbers myself and am certainly interested in a more in depth looks and the German surrender.
For the casualty numbers, there is a large amount of raw data available (collected from other sources) in the David Glantz "trilogy" of books on Stalingrad. The first book concerns the fighting to get to Stalingrad, the second book focuses on the fighting in the city and the third focuses on events after November. But be warned that these are massive books that are not light reading. The raw data shows what is known and what is not known. David Glantz in those particular books presents the raw data, his methods for coming to conclusions about it and the conclusions he reached. So at least its somewhat transparent. The axis prisoner records at the end of the battle are a definitive set of data. But knowing the total number of Axis soldiers in the pocket or knowing casualties in the fighting for Stalingrad is difficult because of the nature of the data available. As far as the details of the surrender, its a very complicated subject and there is no one source. Accounts often conflict with each other. There are the soviet accounts of what happened which are often of limited use. And then there are the accounts by the individual officers involved which have their own issues. There were three "pockets" toward the end. Its best to look for accounts written by whoever was commanding the particular pocket, try and figure out who the officers were around them and then look for accounts written by those officers.
@@Jim-Tuner Good replies. One also has to note that not all those who were captured were 'Axis' forces, many were former Soviets who had been either forced into German uniform, or who had willingly entered the German military. These mens casualties are almost entirely unrecorded. Even their actual numbers is pretty much unknown, I have seen estimates ranging from a few thousand to well over a hundred thousand.
This battle is very well depicted in the PC game Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. The tractor factory is also well represented in the game - it's called Cold Steel though.
Have you gone mad? The game RO2 does not represent any battle fought within Stalingrad accurately. During the real Battle of Stalingrad the germans, at this one specific spot during WW2, heavily outnumbered the Russian troops during the first few months of fighting. 270,000 germans vs only 40,000 russian troops. But still, something was able to stop the german soldiers. And it certainly was not 40k russian troops. So what could it have been??? It was the people of Stalingrad. The 450,000 citizens. Men, women, and children fought the germans using sticks, stones, molotov cocktails, metal poles, and captured german weapons. This gigantic force is what slowed the germans enough and took the wind out of their sails. But still, there was a huge number of russian casualites. Only 1,500 of these citizens remained at the end of the battle and returned to their homes. The game, on the other hand, portrays a fantasy that is much different. What we see is waves of heavily armed Russian soldiers fighting germans, in relatively equal numbers. That didnt happen in real life. This battle is NOT well depicted in the game RO2
If this analysis is how U.S. army does analytics then it is no wonder why Afghanistan and Iraq were such disasters. Stalingrad was a very important strategic point, both industrially and as a transportation center. It was one of the largest industrial area in the Soviet union. If Stalingrad had fallen there would be nothing between the Germans and the Caucus oil fields. Furthermore, volga was also an important logistical route that would have been closed had the Stalingrad fallen.
Perhaps, but consider this, if the city had simply been enveloped and allowed to die on the vine what then? Sure, Stalingrad was an important Industrial and Transportation centre, but actually *capturing* the city was not necessary. Simply cutting it off would have had the same Strategic effect as capturing it without the cost in men and materiel that a grinding battle of attrition in a battlefield for which the German army was simply not trained or equipped to fight in. And that is the main point really, it is not that the City was not strategically important, it was that its CAPTURE was not Strategically important. Cut it off from its transportation networks and the city is no longer relevant either as a transportation or industrial hub. Unlike Leningrad, Stalingrad *could* be surrounded on all sides, and it did not have a Lake Ladoga.....
alganhar1 How would the Germans manage to cross the river in large numbers when the East side was filled with Ruskies? Also, this would make them even more vulnerable to encirlement because of overextension.
Concur entirely. The center of gravity that was articulated for the summer 1942 campaign was to capture the oil wells. The capture of the city was initially secondary. A limited siege could have been maintained with a fraction of the forces and would have left the mobile divisions free as a strategic reserve. The real problem was that the German army was grossly overextended for such an ambitious thrust.
The Germans had too much tunnel vision on a city already in rubbles. They threw away what they did best, movement and encirclement, instead fought on Soviet terms. These fights and losses were completely unnecessary.
Stalingrad controlled all the supply routes to Moscow, all rail, road, and water routes. If they held Stalingrad the Russians couldn't get oil north. The Germans were short on oil the entire war. If they held Stalingrad the Russians would have fuel shortages. If they held the oil fields the Germans would have more fuel. Quit repeating things you heard "Stalingrad was of no strategic value" without studying why they held it for yourself. EDIT: They couldn't do any movement and encirclement, they had no fuel. This affected their strategy the entire war, especially after November 1941. Also Paulus's staff were lying about the number of Soviet casualties. This made the Generals, Field Marshals and Hitler believe they were bleeding the Russians to death. This is why they were caught off guard when encircled. How could the Soviets have this many divisions if so many had died at Stalingrad? Well it turns out a lot died, but not as many as they had been told.
@@Crashed131963 It probably wasn't functioning, but as soon as the Germans were gone it only took a few days to repair the couple miles of damaged track. The hundreds of miles of track going north of the city were intact and the hundreds of miles going south of the city were intact. How long do you think it takes to fix a rail line? When the Germans invaded Russia, the rail gauges were narrower than the ones the Germans used so the Germans pulled up thousands of miles of track and spiked it back down at the wider gauge. Artillery craters in one city did not put a railroad out of use permanently, not even for a long time.
If this was done by students of the school I hope they all got A's. Incredibly well done. They should also make a youtube channel themselves and make a profit off the talent
Great research and very informative. I am shocked by the complete lack of strategic realism going on here. This video is a perfect example. The Germans should have never spent so much time trying to take this shop. It was unnecessary in terms of defending the rest of the city and complexly unnecessary for the Caucus Oil which was the point of the operation. These men would have been better spent protecting the flanks of the city and advancing on Gronzy. Listening to this video is like watching someone banging their head against a concrete wall and expecting the wall to crack.
Actually the location of Stalingrad on the Volga was arguably extremely important from an Operational perspective, much more than any symbolic relevance. Certainly if the Germans wanted any chance at taking the Caucasus. Cutting off the Volga further South would have been extremely difficult geographically, and it probably wasn‘t militarily feasible to go even further East past Stalingrad. In addition, holding the city would make reinforcing the Southern fronts much harder for the Red Army.
No, he wasn't. He was a sniper in the 284th infantry division and the map in this video actually shows that it was located in a totally different sector of the Stalingrad battle.
Dam those russian troops were tenasious fighters neaver giveing up and useing every bit of the factory to over come the german attack thanks nice vid .
Please check out ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-deXzTPe_TF4.html !! It was the next video, While not 100% focused on the entire barakhadi factory in Stalingrad it takes place in there and focuses on the Commissar's house!
I thought the Germans captured it? The Russians must have left at the end once they had the Germans surrounded. I wish there is more stories from people that were there. I wonder if any Americans giving Russians supplies passed by on the river?
If you want to read a great book read Jason Mark's book ISLAND OF FIRE THE BATTLE FOR THE BARRIKADY GUN FACTORY IN STALINGRAD NOVEMBER 1942- FEBUARY 1943 one of the best books on this battle. This book is no longer in print the last time I saw one on amazon the price was 350 dollars but it would be worth the buy.
Fúhèr Directive 45 was the reason the 6th Army lost... scary thing is even with the split the Germans (almost) acheived there objectives. If Hitler would have listened to Block who resigned because of Hitler's insistence of splitting Army Group South which Block opposed then Army Group South would have taken Stalingrad in days if not weeks for certain... or if they had gone for the oil feeds. They would have taken them & the war would have continued for another year for sure.
They would have captured a big useless pile of rubble. The whole Stalingrad operation was a mistake, the idea behind blitzkrieg is to avoid fortified positions, to encircle them, not to charge onto them in a frontal assault.
@@andykay8949 Absolutely agree with you and my point being they absolutely would have achieved the objective of getting to one point or the other and a continuation of the war... but even if they had got to the oil fields then it was a massive transportation problem & fixing scuppered oil instilitiations.
