BACK IN RUSSIA Stalingrad The Eastern Front 1942
BACK IN RUSSIA Stalingrad
The Eastern Front • 1942 - German troops are still deep in Russia • Long supply lines (different railroad track) • Tanks often halt to await fuel • Dirt roads, marshy – poor for tanks
The Eastern Front • Hitler shifts focus to industry and oil reserves in Caucasus Mountains • Aug 1942 Splits Southern army group – • Part sent South to oil fields in Caucasus • Part sent to Stalingrad to protect flank of German army (under General Paulus)
The Eastern Front • Hitler sends armor to South but orders Paulus to take Stalingrad
Operation Uranus • Germans use Romanian and Italian troops to protect Paulus’s army • Soviets attack Romanian and Italian armies and encircle Paulus’s army – November 1942
Stalingrad • Stalin’s order – “Not a step backwards” • Order No. 227 • Hitler’s order – “Surrender is forbidden”
Stalingrad • Germans supply Paulus via Luftwaffe • Needed 700 tons/day • Could only provide 1/3 of this or less • German relief operations failed • Lost more airfields • Fewer supplies • Eventually could only drop supplies (less than 40 tons/day)
Stalingrad • Paulus’s troops driven into destroyed city (Luftwaffe had bombed it earlier) • problem • Street by street fighting • Harsh winter • Battle of attrition
Stalingrad • Germans low on supplies, surrounded • February 1943 - Germans surrender • 500, 000 -800, 000 Axis – killed, wounded, captured • 91, 000 POWs – only 5, 000 ever returned from the camps • Soviets – 1. 1 million casualties • Major turning point • German advance into Russia stopped and begin to retreat on Eastern front
- Slides: 9