Battle of Stalingrad: A History From Beginning to End (World War 2 Battles); By Hourly History.

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Battle of Stalingrad: A History

From Beginning to End

(World War 2 Battles)

By Hourly History

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Written by someone with a pro-nazi, pro-Hitler, at any rate anti-Russian bias.

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"“This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.”

"—Ferdinand Foch, 1919"

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"The twentieth century began with unease and anarchy and a discomfiting sense that the way of life which had dominated Western society for generations was about to topple. The War to End All Wars, which began with the assassination of an Austrian archduke and ended with the social fabric of Europe ripped and re-stitched, left nations with new systems of government, new leaders, a new outlook on the way things ought to be, and a new state of anxiety. World War I introduced the cast of characters that would appear in the bloody sequel which was World War II.

"Germany had been an eager participant in the war, bellicose and confident that its military superiority would provide it with the supremacy it felt it deserved. By the end of the war, Germany’s vaunted military might was vanquished, and Kaiser Wilhelm II had abdicated. The Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919, brought the war to an end while bringing Germany to its knees. Germany agreed to accept responsibility for starting the war and to pay reparations for the damage that had resulted. Germany was only allowed to have a hundred thousand troops in its military force and was forbidden from owning tanks, warships, submarines, or armored vehicles. The terms were modified in the 1920s, but after Adolf Hitler had come to power in the 1930s, he renounced the Treaty.

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Role of Germany in the chain of events that began with Lenin being taken deep into Russia on a sealed diplomatic train, inducing bolsheviks to take over and, subsequently - and, justifiably speaking, consequently, as well - resulting in massacre of Romanovs, chiefly of Tsar Nicholas and his family, his wife Alexandra and their five children.

Considering that the Kaiser Wilhelm was a first cousin of Alexandra since both were grandchildren of Queen Victoria, one would've expected him to care about the lives of this family. But in fact, for years he'd been after her, to marry him, and she'd refused him, having fallen in love with Nicholas instead.

So - did Cousin Willy, as the Royal Mob called him - deliberately beginthe chain of events that ended with, not only the Russian revolution, but massacre of the Romanovs?

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"Russia had joined World War I on the side of the Allies, but after the Bolsheviks had overthrown Czar Nicholas II, the country negotiated a peace settlement with Germany as Vladimir Lenin sought to focus on the Bolshevik Party as it consolidated its power. The Romanov family may have been one of the first casualties of Russia’s adoption of communism as an economic policy and dictatorship as a political weapon, but ultimately the Russian people would bear the brunt of the country’s change in government."

This author is fudging when saying "Russia had joined World War I on the side of the Allies"; the chain of events was slightly more complex.

Austria-Hungary had, because of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, who was heir to the throne, declared war on Serbia; Serbia did not want war, but wasn't willing to bend as far as demanded by Austria-Hungary to placate, so it began.

Russia had a treaty with Serbia, France with Russia, and England with France; Germany had one with, of course, Austria-Hungary.

So in fact, it was Britain and France that joined on side of Russia, while the latter had joined due to Serbia being forced into war by Austria-Hungary, the empire that had lost the heir to assassinationin Serbia.

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"Because France had lost more human lives and suffered more damage than the other combatants, the French desire for revenge against the Germans ran deep. Two million young Frenchmen were killed or maimed in the war. The real estate damage was enormous; three hundred thousand homes and twenty thousand places of business were destroyed. ... "

Authors are not taking into account the devastation wreaked by German forces against forests in France, and ecological damage in general.

" ... When Germany failed to make the payments required by the Treaty of Versailles, France occupied the Ruhr to enforce the reparation payments. Whether Germany could afford to make the payments or not was irrelevant to the French; nothing could bring back the young men who had lost their lives, and France did not forgive."

Author perhaps is German, if not of US; but, if latter, they might recall that Japan was subjected to nuclear devastation by US, not because Japan had done anything comparable, but partly to save lives of US soldiers who'd have died fighting Japan; the third alternative, stopping the war unilaterally after surrender by German forces, was never even considered.

Talking of revenge' against Germany, by France after WWI or by Russia after WWII, is cheap and easy, but fraudulent, in attempting to insinuate that Germany wasn't guilty of the responsibility for the deaths of millions, or of loot conducted deliberately. Truth is, UK and France lost a generation due to WWI, and was put hard to it raising the next generation.

A generation of young men was gone, and women left alone, with no one to marry and raise children with, all because Cousin Willy felt slighted by the Royal Mob at royal events across the continent - and in England.

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"The decade of the Roaring Twenties which followed the war years of 1914-1918 witnessed a dynamic conversion of social traditions, as women, who had done their part during the war, sought the right to vote and a voice in government. Citizens of European colonies who had fought for the nations that controlled them were no longer content to occupy inferior status when the war ended. New ideologies, including Bolshevism, fascism, and socialism, claimed new adherents and inspired new loyalties."

India had never been "content to occupy inferior status", or being controlled by powers abroad. It's hard to imagine that any other countries were so 'content'.

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"Then the Great Depression came, and the economies of the world were devastated. The 1930s saw nations retreat into isolation, so consumed by their financial dilemmas that they had no interest in the mounting problems in other countries. So it was that Adolf Hitler was elected to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, dedicated to restoring what he deemed as Germany’s rightful place in the world and to the subjugation of inferior peoples and the extermination of the Jews. The 1930s were a decade when the nations of the world looked over their shoulders at what was happening around them and remembered the War to End All Wars. Then they turned their attention back to the home front. They had enough to worry about. And maybe the nightmares would pass."

In other words, Allies weren't quite as willing to go to war as they needed to be against a Hitler, due to WWI being remembered.

In this, they can't be blamed.

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"“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such understanding has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”

"—Neville Chamberlain, 1939"

History has been slightly unfair to this PM of England who was in a difficult position at a difficult time, and an honest man facing a wily, fraudulent goon.

It wasn't his unwillingness to go to war that was at fault, but his lack of ability to play poker with humans as chips and nations as cards. And his opponent was someone who had, fuel to this unwillingness of Allies to go to war again, had repeatedly bluffed, ending up adding huge swaths of territories to Germany, from Rheinland on, when France could have stopped him immediately - and didn't.

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"On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to Great Britain brandishing a non-aggression agreement signed by German Chancellor Adolf Hitler which asserted that Germany did not intend to ever go to war with the British again. Chamberlain had gone to the Munich Conference which was attended by, in addition to Great Britain and Germany, Italy and France. The meeting had been convened to discuss the fate of the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia with a significant German population. After the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party had been appointed to the position of Chancellor, Adolf Hitler lost no time in repudiating the terms of the humiliating Treaty of Versailles which had punished the Germans for instigating World War I and bringing devastation to the European continent. He began his retaliation close to home."

Hitler’s and generally Germany’s claims regarding the Versailles Treaty being unfair, vengeful, humiliating, et al, have been established in popular mind by dimple being reiterated over decades since immediately post WWI, when Germany made propaganda beginning immediately after the treaty, and welcomed on it beginning almost immediately.

Fact is, even while claiming that German babies were dying of starvation, Germany was spending gold narks in plenty in France, with purpose of creating a disturbance and disruption of financial and political fabric of France, as revenge as much as anything else.

This isn't different from Cousin Willy sending Lenin deep into Russia in a sealed diplomatic train, and causing not only the Bolshevik revolution, but deaths of Romanovs, all because Alexandra had married Nicholas instead of Willy - and Willy felt slighted by rest of the Royal Mob at royal events across the continent.

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"March 12, 1938, saw the Anschluss, the unification of Austria with Germany to consolidate the German peoples. Two weeks later, he was secretly negotiating with a representative of the ethnic German parties of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia so that Hitler would have an excuse to take territory under the guise of unifying the German peoples. Europe was beginning to feel uneasy about the land-grabbing Hitler, but the thought of war was still unpopular."

In slightly more recent era, Tibet vanished into China's jaws, just as one Austria and Czechoslovakia and rest of the continent of Europe had vanished into German jaws, except that, no one has saved Tibet, or even raised a voice - so far.

So China has proceeded since then, claiming other territories that belong to other nation - and claiming not only rights, but humiliation and right to avenge, just as Germany did until 1945.

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"In 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland, Europe could no longer ignore the problem. Before the invasion, Hitler had fretted that if he attacked Poland, the act would ignite a war with the British before Germany was ready for it, but his foreign minister was confident that the British and French would not honor their obligation to the Poles. Hitler had already made provisions, in a mutual non-aggression pact, to split Poland with the Russians. Through political sleight-of-hand, Hitler intended to offer a peace plan at the last minute that would land blame for the approaching war on the Poles and the British."

And, not only nazi Germany then, but goons such as Buchanan in US, usually republicans, have been fraudulently presenting that as their argument, claiming Hitler had no war against English speaking people and no designs on British Empire, and it was Allies, chiefly Winston Churchill and FDR, who erred warmongers, since they did not accept peace proposals from Hitler after he'd occupied most of the continent, leaving out very little - and thst, besides, UK and France had no reason to go to war for Poland, which was far away!

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"Hitler had reason to be optimistic that his plans to turn Europe into an enormous German field of conquest would succeed. He expected that the Battle of Britain, which commenced on July 10, 1940, would bring the British to the same point of surrender as it had the French, but the Royal Air Force was able to hold the Luftwaffe at bay despite terrible air strikes intended to cause damage and demoralize the British civilians. Winston Churchill rallied his people with stirring oratory and a determination not to be defeated."

Explicitly the plans were to turn Europe into, not just "German field of conquest", but fields of potatoes, for German consumption, worked by locals who were to be slave labour until successfully starved to death by German masters.

"Even though Great Britain emerged unbowed from the air battle, which was largely over by October 31, 1940, the bombing didn’t end, and the nation’s forces were engaged in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Atlantic. The Soviet Union had been pursuing its gains from the nonaggression pact it had signed with Germany, but when the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, it was evident that the pact meant nothing, and the Soviets entered the war on the side of the Allies.

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"The United States had adopted a policy of neutrality, although President Franklin D. Roosevelt, recognizing the inevitability of American involvement, had introduced the Lend-Lease program which provided military equipment to the Allies. Then, in one of those unpredictable events which become a crucial turning point, the Empire of Japan bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, and the United States entered the war. The leaders of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States were allies in a war which truly made strange bedfellows, as they put aside their differences to unite in the cause of defeating Germany and Japan. Josef Stalin was not the sort of colleague with which, in other circumstances, the British and the Americans might have chosen to work. The alliance was expedient for a war which needed to have Germany fully engaged on both its Eastern and Western fronts."

This isn't completely correct. Negotiations with Russia by England had been on before Germany signed the treaty with Russia, in 1939. UK just wasn't as quick and practical in thinking, and in action, as Germany.

For example, England sent to Russia, not a minister, but a lower level official, for talks - and he travelled, not in short few hours by then available fastest transport, flight, but by a packet boat, taking weeks! Meanwhile German high level ministers were eager wining and dining Russians to secure the treaty they needed, desperately, for respite until their planned date of invasion of Russia.

Russians preferred to deal with England, but simply couldn't wait and take the dilly-dallying.

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"“This war is not an ordinary war. It is the war of the entire Russian people. Not only to eliminate the danger hanging over our heads, but to aid all people groaning under the yoke of Fascism. . . . The Red Army and Navy and the whole Soviet people must fight for every inch of Soviet soil, fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages . . . onward, to victory!"

"—Josef Stalin, 1941"

Whether due to love of Mother Russia, or inspired by leaders - former, largely, is a safe bet - Russians undoubtedly fought most valiantly, against the far better equipped enemy intent on reducing Russia to potato fields to sustain German population.

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"Late in the 1930s, Stalin began the Great Purge in his military, replacing the officers of the Red Army with his supporters; proficiency in the art of war was not a prerequisite, but unquestioned loyalty to Stalin was. Either Stalin did not detect an ominous shadow to the clouds of war which were gathering in the skies over Europe, or he decided that the first objective was to rid himself of anyone he regarded as a potential threat from within before addressing external danger. Only two of the five marshals appointed in 1935 survived the purge. The death toll took the lives of 15 of 16 army commanders, 50 of 57 corps commanders, 154 of 186 divisional commanders, and 401 of 456 colonels, for a loss of approximately 30,000 soldiers in the Red Army."

Author of this work deliberately omits mention of the role played by nazis in this; they'd insinuate, or worse, create a false secret report that somehow found its way to Russian agents, regarding someone whom they wanted Stalin to get rid of; suspicion cast, that person vanished.

This helped weaken Russian forces, which precisely was nazi objective.

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"In 1941, by the time the Soviet Union was engaged in the war against Germany, roughly 75% of the country’s military leaders had been in their positions for less than a year, partly because of the decimating purges and partly because military units had been newly created at a swift pace. Stalin would need his Red Army to be on its mettle as they went against Germany’s military killing machine.

"Stalin intended to win, no matter how many soldiers or civilians had to die in the process. ... "

This is disgusting, from author of this compilation. What exactly was the alternative for Russian people? Being butchered by nazis, as two million civilians were, whole villages burnt alive including children, babies, old people, women, and anyone escaping shot dead by German forces?

This author might prefer that, but he's simply in nazi ranks, and most of humanity is not. Do he's presenting Stalin ss one in wrong for fighting against Hitler and his forces, when it was Germany that had invaded Russia, and Russians were defending their homeland.

" ... The Soviet Union was his greatest creation, and everyone was expendable in the course of maintaining the country’s image. The zeal for remaking the Soviet Union in Stalin’s name extended as far as re-naming cities. ... "

From Roman's and Islamic hordes on, every conqueror has renamed the territory conquered. The whole continent from pole to pole across the 'pond' west of Europe has names that do not relate to anything indigenous, from name of continent to names of streets, for most part. For that matter, it's unclear why European names in India are considered not inappropriate.

As for Stalingrad, it's as good or bad a name as Tsaritsyn, unless one is committed yo a doctrine of equality of citizens, hence against monarchy, royalty, aristocracy and inherited property. Then renaming Tsaritsyn is only natural. It was, for a while, named Volgograd. It's named Volgograd again, now, sensibly.

" ... Tsaritsyn had been a Russian city since the sixteenth century, and as time went on, the city grew to prominence as a port and center of commerce. It fell under the control of the Bolsheviks in November 1917. The White Russians and the Bolsheviks battled for control, but by 1925, Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad in recognition of the role that both the city and Stain had played in the defense against the White Russians."

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"The city was an important industrial center, part of the proof that the Soviet Union was a thriving, modern power and no longer a backward rural nation locked in its archaic past. But because it was named for Josef Stalin, Stalingrad was a symbol as well, and the Battle of Stalingrad looming on the horizon of World War II would be influenced as much by the symbolism as by the strategy."

This is a stupid strategy to diminish Russia and make it seem that the city was defended only due to its name, when fact is its nowhere near Germany and had no significant German population to be 'liberated', so Hitler ordering his generals to "fight to the last man" every time they requested permission to retreat and regroup, should give a clue to anyone stupid enough to believe that the Battle of Stalingrad was about a name.

Fact is Hitler needed to get to Asia for fuel he needed desperately, and control of Stalingrad by any name was what he needed.

So it's not Russians defending homeland that should be questioned.

Unless the author is nazi.

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"“Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevising of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!”

"—Adolf Hitler, 1939"

Typical defence of rapist, blaming his victims for the acts he perpetrates.

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Some of the details given by author, regarding name, oarents etc., seem incorrect, especially if one has read more reliable texts on the topic; for example this author claims Hitler took his stepfather name, 'Hiedler'; but it was Hitler, and his own father, not stepfather.

" ... He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts twice, but both times, his application was rejected, so he worked in Vienna as a laborer and a painter. When his mother died of breast cancer in 1907, Hitler was homeless and often had to lodge in shelters and hostels. But while the city may not have offered him cozy accommodations, it was an incubator for ideologies that would nurture the anti-Semitism and nationalism which he had already absorbed. Vienna distrusted the immigrants who were arriving from the east; German nationalist Georg Ritter von Schonerer’s many followers reveled in his veneration for Germany and his hatred of Jews, Slavs, and Catholics. Hitler was an eager pupil of the populist propaganda sweeping the city ... "

The author claims he read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, but it seems more an attempt to make the guy seem well read than any real possibility that he did so.

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"He moved to Munich in 1913 when his father’s estate was settled and he received a bequest. Munich may have been his choice because it was German, but he also intended to leave Vienna to avoid being drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army because he disapproved of the military’s mixing of different ethnic groups. In any case, he would not have been admitted into the military as he failed his physical. But when World War I broke out in 1914, Hitler enlisted in the Bavarian Army where he served on the Western Front as a dispatch runner. He was wounded at the Battle of the Somme and received the Iron Cross Second Class in 1914 and the Iron Cross First Class in 1918; that same year, he also received the Black Wound Badge. His commanding officers, one of them Jewish, spoke of his bravery and Hitler regarded his military experience as a positive one.

"When Germany surrendered in 1918, an embittered Hitler blamed Marxists and the civilians on the home front for stabbing Germany in the back. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles enraged him and many other Germans, particularly when they realized that the reparations demanded of Germany by the winning countries would have a catastrophic effect on Germany’s economy and military. Hitler remained in the army after the Armistice, where his assignment was to infiltrate the German Worker’s Party (DAP) and work to influence the thoughts of his fellow soldiers. The assignment was life-changing."

Why not go into this rage about the reparations? Especially since the terms of the Treaty never were observed by Germany, but only used for fraudulent propaganda against France.

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" ... In 1919, the DAP changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party, and Hitler had a chance to make use of his artistic skills when he designed the Party logo, a swastika inside a white circle on a red background."

Like it or not, that was when the party was set on its road to downfall, because Swastika is a potent symbol that's literally named "Well-Being" in Sanskrit, and it can't be used to bring opposite of well-being to others, without backfiring against the misuser. As it is Hitler intended annihilation of the civilisation, and usage of Swastika was a choice that should have been avoided.

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"By 1939 he had consolidated his power, unified Austria with Germany and claimed the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. It was time for the Third Reich to prove its mettle. Looking at the map of Europe, Hitler decided that Poland was next, a decision that won the approval of the Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin as long as the country was divided between the two dictators upon victory. The nonaggression pact that the Soviet Union and Germany signed in secret was advantageous to both countries, giving each land that they wanted, and it would suffice while Hitler’s Wehrmacht was gobbling up the territory that was between Stalin’s and Hitler’s realms. But Hitler’s appetite for land was ravenous, and Russia would be too tempting for him to resist."

One, Stalin had little choice, given that he wasn't ready for war as weren't UK and France, at the time set by Hitler for marching into Poland. Two, Hitler had all plans ready and conveyed to his generals in a top level secret conference, well over half a year before order to march into Poland on almost exactly the planned date were given. The plans included invasion of Russia at a later date, and the invasion of Russia wasn't a sudden temptation but a long planned action, delayed by invaluable weeks when Hitler indulged in teaching Balkan nations a lesson and invasion of Russia was delayed, resulting in beginning of the defeat of Germany.

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"“Without a declaration of war, German forces fell on our country, attacked our frontiers in many places . . . The Red Army and the whole nation will wage a victorious Patriotic War for our beloved country, for honor, for liberty . . . Our cause is just. The enemy will be beaten. Victory will be ours!”

"—Vyacheslav Molotov, 1941"

Wasn't this the vital Russian whom Germans were wining and dining, or were attempting to, even as RAF deliberately arrived precisely at the time, forcing Germans to scamper to shelters with the Russians?

As per the anecdote told by a reliable author, when the German host accompanying him to the shelter had repeatedly said that there was no danger and the British would never dare to bomb Berlin, the poker-faced Russian asked "So tell me, why are we hiding in this shelter, and whose bombs are these thst are falling all around us?"!

Judging by the sentence construction of the question, the Russian was probably speaking French, or translating from French.

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"By June 1941, Adolf Hitler’s description of the German people as a superior race certainly seemed to be borne out upon the battlefield. Their training, military technology, and commitment to their cause made them the most modern, powerful army that the twentieth century had yet seen. He had tested the European powers and found them to be craven: his wily annexation of Austria in 1938 had allowed a pro-Nazi chancellor to welcome German soldiers into the country. British appeasement merely emphasized the ineffectual leadership from Great Britain that the Nazis expected."

So this Authors definition of superior race is one that bombs civilians and butchers innocent civilians, in Rotterdam and khatyn, throughout Belarus and Russia? By that definition, this author's God would have yo be Chingiz Khan!

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"When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Great Britain and France, remembering all too well how World War I had witnessed the German appetite for European territory, had no choice but to declare war.

"By June 1941, the Germans occupied not only Poland but also Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands. British troops had been beaten back to Dunkirk, where the intrepid rescue by civilians masked the enormity of the defeat. In less than a year after declaring war, France was occupied by the Nazi forces, a particularly delicious turn of events for Hitler, whose memory of World War I and the despised Treaty of Versailles had nourished his enmity against France. Confident of his troops and their ability to conquer, Hitler had a plan that would defeat his enemies and make Germany the master of Europe."

Those plans were, butcher most of non-German populations everywhere, turn rest into slave labour worked and starved to death, use the emptied lands for Germans to settle and breed, and grow potatoes in Eastern lands for Germany.

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"Any Soviet leader who had read Mein Kampf was already aware that Hitler’s future included plans to invade the Soviet Union. It was a racial war against the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, regarded by Hitler as sub-human. Nazi ideology played a motivating role in the advance to the east, as the Germans intended to pursue their goal of exterminating the Jewish population and, by enslaving the Slavs, create a labor force that could aid the Axis powers in their battle plans. Hitler also intended to capture the oil reserves of the Caucasus and use the country’s fertile harvests to benefit the troops and the Nazi economy. Conquering the Soviet Union and repopulating the territory with Germans would expand Germany’s boundaries and subjugate an enemy."

There goes this author again, in the last three words! Saying "subjugate an enemy" seems to imply that Russia had attacked Hitler, whereas reality is opposite, and Hitler had used the respite provided by the treaty with Stalin’s Russia to conquer most of rest of Europe too.

So Hitler was attacking an ally, without warning, not an enemy!

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"Nazi hubris was also at play, although in June of 1941 perhaps no one could fault Hitler for believing that his forces were unstoppable. He neglected to make the logistical preparations that such an invasion needed, and believing that the Russians were intellectually inferior meant that Hitler not only ignored the lessons of Napoleon’s failed invasion a century before, but that he failed to prepare the German industrial sector for a more intense military endeavor than it had seen thus far. Germany was expecting a swift, brief victory, just as they had expected in 1914. Their enemies had other plans.

"Planning for the invasion of the Soviet Union had begun the year before, in June 1940, even though Germany and the Soviet Union, intent on strategic results, had covertly made peace. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had been signed in August 1939, dividing Eastern Europe between them. Poland would be split between the two countries, and the Soviet Union was given the Baltic States and Finland. For a time, the two countries maintained their non-aggression pact and followed it up with a trade agreement that provided the Soviets with military equipment and trade goods in exchange for oil and wheat to nullify the effects of the British blockade of Germany.

"Stalin may have felt that not only was his military strength sufficient to overcome the Germans if they would attack but that the Soviet Union was protected by a German unwillingness to open a second front to the war when they were already occupied in the west fighting the British. This confidence kept him from reconstructing defensive fortifications along the border. He may also have placed his faith in the sheer vastness of the Russian border: who would have the audacity to attempt an invasion when Napoleon Bonaparte, the would-be master of Europe, had discovered to his peril the landscape and the weather were united to resist invaders?"

That last paragraph is shoddy guesswork.

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"But Adolf Hitler felt that he was rewriting history, not succumbing to it. At 3:15 in the morning on June 22, the invasion began and the Germans, determined to conquer the sprawling territory of the Soviet Union, launched Operation Barbarossa which would, over the course of its duration, send 4 million Axis personnel, 150 divisions, 600,000 motor vehicles and even more horses along the 1,800 mile front, an enormous force along an equally enormous border. The Soviets realized that something was up as, late into the night of June 21, the military districts were ordered to bring their troops to combat readiness without provoking an incident. However, not all of the units received the order promptly, and some were not in place by the time the invasion began.

"Calling upon God and the German soldiers, Joseph Goebbels alerted the German people that the invasion of the Soviet Union was underway and Hitler, confident of his troops, proudly told his colleagues that Russia would collapse within three months."

A nazi, openly admitting he wasn't God, by calling on God?

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"The onslaught of bombing struck the section of Poland which was under Soviet occupation, as well as Sevastopol in the Crimea, Ismail in Bessarabia, and Kronstadt near Leningrad. Three million soldiers, accompanied by some Ukrainians and Lithuanians, crossed the Soviet border. Stalin failed to react as swiftly as he should have, in part because he believed that Hitler had not authorized the invasion and that the nonaggression pact which the two countries would prevent Germany from breaking its word. This delay led to the loss of Soviet territory and troops. On the first day, the German air attack destroyed over 1,400 Soviet aircraft. Within three days, the losses were over 3,000, causing Herman Göring to have the numbers rechecked out of disbelief because they were so high.

"In contrast, the Germans lost only 35 aircraft on that first day, and when the week ended, the German Luftwaffe owned the air above the battlefields where the two armies were fighting. But dominating the air did not translate into control of the western Soviet Union, and by July, the Germans were left with 70% of the aircraft that they had possessed when the invasion got underway.

"The Germans had advanced 200 miles into the Soviet Union. By September, the Germans had captured 600,000 prisoners from the battles that encircled Kiev and Bryansk-Vyazma. The Germans looked to have easy access to Moscow, but then the rains came, turning the roads muddy, a condition that wasn’t alleviated until November when the frosts made the roads firm and once again able to support travel.

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"Winter was coming. If the Germans advanced, the soldiers would lack winter clothes and sources of supplies to get through the season. Nonetheless, the German generals wanted to keep going, and they made their way to Moscow. Winter made a reliable ally for the Soviets. In early December, the Soviet counterattack, with the help of the season the Russians called “General Winter,” stopped the German forces at the gates of Moscow, leaving them with no choice but to retreat slowly while the Soviets attacked. It cost the Germans 775,000 casualties. The Soviets had lost 800,000 soldiers, and millions had been wounded or captured."

Author avoids mention of Khatyn and other villages where entire villages were burnt alive with every resident therein, anyone who tried to escape shot dead by German forces surrounding the village.

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"But the Soviets were fighting on their soil, and Stalin had no reluctance to see more men die in defense of the nation. The Germans, not conditioned to be an occupying force, were struggling to survive. The mathematics of the invasion were not good and by March 1942, Operation Barbarossa had ended and Germany was enmeshed in a two-front war."

Again that insidious insinuation by author against Stalin, and a stupid one at that.

Or does he think Hitler was keeping his soldiers in luxury hotels as they advanced against Russia?

By all accounts Germans weren't even clad properly for Russian winter.

One German colleague in 1984-85 explained that 'German youth joined SS only to avoid going to Russia, and killing some Jews wasn't important'; his exact words are only slightly paraphrased here, his sentiment isn't. Germans were deathly afraid of being sent to fight in Russia, and had no problems killing Jews of Germany instead. Nor did their next generations, it'd seem, about this choice.

Given that that's how Germans felt, and it was Russians who were defending home and had nowhere else to run to, author pointing at Stalin instead of at Hitler for this defeat of Germany in Russia seems very nazi of him, and devoted to Hitler too, far more than most German people were when they faced devastation , defeat and ruins in 1945.

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"“Each commander, Red Army soldier and political commissar should understand that our means are not limitless. The territory of the Soviet state is not a desert, but people - workers, peasants, intelligentsia, our fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, children. The territory of the USSR which the enemy has captured and aims to capture is bread and other products for the army, metal and fuel for industry, factories, plants supplying the army with arms and ammunition, railroads. After the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic republics, Donetzk, and other areas we have much less territory, much less people, bread, metal, plants and factories. We have lost more than 70 million people, more than 800 million pounds of bread annually and more than 10 million tons of metal annually. Now we do not have predominance over the Germans in human reserves, in reserves of bread. To retreat further - means to waste ourselves and to waste at the same time our Motherland . . . This leads to the conclusion, it is time to finish retreating. Not one step back! Such should now be our main slogan.”

"—Josef Stalin"

Indeed, Hitler had every intention of taking all the territory upto Urals, pushing Slavs beyond to Siberia. And, as usual, his intentions were far from secret.

................................................................................................

"Operation Barbarossa had not turned out as the Germans had planned, but they did not leave their enemy unscathed; the Soviet Union had lost Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic states. The German Army Group South and Army Group North had outlasted the Russian winter, and 65% of Army Group Center’s infantry had gotten time to rest and regroup. Building upon those numbers, the Germans had plans for 1942 once the summer campaign was launched. The offensive which began in the summer of 1942, Operation Blue, was placed under the direction of Army Group South, led by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock. It had to succeed; if it did not, the German flank along the southern drive would be exposed along the one thousand miles of the front. Part of the German strategy was to block the Volga River so that commercial traffic from the Caucasus would be interrupted. In addition to demolishing the city’s industrial capabilities, the fall of Stalingrad, the Germans calculated, would complicate the delivery of American Lend-Lease supplies. The pipeline from the Caucasus oil fields had already been cut the summer before by the Germans. Once Stalingrad was conquered, the German army’s northern and western flanks would be secured as they set their sights on the petroleum fields of Baku. If the Germans were able to gain control of the oil fields, they would be able to keep their armored units running. It was an ambitious and promising plan. But the German generals knew that they lacked the resources to strike simultaneously at both the Caucasus and Stalingrad as Hitler had directed."

"The pipeline from the Caucasus oil fields had already been cut the summer before by the Germans."??? Germans were ordered to fight to get to Asia, and Russian territories were their route. They'd dealt with Balkans before invading Russia!

Had Germans been at Caucasus, they didn't need to fight in Russia, but could get straightaway to oil fields of West Asia.

"Getting underway on June 28, 1942, the Germans used their famed Blitzkrieg to good effect, ultimately capturing the coveted oil fields to the west within six weeks. The Soviets were unable to offer much resistance, but it seemed as though the German command was sabotaging its chance of success, as Hitler split his forces, even though dividing the German army subjected the troops to even more draining of their logistical support. The separation between Army Groups A and B was exactly what the Soviets needed to avoid being encircled and they could now retreat to the east. Army Group A, Operation Edelweiss, drove into the Caucasus while Army Group B’s Operation Fischreiher headed slowly toward Stalingrad. Then Hitler once again juggled the battle plan, reassigning the Fourth Panzer Army to Group A for the Caucasus effort."

If they already had Caucasus, they didn't need to bother about Stalingrad. No, getting to Caucasus was why Hitler ordered them to not retreat from Stalingrad, and as for going towards Caucasus, they didn't get through.

................................................................................................

"Stalingrad was more than a city; it was a symbol with additional value that made its capture desirable for the Germans and unthinkable for the Russians. It was named for Josef Stalin and to capture Stalin’s city would be to deal the Soviet leader a humiliating blow. Hitler had already rewritten the campaign’s objectives to incorporate his ideology. All the men of Stalingrad were to be killed, women and children would be deported. They were, Hitler said, “thoroughly communistic” and therefore especially dangerous. But Hitler’s “all of the above” strategy for overtaking Stalingrad and dealing the Soviets a crushing blow carried the seeds of its defeat. The Russians were no strangers to ruthlessness and knowing what lay in store if they were beaten made hating the enemy that much easier."

Russian people knew what the author tries to hide from readers of this book, namely, that this butchering of population had been perpetrated already by German forces across Belarus and Russia, with two million civilians burnt alive, whole villages, and anyone escaping shot dead.

It wasn't just Stalingrad at point of sword of nazi hatred. It was every Russian. And no, nazis didn't avoid killing women and children.

................................................................................................

"Stalin’s answer was to combine the 62nd, 63rd, and 64th Armies into the Stalingrad Front under the command of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko with the intention of avoiding the encirclements and loss of troops that had been the Soviet fate under Operation Barbarossa. Stalin’s unique sense of military strategy went beyond the armies. On July 28, Order No. 227 was issued: civilians were not to evacuate, and the defenders of Stalingrad were not to take a step back. His reasoning was that with the civilians in the city, the army would fight harder to protect them and the city that bore his name.

"Stalingrad felt the force of the Nazi might on August 23, 1942, when one thousand planes began to drop incendiary bombs on the city, which is especially effective in a city with so many wooden buildings. One raid consisted of 600 planes and killed 40,000 of the city’s residents from the fires that erupted when the bombs struck the gas and fuel tanks located in the industrial sectors.

"After discerning the intentions of the German army, Andrey Yeryomenko was appointed command of the Southeastern Front. Together, he and Nikita Khrushchev were in charge of the defense of Stalingrad. They created the 62nd army which was placed under the command of Lieutenant General Vasily Chuikov on September 11, 1942. Chuikov understood the situation, its ramifications and its significance to Stalin and vowed: “We will defend the city or die in the attempt.”

................................................................................................

"Pushed back by the German advance, the Soviet 62nd Army made its stand under Chuikov’s direction. When the Germans entered Stalingrad, the city was seething with resistance. Battles stalled the German advance until mid-September when they were able to occupy a section of the northern bank. Chuikov wrote that “The Germans, obviously thought that the fate of the town had been settled.” He and his men saw drunk German soldiers dancing and shouting. But the fighting had only just begun as the streets of Stalingrad turned into combat zones. A German general noted that fighting at such close quarters meant that “the mile, as a measure of distance, was replaced by the yard.”"

Depicted so well in 'Enemy At The Gates'!

................................................................................................

"“We will defend the city or die.”

"—General Vasily Chuikov, 1942"

Wasn't he featured, majorly, in The Enemy At The Gates?

................................................................................................

"By the time General Vasily Chuikov, the previous deputy commander of the 64th Army positioned south of Stalingrad, was appointed as commander of the 62nd Army, the 62nd Army had lost half of its men. For some, the Volga appeared to be the best means of escaping certain death. Chuikov knew that the situation was desperate and that the only options for him and his men were to save Stalingrad or die in the attempt. Defeat or surrender was not even to be considered.

"The city’s defenders learned that secret police were stationed all along the Volga; anyone who attempted to cross the river without permission would be shot on sight. But the Volga was also bringing reinforcements of fresh troops and elite units. Crossing the river under German fire meant that the crossing itself was a death sentence—the typical life expectancy of a soldier arriving to reinforce the city was twenty-four hours—but the carnage allowed Chuikov to maintain a hold on part of the city."

Again, depicted so well in The Enemy At The Gates, and within first few minutes!

................................................................................................

"A city in ruins was a bleak panorama, but a strategic site to fight battles when the enemy was in such proximity to each other, so much so that the head of the German Army’s sniper school was sent to Stalingrad in order to hunt down Russian snipers. He ended up as a casualty of the battle, killed by one of the Russians. Fighting on their own territory had its advantage, and one Russian sniper managed to kill 224 Germans before November ended."

Shame on this author for not mentioning him by name, despite his celebrity status in Russia forever after due to his feat. Vasily Zaytsev was celebrated for good reason, for bringing hope to the desperate situation Russia was in at Stalingrad, and turning it around.

................................................................................................

"Four months after the Germans launched their attack, all that remained under Russian control was a limited amount of land in Stalingrad. The Germans, wary of “General Winter,” wanted to attempt a major attack before the weather turned, but with their supply of ammunition diminishing, the outlook was bleak. They didn’t want to let up, nor did Hitler allow them to do so.

"If the Russians had Stalin to appease, the Germans had Hitler. He was stymied by the slow pace and the apparent impasse and, inspired by impatience, moved more of his forces into Stalingrad. It may have seemed like a good tactic, except for the fact that it left the German flank depleted along the same area where the Germans had been so effective earlier when, at full strength, they had attacked the Russians. Hitler’s thinking was that the Russians lacked the reserves to mount a major attack on the weakened German flank."

Again, it's a silly tactic of the author to minimise follies and crimes of Hitler’s, by using inadequate words to label them, and trying to equate Stalin therein.

Russians were fighting to defend their homeland and had nowhere to go, because there was no guarantee anyway that Hitler’s greed would let them live, anywhere. Appeasing Stalin with life in deadly situation like thus wasn't the point.

And German forces were denied permission to retreat and regroup, several times, by Hitler personally, who repeatedly demanded that they fight to the last man.

Appeasing? They'd expect being executed after public humiliation, if he were disobeyed. But they were the ones thousands of miles from home in unfamiliar lands and weather they couldn't live with.

................................................................................................

"In fact, Soviet General Georgi Zhukov had a close eye on those German flanks; Operation Uranus was the code name for the plan of attack that would attack the Germans where they were weakest, a hundred miles west and south of Stalingrad. They planned to surround the German 6th Army and cut the supply lines near Stalingrad. Zhukov’s intentions were to use German tactics to bring victory to the campaign. For the plan to work, secrecy was needed as the army gathered its 14,000 heavy artillery guns, 1,350 aircraft, and 1,000 tanks.

"The Germans weren’t expecting anything so crushing, but when they finally detected the amassing of the military equipment and over one million Russian soldiers, the Fuhrer, obsessed with Stalingrad, refused to permit them to abandon the city in an effort to shorten the extended German lines. Hitler’s determination to run the battle plans would lead to a devastating result for the German Army."

................................................................................................

"“I will not abandon the Volga!”

"—Adolf Hitler, 1942"

Oddly comparable with Raavana refusing to give up the wife of another man whom he'd abducted, resulting in loss of life for him and much of his family and forces.

................................................................................................

"Russian planning for the counterattack against the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies which were allied with the Germans began on November 19, 1942. ... "

Marie, Queen of Romania, was granddaughter of Queen Victoria and a close relative of Romanovs, being daughter of the Russian Romanov princess wed to a prince of England.

So Romanian armies fighting along with Germany seems shocking, until one realizes or recalls that wwisaw most of this Royal Mob torn asunder and opposite one another.

................................................................................................

" ... The troops were low on supplies and morale, something the Russians had learned from their interrogation of prisoners of war. Within hours, the German lines, which were manned by Italian, Romanian, and Hungarian troops, withered beneath the Russian artillery and tanks, and surrender came two days later. The Russians, in a pincer movement, linked up 60 miles west of Stalingrad, trapping the entire German 6th Army in or near Stalingrad. The 6th Army was separated from the remainder of the German forces by a gap of over 100 miles, as the Russians added 1000 tanks and 60 divisions to add strength to the corridor.

"Hitler, learning of his army’s entrapment, ordered General von Paulus to hold the untenable position. Maintaining the 270,000 men who were trapped in Stalingrad would require 700 tons of supplies per day, which would take 350 daily flights. Luftwaffe head Hermann Goering told Hitler he would fly 500 tons of supplies per day to relieve the trapped Germans, but he was only able to deliver 100 tons per day, and lost 488 cargo aircraft with the effort, leaving the soldiers low on supplies, ammunition, and fuel. The soldiers needed more than guns and food; they needed aircraft, airfield facilities, and supplies, which was more than the Luftwaffe could deliver. When supplies did manage to get through, the soldiers were too weak and exhausted to unload them. One of the German generals in Hitler’s circle decided to live on the same rations as his men; he lost 26 pounds within a few weeks and was ordered by Hitler to return to his normal diet.

"Hitler ordered Field Marshal Erich von Manstein to rescue the 6th Army from the east, but he would not allow the 6th Army to fight its way west to link up with von Manstein. Operation Winter Storm, as von Manstein’s efforts was named, was able to bring German forces within 30 miles of the 6th Army by December 18. Hitler had refused von Paulus permission to allow his troops to try to break out of their encirclement, but not all the German officers agreed with the edict. However, von Paulus knew that his tanks needed more fuel if they were going to advance, and if the Luftwaffe didn’t resupply them, the attempt would be futile. Von Paulus was to wait until Operation Thunderclap was underway before trying to break out.

................................................................................................

"December 23 saw the end of the effort to rescue the 6th Army. General Zhukov interpreted this move as a sign that Germany wanted its trapped soldiers to go on fighting as long as possible in order to keep the Russian forces occupied, so that the Germans would have the time they needed to withdraw from the Caucasus and, by bringing in troops from other fronts, to form a new German front against the Russian counteroffensive.

"The doomed Germans soldiers fought on bravely as best they could given their weakened physical conditions and lack of supplies; they had little choice. The Soviet offensive named Operation Saturn got underway on December 16 with the purpose of bringing the final stage of the battle to its conclusion as relief efforts were made impossible and the trapped Germans were contained in a shrinking position. General Winter had frozen the Volga River allowing soldiers and supplies to travel over the ice into the city.

"The Germans refused to surrender when the Russians delivered the ultimatum. They knew well how they would be treated if they were captured by the Soviets, which certainly provided an incentive to keep the battle going. ... "

The incorrect statement up there borders on a lie, author claiming that Germans refused to surrender due to fear of Russian treatment. One, Germans had never treated prisoners of war properly, so they expected it back, and were usually surprised at the difference.

But more importantly, two, German generals requested several times to be allowed to retreat and regroup, and this was turned down by Hitler, who personally ordered them to fight to the last man. He had a Gothic saga in mind.

" ... Knowing that the Germans were depleted in numbers and resources, the Russians attacked the 6th Army from all directions with 47 divisions as Operation Ring began on January 10, 1943. ... "

Did the author have a tournament in mind whereby Russians were expected to treat the Germans to sumptuous foods and Turkish baths for a week, before playing at war again?

Or did German forces ever play by any rules, even barbaric European ones?

" ... Within a week, the section of territory held by the Germans was cut in half, and the remaining runway controlled by the Germans was on fire.

"Hitler promoted von Paulus to the rank of field marshal with the reminder, or perhaps the threat, that no German field marshal was captured alive. Hitler’s promotion was to no avail; von Paulus surrendered after he was captured in a Stalingrad clear. Twenty-two generals joined in the submission. By February 2, all that remained of the 6th and 4th Armies, 91,000 men, surrendered as well. British reporter Alexander Werth reported on the effects that starvation had had on the mighty German Army. “I caught sight of a human figure. . . . But as he passed, I caught a glimpse of the wretch's face—with its mixture of suffering and idiot-like incomprehension. For a moment, I wished that the whole of Germany were there to see it. The man was probably already dying. . . And, at the far end of the yard . . . the yellow corpses of skinny Germans were piled up—men who had died in that basement—about a dozen wax-like dummies.”"

Think Auschwitz and so forth, and how the inmates had been treated by this 'ubermensch', and any possibility of pity vanishes.

................................................................................................

"Hitler was outraged and laid the blame on Goering and von Paulus for losing 150,000 soldiers, not counting the ones captured by the Soviets. Including the losses from the Romanians and Italians who had fought with them, the Germans lost 300,000 men. The Third Reich had kept the news of the German Army’s looming defeat from the German people until the end of January 1943. On January 31, programming on the radio was interrupted as Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony played, and the German people learned the truth about the Battle of Stalingrad: the invincible German Army had been defeated. The following month, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered a speech in which he exhorted the German people to be willing to sacrifice all resources and will to fight and win a total war."

Reminds one of a description by a journalist who witnessed as Hitler, seeing German soldiers on another train while he was on one, had his own window shades brought down, instead of waving at the poor wretches to encourage them.

................................................................................................

"Many of those German families who hoped to see their soldiers return would wait in vain, but for some German soldiers, the battle was not yet over. More than 10,000 Germans continued to fight in Stalingrad for another month, perhaps because they were hard-core Nazis or because they felt that it was better to fight and die than to suffer as a prisoner of war under the Soviets. Other remaining forces hid in the city’s cellars and sewers, but by March, they too had surrendered, but not before the Soviets captured over 8,000 officers and soldiers to send to prisoner of war camps, and killed more than 2,000."

Compare that with 2 million civilians including children and babies burnt alive, by German forces, through Belarus and Russia.

................................................................................................

"Field Marshal von Paulus, whose capture was a propaganda coup for the Soviets, was taken to Russia where he signed statements against Hitler that were broadcast to German troops. ... "

Wasn't he 'taken' from Stalingrad? Hasn't that always been in Russia? He was 'taken to Russia', from where?

Or is this nazi author insinuating that Stalingrad had become part of Germany? Because what, some German soldiers were camping, starving to death?

By that logic, Germany must be a subarb of Israel!

................................................................................................

" ... Other senior officers in Moscow joined the National Committee for a Free Germany. The fate of those soldiers who were taken prisoner was not destined to inspire optimism, as only 5,000 or so returned to Germany. The others were sent to prisoner of war camps and labor camps; 35,000 were sent on transports and 17,000 of those died, most of them from wounds, typhus, other diseases, malnutrition, or the brutal treatment they received. Others were kept in Stalingrad to assist in the rebuilding."

Which of them had had any qualms about burning two million civilians to death across Belarus and Russia?

................................................................................................

"But for Hitler, the fault for the loss in Stalingrad was Stalingrad itself. ... "

Because all other territories he'd attacked had welcomed his forces with - what, exactly? Roses, chocolates, champagne?

" ... Hitler was so overcome by the defeat that he was unable to deliver a speech on the radio on January 30, 1943, the tenth anniversary of the date when he came to power in Germany. He had Joseph Goebbels read it for him. ... "

Any reader in tears yet?

" ... Now that the unbeatable German Army had been defeated, Germany would be fighting a defensive war."

................................................................................................

"“You cannot stop an army which has done Stalingrad.”

"—Russian saying"

Considering the specific name, must be a saying post WWII.

................................................................................................

"As German confidence sagged, Russian pride grew. The Soviets could boast that they had broken the back of the invulnerable Nazi war machine. The war would not end for two more years but had the Battle of Stalingrad gone the other way, the outcome of the war might have been very different.

"The rest of the world, still engaged in war, recognized the achievement of the Soviet Red Army. The British Daily Telegraph credited the victory in Stalingrad with saving European civilization; on February 23, 1943, Great Britain celebrated Red Army Day, and King George VI had a commemorative sword forged, the Sword of Stalingrad, which Winston Churchill presented to Josef Stalin."

Well done.

"British General Alan Brooke compared the scorecard of the war in 1943 from what it had been in 1942 when he doubted that Russia could withstand a German invasion. He had believed that the Caucasus would be overtaken and Abadan would fall, leading to the collapse of India and the Middle East. England, he had feared, would again face bombing with the threat of invasion. But 1943 dawned with optimism, and that optimism would hold true as slowly but relentlessly, the Allies beat back the Germans.

"Italy’s membership in the Axis Powers ended in 1943 as the Allies invaded and the fascist government of Benito Mussolini fell in July. On June 6, 1944, the Allies invaded Europe. To combat the western threat, Hitler had no choice but to give up on the eastern front. The Red Army went into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary.

"On April 20, 1945, Adolf Hitler turned fifty-six years old; it would be his last birthday. The Soviets bombarded Berlin with artillery while the Allies conducted a powerful air raid. By that time, teenage boys as young as thirteen were called upon to defend the city; the German boys who tried to hide rather than join the military were hanged as traitors by the SS. Bodies were hanged from trees, and when trees weren’t available, lampposts served the purpose. The government blamed its people for the defeat and punished them because, in its view, the Germans had failed to sacrifice enough to win."

Hitler blamed the people. Not government, Hitler.

................................................................................................

"There was no relief when the Soviets entered Berlin, shooting at the houses from their tanks as they passed through the streets. The people of Berlin tried to hide, fearful of what the Soviet Army would do to vent its rage against the Nazis who had been relentless in attack and devastation. People hid inside their homes and made no sound so that the Soviet soldiers would assume the building was unoccupied. When the morning came, the citizens watched the streets from basement windows as the Soviets looted the banks and the stores.

"The commander of the German troops in Berlin surrendered the city on May 2. Due to the absence of newspapers or radio, vehicles drove through the streets with loudspeakers, announcing that all resistance was to cease. The city surrendered, but fighting did not end because some German soldiers preferred to surrender to the Allies from the west rather than to the Soviet Red Army.

"Hitler wasn’t there to surrender. When he realized, early in 1945, that the Soviets would besiege Berlin, he had taken refuge in his bunker which was fifty-five feet beneath the chancellery. As the Soviets had grown closer, Hitler signed his will and married his long-time mistress Eva Braun. Hitler learned early on April 30 that the soldiers defending the city would run out of ammunition before the next day. Hitler and his bride committed suicide on April 30, and their bodies were cremated in the garden as the Red Army closed in. To prevent Hitler’s ashes from becoming a shrine, the Soviets had them removed."

As per research since, shown on television infochannels, Hitler escaped via Canaries in a submarine across the South Atlantic, to live out in a fortified bunker in remote forest, and occasionally appear in exclusive company of other nazi escapees.

................................................................................................

Table of Contents

................................................................................................

Introduction

The War Begins

Josef Stalin: Man of Steel

Adolf Hitler: A Quest for Vengeance

Operation Barbarossa

Not One Step Backwards

The Stalingrad Street Fighting Academy

The Tide of Battle Turns

The Heroes of Stalingrad

................................................................................................

REVIEW

................................................................................................

Introduction

................................................................................................

"“This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.”

"—Ferdinand Foch, 1919"

................................................................................................

So - did Cousin Willy, as the Royal Mob called him - deliberately beginthe chain of events that ended with, not only the Russian revolution, but massacre of the Romanovs?

................................................................................................

This author is fudging when saying "Russia had joined World War I on the side of the Allies"; the chain of events was slightly more complex.

Russia had a treaty with Serbia, France with Russia, and England with France; Germany had one with, of course, Austria-Hungary.

................................................................................................

"With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the end of the war, nationalism and independence gave birth to new countries reconfiguring the boundaries of the former empire. But those nations had little or no experience in self-government, and as they struggled with economic challenges and nationalistic movements, democracy seemed too frail to survive.

"Italy had been among the Allies for World War I, and felt that to the victor belongs the spoils, which translated into the belief that it had a right to some of the territories which were up for grabs following the end of the Austria-Hungary Empire. When they failed to get the lands they wanted, Italians were irate at what they termed a mutilated victory, which became one of the cornerstones of the rise of fascism in Italy. Italy, under the control of fascist leader Benito Mussolini, opposed both communism and liberalism.

................................................................................................

Authors are not taking into account the devastation wreaked by German forces against forests in France, and ecological damage in general.

................................................................................................

"When Great Britain entered the war in 1914, it was a mighty empire. But World War I turned the nation from the world’s greatest overseas investor to one of its major debtors, making interest payments that amounted to 40% of all government spending. Receiving free German coal as one of the reparations stipulations of the Treaty of Versailles led to the depression of the British coal industry and helped to initiate the 1926 General Strike. The monarchy retained its traditional role in British life, but for much of the aristocracy, taxation and the inability to maintain their opulent lifestyle altered the fabric of the country.

"The United States was a late entry to World War I and did not suffer the devastation of its land and its population that the other nations suffered. The country began to step forward onto the international stage as a major participant in the world’s events thanks to its undimmed economic power.

................................................................................................

India had never been "content to occupy inferior status", or being controlled by powers abroad. It's hard to imagine that any other countries were so 'content'.

................................................................................................

In other words, Allies weren't quite as willing to go to war as they needed to be against a Hitler, due to WWI being remembered.

In this, they can't be blamed.

................................................................................................

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September 19, 2022 - September 19, 2022.

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................................................................................................

Chapter 1. The War Begins

................................................................................................

"—Neville Chamberlain, 1939"

History has been slightly unfair to this PM of England who was in a difficult position at a difficult time, and an honest man facing a wily, fraudulent goon.

................................................................................................

So China has proceeded since then, claiming other territories that belong to other nation - and claiming not only rights, but humiliation and right to avenge, just as Germany did until 1945.

................................................................................................

"Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939; Great Britain and France, to Hitler’s surprise, declared war against Germany on September 3; on September 17, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland. The avalanche of conquest was underway, as Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium would fall to the Nazi Blitzkrieg.

"Germany invaded its long-time enemy France on May 10, 1940, by pushing through the Ardennes and traveling along the Somme River, landmarks of the previous war, forcing the Allied forces to the sea, where the evacuation from Dunkirk saved the British Expeditionary Force as well as some French divisions. The French who were still in France could not withstand the German air onslaught, and the supposedly impregnable Maginot Line was proven to be powerless. The French government fled, the French army collapsed. France had fallen.

"On June 22, France and Germany signed the Second Armistice at Compiegne, establishing the Vichy collaborationist government as the official French governing body. The location for the signing had been chosen by Adolf Hitler because that was where Germany had signed the 1918 armistice; he also had the signing take place in the same railcar in which the original armistice had been signed, removing it from a museum so that it could be placed exactly where it had been in 1918. Hitler occupied the same chair where Marshal Ferdinand Foch had sat when the Germans signed. But after the reading of the treaty’s preamble, Hitler left the carriage, just as Foch had done before him, to demonstrate his contempt for the losing side, and to precisely deliver the same contemptuous circumstances to his vanquished enemies.

................................................................................................

Russians preferred to deal with England, but simply couldn't wait and take the dilly-dallying.

................................................................................................

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September 19, 2022 - September 19, 2022.

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................................................................................................

Chapter 2. Josef Stalin: Man of Steel

................................................................................................

"—Josef Stalin, 1941"

................................................................................................

" ... While studying at a seminary to become a priest in the Georgian Orthodox Church, his interests in reading material switched from holy scriptures to the writings of Karl Marx. Although he had earned a scholarship to attend the seminary, he was expelled in 1899 for missing exams; his version of the expulsion credited his interest in Marx as the reason.

"Throwing off his seminarian past, he used the alias Koba after a Georgian outlaw in fiction and became an active member of the Bolsheviks who were led by Vladimir Lenin. The Bolsheviks, who espoused the principles of communism which advocated the violent overthrow of the capitalist system, were fighting against a rigid authoritarian regime in czarist Russia that was oblivious to the suffering of the ordinary Russian. Stalin helped bring money to the communist coffers by taking part in bank robberies to help fund the Party’s expenses. His crimes got him arrested and sent to Siberia at various times between1902-1913, a sort of apprenticeship for political activists who were fighting against the established government. Those criminal sentences would not engender any compassion in the young Stalin, and when he came to power, he fully availed himself of the gulags and the labor camps as a means of punishment."

................................................................................................

This helped weaken Russian forces, which precisely was nazi objective.

................................................................................................

"Stalin intended to win, no matter how many soldiers or civilians had to die in the process. ... "

................................................................................................

Fact is Hitler needed to get to Asia for fuel he needed desperately, and control of Stalingrad by any name was what he needed.

So it's not Russians defending homeland that should be questioned.

Unless the author is nazi.

................................................................................................

......................................................

September 19, 2022 - September 19, 2022.

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................................................................................................

Chapter 3. Adolf Hitler: A Quest for Vengeance

................................................................................................

"—Adolf Hitler, 1939"

Typical defence of rapist, blaming his victims for the acts he perpetrates.

................................................................................................

The author claims he read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, but it seems more an attempt to make the guy seem well read than any real possibility that he did so.

................................................................................................

Why not go into this rage about the reparations? Especially since the terms of the Treaty never were observed by Germany, but only used for fraudulent propaganda against France.

................................................................................................

" ... In 1932, he came in second in the national elections to Paul von Hindenburg; von Hindenburg was persuaded to appoint Hitler as chancellor in the government which included three members of the NSDAP Party. Hitler’s influence in the government continued to increase although the means of his success were sometimes less than pristine.

"Suppression of opposition, machinations, and violence all paved Hitler’s path to power. One of the casualties of his rise included the German military; officers who disagreed with his determination to be ready for war by 1938 were blackmailed and forced to resign. Twenty-eight generals lost command, forty-four others were transferred, although their only fault may have been that they failed to exhibit sufficient Nazi credentials. Hitler took the title of commander-in-chief, making himself the leader of the military.

................................................................................................

......................................................

September 19, 2022 - September 19, 2022.

......................................................

................................................................................................

Chapter 4. Operation Barbarossa

................................................................................................

"—Vyacheslav Molotov, 1941"

Judging by the sentence construction of the question, the Russian was probably speaking French, or translating from French.

................................................................................................

So Hitler was attacking an ally, without warning, not an enemy!

................................................................................................

That last paragraph is shoddy guesswork.

................................................................................................

A nazi, openly admitting he wasn't God, by calling on God?

................................................................................................

Author avoids mention of Khatyn and other villages where entire villages were burnt alive with every resident therein, anyone who tried to escape shot dead by German forces surrounding the village.

................................................................................................

Again that insidious insinuation by author against Stalin, and a stupid one at that.

Or does he think Hitler was keeping his soldiers in luxury hotels as they advanced against Russia?

By all accounts Germans weren't even clad properly for Russian winter.

................................................................................................

......................................................

September 19, 2022 - September 19, 2022.

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Not One Step Backwards

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"—Josef Stalin"

Indeed, Hitler had every intention of taking all the territory upto Urals, pushing Slavs beyond to Siberia. And, as usual, his intentions were far from secret.

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Had Germans been at Caucasus, they didn't need to fight in Russia, but could get straightaway to oil fields of West Asia.

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It wasn't just Stalingrad at point of sword of nazi hatred. It was every Russian. And no, nazis didn't avoid killing women and children.

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"Pushed back by the German advance, the Soviet 62nd Army made its stand under Chuikov’s direction. When the Germans entered Stalingrad, the city was seething with resistance. Battles stalled the German advance until mid-September when they were able to occupy a section of the northern bank. Chuikov wrote that “The Germans, obviously thought that the fate of the town had been settled.” He and his men saw drunk German soldiers dancing and shouting. But the fighting had only just begun as the streets of Stalingrad turned into combat zones. A German general noted that fighting at such close quarters meant that “the mile, as a measure of distance, was replaced by the yard.”"

Depicted so well in 'Enemy At The Gates'!

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September 19, 2022 - September 19, 2022.

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Chapter 6. The Stalingrad Street Fighting Academy

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"“We will defend the city or die.”

"—General Vasily Chuikov, 1942"

Wasn't he featured, majorly, in The Enemy At The Gates?

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"By the time General Vasily Chuikov, the previous deputy commander of the 64th Army positioned south of Stalingrad, was appointed as commander of the 62nd Army, the 62nd Army had lost half of its men. For some, the Volga appeared to be the best means of escaping certain death. Chuikov knew that the situation was desperate and that the only options for him and his men were to save Stalingrad or die in the attempt. Defeat or surrender was not even to be considered.

Again, depicted so well in The Enemy At The Gates, and within first few minutes!
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"The elite 13th Guard Division saw 30% of its 10,000 men killed in the first twenty-four of arrival, with a mere 320 surviving the battle for a 97% death rate. The risk of death was so imminent that even Chuikov was obliged to keep moving his command post from place to place at the last minute, to avoid being a casualty of the intense fighting that saw attacks staged along a front line that was sometimes less than a mile wide.

"But the deadly dimensions of the battle were part of Chuikov’s strategy. By keeping the gap between Russian and German positions as narrow as possible, Chuikov reasoned that the German air campaign had to exercise caution in their bombing or risk killing their men when they dropped bombs on the Soviet line.

"Every street was a battle zone; at times, the buildings themselves were hotly contested sites, and even rooms became opposite fronts. The battles were often small but in such close quarters, with so much at stake, they were deadly. There were positions in the city that saw control switch from German to Russian possession as many as fifteen times.

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"Guns were not the only means of mortality in Stalingrad. Fighting at night amidst the destroyed buildings that had taken bombing by the Germans, the Russians were able to use the landscape, which they nicknamed the Stalingrad Street Fighting Academy, to their advantage with knives and grenades.

"Starving soldiers are desperate men and because crossing the Volga was so dangerous, food was not entering the city, only more soldiers. The Russians weren’t the only ones suffering the lack of food, an issue which would become a dominant factor for the Germans as the battle continued. The fighting took its toll on the Germans, as they saw their initial advantage with their tanks and dive bombers come to be matched by Russian artillery reinforcements and anti-aircraft guns from east of the Volga River, out of range of the German tanks and the Stuka dive bombers. With trial-by-fire training, the Russian Air Force was able to be more offensive in its attacks, thanks to its increased aircraft.

"Life in Stalingrad was a nightmare for the soldiers and civilians as the city was reduced to rubble. Bodies rotted, and the smell of decomposing corpses hung over the city. Disease became rampant. The noise from the Stuka dive bombers and Katyusha rockets created a grim orchestra of war. It was a scenario that challenged the stamina and even the sanity of all who endured it because there was no escaping the daunting consequences.

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Again, it's a silly tactic of the author to minimise follies and crimes of Hitler’s, by using inadequate words to label them, and trying to equate Stalin therein.

And German forces were denied permission to retreat and regroup, several times, by Hitler personally, who repeatedly demanded that they fight to the last man.

Appeasing? They'd expect being executed after public humiliation, if he were disobeyed. But they were the ones thousands of miles from home in unfamiliar lands and weather they couldn't live with.

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September 19, 2022 - September 19, 2022.

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Chapter 7. The Tide of Battle Turns