![]() ![]() Hitler, increasingly directing military operations in Berlin, decided to shift his offensive in early August. Within two weeks, the Wehrmacht advanced more than 300 miles. Launched in June 1942, it caught the Red Army off-guard, as they had expected a renewed push towards Moscow. Thus was born Operation Blue, an attack to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus, and then drive on to the Volga. ![]() The front line froze in place some two hundred kilometers west of Moscow – and 1400 kilometers east of Berlin.Ī German reconnaissance photo of Stalingrad after bombing from the air in October 1942 (Bundesarchiv).ĭuring the bitter winter months, the OKH began planning for a renewed counteroffensive in the spring, hoping to achieve the decisive victory that had evaded them in 1941. But as the weather grew bitterly cold, the German offensive ground to a halt, and was then pushed back by a Soviet counteroffensive. In October, the Wehrmacht launched Operation Typhoon, the effort to take Moscow and end the war by Christmas. Now we have already counted 360… When a dozen have been smashed, then the Russian puts up another dozen.” At the start of the war we reckoned with about 200 enemy divisions. The Chief of the OKH staff, General Franz Halder, noted in his diary that ““It is becoming ever more apparent that the Russian colossus…. In August 1941, senior members of the Wehrmacht began growing increasingly uneasy. By December, the Red Army had suffered nearly five million casualties.īut despite enduring staggering losses, the Red Army continued to resist. At first, their prediction seemed correct: the attack in June 1941 caught Stalin unawares, and the Red Army unprepared. After two years of decisive victories over France, Poland and others, Hitler and the German High Command ( Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH), were confident that the Soviet Union would fall within six weeks. The Germans would never fully recover.Ī Soviet soldier waves the Red Banner near the central plaza of Stalingrad, 1943.įourteen months before Stalingrad began, Hitler had launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest military offensive in human history. But by February 2, 1943, when the Germans trapped in the city surrendered, it was clear that the momentum on the Eastern Front had shifted. ![]() More Soviet soldiers died in the five-month battle than Americans in the entire war. More than four million combatants fought in the gargantuan struggle at Stalingrad between the Nazi and Soviet armies. This month, three quarters of a century ago, the most famous battle of the Second World War began. ![]()
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