The Battle of Stalingrad: the number of troops, the course of the battle, losses. The Battle of Stalingrad: briefly the most important thing about the defeat of German troops

The German command concentrated significant forces in the south. The armies of Hungary, Italy and Romania were involved in the fighting. Between July 17 and November 18, 1942, the Germans planned to capture the lower Volga and the Caucasus. Having broken through the defenses of the Red Army units, they reached the Volga.

On July 17, 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad, the largest battle, began. More than 2 million people died on both sides. The life of an officer on the front line was one day.

During a month of heavy fighting, the Germans advanced 70-80 km. On August 23, 1942, German tanks broke into Stalingrad. The defending troops from Headquarters were ordered to hold the city with all their might. Every day the fighting became more and more fierce. All houses were turned into fortresses. The battles took place for floors, basements, individual walls, for every inch of land.

In August 1942 he said: “Fate wanted me to win a decisive victory in the city that bears the name of Stalin himself.” However, in reality, Stalingrad survived thanks to the unprecedented heroism, will and self-sacrifice of Soviet soldiers.

The troops perfectly understood the significance of this battle. On October 5, 1942, he gave the order: “The city must not be surrendered to the enemy.” Freed from constraint, commanders took the initiative in organizing defense and created assault groups with complete independence of action. The slogan of the defenders was the words of sniper Vasily Zaitsev: “There is no land for us beyond the Volga.”

The fighting continued for more than two months. Daily shelling was followed by air raids and subsequent infantry attacks. In the history of all wars there have never been such stubborn urban battles. It was a war of fortitude, in which Soviet soldiers won. The enemy launched massive assaults three times - in September, October and November. Each time the Nazis managed to reach the Volga in a new place.

By November, the Germans had captured almost the entire city. Stalingrad was turned into complete ruins. The defending troops held only a low strip of land - a few hundred meters along the banks of the Volga. But Hitler hastened to announce to the whole world the capture of Stalingrad.

On September 12, 1942, at the height of the battles for the city, the General Staff began developing the offensive Operation Uranus. It was planned by Marshal G.K. Zhukov. It was supposed to hit the flanks of the German wedge, which was defended by the troops of Germany's allies (Italians, Romanians and Hungarians). Their formations were poorly armed and did not have high morale.

Within two months, a strike force was created near Stalingrad in conditions of the deepest secrecy. The Germans understood the weakness of their flanks, but could not imagine that the Soviet command would be able to assemble such a number of combat-ready units.

On November 19, 1942, the Red Army, after powerful artillery bombardment, launched an offensive with tank and mechanized units. Having overthrown Germany's allies, on November 23, Soviet troops closed the ring, surrounding 22 divisions numbering 330 thousand soldiers.

Hitler rejected the option of retreat and ordered the commander-in-chief of the 6th Army, Paulus, to begin defensive battles in encirclement. The Wehrmacht command tried to release the encircled troops with a strike from the Don Army under the command of Manstein. An attempt was made to organize an air bridge, which was stopped by our aviation.

The Soviet command presented an ultimatum to the surrounded units. Realizing the hopelessness of their situation, on February 2, 1943, the remnants of the 6th Army in Stalingrad surrendered. In 200 days of fighting, the German army lost more than 1.5 million people killed and wounded.

In Germany, three months of mourning were declared over the defeat.

The Battle of Stalingrad is one of the largest battles of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, which marked the beginning of a radical change in the course of the war. The battle was the first large-scale defeat of the Wehrmacht, accompanied by the surrender of a large military group.

After the counter-offensive of Soviet troops near Moscow in the winter of 1941/42. the front has stabilized. When developing the plan for the new campaign, A. Hitler decided to abandon the new offensive near Moscow, which the General Staff insisted on, and concentrate his main efforts on the southern direction. The Wehrmacht was tasked with defeating Soviet troops in the Donbass and Don, breaking through to the North Caucasus and capturing the oil fields of the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan. Hitler insisted that, having lost its source of oil, the Red Army would not be able to wage an active fight due to lack of fuel, and for its part, the Wehrmacht, for a successful offensive in the center, needed additional fuel, which Hitler expected to receive from the Caucasus.

However, after the offensive near Kharkov was unsuccessful for the Red Army and, as a consequence, the improvement of the strategic situation for the Wehrmacht, Hitler in July 1942 ordered Army Group South to be divided into two parts, assigning each of them an independent task. Army Group "A" of Field Marshal Wilhelm List (1st Panzer, 11th and 17th armies) continued to develop the offensive in the North Caucasus, and Army Group "B" of Colonel General Baron Maximilian von Weichs (2nd, The 6th Army, later the 4th Tank Army, as well as the 2nd Hungarian and 8th Italian Armies) received orders to break through to the Volga, take Stalingrad and cut off the lines of communication between the southern flank of the Soviet front and the center, thereby isolating it from the main group (if successful, Army Group B was supposed to strike along the Volga towards Astrakhan). As a result, from that moment on, Army Groups A and B advanced in divergent directions, with the gap between them constantly widening.

The task of directly capturing Stalingrad was assigned to the 6th Army, which was considered the best in the Wehrmacht (commander - Lieutenant General F. Paulus), whose actions were supported from the air by the 4th Air Fleet. Initially, it was opposed by the troops of the 62nd (commanders: Major General V.Ya. Kolpakchi, from August 3 - Lieutenant General A.I. Lopatin, from September 9 - Lieutenant General V.I. Chuikov) and 64th ( commanders: Lieutenant General V.I. Chuikov, from July 23 - Major General M.S. Shumilov) armies, which, together with the 63rd, 21st, 28th, 38th, 57th and 8th 1st Air Army on July 12, 1942 formed a new Stalingrad Front (commander: Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko, from July 23 - Lieutenant General V.N. Gordov, from August 10 - Colonel General A.I. Eremenko ).

The first day of the Battle of Stalingrad is considered to be July 17, when those advanced to the river line. Then the advanced detachments of the Soviet troops came into contact with German units, which, however, did not show much activity, since in those days preparations for the offensive were just being completed. (The first combat contact took place on July 16 - at the positions of the 147th Infantry Division of the 62nd Army.) On July 18-19, units of the 62nd and 64th armies reached the front lines. For five days there were local battles, although German troops reached the main line of defense of the Stalingrad Front.

At the same time, the Soviet command used the lull at the front to speed up the preparation of Stalingrad for the defense: the local population was mobilized, sent to build field fortifications (four defensive lines were equipped), and the formation of militia units was deployed.

On July 23, the German offensive began: parts of the northern flank were the first to attack, and two days later they were joined by the southern flank. The defense of the 62nd Army was broken through, several divisions were surrounded, the army and the entire Stalingrad Front found themselves in an extremely difficult situation. Under these conditions, on July 28, People's Commissar of Defense Order No. 227 was issued - “Not a step back!”, prohibiting the withdrawal of troops without an order. In accordance with this order, the formation of penal companies and battalions, as well as barrage detachments, began at the front. At the same time, the Soviet command strengthened the Stalingrad group by all possible means: during a week of fighting, 11 rifle divisions, 4 tank corps, 8 separate tank brigades were sent here, and on July 31, the 51st Army, Major General T.K., was also transferred to the Stalingrad Front. Kolomiets. On the same day, the German command also strengthened its group by deploying the 4th Panzer Army of Colonel General G. Hoth, which was advancing to the south, to Stalingrad. Already from this moment, the German command declared the task of capturing Stalingrad a priority and crucial for the success of the entire offensive on the southern sector of the Soviet-German front.

Although success on the whole was on the side of the Wehrmacht and the Soviet troops, suffering heavy losses, were forced to retreat, nevertheless, thanks to the resistance, the plan to break through to the city on the move through Kalach-on-Don was thwarted, as well as the plan to encircle the Soviet group in the bend Don. The pace of the offensive - by August 10, the Germans had advanced only 60-80 km - did not suit Hitler, who stopped the offensive on August 17, ordering the start of preparations for a new operation. The most combat-ready German units, primarily tank and motorized formations, were concentrated in the directions of the main attack; the flanks were weakened by the transfer of them to Allied troops.

On August 19, German troops again went on the offensive and resumed their offensive. On the 22nd they crossed the Don, gaining a foothold on a 45-km bridgehead. For the next XIV Tank Corps, General. G. von Withersheim to the Volga on the Latoshinka-Market section, finding himself only 3 km from the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, and cut off parts of the 62nd Army from the main Red Army. At the same time, at 16:18, a massive air strike was launched on the city itself; the bombing continued on August 24, 25, 26. The city was almost completely destroyed.

The Germans' attempts to take the city from the north in the following days were stopped thanks to the stubborn resistance of Soviet troops, who, despite the enemy's superiority in manpower and equipment, managed to launch a series of counterattacks and stop the offensive on August 28. After this, the next day the German command attacked the city from the southwest. Here the offensive developed successfully: German troops broke through the defensive line and began to enter the rear of the Soviet group. To avoid inevitable encirclement, Eremenko withdrew his troops to the internal line of defense on September 2. On September 12, the defense of Stalingrad was officially entrusted to the 62nd (operating in the northern and central parts of the city) and 64th (in the southern part of Stalingrad) armies. Now the battles were going on directly for Stalingrad.

On September 13, the 6th German Army struck a new blow - now the troops were tasked with breaking through to the central part of the city. By the evening of the 14th, the Germans captured the ruins of the railway station and, at the junction of the 62nd and 64th armies in the Kuporosny area, broke through to the Volga. By September 26, the German troops entrenched in the occupied bridgeheads completely swept the Volga, which remained the only route for delivering reinforcements and ammunition to the units of the 62nd and 64th armies defending in the city.

The fighting in the city entered a protracted phase. There was a fierce struggle for Mamayev Kurgan, the Red October plant, the tractor plant, the Barrikady artillery plant, and individual houses and buildings. The ruins changed hands several times; in such conditions, the use of small arms was limited, and soldiers often engaged in hand-to-hand combat. The advance of the German troops, who had to overcome the heroic resistance of Soviet soldiers, developed extremely slowly: from September 27 to October 8, despite all the efforts, the German strike group managed to advance only 400-600 m. In order to turn the situation around, Gen. Paulus pulled additional forces into this area, increasing the number of his troops in the main direction to 90 thousand people, whose actions were supported by up to 2.3 thousand guns and mortars, about 300 tanks and about thousand aircraft. The Germans outnumbered the 62nd Army in personnel and artillery by 1:1.65, in tanks by 1:3.75, and in aviation by 1:5.2.

German troops launched a decisive offensive on the morning of October 14. The German 6th Army launched a decisive offensive against the Soviet bridgeheads near the Volga. On October 15, the Germans captured the tractor plant and broke through to the Volga, cutting off the 62nd Army group that was fighting north of the plant. However, the Soviet soldiers did not lay down their arms, but continued to resist, creating another hotbed of fighting. The position of the city’s defenders was complicated by a lack of food and ammunition: with the onset of cold weather, transportation across the Volga under constant enemy fire became even more difficult

The last decisive attempt to take control of the right bank of Stalingrad was made by Paulus on November 11. The Germans managed to capture the southern part of the Barrikady plant and take a 500-meter section of the Volga bank. After this, the German troops were completely exhausted and the fighting moved into a positional stage. By this time, Chuikov’s 62nd Army held three bridgeheads: in the area of ​​the village of Rynok; the eastern part of the Red October plant (700 by 400 m), which was held by the 138th Infantry Division of Colonel I.I. Lyudnikova; 8 km along the Volga bank from the Red October plant to 9 January Square, incl. northern and eastern slopes of Mamayev Kurgan. (The southern part of the city continued to be controlled by units of the 64th Army.)

Stalingrad strategic offensive operation (November 19, 1942 - February 2, 1943)

The plan for encircling the Stalingrad enemy group - Operation Uranus - was approved by I.V. Stalin on November 13, 1942. It envisaged attacks from bridgeheads north (on the Don) and south (Sarpinsky Lakes region) of Stalingrad, where a significant part of the defending forces were Germany's allies, to break through the defenses and envelop the enemy in converging directions to Kalach-on-Don - Soviet. The 2nd stage of the operation provided for the sequential compression of the ring and the destruction of the encircled group. The operation was to be carried out by the forces of three fronts: Southwestern (General N.F. Vatutin), Don (General K.K. Rokossovsky) and Stalingrad (General A.I. Eremenko) - 9 field, 1 tank and 4 air armies. Fresh reinforcements were poured into the front units, as well as divisions transferred from the reserve of the Supreme High Command, large reserves of weapons and ammunition were created (even to the detriment of the supply of the group defending in Stalingrad), regroupings and the formation of strike groups in the directions of the main attack were carried out secretly from the enemy.

On November 19, as envisaged by the plan, after powerful artillery barrage, the troops of the Southwestern and Don Fronts went on the offensive, and on November 20, the troops of the Stalingrad Front. The battle developed rapidly: the Romanian troops occupying areas located in the direction of the main attacks could not stand it and fled. The Soviet command, introducing pre-prepared mobile groups into the breakthrough, developed an offensive. On the morning of November 23, troops of the Stalingrad Front took Kalach-on-Don; on the same day, units of the 4th Tank Corps of the Southwestern Front and the 4th Mechanized Corps of the Stalingrad Front met in the area of ​​the Sovetsky farm. The encirclement ring was closed. Then an internal encirclement front was formed from rifle units, and tank and motorized rifle units began to push back the few German units on the flanks, forming an external front. The German group was surrounded - parts of the 6th and 4th tank armies - under the command of General F. Paulus: 7 corps, 22 divisions, 284 thousand people.

On November 24, the Soviet Headquarters gave the order to the Southwestern, Don and Stalingrad fronts to destroy the Stalingrad group of Germans. On the same day, Paulus approached Hitler with a proposal to begin a breakthrough from Stalingrad in a southeast direction. However, Hitler categorically prohibited a breakthrough, saying that by fighting surrounded by the 6th Army, it was drawing large enemy forces onto itself, and ordered the defense to continue, waiting for the encircled group to be released. Then all German troops in this area (both inside and outside the ring) were united into the new Army Group Don, headed by Field Marshal E. von Manstein.

The attempt of the Soviet troops to quickly eliminate the encircled group, squeezing it from all sides, failed, and therefore military operations were suspended and the General Staff began the systematic development of a new operation, codenamed “Ring”.

For its part, the German command forced the implementation of Operation Winter Thunderstorm (Wintergewitter) to relieve the blockade of the 6th Army. For this, Manstein formed a strong group in the area of ​​​​the village of Kotelnikovsky under the command of General G. Hoth, the main striking force of which was the LVII Tank Corps of General of the Tank Forces F. Kirchner. The breakthrough was to be carried out in the area occupied by the 51st Army, whose troops were exhausted by battles and were severely short-staffed. Having gone on the offensive on December 12, the Goth group failed the Soviet defense and crossed the river on the 13th. Aksai, however, then got bogged down in battles near the village of Verkhne-Kumsky. Only on December 19, the Germans, having brought up reinforcements, managed to push back the Soviet troops to the river. Myshkova. In connection with the emerging threatening situation, the Soviet command transferred part of the forces from the reserve, weakening other sectors of the front, and was forced to reconsider the plans for Operation Saturn in terms of their limitations. However, by this time the Hoth group, which had lost more than half of its armored vehicles, was exhausted. Hitler refused to give the order for a counter breakthrough of the Stalingrad group, which was 35-40 km away, continuing to demand that Stalingrad be held to the last soldier.

On December 16, Soviet troops with the forces of the Southwestern and Voronezh fronts began carrying out Operation Little Saturn. The enemy's defenses were broken through and mobile units were introduced into the breakthrough. Manstein was forced to urgently begin transferring troops to the Middle Don, weakening, among other things. and the group of G. Goth, which was finally stopped on December 22. Following this, the troops of the Southwestern Front expanded the breakthrough zone and threw the enemy back 150-200 km and reached the Novaya Kalitva - Millerovo - Morozovsk line. As a result of the operation, the danger of releasing the blockade of the encircled Stalingrad enemy group was completely eliminated

The implementation of the Operation Ring plan was entrusted to the troops of the Don Front. On January 8, 1943, the commander of the 6th Army, General Paulus, was presented with an ultimatum: if the German troops did not lay down their arms by 10 o’clock on January 9, then all those surrounded would be destroyed. Paulus ignored the ultimatum. On January 10, after a powerful artillery barrage, the Don Front went on the offensive; the main blow was delivered by the 65th Army of Lieutenant General P.I. Batova. However, the Soviet command underestimated the possibility of resistance from the encircled group: the Germans, relying on a deeply echeloned defense, put up desperate resistance. Due to new circumstances, on January 17, the Soviet offensive was suspended and a regrouping of troops and preparations for a new strike began, which followed on January 22. On this day, the last airfield was taken, through which the 6th Army communicated with the outside world. After this, the situation with the supply of the Stalingrad group, which, on Hitler’s orders, was carried out by air by the Luftwaffe, became even more complicated: if before it was also completely insufficient, now the situation has become critical. On January 26, in the area of ​​Mamayev Kurgan, the troops of the 62nd and 65th armies, advancing towards each other, united. The Stalingrad group of Germans was cut into two parts, which, in accordance with the operation plan, were to be destroyed in parts. On January 31, the southern group capitulated, along with Paulus, who was promoted to field marshal general on January 30. On February 2, the northern group, commanded by General K. Strecker, laid down its arms. This ended the Battle of Stalingrad. 24 generals, 2,500 officers, more than 91 thousand soldiers were captured, more than 7 thousand guns and mortars, 744 aircraft, 166 tanks, 261 armored vehicles, more than 80 thousand cars, etc. were captured.

Results

As a result of the victory of the Red Army in the Battle of Stalingrad, it managed to seize the strategic initiative from the enemy, which created the preconditions for preparing a new large-scale offensive and, in the future, the complete defeat of the aggressor. The battle marked the beginning of a radical turning point in the war, and also contributed to the strengthening of the international authority of the USSR. In addition, such a serious defeat undermined the authority of Germany and its armed forces and contributed to increased resistance on the part of the enslaved peoples of Europe.

Dates: 17.07.1942 - 2.02.1943

Place: USSR, Stalingrad region

Results: Victory of the USSR

Opponents: USSR, Germany and its allies

Commanders: A.M. Vasilevsky, N.F. Vatutin, A.I. Eremenko, K.K. Rokossovsky, V.I. Chuikov, E. von Manstein, M. von Weichs, F. Paulus, G. Goth.

Red Army: 187 thousand people, 2.2 thousand guns and mortars, 230 tanks, 454 aircraft

Germany and allies: 270 thousand people, approx. 3000 guns and mortars, 250 tanks and self-propelled guns, 1200 aircraft

Strengths of the parties(at the start of the counteroffensive):

Red Army: 1,103,000 people, 15,501 guns and mortars, 1,463 tanks, 1,350 aircraft

Germany and its allies: approx. 1,012,000 people (including approximately 400 thousand Germans, 143 thousand Romanians, 220 Italians, 200 Hungarians, 52 thousand Hiwis), 10,290 guns and mortars, 675 tanks, 1,216 aircraft

Losses:

USSR: 1,129,619 people. (including 478,741 irrevocable people, 650,878 ambulances), 15,728 guns and mortars, 4,341 tanks and self-propelled guns, 2,769 aircraft

Germany and its allies: 1,078,775 people. (including 841 thousand people - irrevocable and sanitary, 237,775 people - prisoners)

The Battle of Stalingrad is the largest land battle in world history, fought between the forces of the USSR and Nazi Germany in the city of Stalingrad (USSR) and its environs during the Patriotic War. The bloody battle began on July 17, 1942 and lasted until February 2, 1943.

Causes and background of the Battle of Stalingrad

Composition of forces

Progress of the Battle of Stalingrad

Results of the battle

The Battle of Stalingrad in brief is the most important thing - this is what interests many historians of this grandiose battle. Books and numerous articles in magazines tell about the battle. In feature films and documentaries, directors tried to convey the essence of that time and show the heroism of the Soviet people who managed to defend their land from the fascist horde. This article also briefly summarizes information about the heroes of the Stalingrad confrontation and describes the main chronology of military actions.

Prerequisites

By the summer of 1942, Hitler had developed a new plan to seize the territories of the Soviet Union located near the Volga. During the first year of the war, Germany won victory after victory and had already occupied the territories of modern Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine. The German command needed to secure access to the Caucasus, where oil fields were located, which would provide the German front with fuel for further battles. In addition, having received Stalingrad at his disposal, Hitler hoped to cut off important communications, thereby creating supply problems for Soviet soldiers.
To implement the plan, Hitler recruits General Paulus. The operation to occupy Stalingrad, according to Hitler, should have taken no more than a week, but thanks to the incredible courage and indomitable fortitude of the Soviet army, the battle dragged on for six months and ended in victory for the Soviet soldiers. This victory was a turning point in the entire Second World War, and for the first time the Germans not only stopped the offensive, but also began to defend.

Defensive stage

On July 17, 1942, the first battle of the Battle of Stalingrad began. The German forces were superior not only in numbers of soldiers, but also in military equipment. After a month of fierce fighting, the Germans managed to enter Stalingrad.

Hitler believed that as soon as he could occupy the city bearing the name of Stalin himself, primacy in the war would belong to him. If previously the Nazis had captured small European countries in a few days, now they had to fight for every street and every house. They fought especially fiercely for factories, since Stalingrad was primarily a large industrial center.
The Germans bombarded Stalingrad with high-explosive and incendiary bombs. Most of the buildings were wooden, so the entire central part of the city, along with its inhabitants, was burned to the ground. However, the city, destroyed to the ground, continued to fight.

Detachments from the people's militia were created. The Stalingrad Tractor Plant launched the production of tanks that went straight from the assembly line into battle.

The crews of the tanks were factory workers. Other factories also did not stop operating, despite the fact that they operated in close proximity to the battlefield, and sometimes found themselves right on the front line.

An example of incredible valor and courage is the defense of Pavlov’s house, which lasted almost two months, 58 days. During the capture of this one house, the Nazis lost more soldiers than during the capture of Paris.

On July 28, 1942, Stalin issues order No. 227, an order whose number every front-line soldier remembers. It went down in the history of the war as the order “Not a step back.” Stalin realized that if the Soviet troops failed to hold Stalingrad, they would allow Hitler to take possession of the Caucasus.

The battles continued for more than two months. History does not remember such fierce urban battles. Huge losses of personnel and military equipment were suffered. Increasingly, battles turned into hand-to-hand combat. Each time, enemy troops found a new place to reach the Volga.

In September 1942, Stalin developed the top-secret offensive operation Uranus, the leadership of which he entrusted to Marshal Zhukov. To capture Stalingrad, Hitler used the troops of Group B, which included the German, Italian and Hungarian armies.

It was planned to strike the flanks of the German army, which were defended by the Allies. The Allied armies were poorly armed and lacked sufficient fortitude.

By November 1942, Hitler managed to almost completely take control of the city, which he did not fail to report to the whole world.

Offensive stage

On November 19, 1942, the Soviet army launched an offensive. Hitler was very surprised that Stalin managed to gather so many fighters for encirclement, but the troops of Germany's allies were defeated. Despite everything, Hitler abandoned the idea of ​​retreat.

The timing of the Soviet offensive was chosen with particular care, taking into account weather conditions when the mud had already dried and the snow had not yet fallen. So the soldiers of the Red Army could move unnoticed. Soviet troops were able to encircle the enemy, but failed to completely destroy them the first time.

Mistakes were made when calculating the forces of the Nazis. Instead of the expected ninety thousand, more than a hundred thousand German soldiers were surrounded. The Soviet command developed various plans and operations to capture enemy armies.

In January, the destruction of the surrounded enemy troops began. During the fighting, which lasted about a month, the two Soviet armies united. During the offensive operation, a large number of enemy equipment were destroyed. Aviation suffered especially; after the Battle of Stalingrad, Germany ceased to lead in the number of aircraft.

Hitler was not going to give up and urged his soldiers not to lay down their arms, fighting to the last.

On February 1, 1942, the Russian command concentrated about 1 thousand fire guns and mortars in order to deal a crushing blow to the northern group of forces of Hitler's 6th Army, which was ordered to fight to the death, but not to surrender.

When the Soviet army unleashed all its prepared firepower on the enemy, the Nazis, not expecting such a wave of attack, immediately laid down their arms and surrendered.

On February 2, 1942, fighting in Stalingrad ceased and the German army surrendered. National mourning was declared in Germany.

The Battle of Stalingrad ended Hitler's hopes of breaking further into the East, following his Barbarossa plan. The German command was no longer able to win a single significant victory in further battles. The situation tilted in favor of the Soviet front, and Hitler was forced to take a defensive position.

After the defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad, other countries that had previously sided with Germany realized that given the given set of circumstances, a victory for German troops was extremely unlikely, and began to pursue a more restrained foreign policy. Japan decided not to attempt to attack the USSR, and Turkey remained neutral and refused to enter the war on the side of Germany.

The victory was made possible thanks to the outstanding military skill of the Red Army soldiers. During the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet command brilliantly carried out defensive and offensive operations and, despite the lack of forces, was able to encircle and defeat the enemy. The whole world saw the incredible capabilities of the Red Army and the military art of Soviet soldiers. The whole world, enslaved by the Nazis, finally believed in victory and imminent liberation.

The Battle of Stalingrad is characterized as the bloodiest battle in human history. It is impossible to find out exact data on irrecoverable losses. The Soviet army lost about a million soldiers, and approximately eight hundred thousand Germans were killed or went missing.

All participants in the defense of Stalingrad were awarded the medal “For the Defense of Stalingrad.” The medal was awarded not only to military personnel, but also to civilians who participated in hostilities.

During the Battle of Stalingrad, Soviet soldiers so bravely and valiantly repulsed the enemy’s attempts to occupy the city that this was clearly manifested in massive heroic actions.

In fact, people did not want their own lives and could safely give it up just to stop the fascist offensive. Every day the Nazis lost a large amount of equipment and manpower in this direction, gradually depleting their own resources.

It is very difficult to single out the most courageous feat, since each of them had a certain significance for the overall defeat of the enemy. But the most famous heroes of that terrible massacre can be briefly listed and described about their heroism:

Mikhail Panikakha

The feat of Mikhail Averyanovich Panikakha was that at the cost of his life he was able to stop a German tank that was heading to suppress the infantry of one of the Soviet battalions. Realizing that letting this steel colossus through his trench would mean exposing his comrades to mortal danger, Mikhail made a desperate attempt to settle scores with the enemy equipment.

To this end, he raised a Molotov cocktail over his own head. And at the same moment, by coincidence, a stray fascist bullet hit the flammable materials. As a result, all the fighter’s clothes instantly caught fire. But Mikhail, being virtually completely engulfed in flames, managed to take a second bottle containing a similar component and successfully smashed it against the grille of the engine hatch on an enemy tracked combat tank. The German combat vehicle immediately caught fire and was disabled.

As eyewitnesses of this terrible situation recall, they noticed that a man completely engulfed in fire ran out of the trench. And his actions, despite such a desperate situation, were meaningful and aimed at causing considerable damage to the enemy.

Marshal Chuikov, who was the commander of this section of the front, recalled Panikakh in his book in some detail. Literally 2 months after his death, Mikhail Panikakha was posthumously awarded the Order of the 1st degree. But he was only awarded the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1990.

Pavlov Yakov Fedotovich

Sergeant Pavlov has long become a real hero of the Battle of Stalingrad. At the end of September 1942, his group was able to successfully penetrate the building, which was located on Penzenskaya Street, 61. Previously, the regional consumer union was based there.

The important strategic location of this extension made it easy to track the movement of fascist troops, which is why the order was given to equip a stronghold here for the Red Army soldiers.

Pavlov's House, as this historical building was later called, was initially defended by insignificant forces that were able to hold out on the previously captured object for 3 days. Then the reserve pulled up to them - 7 Red Army soldiers, who also delivered a heavy machine gun here. In order to monitor enemy actions and report the operational situation to the command, the building was equipped with telephone communications.
Thanks to coordinated actions, the fighters held this stronghold for almost two months, 58 days. Fortunately, food supplies and ammunition made it possible to do this. The Nazis repeatedly tried to storm the rear, bombed it with planes and fired at it with large-caliber guns, but the defenders held out and did not allow the enemy to capture a strategically important strong point.

Pavlov Yakov Fedotovich played an important role in organizing the defense of the house, which was subsequently named in his honor. Everything here was arranged in such a way that it would be convenient to repel the next attempts of the Nazis to penetrate into the premises. Each time, the Nazis lost a large number of their comrades on the approaches to the house and retreated to their initial positions.

Matvey Mefodievich Putilov

Signalman Matvey Putilov accomplished his famous feat on October 25, 1942. It was on this day that communication with the surrounded group of Soviet soldiers was broken. In order to restore it, groups of signalmen were repeatedly sent on combat missions, but they all died without completing the task assigned to them.

Therefore, this difficult task was entrusted to the commander of the communications department, Matvey Putilov. He managed to crawl to the damaged wire and at that moment received a bullet wound in the shoulder. But, not paying attention to the pain, Matvey Methodievich continued to carry out his task and restore telephone communication.

He was re-injured by a mine that exploded not far from Putilov’s place of residence. A fragment of it shattered the hand of the brave signalman. Realizing that he might lose consciousness and not feeling his hand, Putilov clamped the damaged ends of the wire with his own teeth. And at the same moment, an electric current passed through his body, as a result of which the connection was restored.

Putilov's body was discovered by his comrades. He lay with the wire tightly clamped in his teeth, dead. However, Matvey, who was only 19 years old, was not given a single award for his feat. In the USSR, they believed that the children of “Enemies of the People” were not worthy of rewards. The fact is that Putilov’s parents were dispossessed peasants from Siberia.

Only thanks to the efforts of Putilov’s colleague, Mikhail Lazarevich, who put together all the facts of this extraordinary act, in 1968 Matvey Methodievich was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree.

The famous intelligence officer Sasha Filippov greatly contributed to the defeat of the Nazis at Stalingrad by obtaining very valuable information for the Soviet command regarding the enemy and the deployment of his forces. Such tasks could only be carried out by experienced professional intelligence officers, and Filippov, even despite his young age (he was only 17 years old), skillfully coped with them.

In total, brave Sasha went on reconnaissance 12 times. And each time he managed to obtain important information, which greatly helped the professional military.

However, a local policeman did track down the hero and handed him over to the Germans. Therefore, the scout did not return from his next assignment and was captured by the Nazis.

On December 23, 1942, Filippov and two other Komsomol members next to him were hanged. This happened on Dar Mountain. However, in the last minutes of his life, Sasha shouted out a fiery speech that the fascists were not able to bring all the Soviet patriots together, since there were so many of them. He also predicted the rapid liberation of his native land from fascist occupation!

This famous sniper of the 62nd Army of the Stalingrad Front greatly annoyed the Germans, destroying more than one fascist soldier. According to general statistics, 225 German soldiers and officers died from Vasily Zaitsev’s weapons. This list also includes 11 enemy snipers.

The famous duel with the German sniper ace Torvald lasted quite a long time. According to Zaitsev’s own memoirs, one day he discovered a German helmet in the distance, but realized that it was a bait. However, the German did not give himself away all day. The next day, the fascist also acted very competently, choosing a wait-and-see tactic. From these actions, Vasily Grigorievich realized that he was dealing with a professional sniper and decided to start hunting for him.

One day, Zaitsev and his comrade Kulikov discovered Torvald’s position. Kulikov, in an imprudent act, fired at random, and this gave Torvald the opportunity to eliminate the Soviet sniper with one accurate shot. But only the fascist completely miscalculated that there was another enemy next to him. Therefore, leaning out from under his cover, Torvald was instantly struck by a direct hit from Zaitsev.

The entire history of the Battle of Stalingrad is very diverse and imbued with continuous heroism. The exploits of those people who gave their lives in the fight against German aggression will be remembered forever! Now, on the site of past bloody battles, a memory museum has been erected, as well as a Walk of Fame. The tallest statue in Europe, “Motherland,” which towers over Mamayev Kurgan, speaks of the true greatness of these epoch-making events and their great historical significance!

Topic of the section: Famous heroes, chronology, content of the Battle of Stalingrad, briefly the most important thing.

There is a saying in Russian: “I disappeared like a Swede near Poltava.” In 1943, it was replaced by an analogue: “disappeared, like a German at Stalingrad.” The victory of Russian weapons in the Battle of Stalingrad on the Volga clearly turned the tide of the Second World War.

Reasons (oil and symbolism)

The area between the Volga and Don rivers in the summer of 1942 became the target of the main attack of the Nazis. There were several different reasons for this.

1. By that time, the original plan for the war with the USSR had already been completely disrupted and was no longer suitable for action. It was necessary to change the “edge of attack”, choosing new promising strategic directions.
2. The generals offered the Fuhrer a new blow to Moscow, but he refused. One can understand him - hopes for a “blitzkrieg” were finally buried near Moscow. Hitler motivated his position by the “obviousness” of the Moscow direction.
3. The attack on Stalingrad also had real goals - the Volga and Don were convenient transport arteries, and through them there were routes to the oil of the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, as well as to the Urals, which Hitler considered as the main frontier of German aspirations in this war.
4. There were also symbolic goals. The Volga is one of the symbols of Russia. Stalingrad is a city (by the way, representatives of the anti-Hitler coalition stubbornly saw the word “steel” in this name, but not the name of the Soviet leader). The Nazis failed to strike at other symbols - Leningrad did not surrender, the enemy was driven away from Moscow, the Volga remained to solve ideological problems.

The Nazis had reason to expect success. In terms of the number of soldiers (about 300 thousand) before the start of the offensive, they were significantly inferior to the defenders, but they were 1.5-2 times superior to them in aviation, tanks and other equipment.

Stages of the battle

For the Red Army, the Battle of Stalingrad was divided into 2 main stages: defensive and offensive.

The first of them lasted from July 17 to November 18, 1942. During this period, battles took place on the distant and near approaches to Stalingrad, as well as in the city itself. It was virtually wiped off the face of the earth (first by bombing, then by street fighting), but never came completely under enemy rule.

The offensive period lasted from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943. The essence of the offensive actions was to create a huge “cauldron” for the German, Italian, Croatian, Slovak and Romanian units concentrated near Stalingrad, followed by their defeat by compressing the encirclement. The first stage (the actual creation of the “cauldron”) was called Operation Uranus. On November 23, the encirclement closed. But the surrounded group was too strong and it was impossible to defeat it immediately.

In December, Field Marshal Manstein attempted to break through the blockade ring near Kotelnikov and come to the aid of those surrounded, but his breakthrough was stopped. On January 10, 1943, the Red Army launched Operation Ring - the destruction of the encircled German group. On January 31, Hitler promoted von Paulus, the commander of the German formations at Stalingrad and who found himself in the “cauldron,” to field marshal. In his congratulatory letter, the Fuhrer transparently indicated that not a single German field marshal had ever surrendered. On February 2, von Paulus became the first, surrendering along with his entire army.

Results and significance (radical fracture)

The Battle of Stalingrad in Soviet historiography is called the “moment of a radical turning point” in the course of the war, and this is true. At the same time, the course of not only the Great Patriotic War, but also the Second World War was turned around. As a result of the battle, Germany

• lost 1.5 million people, more than 100 thousand only as prisoners;
• lost the trust of its allies (Italy, Romania, Slovakia thought about leaving the war and stopped sending conscripts to the front);
• suffered colossal material losses (on the scale of 2-6 months of production);
• lost hope of Japan's entry into the war in Siberia.

The USSR also suffered huge losses (up to 1.3 million people), but did not allow the enemy into strategically important areas of the country, destroyed a huge number of experienced soldiers, deprived the enemy of offensive potential and finally seized the strategic initiative from him.

Steel City

It turned out that all the symbolism in the battle went to the USSR. Destroyed Stalingrad became the most famous city in the world. The entire Anti-Hitler coalition was proud of the residents and defenders of the “steel city” and tried to help them. In the USSR, any schoolchild knew the names of the heroes of Stalingrad: sergeant Yakov Pavlov, signalman Matvey Putilov, nurse Marionella (Guli) Koroleva. The son of the leader of the Spanish Republic Dolores Ibarruri, Captain Ruben Ibarruri, and the legendary Tatar pilot Amet Khan Sultan received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for Stalingrad. Such outstanding Soviet military leaders as V.I. Chuikov, N.F. distinguished themselves in planning the battle. Vatutin, F.I. Tolbukhin. After Stalingrad, “parades of prisoners” became traditional.

And Field Marshal von Paulus then lived in the USSR for quite a long time, taught at higher military educational institutions and wrote memoirs. In them, he very highly appreciated the feat of those who defeated him at Stalingrad.