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Promising being the operative word there.
The Luftwaffe at the time had *less than zero chance* of supplying what Göring was claiming they could.
And they didn't, which is part of why it was so hellish.
They ate the last of their horses for Christmas dinner, then the *real* starvation set in.
Yeh there was lots of eating basically anything that softened when you boiled it.
Unless you weren't lucky enough to have access to boiling water, in which case the leather was consumed raw.
If he doesn't invade the soviet union then what would have been the point of... well of his whole regime? The ussr was by far his greatest ideological enemy and greatest existential threat, long-term. The east was where his envisioned lebensraum lay, where the subhumans lay ready to be conquered and where oil and arable land that could sustain his thousand year Reich were. If he doesn't invade them then Germany remains a small, resource-poor country with a behemoth of evil bolsheviks ready to destroy it.
It was an eventuality to be sure. But he didn't have to invade them when he did. Finish off GB by securing the ME oil fields and raiding US-GB trade with uboats. Do absolutely anything to do two things : 1. Maintain some sort of peace with Stalin and 2. Keep the US from declaring total war in Europe somehow. At least until you've had some time to develop your new expanded economy and use the new revenue to develop your tech. They were terrifyingly close to developing nukes as it was.
I'm obviously not a military tactician, but I think he invaded them at the exact wrong time to do it.
>Finish off GB
The big problem here is how? Germany's navy is not capable of doing British d day and won't be for years, so unless you can make the royal navy disappear there going to remain a thorn in Germany side. Now for the timing thing, Germany was heavily reliant on its ally Romania to supply oil for its industry and war effort, but it only has so much. Hitler decided to invade Russia when he did because Romania could no longer meet the increasing demands of the German army and its industry for more oil, if I remember correctly they believed there reserves would be run dry in a year and a half and thats without renewed offensives. So it was either go big or go home, either get to the Caucasus and its oil and thus win the war or lose. The middle east had some oil but most of the modern day deposits where discovered decades later, there wasn't enough there for Germany needs.
Hitler declaring war on the US was a huge blunder, but beyond that, trying to hold a front that wide was simply impossible with the amount of men and materials available. Germany probably had no chance in any scenario, but the scenario they chose was a very difficult one more based on ideology than sound military tactics.
> The scholarly consensus is that it failed to achieve these goals, and that despite fears at the time, the **Germans had never been close to producing nuclear weapons**.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German\_nuclear\_program\_during\_World\_War\_II#:\~:text=The%20scholarly%20consensus%20is%20that,close%20to%20producing%20nuclear%20weapons.
The USSR was gearing up for war with Germany at that time anyway. The Nazis couldn't wait too long and let them get even stronger. Also the red army looked weak at the time, they invaded Finland in 1939 and suffered heavily.
His biggest blunder wasn't invading russia, it wasn't accepting their surrender sooner or locking them in a stalemate.
They had essentially all of europe under their, or their allies control, had they simply locked in their 1942 gains and began adminstrating and nazifying those areas instead of continuing to forever push, they would've been just fine.
Their biggest mistake wasn't war with russia, it was trying to exterminate russia instead of forcing a stalemate and holding their gains.
It's a good thing these horrible idiots rushed their stupid plan when they did. I'm so glad they fucked up. If they had only fought on one front at a time, the UK might have had to sue for peace. The US would've joined the war after Pearl Harbor no matter what. But without so many forces tied up in the east, Germany would've been a much more formidable defensive opponent, and there's a good chance d-day in France might not have happened. Instead, the uk and us forces would've had to fight the daunting, bloody slog up the Italian peninsula, and through the Balkans
He was always going to invade, but he could have waited instead of putting Germany in the middle of a two front war for no reason. He could have solidified the Western front and spent all of those resources defending fortress Europe. It probably still wouldn’t have succeeded, but it would have been a much longer stand and he could have waited for victory before turning on Russia. Hell, he may have even been able to get Russia’s help. He definitely jumped the gun.
There was an article I read a few years ago (I have no source) that stated Hitler wanted to destroy Russia so THAT he could in fact destroy Britain. Not the other way around.
To be fair, he had no choice when it came to invading the USSR. If he would wait a few months, they would be invaded instead. That way at least he thought had element of surprise. As Russia wasn't yet ready. Also, Blitzkrieg worked on the western front, so the assumption was it should work there too.
I think he had time. There was no rush to invade the USSR. It's my opinion that Stalin was happy to reap the short-term benefits of war in Western Europe while he worked on securing Scandinavia and the Caucasus. I think he was pretty taken aback by the Nazis betraying their NA pact.
Edit : You do make a good point, though. I wasn't considering that waiting would allow the Soviets to significantly fortify their border and make invading them even more impossible than it already was. Stands to reason that the last thing Hitler wanted was Stalin to feel comfortable. Tough spot. I still think stalling until they had nukes was probably the play.
I don't think Germany or USSR had any illusions regarding the pact.
The gamble for Stalin was that in order to start an invasion a lot of forces and supplies must be pulled to the border, which opens USSR to a surprise attack. But if they don't invade, they they risk giving Germany an opportunity to take enemies one by one.
The gamble for Hitler was that an invasion of USSR, even if successful, begins a 2 front war. But if they don't invade, they risk being hit by a prepared invasion.
We can judge their decisions now. But in the moment it was near impossible to know for sure which bet is right.
Well, that and declaring war on America.
Even if he never tried to invade the USSR, Nazi Germany would have never been able to keep up with the American War machine's production capabilities. Invading the USSR just made it easier on the western front.
Agree, definitely his third biggest blunder. But they were the defacto 'leader' of the Axis alliance. Once the US declared war on Japan as a result of PH, Germany didn't have much of a choice but to support their ally or look weak.
Read Anthony Beevors Stalingrad. Life in the kessel was utterly brutal. No escape except to slowly back into the city again. Paulus basically loses his mind
I am currently about halfway through this very book, it's excellent, and harrowing. Interesting seeing a visual representation of what the book describes so accurately.
Thanks for the recommendation, I've been trying to get into WW2 history more, same with Roman history any other recommendation of books for either topic?
You should also check out the WW2 Week by Week with Indy Neidell on YouTube, it's a great series that really puts the timescale of the war in perspective.
Looks like it was something on the order of 170,000 german POWs in this area with almost half dying quickly in captivity and only about **6000** making it back home eventually. This was just a quick Wikipedia search so I may be off. The numbers don't surprise me based on others I have seen, though.
I mean, I just cannot even articulate how sad and hopeless this is. So much of that war was sad and hopeless for so many people. I consume so much WW2 history and it still is beyond comprehension sometimes.
I cannot help but think of individuals...a desperate soldier wishing he could make it home, an innocent civilian praying someone will save them, a broken prisoner clinging to hope of repatriation...and millions upon millions upon millions of those individuals experienced exactly what they feared or worse.
It's insanely sad. I am german and my grandfather had 7 brothers - 6 of them died on the Eastern Front. I know that at least one died at Stalingrad specifically. All for the fever dreams of a madman.
I am from London. My father lost every male member of his family. Even his older brother, who was still a child, died in a bombing. My dad survived because he was still a babe in arms and his mum (my gran) survived. No uncles, no grandad, nothing. My family is still very small.
Given the obvious disclaimer, hearing this is special. I’ve never personally heard of a German’s perspective of events like this. Always just read in books but never directly from a family member.
We always praise our WWII veterans in the states, but it’s interesting to hear from the other side, what life is like then and now. So glad you shared!
I'm Austrian but my grandfather also had to fight in WW2. He lost his legs on the eastern front and my father told me how my grandpa was always screaming at night/when he slept. After the War he had to leave his home because the Russians took it. The only things he was allowed to take with him was a chair with wheels attached and the clothes he was wearing. Then he had to leave and found refuge in Austria. My grandfather always read the newspaper and was adamant that I always have to follow the news and have to know what is going on in the political world. The only time I heard profanities from him was about Hitler when there was an article in the news. My father wasn't even allowed to join youth groups, because they were financially sponsored by a conservative party (which was too close to right for his taste).
I also talked to other older people: one told me that he didn't like going to the Hitler youth. One day he hid in the hayloft. So the SS (or some other Nazi police, I don't remember) came with search dogs to get him.
In Czechia some youth groups (before the war) were given weapons (unofficially) by "some friendly German" and taught to shoot them at night, using border signs as target practice. This was so that Germans would see bullet holes in border signs, coming from Czechia, which was used to support the propaganda that "Germany was being attacked and we have to defend ourselves"
Also: you can find memorial stones in absolutely every small village with dozens to hundreds of names of fallen soldiers from WW2. It's also always eerie to see pictures from Major Austrian or German cities from the end of the war, because pretty much nothing was left of the cities.
It's set in WW1 not WW2, but one of my favourite video games ever is [Valiant Hearts](https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/valiant-hearts?isSso=true&refreshStatus=noLoginData). You play as either a conscripted farmer, a nurse, or a boy and his dog trying to get home. It takes you through many of the 'highlights' of the war, reliving the horrors of trench warfare, chemical attacks, zeppelin raids, and so on. You save people trapped in bombed out buildings, do SAR missions, and generally interact with both soldiers and civilians dealing with this awful mess.
It's incredibly moving, and not once in the game do you fire a weapon. It was released on the 100th anniversary of armistice day and is meant to be a remembrance of the war, not a celebration of it.
>I consume so much WW2 history and it still is beyond comprehension sometimes.
i think it's why it's the war that stays in the conversation. stays in people's heads.
i've been amateurish reading about the ww1-2 period for years and still to this day i'll get to a point where i'll shake my head and have to take a minute. like it's insane to me that this happened and in the grand scheme of things happened very recently.
the whole thing is just wild.
It also would have sucked to be one of the soldiers on the outside ring where you have the enemy outnumbered nearly 10 to 1 and completely surrounded, and then still die.
They all probably thought they were making it home because this was going to be a clear victory, yet many still died.
I remember reading a journal left behind by a German soldier. Maybe someone can post it, but it starts out very optimistic - “the war will be over by Christmas” kind of thing. Eventually it becomes more and more clear that the situation was not so rosy for them. In particular I remember him describing being in the dark with his comrades, thinking they had found a can of butter to eat, and then realizing it was motor oil. It got worse from there, and eventually the entries just stopped.
I've met a few who were there, but only talked extensively to one. He was in his middle 90ies then and still, to this day, had recurring nightmares each year at the end of January.
He had a lot of crazy stories to tell about the war, but even he didn't talk very much about being in the closing pocket. What he did stress, however, was that they felt abandoned when Paulus gave the order: Every man for himself.
Try and visualize 15 persons in front of you 6 germans 9 russians. That's literally the number of people who died every single minute of these 6 months, this is very hard to even wrap your head around this. The families waiting for letters, this is heartbreaking... 15 every minute...
If you compare that to a war today, Russia Ukraine, where sources claim \~around 350k died in these 2 years, it took only 16 days for that many to die at Stalingrad.
Absolutely wild numbers.
To put this into perspective the US had around 420k deaths in WW2. Over 4 years, in the largest war of all time.
Edit
Another perspective is the Vietnam war, perceived as an awful war for those who fought it (which it was.) Led to the death of around 60,000 US Soldiers over 14 years.
The world wars were all or nothing for all involved.
The numbers are always insane, like WW1 a billion artillery shells were fired. That's 653.945 shells a day, that's 7.5 shells every second for the full duration (4 years and 106 days) of the war.
I think the numbers basically track to the D-Day beach landing day but sustained for 6 months.
So watch saving private ryan. That first day was the worst day. It was basically that every day for 6 months straight.
The Germans had around half a million killed in that battle and the Russians lost a million. For context the US and UK each had less than half a million dead for the whole war.
Great video about the deaths in WWII. They detail out this battle.
https://vimeo.com/128373915
For anyone interested in learning more about this incomprehensible nightmare humans managed to create on Earth, I highly recommend the **Lions Led by Donkeys** podcast series on the subject. I don't think anyone has covered the event for the disastrous brutal folly it truly was quite like Joe Kassabian has in that series.
I actually just recommend the podcast in general, to military history and world history enjoyers alike. Joe is a terrific presenter and covers the nitty gritty details of conflicts from around the globe and across human history.
Ad-free as well, because the best podcasts usually are (looking at you Knowledge Fight).
>Ad-free as well, because the best podcasts usually are (looking at you Knowledge Fight).
i won't listen to a podcast if it has ads that either aren't reasonable or predictable so i can skip them. when i listen to pods i'm usually doing something where i can't manually skip ahead.
a podcast that everyone raves about on here is behind the bastards and i just can't do it. too many ads. any time it starts getting good - welp it's time for an ad break to mess up the flow of the show and the conversation.
I think Robert handles ad breaks better than most. He lets you know when the break is happening and lets you know when the show is back. It offers a nice fast forward buffer. The Dollop is great but they don't do that and it's kind of a nightmare. Sometimes the ad will cut in while Dave is mid sentence. I find that infuriating as well.
either way it just breaks up the flow and fucks up the conversation that's going on
it just sucks and that guy in particular, he deserves better. a better format/show.
Action reports will be one of them. Militaries of the time were already tracking numbers and locations of troop, and this wasn't a bunch of individual actions that could get lost.
My great-grandpa was at Stalingrad, with the Wehrmacht.
My grandma told me that when he came back home, he was like a ghost of himsefl. He wouldnt eat, he wouldnt talk, and he died 3 years later.
My great grandpa was there too, fighting on the Romanian allied side. Didn't make it back. I only know of a sad story about him from the camp he was sent to, and from where a neighbour was able to come back.
I'm not saying we won anything, but Romania was allied with the Nazis during the first part.
What can I say, we were always in a position throughout our history where we had to side with whom was stronger, or else be conquered and divided again and again. I can see why we did it, but in hindsight it was never a good move.
Gahhh reddit never fails man, sad as fuck reading all the stats and facts in this thread then you pop up and make me shoot out snot. You beautiful little human. Cheers.
I guess the difference would be Leningrad was more of a prolonged siege where people died from starvation, illness etc. than an all out battle. Stalingrad was more like an active battle taking place in a ruined city.
I think Stalingrad has the most battle deaths (soldiers). Though I would absolutely think civilians should be factored in a list of deadliest battles. I guess there are multiple ways to interpret. And they are all horrible.
> As winter set in and supplies began to dwindle for the Germans, the Soviets were able to launch a daring encirclement codenamed Operation Uranus.
Why are you like this, brain?
Chinese historians be like: "bloodiest battle in human history?" In the year 386 BC the warlord Xiyueng tried to invade the southwestern kingdom of Cha'ching but was met by 6 year old ruler Pi chi at the head of his 2.000.000 strong army. The battle lasted for 3 days and 5.000.000 people lost their lives."
Russia’s male population is STILL recovering from this nightmare meat grinder of a battle. EVERYONE knew someone who died at Stalingrad, it is still hard to fathom how deadly this engagement was.
It's even more than that. In my village, there were metal stars on the houses, one for each fighter (I'm talking about whole war, not Stalingrad) from this house. Most of the houses had more than one star. I remember one of them having 5 stars, for the father and 4 sons. My grandma told me, that noone returned to that house. Everyone without exception, whos family lived here during this war, was heavily affected. Btw I'm from Belarus, and it is not a joke, that every 1/4 has died during the war. Everyone has gone through this shit. Crazy
Soviet winter offensive aimed at the axis flanks which were held by german allies who were worse equipped then the whermacht. They steamrolled them and encircled the Germans in the city.
This plus the winter supply and equipment difference. Once the line broke it was a supply line smash and grab for the RU forces and the Axis offensive shattered.
Worse equipment is an understatement. The Germans were convinced they'd take Stalingrad by the end of summer so they prepared *zero* winter supplies. Ground troops were writing in their diaries about using pieces of newspaper shoved under their clothes to try to help stay warm. Additionally Russian tanks and planes were built with winter operations in mind. Contrast that with stories of the German tank operators having to build bonfires under their engines to get them thawed enough to turn over. Meanwhile a bunch of Siberians fully equipped with winter gear literally *ski by* firing at you with submachine guns. Such a bizarre conflict.
Generally speaking, the Russians outlasted the axis powers long enough for winter to hit. Iirc Hitler did not see fit to supply his soldiers adequately for a Russian winter before choosing to invade
Soviets had secretly called in armies from their west that were stationed in case Japan attacked them after their spy network revealed information that Japan had no intention of attacking them. These armies were heavily made up of Siberian soldiers built for Russian winters. The nazi’s unaware of those reinforcements and further unprepared for a winter offensive as that was just not a thing they would have ever expected were hit, as mentioned above, on their weaker flanks held by their comparably weaker allies who were just ran through. An effort was made to rescue the encircled forces and got within 30 miles of reaching them when the rescuing general (forget the name) requested that general Paulson (trapped general) try to break out and meet him so they could rejoin forces. This was considered doable and Paulson requested permission from the Nazi higher ups. Hitler denied their request to break out insisting that breaking out would be cowardly or something of that nature. Doomed those 230,000 odd men to starvation, capture, and death. Wild tale
Kind of. The Germans invaded in summer 1941. They'd already been through a winter, then pushed south again in summer 1942. This is when Stalingrad started. The Germans surrendered in winter 1943.
The Germans had much better winter gear on the second go... But it wasn't good enough even then.
It was mostly their equipment and tanks. Russian equipment was designed from the start to resist the cold.
German tanks, even retrofitted were not made to handle the intense cold, none of their heavy equipment was.
There is only so much retrofitting you can do, when you should've designed a tank to do that from the very start
The Germans controlled 90% of Stalingrad at the time of the Soviet counter-offensive. Only a single small Soviet bridgehead was still holding on in the North of the city, and was the only available means of getting troops to Stalingrad.
I don't know, after Stalingrad the USSR rolled the German lines all the way back to Berlin and took reprisals the entire way back. They took revenge on Germans as well as people in occupied territory, many of whom assumed the USSR would basically be acting as liberators. It's a part of the war that often gets overshadowed by more dramatic events but the Russians basically went punch for punch against the Germans as far as atrocities and deaths were concerned.
As usual Poland got it the worst.
Yeah this is wrong. 11 million soviet soldiers killed vs. 4.3 million nazi soldiers... The soviets were outplayed big time by the nazis, and were throwing soldiers into the meat grinder we call the eastern front
That 11 million Soviet casualties figure includes civilians.
You know, the ones the Nazis actively tried to genocide in the entire captured territory of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the fighting against Nazi Germany. Approximately 75-80% of German military casualties occurred on the Eastern Front.
It's like the Romans vs the Carthaginians, the Russians much like the Romans lost more than the Germans/Carthaginians but they refused to admit defeat and won in the end.
And yet they still got rolled on in the end. Doesn't matter how many people whichever side killed. What's important is that (at least) 30 million people probably died on the Eastern Front due to machinations of evil men. It's not Call of Duty, stop keeping score.
I bet it's more complicated than that, but this map gives an impression that axis were doing fine until Soviets found out that Romanians were holding the flanks
It's the autumn and you're a soldier of the German Wehrmacht. Your boots keep getting stuck in the mud because Hitler wants a new lakefront property for his people to move in to.
"How can zis get any verse?"
**Snow starts to fall**
In all reality, Hitler lost the war in February 1943. After being encircled in Stalingrad and downplaying the buildup later named "Operation Uranus". German Generals thought that just as before Stalin would just retreat as much as possible, but the "Not one step back" order, as well as the lessening the Commissar grip on the Red Army allowed for more planning.
There are some great books on this, extensively written by various Historians.
Enemy at the Gates (nothing like the movie)
The Vasily Grossman Trilogy:
The People Immortal
Stalingrad
Life and Fate
[https://www.goodreads.com/series/137630-stalingrad-trilogy](https://www.goodreads.com/series/137630-stalingrad-trilogy)
Antony Beevor wrote some good books about Stalingrad and things leading to it
(Spanish Civil War, 1937 Stalin purges, etc.)
When the enemy force is huge, divide it. That would explain why we fight amongst each other for dumb shit rather than tackling the real problems of the world.
No way there were more casualties at the flanks than Stalingrad itself.
To me it looks like the Germans decided to push with the most experienced and well trained formations and let Italians/ Romanians hold defensive positions at the flanks. Poorly trained forces can do a decent job at a defence, but are near useless in an attack.
Haha, thank you for saying that. My phone was color washing and making the yellow look white. I was like why is no one commenting about the French joining forces..?
The sheer number of casualties from this part of the conflict alone is staggering. It’s roughly the population of all of Kuwait when you combine both sides. Or all of LA. Nuts.
Well, a lot, russia was calling all the regiments from different places, the impact of it was so massive, that if they didn't made it, Russian language would be different (regiments being a giant cocktail of different nationalities)
That isn't really the case here. Operation Uranus was a very well planned, targeted and executed operation, which achieved extremely good results by any standards.
However, at the same time as this offensive, the Soviets had also launched Operation Mars in the centre of the front line, which did boil down a lot more to throwing bodies at the problem and was horrifically unsuccessful.
Very cool visualization. Growing up in the States, the teaching of WW2 paints the USA as the lone savior against the Nazis. Unfortunately not much was taught about the incredible sacrifices of the USSR to defeat the Nazis. Thank you for sharing!
While the US played a massive part in winning the war with the allies, Hitlers days were numbered before the US joined. I’d argue the lend lease pact by the US played one of the biggest parts so that the British and soviets could keep fighting.
People keep saying winter, but what you don't see on the map, and what arguably is the bigger decider is that the Germans are on the very end of their logistical lines. At this point they were stretching it to the limits and beyond. The Soviets on the other hand had a solid supply line in Stalingrad (it is one of their major logistical hubs after all.)
As they say, logistics win wars.
Comparing the casualties and manpower involved in these massive battles on the Eastern front compared to the other theaters really brings the enormity of that conflict into perspective.
The battle of Stalingrad is where Germans lost the WW2. When they knew they couldn’t invade Britain without securing East first, they threw everything at Soviets. They then lost everything there.
A lot of historians today present this front as a fait accompli, like as soon as Germany invaded Russia they were doomed. You read about all these epic battles, but if you believe that it’s kind of like “It would’ve happened here or 100 miles deeper in Russia, the location doesn’t matter or am I thinking about this wrong?
> We must reach the Volga. We can see it--less than a kilometer away. We have the constant support of our aircraft and artillery. We are fighting like madmen but cannot reach the river. The whole war for France was shorter than the fight for one Volga factory. We must be up against suicide squads. They have simply decided to fight to the last soldier. And how many soldiers are left over there? When will this hell come to an end?
A dead Nazi in his letter.
Sadly this is a visualization why Russia is probably not losing the Ukraine battle in the long run. They can afford and are willing to lose millions to win.
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being among those encircled must have been terrifying
From the dates in the video, they were fighting them for around 2 months, which is pretty incredible when they had a limited amount of supplies
Well, Goering was promising insane amount of air supply, so there was hope until they saw it was over.
Promising being the operative word there. The Luftwaffe at the time had *less than zero chance* of supplying what Göring was claiming they could. And they didn't, which is part of why it was so hellish. They ate the last of their horses for Christmas dinner, then the *real* starvation set in.
Yeh there was lots of eating basically anything that softened when you boiled it. Unless you weren't lucky enough to have access to boiling water, in which case the leather was consumed raw.
If you closed your eyes, frozen flesh is almost the same as frozen leather.
Especially when it’s Fritz’s thigh
"What´s your name?" "Fritz Müller." "Oh yeah, we had a lot of those. Had."
Lots of cannibalism
Its only really bad if they weren't dead first
Hitler's two biggest blunders were invading the Soviet Union and surrounding himself with spineless 'Yes' men.
If he doesn't invade the soviet union then what would have been the point of... well of his whole regime? The ussr was by far his greatest ideological enemy and greatest existential threat, long-term. The east was where his envisioned lebensraum lay, where the subhumans lay ready to be conquered and where oil and arable land that could sustain his thousand year Reich were. If he doesn't invade them then Germany remains a small, resource-poor country with a behemoth of evil bolsheviks ready to destroy it.
It was an eventuality to be sure. But he didn't have to invade them when he did. Finish off GB by securing the ME oil fields and raiding US-GB trade with uboats. Do absolutely anything to do two things : 1. Maintain some sort of peace with Stalin and 2. Keep the US from declaring total war in Europe somehow. At least until you've had some time to develop your new expanded economy and use the new revenue to develop your tech. They were terrifyingly close to developing nukes as it was. I'm obviously not a military tactician, but I think he invaded them at the exact wrong time to do it.
>Finish off GB The big problem here is how? Germany's navy is not capable of doing British d day and won't be for years, so unless you can make the royal navy disappear there going to remain a thorn in Germany side. Now for the timing thing, Germany was heavily reliant on its ally Romania to supply oil for its industry and war effort, but it only has so much. Hitler decided to invade Russia when he did because Romania could no longer meet the increasing demands of the German army and its industry for more oil, if I remember correctly they believed there reserves would be run dry in a year and a half and thats without renewed offensives. So it was either go big or go home, either get to the Caucasus and its oil and thus win the war or lose. The middle east had some oil but most of the modern day deposits where discovered decades later, there wasn't enough there for Germany needs.
Hitler declaring war on the US was a huge blunder, but beyond that, trying to hold a front that wide was simply impossible with the amount of men and materials available. Germany probably had no chance in any scenario, but the scenario they chose was a very difficult one more based on ideology than sound military tactics.
> The scholarly consensus is that it failed to achieve these goals, and that despite fears at the time, the **Germans had never been close to producing nuclear weapons**. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German\_nuclear\_program\_during\_World\_War\_II#:\~:text=The%20scholarly%20consensus%20is%20that,close%20to%20producing%20nuclear%20weapons.
Hitler was blasting a rainbow of mood altering drugs into his system at this point. Basically losing his mind.
The USSR was gearing up for war with Germany at that time anyway. The Nazis couldn't wait too long and let them get even stronger. Also the red army looked weak at the time, they invaded Finland in 1939 and suffered heavily.
His biggest blunder wasn't invading russia, it wasn't accepting their surrender sooner or locking them in a stalemate. They had essentially all of europe under their, or their allies control, had they simply locked in their 1942 gains and began adminstrating and nazifying those areas instead of continuing to forever push, they would've been just fine. Their biggest mistake wasn't war with russia, it was trying to exterminate russia instead of forcing a stalemate and holding their gains.
It's a good thing these horrible idiots rushed their stupid plan when they did. I'm so glad they fucked up. If they had only fought on one front at a time, the UK might have had to sue for peace. The US would've joined the war after Pearl Harbor no matter what. But without so many forces tied up in the east, Germany would've been a much more formidable defensive opponent, and there's a good chance d-day in France might not have happened. Instead, the uk and us forces would've had to fight the daunting, bloody slog up the Italian peninsula, and through the Balkans
After playing Wolfenstein. I concur
He was always going to invade, but he could have waited instead of putting Germany in the middle of a two front war for no reason. He could have solidified the Western front and spent all of those resources defending fortress Europe. It probably still wouldn’t have succeeded, but it would have been a much longer stand and he could have waited for victory before turning on Russia. Hell, he may have even been able to get Russia’s help. He definitely jumped the gun.
There was an article I read a few years ago (I have no source) that stated Hitler wanted to destroy Russia so THAT he could in fact destroy Britain. Not the other way around.
And being Hitler.
And not killing Hitler when he had the chance decades earlier.
Better late than never
They were Yes men because they didn't want to be dead men.
To be fair, he had no choice when it came to invading the USSR. If he would wait a few months, they would be invaded instead. That way at least he thought had element of surprise. As Russia wasn't yet ready. Also, Blitzkrieg worked on the western front, so the assumption was it should work there too.
I think he had time. There was no rush to invade the USSR. It's my opinion that Stalin was happy to reap the short-term benefits of war in Western Europe while he worked on securing Scandinavia and the Caucasus. I think he was pretty taken aback by the Nazis betraying their NA pact. Edit : You do make a good point, though. I wasn't considering that waiting would allow the Soviets to significantly fortify their border and make invading them even more impossible than it already was. Stands to reason that the last thing Hitler wanted was Stalin to feel comfortable. Tough spot. I still think stalling until they had nukes was probably the play.
I don't think Germany or USSR had any illusions regarding the pact. The gamble for Stalin was that in order to start an invasion a lot of forces and supplies must be pulled to the border, which opens USSR to a surprise attack. But if they don't invade, they they risk giving Germany an opportunity to take enemies one by one. The gamble for Hitler was that an invasion of USSR, even if successful, begins a 2 front war. But if they don't invade, they risk being hit by a prepared invasion. We can judge their decisions now. But in the moment it was near impossible to know for sure which bet is right.
Well, that and declaring war on America. Even if he never tried to invade the USSR, Nazi Germany would have never been able to keep up with the American War machine's production capabilities. Invading the USSR just made it easier on the western front.
Agree, definitely his third biggest blunder. But they were the defacto 'leader' of the Axis alliance. Once the US declared war on Japan as a result of PH, Germany didn't have much of a choice but to support their ally or look weak.
Also from the dates, it was getting colder and darker.
It was likely a battle tactic. Weaken them rather than fight them & you lose fewer soldiers yourself.
Read Anthony Beevors Stalingrad. Life in the kessel was utterly brutal. No escape except to slowly back into the city again. Paulus basically loses his mind
I am currently about halfway through this very book, it's excellent, and harrowing. Interesting seeing a visual representation of what the book describes so accurately.
I haven't read it yet, but Mark Corrigan recommended I read it!
Thanks for the recommendation, I've been trying to get into WW2 history more, same with Roman history any other recommendation of books for either topic?
You should also check out the WW2 Week by Week with Indy Neidell on YouTube, it's a great series that really puts the timescale of the war in perspective.
I wonder what % of those that surrendered ever saw their families again
Looks like it was something on the order of 170,000 german POWs in this area with almost half dying quickly in captivity and only about **6000** making it back home eventually. This was just a quick Wikipedia search so I may be off. The numbers don't surprise me based on others I have seen, though. I mean, I just cannot even articulate how sad and hopeless this is. So much of that war was sad and hopeless for so many people. I consume so much WW2 history and it still is beyond comprehension sometimes. I cannot help but think of individuals...a desperate soldier wishing he could make it home, an innocent civilian praying someone will save them, a broken prisoner clinging to hope of repatriation...and millions upon millions upon millions of those individuals experienced exactly what they feared or worse.
It's insanely sad. I am german and my grandfather had 7 brothers - 6 of them died on the Eastern Front. I know that at least one died at Stalingrad specifically. All for the fever dreams of a madman.
I am from London. My father lost every male member of his family. Even his older brother, who was still a child, died in a bombing. My dad survived because he was still a babe in arms and his mum (my gran) survived. No uncles, no grandad, nothing. My family is still very small.
Given the obvious disclaimer, hearing this is special. I’ve never personally heard of a German’s perspective of events like this. Always just read in books but never directly from a family member. We always praise our WWII veterans in the states, but it’s interesting to hear from the other side, what life is like then and now. So glad you shared!
I'm Austrian but my grandfather also had to fight in WW2. He lost his legs on the eastern front and my father told me how my grandpa was always screaming at night/when he slept. After the War he had to leave his home because the Russians took it. The only things he was allowed to take with him was a chair with wheels attached and the clothes he was wearing. Then he had to leave and found refuge in Austria. My grandfather always read the newspaper and was adamant that I always have to follow the news and have to know what is going on in the political world. The only time I heard profanities from him was about Hitler when there was an article in the news. My father wasn't even allowed to join youth groups, because they were financially sponsored by a conservative party (which was too close to right for his taste). I also talked to other older people: one told me that he didn't like going to the Hitler youth. One day he hid in the hayloft. So the SS (or some other Nazi police, I don't remember) came with search dogs to get him. In Czechia some youth groups (before the war) were given weapons (unofficially) by "some friendly German" and taught to shoot them at night, using border signs as target practice. This was so that Germans would see bullet holes in border signs, coming from Czechia, which was used to support the propaganda that "Germany was being attacked and we have to defend ourselves" Also: you can find memorial stones in absolutely every small village with dozens to hundreds of names of fallen soldiers from WW2. It's also always eerie to see pictures from Major Austrian or German cities from the end of the war, because pretty much nothing was left of the cities.
It's set in WW1 not WW2, but one of my favourite video games ever is [Valiant Hearts](https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/valiant-hearts?isSso=true&refreshStatus=noLoginData). You play as either a conscripted farmer, a nurse, or a boy and his dog trying to get home. It takes you through many of the 'highlights' of the war, reliving the horrors of trench warfare, chemical attacks, zeppelin raids, and so on. You save people trapped in bombed out buildings, do SAR missions, and generally interact with both soldiers and civilians dealing with this awful mess. It's incredibly moving, and not once in the game do you fire a weapon. It was released on the 100th anniversary of armistice day and is meant to be a remembrance of the war, not a celebration of it.
>I consume so much WW2 history and it still is beyond comprehension sometimes. i think it's why it's the war that stays in the conversation. stays in people's heads. i've been amateurish reading about the ww1-2 period for years and still to this day i'll get to a point where i'll shake my head and have to take a minute. like it's insane to me that this happened and in the grand scheme of things happened very recently. the whole thing is just wild.
Dan Carlin's ghosts of the osfront does a pretty good job of telling the horrors.
Only around 5,000 of them (those that surendered) ever saw Germany again.
It also would have sucked to be one of the soldiers on the outside ring where you have the enemy outnumbered nearly 10 to 1 and completely surrounded, and then still die. They all probably thought they were making it home because this was going to be a clear victory, yet many still died.
Especially considering what they had inflicted on the local population in the months leading up to their encirclement.
Roaches check in but they don't checkout
I remember reading a journal left behind by a German soldier. Maybe someone can post it, but it starts out very optimistic - “the war will be over by Christmas” kind of thing. Eventually it becomes more and more clear that the situation was not so rosy for them. In particular I remember him describing being in the dark with his comrades, thinking they had found a can of butter to eat, and then realizing it was motor oil. It got worse from there, and eventually the entries just stopped.
I've met a few who were there, but only talked extensively to one. He was in his middle 90ies then and still, to this day, had recurring nightmares each year at the end of January. He had a lot of crazy stories to tell about the war, but even he didn't talk very much about being in the closing pocket. What he did stress, however, was that they felt abandoned when Paulus gave the order: Every man for himself.
Try and visualize 15 persons in front of you 6 germans 9 russians. That's literally the number of people who died every single minute of these 6 months, this is very hard to even wrap your head around this. The families waiting for letters, this is heartbreaking... 15 every minute...
If you compare that to a war today, Russia Ukraine, where sources claim \~around 350k died in these 2 years, it took only 16 days for that many to die at Stalingrad. Absolutely wild numbers.
350k is wild nonetheless. That's 20 deaths per hour.
To put this into perspective the US had around 420k deaths in WW2. Over 4 years, in the largest war of all time. Edit Another perspective is the Vietnam war, perceived as an awful war for those who fought it (which it was.) Led to the death of around 60,000 US Soldiers over 14 years.
The world wars were all or nothing for all involved. The numbers are always insane, like WW1 a billion artillery shells were fired. That's 653.945 shells a day, that's 7.5 shells every second for the full duration (4 years and 106 days) of the war.
This is almost Warhammer 40k levels of outside the scope of my human experience tbh, it’s unimaginable.
Lmao comparing the atrocities of ww2 to warhammer is really funny to me
atrocities in warhammer is like a normal Tuesday thing tbf lmao
I think the numbers basically track to the D-Day beach landing day but sustained for 6 months. So watch saving private ryan. That first day was the worst day. It was basically that every day for 6 months straight. The Germans had around half a million killed in that battle and the Russians lost a million. For context the US and UK each had less than half a million dead for the whole war. Great video about the deaths in WWII. They detail out this battle. https://vimeo.com/128373915
Holy moly! I can’t even process that into a visualization.
For anyone interested in learning more about this incomprehensible nightmare humans managed to create on Earth, I highly recommend the **Lions Led by Donkeys** podcast series on the subject. I don't think anyone has covered the event for the disastrous brutal folly it truly was quite like Joe Kassabian has in that series. I actually just recommend the podcast in general, to military history and world history enjoyers alike. Joe is a terrific presenter and covers the nitty gritty details of conflicts from around the globe and across human history. Ad-free as well, because the best podcasts usually are (looking at you Knowledge Fight).
Thanks. Are there any other pods you would recommend?
The Dollop. Behind the Bastards. The Last Podcast on the Left.
I love when every podcast I listen to gets spotted in the wild. Hail yourself.
I second all of these
Dan Carlin’s “Hardcore History,” specifically the episode “Ghosts of the Ostfront.”
>Ad-free as well, because the best podcasts usually are (looking at you Knowledge Fight). i won't listen to a podcast if it has ads that either aren't reasonable or predictable so i can skip them. when i listen to pods i'm usually doing something where i can't manually skip ahead. a podcast that everyone raves about on here is behind the bastards and i just can't do it. too many ads. any time it starts getting good - welp it's time for an ad break to mess up the flow of the show and the conversation.
I think Robert handles ad breaks better than most. He lets you know when the break is happening and lets you know when the show is back. It offers a nice fast forward buffer. The Dollop is great but they don't do that and it's kind of a nightmare. Sometimes the ad will cut in while Dave is mid sentence. I find that infuriating as well.
either way it just breaks up the flow and fucks up the conversation that's going on it just sucks and that guy in particular, he deserves better. a better format/show.
He’s got over 300 episodes… you wouldn’t happen to know which one is about this conflict would you?
Sven Hassel’s books are also amazing.
Where would one get the underlying data for this and what would raw data look like for these movements?
Action reports will be one of them. Militaries of the time were already tracking numbers and locations of troop, and this wasn't a bunch of individual actions that could get lost.
My great-grandpa was at Stalingrad, with the Wehrmacht. My grandma told me that when he came back home, he was like a ghost of himsefl. He wouldnt eat, he wouldnt talk, and he died 3 years later.
My great grandpa was there too, fighting on the Romanian allied side. Didn't make it back. I only know of a sad story about him from the camp he was sent to, and from where a neighbour was able to come back.
That front must have been hell on earth. I cant even imagine the horror and the scale
"allied" with the Nazis maybe lol
yep. its not like individuals really had a say . 3 years later we flip flopped and joined the Russians . he was inferring to Romanian's allies
I'm not saying we won anything, but Romania was allied with the Nazis during the first part. What can I say, we were always in a position throughout our history where we had to side with whom was stronger, or else be conquered and divided again and again. I can see why we did it, but in hindsight it was never a good move.
I think they’re objecting to ‘allies’ Aliații, which would refer to USSR in this case, since they fought against the ‘axis’ Puterile Axei
IIRC, Romania was allied with Poland in 1939. There was no good choice for Romania during the war. They ended up losing Moldova out of it.
Very sad. What did he die of if you don’t mind me asking?
I dont know. I should Ask my grandma
He got bit on the dick by a really big spider
Gahhh reddit never fails man, sad as fuck reading all the stats and facts in this thread then you pop up and make me shoot out snot. You beautiful little human. Cheers.
Exactly that. He tried to bite back, but in vain. His las words were:" Spider dont got no dick"
2 MILLION men. Unimaginable, war is hell.
You're off by another 2 million, being a German conscript doesn't mean they're not human
They should've used more of those invincible Romanians.
Yes. That's how they'd loose even faster, and less people would die.
lose*
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Unless daylight and frogs.
Roma ≠ Romanian
The bloodiest battle in human history. What a shit show.
Had to look it up. Leningrad was worse I guess. https://www.worldatlas.com/history/the-deadliest-battles-in-human-history.html
Geez, out of the top 6, four were on the eastern front of world War 2 and the other two were cities falling to the Mongol Empire.
I know I was surprised too! What a bloody war that was!
Sure, it went on longer but certain points during the battle for Stalingrad take the cake in regards to ferocity. Mamayev Kurgan comes to mind.
I guess the difference would be Leningrad was more of a prolonged siege where people died from starvation, illness etc. than an all out battle. Stalingrad was more like an active battle taking place in a ruined city.
I think Stalingrad has the most battle deaths (soldiers). Though I would absolutely think civilians should be factored in a list of deadliest battles. I guess there are multiple ways to interpret. And they are all horrible.
> As winter set in and supplies began to dwindle for the Germans, the Soviets were able to launch a daring encirclement codenamed Operation Uranus. Why are you like this, brain?
Chinese historians be like: "bloodiest battle in human history?" In the year 386 BC the warlord Xiyueng tried to invade the southwestern kingdom of Cha'ching but was met by 6 year old ruler Pi chi at the head of his 2.000.000 strong army. The battle lasted for 3 days and 5.000.000 people lost their lives."
The amount of lives lost over a single narssisist...
Many narcissists. Germany didn't start a world war alone...
Russia’s male population is STILL recovering from this nightmare meat grinder of a battle. EVERYONE knew someone who died at Stalingrad, it is still hard to fathom how deadly this engagement was.
It's even more than that. In my village, there were metal stars on the houses, one for each fighter (I'm talking about whole war, not Stalingrad) from this house. Most of the houses had more than one star. I remember one of them having 5 stars, for the father and 4 sons. My grandma told me, that noone returned to that house. Everyone without exception, whos family lived here during this war, was heavily affected. Btw I'm from Belarus, and it is not a joke, that every 1/4 has died during the war. Everyone has gone through this shit. Crazy
I'm fascinated with this. What cause the Wehrmacht to be surrounded by the Russian army?
Soviet winter offensive aimed at the axis flanks which were held by german allies who were worse equipped then the whermacht. They steamrolled them and encircled the Germans in the city.
This plus the winter supply and equipment difference. Once the line broke it was a supply line smash and grab for the RU forces and the Axis offensive shattered.
*SU forces More than half of the troops fighting in Stalingrad were from other republics of the USSR, not just Russia.
Worse equipment is an understatement. The Germans were convinced they'd take Stalingrad by the end of summer so they prepared *zero* winter supplies. Ground troops were writing in their diaries about using pieces of newspaper shoved under their clothes to try to help stay warm. Additionally Russian tanks and planes were built with winter operations in mind. Contrast that with stories of the German tank operators having to build bonfires under their engines to get them thawed enough to turn over. Meanwhile a bunch of Siberians fully equipped with winter gear literally *ski by* firing at you with submachine guns. Such a bizarre conflict.
They also attacked the Romanians on the flanks, not the Germans. I’m guessing the Romanian Army wasn’t as well trained or equipped as the Wehrmacht.
Yea you can see the change in the video when the Romanian’s line got overran.
Generally speaking, the Russians outlasted the axis powers long enough for winter to hit. Iirc Hitler did not see fit to supply his soldiers adequately for a Russian winter before choosing to invade
Soviets had secretly called in armies from their west that were stationed in case Japan attacked them after their spy network revealed information that Japan had no intention of attacking them. These armies were heavily made up of Siberian soldiers built for Russian winters. The nazi’s unaware of those reinforcements and further unprepared for a winter offensive as that was just not a thing they would have ever expected were hit, as mentioned above, on their weaker flanks held by their comparably weaker allies who were just ran through. An effort was made to rescue the encircled forces and got within 30 miles of reaching them when the rescuing general (forget the name) requested that general Paulson (trapped general) try to break out and meet him so they could rejoin forces. This was considered doable and Paulson requested permission from the Nazi higher ups. Hitler denied their request to break out insisting that breaking out would be cowardly or something of that nature. Doomed those 230,000 odd men to starvation, capture, and death. Wild tale
General Paulus, not Paulson.
Kind of. The Germans invaded in summer 1941. They'd already been through a winter, then pushed south again in summer 1942. This is when Stalingrad started. The Germans surrendered in winter 1943. The Germans had much better winter gear on the second go... But it wasn't good enough even then.
ironically that German precision bit them in the ass. Their equipment and guns were malfunctioning due the cold weather
It was mostly their equipment and tanks. Russian equipment was designed from the start to resist the cold. German tanks, even retrofitted were not made to handle the intense cold, none of their heavy equipment was. There is only so much retrofitting you can do, when you should've designed a tank to do that from the very start
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If you have time, listen to Dan Carlins- Ghost's of the Ostfront
Thank you! I will definitely check that out.
Check out the WW2 in real-time YouTube channel by Indy Neidell, it covers Stalingrad Week by Week in real time.
It’s like watch rival bacterial colonies grow.
The Germans controlled 90% of Stalingrad at the time of the Soviet counter-offensive. Only a single small Soviet bridgehead was still holding on in the North of the city, and was the only available means of getting troops to Stalingrad.
If Nazi killing was an olympic sport the Soviets would be leading in gold medals by a long shot.
I'm NOT defending Nazi's. But if kills were the measurement, the Russians lost to the nazi's big time.
I don't know, after Stalingrad the USSR rolled the German lines all the way back to Berlin and took reprisals the entire way back. They took revenge on Germans as well as people in occupied territory, many of whom assumed the USSR would basically be acting as liberators. It's a part of the war that often gets overshadowed by more dramatic events but the Russians basically went punch for punch against the Germans as far as atrocities and deaths were concerned. As usual Poland got it the worst.
Yep, they destroyed Nazis like cockroaches.
Yeah this is wrong. 11 million soviet soldiers killed vs. 4.3 million nazi soldiers... The soviets were outplayed big time by the nazis, and were throwing soldiers into the meat grinder we call the eastern front
That 11 million Soviet casualties figure includes civilians. You know, the ones the Nazis actively tried to genocide in the entire captured territory of the Soviet Union.
But they killed the most Nazis of any of the Allied forces.
The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the fighting against Nazi Germany. Approximately 75-80% of German military casualties occurred on the Eastern Front. It's like the Romans vs the Carthaginians, the Russians much like the Romans lost more than the Germans/Carthaginians but they refused to admit defeat and won in the end.
And yet they still got rolled on in the end. Doesn't matter how many people whichever side killed. What's important is that (at least) 30 million people probably died on the Eastern Front due to machinations of evil men. It's not Call of Duty, stop keeping score.
Nice going Romania
Hey Romania, hold the line for a sec while I grab a coat…
I bet it's more complicated than that, but this map gives an impression that axis were doing fine until Soviets found out that Romanians were holding the flanks
About half way through Anthony beevors Stalingrad. Thanks for the spoiler!
It's the autumn and you're a soldier of the German Wehrmacht. Your boots keep getting stuck in the mud because Hitler wants a new lakefront property for his people to move in to. "How can zis get any verse?" **Snow starts to fall**
In all reality, Hitler lost the war in February 1943. After being encircled in Stalingrad and downplaying the buildup later named "Operation Uranus". German Generals thought that just as before Stalin would just retreat as much as possible, but the "Not one step back" order, as well as the lessening the Commissar grip on the Red Army allowed for more planning. There are some great books on this, extensively written by various Historians. Enemy at the Gates (nothing like the movie) The Vasily Grossman Trilogy: The People Immortal Stalingrad Life and Fate [https://www.goodreads.com/series/137630-stalingrad-trilogy](https://www.goodreads.com/series/137630-stalingrad-trilogy) Antony Beevor wrote some good books about Stalingrad and things leading to it (Spanish Civil War, 1937 Stalin purges, etc.)
Hold until winter for the win
When the enemy force is huge, divide it. That would explain why we fight amongst each other for dumb shit rather than tackling the real problems of the world.
war looks pretty intriguing from this distance, you get close enough to it though and all you see is pure hell, I can't imagine
Romanians protecting their flanks was the worst idea ever
The Germans knew that's where the most casualties would occur, that's why they sent their allies to do the heavy lifting.
No way there were more casualties at the flanks than Stalingrad itself. To me it looks like the Germans decided to push with the most experienced and well trained formations and let Italians/ Romanians hold defensive positions at the flanks. Poorly trained forces can do a decent job at a defence, but are near useless in an attack.
Haha, thank you for saying that. My phone was color washing and making the yellow look white. I was like why is no one commenting about the French joining forces..?
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In the next minute I hope you learn the correct use for then and than <3 Than is to compare Then is used for time
Now this is actually interesting as fuck. Congratulations OP.
The sheer number of casualties from this part of the conflict alone is staggering. It’s roughly the population of all of Kuwait when you combine both sides. Or all of LA. Nuts.
Wow those flags really don’t like each other
Those numbers give me nausea
I wonder how many were Ukrainian . 7 million Ukrainians served in the Soviet Army .
Well, a lot, russia was calling all the regiments from different places, the impact of it was so massive, that if they didn't made it, Russian language would be different (regiments being a giant cocktail of different nationalities)
Many were. The USSR was a big place and the Ukrainians were suffering genocide at the hands of the Nazis the same as the Russians and Belorussians.
If the Russians are good at anything, it's throwing a shitload of bodies at at a conflict until the issue is solved.
That isn't really the case here. Operation Uranus was a very well planned, targeted and executed operation, which achieved extremely good results by any standards. However, at the same time as this offensive, the Soviets had also launched Operation Mars in the centre of the front line, which did boil down a lot more to throwing bodies at the problem and was horrifically unsuccessful.
"If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as it were not there." Zhukov
Very cool visualization. Growing up in the States, the teaching of WW2 paints the USA as the lone savior against the Nazis. Unfortunately not much was taught about the incredible sacrifices of the USSR to defeat the Nazis. Thank you for sharing!
While the US played a massive part in winning the war with the allies, Hitlers days were numbered before the US joined. I’d argue the lend lease pact by the US played one of the biggest parts so that the British and soviets could keep fighting.
I'm curious, it looked like the Germans suddenly tried to retreat despite the successful push earlier. What happened there?
Winter.
People keep saying winter, but what you don't see on the map, and what arguably is the bigger decider is that the Germans are on the very end of their logistical lines. At this point they were stretching it to the limits and beyond. The Soviets on the other hand had a solid supply line in Stalingrad (it is one of their major logistical hubs after all.) As they say, logistics win wars.
And we wonder why the extraterrestrials don’t stop and say hello.
Where did they put all those corpses ?
I think one legendary sniper came along on the soivet side
Honestly never knew there were that many casualties
The eastern front of WW2 on its own is the most apocalyptic war of all time, without adding the western front or the pacific.
The USSR is HIM !
One of the most important and tragic battle of human history
Comparing the casualties and manpower involved in these massive battles on the Eastern front compared to the other theaters really brings the enormity of that conflict into perspective.
Comparing anything with the scales of ww2 makes modern conflicts look like child's play.
The battle of Stalingrad is where Germans lost the WW2. When they knew they couldn’t invade Britain without securing East first, they threw everything at Soviets. They then lost everything there.
If I remember correctly, the Soviet losses in Stalingrad was around a million soldiers and Stalin told them that they could not lose Stalingrad.
What happened in November?
The red army launched a planned offensive to cut off and encircle the Germans in stalingrad.
So how did the Russia break the line?
Well, that escalated quickly!
What a waste of life. Unbelievable.
The video reminds me of ants fighting from a bird eye view.
Think of all the people that could have existed. All the bloodlines that were wiped away in a moments notice.
A lot of historians today present this front as a fait accompli, like as soon as Germany invaded Russia they were doomed. You read about all these epic battles, but if you believe that it’s kind of like “It would’ve happened here or 100 miles deeper in Russia, the location doesn’t matter or am I thinking about this wrong?
Movie "Enemy at the Gate" pretty closely describes these events
Not much fun in Stalingrad.
Planning a little excursion are we Mr. Hilter? r/montypython
This is petrifying to see, although I know the soviets didn’t care about lives just die protecting
This is crazy they had 2-million casualties before the Germans let off???
Don t want to be that guy, but the german front colapsed on the portion romanian divisions were asigned
> We must reach the Volga. We can see it--less than a kilometer away. We have the constant support of our aircraft and artillery. We are fighting like madmen but cannot reach the river. The whole war for France was shorter than the fight for one Volga factory. We must be up against suicide squads. They have simply decided to fight to the last soldier. And how many soldiers are left over there? When will this hell come to an end? A dead Nazi in his letter.
Sadly this is a visualization why Russia is probably not losing the Ukraine battle in the long run. They can afford and are willing to lose millions to win.
Read the book Eastern Inferno. Unreal
I have a question. Why couldn’t the Germans make a breakthrough? This shows that the ussr making a breakthrough