Battle of Stalingrad 1942-1943 - World War II DOCUMENTARY

Unlike the wars of previous eras modern wars are rarely decided with one battle and even when there is a battle that changed me fortunes of the belligerents it is often longer in duration and less decisive in its nature still the keen observer will find the key battles in any conflict and Stalingrad was one of those for the Second World War this battle raged on for six months and was one of the bloodiest in history after sweeping through Poland in a month through Norway in two months and through the Low Countries and France in six weeks continental Europe was in the confident grip of Nazi Germany this enabled Hitler to concentrate on the USSR in 1941 the offensive against the Soviet Union allowed Germany to capture Belarus Ukraine Baltic countries and other territories and besieged Moscow and Leningrad nevertheless Operation Barbarossa failed to defeat the Soviets in one single campaign despite heavy losses taken by the Red Army the main target of the German offensive in 1942 was Stalingrad and the oil reserves in the Caucasus Hitler believed that destroying the industrial capacity of Stalingrad capturing the main oil reserves of the Soviet Union and taking control of the Volga which had key importance for transportation within the country would prove to be a decisive blow against the Soviets also Stalingrad obviously carried a symbolic importance for both sides by virtue of being named after Stalin this offensive was codenamed foul blue case blue the German army concentrated in eastern Ukraine was divided into two Army Group a under command of Vilhelm list with the 17th army and the 1st Panzer Army was ordered to march southwards towards the oil fields of the Caucasus army Group B consisting of the 6th German Army and 4th Panzer army two Romanian armies one Italian and one Hungarian army was to secure control of the Volga and Stalingrad it was commanded by field marshal Feder van Bob on the Soviet side marshal yeremenko was appointed as commander of the South Eastern Front and was ordered to plan the defense of Stalingrad together with commissar Khrushchev the 62nd army was created for the purpose of defending Stalingrad under the command of loot general Vasily Chuikov operation foul Blau was planned for late May 1942 but was delayed due to the second battle of Kharkov and the siege of Sevastopol ultimately the Germans succeeded but lost time and were only able to start the operation in late June by August 20th German armies crossed the river Don and were at the doorstep of Stalingrad before the armies engaged in Stalingrad the Soviet leadership ordered a shipment of grain and cattle to be removed from the city but the civilian population of 400,000 was ordered to stay put initially the Axis forces had two hundred and seventy thousand troops 500 tanks 600 aircraft and 3,000 artillery pieces against 190 thousand troops 400 tanks 300 aircraft and 2,200 artillery pieces commanded by the Soviets in Stalingrad the Battle of Stalingrad started with heavy bombing of the city by the most powerful air formation of the time Luftwaffe for the air raid by the Germans on August 23rd led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians the destruction of all wooden construction in the city and a firestorm early on the Luftwaffe gained complete control over the air round Stalingrad with the Soviets losing 201 aircraft in a mere eight days despite the German advantage in the air and on the ground the Soviets were putting up inspired resistance with the female and underage population of bread building fortifications and trenches this resistance did not stop German Army Group B reaching the north and south of Stalingrad by early September a massive counter-offensive by the Soviet 24th and 66th armies against the 14th Panzer Corps was defeated with help from the Luftwaffe the Soviets lost 30 tanks in this failed offensive a similar fate awaited the September 18th counter-offensive with the Luftwaffe destroying more than 40 Soviet tanks by September 12th the Soviet forces fell back into the city and a fierce battle for each building and house started Stalin's order two to seven made an authorized retreat via course or military tribunal there was a not a step back attitude and thousands of deserters were being executed these were among the factors strengthening the Stalingrad defenders will to resist even more but historians argue that it would be wrong to explain the will to fight by coercion a large number of volunteers especially female volunteer fighters snipers and nurses is good evidence of that reinforcements were constantly arriving from the other side of the Volga strategic reserves from the Moscow area and aircraft from across the country were transferred to the Stalingrad area Stalingrad Steuben were fighting for each lost position in an attempt to regain it as soon as possible the Stalingrad railway station changing hands 14 times within six hours is a perfect example of this the skirmishes within the city are very hard to describe as they were extremely chaotic slow and indecisive the Germans first took control over the heights around the city called mamaev kurakin and lee sayanora remarkably three Soviet factories producing iron tractors and t-34 tanks continued their production long into the German offensive the fighting focused around these three objectives for months until the Germans mostly took control of them in late October and stopped them from producing goods the Soviets did their best to close in with the Germans in order to prevent the latter from using artillery another factor in the city battle was the use of snipers the Germans had more experienced snipers but the Soviets were learning on the go and one of the most famous Soviet snipers Vassili Zaitsev participated in the battle killing more than 200 enemies including ten snipers Zaitsev managed to train more than three dozen snipers while the battle was raging on this group constantly targeted German officers which became a major issue for the commander of the German safe Army Paulus by the end of October 1942 the German army was in control of 90% of Stalingrad and reached the bank of the volga the total air superiority of the Germans was one of the decisive factors in this initial success from the sixteenth to the 25th of September the Luftwaffe carried out up to 10,000 flying missions while the Soviet Air Force carried out slightly more than 11,000 between July 17th and November 19th the onset of winter and intense resistance by the Soviets halted further German advances one of the major weaknesses of the Germans was a very thin frontline in Stalingrad the flanks of which were protected by troops from German allies and satellites these men were less motivated lacked in arms and were less prepared than the Germans calls for reinforcements were ignored as a result in some areas stretches of 1 to 2 kilometers were protected by just 20 to 30 soldiers there was so much focus on Stalingrad that the Germans neglected the consolidation of positions behind it requests by powerless to fall back and consolidate positions behind the river dawn were rejected the symbolic importance of Stalingrad was too high for Hitler and a withdrawal would be a serious blow to Nazi propaganda by late autumn Soviet generals Zhukov and Vasilevsky concentrated almost 800,000 men in the Stalingrad area in preparation for a counter-offensive operation Uranus started on the 19th of November 1942 with an attack by three armies under the command of general Vatutin the operation aims to break through the thin German lines on two sides and later merged these forces to achieve the encirclement of the German troops the Soviet troops achieved this aim after four days on November 23rd the 6th German army comprising of 265 thousand personnel was encircled by the Soviets despite the desperate situation of the 6th army Army Group a continued its operations in the Caucasus until December 19th soon it was in retreat and in no position to help the sick farming Army Group dawn comprised of 22 divisions was formed under the command of Field Marshal man-style to help out the 6th army man Stein convinced Hitler to not order the 6th army to break out from encirclement assuring him that Army Group Dawn would be able to save them if the Luftwaffe succeeded in supplying the 6th army by air edit the luftwaffe guru believed that this would be possible this tactic proved to be disasterous since the Luftwaffe did not have the capacity to supply a huge army including the core of the 4th Panzer army which needed constant fuel for operation also the Soviet Army targeted the air bases closest to Stalingrad from which the supply flights were being made this decreased supplies for the encircled safe army even further the German offensive to save the 6th army from encirclement came as close as 48 kilometers from the thick farming but eventually failed as well also partly due to the inaction of the 6th army the situation was exacerbated by malnourishment among the German troops due to lack of supplies surrender was the only option for the sick farming but German High Command ordered them to resist as long as possible in an attempt to draw the attention of the Soviet armies to Stalingrad Hitler's last grasp attempt to prevent the surrender of the 6th army was made on the 30th of January 1943 when he promoted general powerless to the rank of Field Marshal in the hope that Paulus would not want to go down as the first surrendered Field Marshal in German military history but malnourishment lack of ammunition functional artillery and tanks led to the surrender of the 6th army On February 2nd 1943 Stalingrad was the first major defeat for Nancy Germany in Europe in the Second World War it forced the Nazi leadership to call the German public to so-called total war in which all the resources of the nation would be for ultimate military success this would all prove to be in vain as the Soviet forces were caning momentum on the Eastern Front and the British Army was defeating the Germans in North Africa and preparing for landings in Italy together with its allies thank you for watching our video on the Battle of Stalingrad we are planning to release more videos on modern history and to cover the battles of the world wars these videos are made possible by the patrons over on patreon and our YouTube sponsors the links for both are in the description along with the URL for our merchandise store we are grateful for all your support this is the kings and Generals Channel and we will catch you on the next one

Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 2,417,382

Keywords: battle of stalingrad, kings and generals, 1942 stalingrad, world war ii, stalingrad documentary, world war 2, world war two, full documentary, lesson, educational, history lesson, world history, extra credits history, war - topic, eastern front, ww2, documentary film, red army, history, historical, 6th army, soviet union, paulus, tactics, hitler, stalin, Zhukov, strategy, battle of kursk, modern warfare, allies, axis, animated documentary, world war ii (event), сталинградская битва

Id: Aupnv5n19K4

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Sun May 13 2018