‘Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved,
Now leaves him.
- Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the army was divided into three groups: North, Centre and South. The key objective of Army Group South was to capture the oil fields in the Caucasus, since oil supplies were the Achilles heel of the German war economy. This was the key action on the Eastern Front in 1942. The entire Army Group South might have gone to the Caucasus, but Hitler intervened, splitting it into two. The 17th Army and the 1st Panzer Army went south to the Caucasus, but the 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army moved east to the Volga and Stalingrad.
Why was Stalingrad important? The initial objectives were the destruction of the industrial capacity of the city and to secure the northern and western flanks of the German armies as they advanced on the Caucasus. Hitler ordered all male civilians in Stalingrad to be killed after capture of the city and all women and children to be deported.
The 6th Army had considerable initial success and by 23 August, it had reached the outskirts of Stalingrad. German bombing reduced much of the city to rubble. Stalin rushed all available troops to the area. Soviet air forces were completely overcome by their German counterparts. House by house and street by street fighting ensued. By the end of November, the German forces had captured 90% of the city.
However, total concentration on the city created weakness in the German flanks. This proved to be a fatal flaw. Soviet forces attacked to the north and south of the city on 19 November and had encircled the city four days later. The 6th Army was ordered not to break out, in the belief that the encirclement could be broken by a German relief force, and that the German Air Force could supply the 6th Army. It was soon realised that the German Air Force had nowhere near the capacity to deliver requisite supplies. Moreover, the relieving ground forces, though they reached within 50 kilometres of Stalingrad, bogged down and had to go on the defensive against Soviet troops.
The 6th Army slowly starved and started to run out of ammunition. Its fighting capacity was degraded, and street to street fighting resumed. This time the Germans were beaten back and on 2 February 1943, the remnants of the 6th Army surrendered, despite Hitler’s insistence that the Army fight to the last man. Pockets of fighting continued for another month and then ceased. Germany lost 200 000 men, compared with 50 000 men at El Alamein in North Africa in November 1942. It never recovered on the Eastern Front.
The war had turned defensive for Germany, and the loss of German morale was very great. With good reason: the war in Europe was over in little more than two years.
What are the lessons of this story?
Charles Simkins
Senior Researcher
charles@hsf.org.za