Order 227 is actually about retreating without orders (and retreat orders did go out) and the death penalty was only for the officers of those units, and not every single soldier. Furthermore, even those caught retreating would usually get sent to penal battalions and into suicide missions, rather than outright executions, since the USSR could not simply throw away vital manpower.
>”...and into suicide missions,..” What incentive would soviet soldiers have to carry out a suicide mission when they know the alternative is getting executed by the USSR on the spot. What evidence is there to suggest this ?
@@xstriker69 1 Wanting to protect their families/country/whatever. Despite the myths, you would still be sent out armed and with orders. You could still do your part and for some people that can be motivating. 2 Ensuring the political safety of your family, since the families of those purged or executed would carry the stint for the rest of their lives, which would at least limit their mobility and access to jobs and that kind of stuff, and at worst could be also arrested for the crimes of the family member. Serving well, or until death, in a penal battalion, would rehabilitate you and your family 3. If you serve well and survive (a possibility, although probably unlikely), you get rehabilitated and reintegrate into the formal army, and later civilian life 4. While court-martialling people for disobeying orders in wartime was pretty commonplace in all armies, I would personally not disobey orders in a penal battalion.
I would argue that they werent suicide missions per say but that they were ordered to do the most dangerous jobs, clear mines etc. The soviet union was despite the myths in desperate need of man power and wouldnt send men to die unnecessarily.
I’d say one of the reasons that casualties were so high was because of the nature of the combat in Stalingrad. It was all fought room by room, house by house, so there was lots of extremely intense urban fighting in the city. The Russians and Germans would have been literally a stones throwaway from each other’s trenches and bunkers.
Yeah, there was also huge animosity and hatred towards eachother as literally both of the ideologies are eachothers nemesis. The germans hated the soviets and the soviets hated the germans. Chuikov also adopted the hugging tactic during the battle of stalingrad, which did certainly contribute to the high death tolls. What it meant was that he put his frontline soldiers as close as physically possible to the german frontline. The reasoning behind that was that the germans would have great difficulties in using their perfected art of combined arms warfare. You simply could not do air or artillery bombing in conjunction with an offensive due to the extreme risk of hitting your own soldiers. This completely messed up their tactical means of warfare. Stalingrad was fucking brutal to say the least... extreme close quarters, both armies being extremely starved, snipers and machine gun nests everywhere aswell as artillery and air bombings were scaringly frequent. It's probably the worst place in time and place to be in the history of humanity. People lost their humanity completely in that grotesque battle.
@@AtroFear I always thought that trench warfare of WWI was the most brutal in human history. I still cannot fathom how WWII resulted in twice the casualties as WWI, with the new tactics and mobile warfare I suppose. WWII must have been 5x more intense in some battles than I had previously assumed.
@@natedog1619 not necessarily intense, since trench warfare in WWI was, without a doubt, the most ruthless and cruel fighting humanity has ever see. Stalingrad though, was just the apocalypse, kinda like Verdun was in WWI. Very similar tbh.
If you haven’t already, watch TIKS series on the battle for Stalingrad, each episode he made is like 45mins- 1hour long and has over 10 episodes, it’s all on RUclips with academic references. Rip to those brave men who faught in Stalingrad from both sides, so sad to think about.
@@Боря-в7я The Germans were professional soldiers who followed orders from their political leader. Similar to Soviet under Stalin, many innocent Russians were killed by their own security forces, did that mean all those Soviet security personnel who followed Stalin's orders were all evil?
@@tonyvu2011 similar to Soviet under Stalin?! Yeah, very similar. But Soviet was not a fascist country. Soviet didn't consider jews or any nationality like no-human being. You can google "Untermensch". What it means. You can read what professional solders thought about russians at the start of the war. They've changed their minds, when started to loose. But that was by the price of millions innocent russian civilians. Ask germans if they proud that their grandfathers participated in Stalingrad or in the war.
Hardly any other choice, considering the Wehrmacht took no prisoners of war, soldier or civilian. At least the Red Arny left people alive, when they turned the tide.
@@stalinsaysgulagtime2350 Are you seriously making such a take? Gulags were forced labour camps. People survived them even after 10,15 years. Concetration camps had basically one purpose. Extermination. With no holds barred the people there were subjected to the worst things imaginable. Read about Mengele, if you want the specifics.
The Germans were probably wondering where all those tanks were coming from. At one point in the war, Hitler was informed that hundreds of Russian tanks had been destroyed and that the next day hundreds more appeared on the battlefield. He called them liars because to him that kind of constant and rapid replacement of tanks seemed impossible. In short, he underestimated the Russian industrial capabilities.
Irony: snow reflects so much light that such things as Snow Burn and blindness often occur. Snow blindness is why skiers usually wear dark goggles... not clear lenses.
When you fight inside a city, then your casualties go up tremendously. Remember, the Soviet Army lost as many soldiers as the Germans but the Soviets had a greater number of men and women that they could throw into the fight. In the final thrusts against the Germans, General Zhukov threw his main forces against the German flanks, and those flanks were defended by mostly Romanians, Italians and Spaniards who had little motivation to fight. As for fighting in a city, General Eisenhower refused to involve Allied troops in attacking Berlin giving that job to the Soviet Army, The Soviets lost over 100,000 soldiers in killed and wounded, something the Allies refused to pay that price in human lives. Remember, the Russians realized that this was a war of extermination. If they lost, the Russian people would either be exterminated or enslaved until they die from starvation, or being overworked. The Russians understood that and fought harder than any people did before.
Napolean was the one with a 600,000 man super army with Italians, spanish and Portuguese... he came out of russia with only 90,000 men. Napoleon and hitler both made the mistake of trying to invade a country where the weather can defeat you before there army.
They were sending tanks out right into combat without painting them. They kept building tanks until the Germans started jumping through the factory windows
@@jamesricker3997 It is unlikely that you will be told this in history lessons. The factories that built tanks in a short time were evacuated and rebuilt from scratch in a matter of days. It was civil heroism. In Stalingrad, Russian and German soldiers were often behind a thin wall from each other. There was hell going on. truth. But the Russians defended Pavlov's house alone longer than the whole of France. Do not anger the Russians, they are a good people, but if you do, run
Russians and the rest of Slavonic people's are descendants of Aryans that invaded India...was told that by Indians themselves...My first neighbour was Punjabi guy by the name Sorab (Plinius mentions them,Ptolomeius cartographer places them on the north between Black Sea and Caspian Sea)...In Vedas there is a mentioning of King Servants by the way that guy Sorab comes from Brahmanic caste...and Sorab is very old traditional name from where he comes from...Linguistically Vedas are closest to today's Slovene language out of all European languages and modern blood type analysis and science show that it is the true fact that protoSlavs or Soraboi(Serbs) or Scythian Farmers (Herodotus) are the Aryans who invaded India and who brought new civilisation wave...National Socialism falsificated not only Hebrew texts and tried to create Aryan Bible but also the history of the Aryans as well and all the rest just to justify push to the East...Little towns folk were not ready for great ideas steaming out from socially more progressive movements...Stalin was murderer but that whole nazi thing was built on false dogmas...
And so many people died fighting for the wrong concept build up on lies and quasi science..My mum lost all of her family and lost her father who was killed without of court hearing...murdered with his commarades by the victors...They are an army with no grave...Man who raised my mother and who taught me to walk,Croat man.was there and was wounded and he survived and was taken by plane back to Germany to hospital from were he escaped and became fugitive..deserter if you like..but he was demoralised...he somehow with help from other Croats made his way to Zagreb and was helped to regulate his status by some Croat official who helped him to join Croatian Home Guard...Somehow he survived the war but was in hiding till late 1948. only his mother knew the hiding place and was bringing a food to him...He was physically and psychologically very strong person,was still fighting for Axis till the end but that whole Russian experience was too much for him...He was americanophile and didn't like the Russians...He raised me but I had the other influences in life as well and live with the motto that only Truth liberates...The moment quasi science is used to create some new dogma,the moment they revise the history books in order to build up false alibis and excuses for their future actions that's the moment when warning red light should come on..If West intervened earlier on when Germany started to rearm again against the treaty the war would not happened..Few hundreds maybe a thousand would die in intervention but not a millions in the disaster we still remember as world war 2...
I lived in Stalingrad (now Volgograd) for about 6 months in 2015. The War Museum there is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. The monument of Мамая Курган (Mamaya Kurgan) is chillingly beautiful. I also met a veteran of the battle who told me a little about his time. According to him women and small children were allowed to evacuate (when there were boats to evacuate on) but the male population was forced to stay.
@@Puzzoozoo a replica of it sits in the war museum. There’s a bunch of cool stuff there, including a bronze map of the city. They project the battle lines with excerpts from the diaries of people who were there on the map it’s pretty cool.
One correction, a major reason for taking Stalingrad is that taking it was necessary to take the oil from the Caucasus Mountains. At this point Germany was very low on oil, and taking Stalingrad would have allowed German forces to cut off Red Army units in the Caucasuses and push in
Part of the reason the battle was so deadly is because the Germans bombed the city to smithereens, which meant there was rubble everywhere, which made it very difficult for the German troops to maneuver their tanks and troops. Furthermore, the Soviets then took advantage of this and utilized the rubble to build up lines of trenches that the Germans were forced to repeatedly go over top of. These trenches connected defensive nodes armed with machine guns, which the Soviets used to create interlocking fields of machine gun fire. The trenches also allowed for constant communication between the defensive nodes. In addition, the Soviets used the sewers to maneuver and have communication. In addition, General Chuikov who Stalin had sent in to take command, utilized a strategy which he called "Hug the Enemy," meaning you wanted to be no more than say a grenade throw away from the enemy. This would make it bloody for the enemy and also deny the enemy his ability to use his heavy weapons as they would kill their own men along with the enemy's. Pushing through all of this thus turned Stalingrad into a literal meat grinder. Division after division of the 6th Army was poured into Stalingrad. This required the army to pull more and more troops from the flanks to re-enforce the center, thus weakening the flanks further and further.
@@lividbutton2813 Maybe he's Chinese, maybe he's a communist, though I do not know of communist who are fans of China except the biggest losers of the left; Dengists.
My grandpa died in the „Kessel“ of Stalingrad with nearly the complete 6th German Army. Watchin this gave me shivers. What an unimaginable hell for both sides. RIP to all the senseless killed humans and animals of this war.
Funny how Hitler had the habit of halting his forces and weakening them by dividing them at crucial moments. At Stalingrad, that deviation took three weeks during which time the Russians prepared a defense and brought up reinforcements.
One of my uncles was at that battle. He was a POW for 4 years after that. He lost a leg, but came back, but learned fluent Russian, Romanian and Hungarian. He used the time there well, and never complained about anything about his time there.
A real man made of steel He was at war, traumatized and tested to the max and lost his limbs, but went onto learn the local languages and never complained
It was made by the original devs behind Call of Duty 2 and it shows lmao although it sucks that Red Orchestra has no campaign, yeah basically just play the Soviet campaign of Call of Duty 2. It’s pretty much the same game minus the much improved and more realistic Red Orchestra gameplay.
@@Levi_o_Lusitano Hey mano, como estás? Sou eu o Ruieurope. Já não jogo a uns quantos meses, espero que esteja tudo bem. Um grande abraço. RO2 forever!
My great grandpa fought in the battle of Stalingrad. He was a medic and got his ear shot off while in the truck. Proceeded to fight back until his whole company was just about wiped out. He hid in the sewer for 3 days until he heard Russian voices again.
Great! My uncle was there on the German side. He lost a leg there. He spent 4 years in the Soviet prisons, but used the time to learn Russian, Hungarian and Romanian. He also made many friends. He returned to Germany but never complained about his experiences there. He always kept a smile and a sense of humour.
Smart, can't say I wouldn't do the same. Sounds exactly like the best move when overrun. Maybe an occasional explosive ambush if I had the means, I bet those sewers were used by many.
It was doomed to failure by Hitler’s refusal to permit the Sixth army to vacate Stalingrad and meet them part of the way. They got as close as possible but had to turn back.
За Волгой для нас земли нет! Good Video! Stalingrad, in MY historical analysis, was even more catastrophic, deadly, overwhelming and HUMILIATING for the so-called Axis "Satellite" Armies in Russia, which included General Dumitrescu's 3rd Romanian Army, General Constantinescu's 4th Romanian Army, General Gusztáv Jány's 2nd Hungarian Army and General (Generale d'Armata) Italo Gariboldi's 8th Italian Army. All of these aforementioned armies had obsolete equipments. The bulk of the Romanian armies, for example, were formed by infantry divisions, trained to trench warfare. Moreover, the vast majority of the Romanian equipment was obsolete. The Romanian main anti-tank weapon, for example, was the French 37 mm cannon of 1916! It was not for nothing, therefore, that Operation Uranus focused on the Romanian armies. Note: Gusztáv Jány's 2nd Hungarian Army, in particular, was virtually annihilated at Stalingrad, more precisely during Operation Little Saturn (December 1942 - February 1943). Following the attack carried out by Filipp Golikov's Voronezh Front (which included Ivan Chernyakhovsky's 60th Army, Kirill Moskalenko's 40th Army, Nikandr Chibisov's 38th Army and Pavel Rybalko's 3rd Tank Army), the Hungarian 2nd Army was completely annihilated (the Hungarian casualties reached the figure of 84%)! The Romanian armies, in turn, were completely destroyed by the Soviets after Operation Uranus, more precisely by Nikolai Vatutin's Southwestern Front (which included Dmitry Lelyushenko's 1st Guards Army, Romanenko's 5th Tank Army and Ivan Chistyakov's 21st Army). Ion Antonescu, the Romanian leader, simply lost two ENTIRE ARMIES at Stalingrad (Dumitrescu's 3rd Army and Constantinescu's 4th Army). Altogether, about 18 Romanian divisions were destroyed. The 8th Italian Army, however, was also severely hit and destroyed. All the 10 divisions that made up Generale d'Armata Italo Gariboldi's 8th Italian Army, with no exceptions, were completely annihilated or reduced, including the 9th ID "Pasubio", the 52nd ID "Torino", the 2nd ID "Sforzesca", the 3rd Cavalry Division "Principe Amedeo Duca d'Aosta", the 3rd ID "Ravenna", the 5th ID "Cosseria", the 3rd Alpine Division "Julia", the 4th Alpine Division "Cuneense", the 2nd Alpine Division "Tridentina" and the 156th ID "Vicenza". Note (2): The Italians did not participate directly in the Battle of Stalingrad. However, the Italians were the primary targets of Operation "Little Saturn" (December 1942), the "continuation" of Operation Uranus, whose primary objective was the destruction of Gariboldi's 8th Italian Army and Gusztáv Jány's 2nd Hungarian Army. While the 8th Italian Army was surrounded by General Vasily Kuznetsov's 1st Guards Army (supported by Dmitry Lelyushenko's 3rd Guards Army), the Hungarians, as I mentioned before, were attacked and destroyed by Filipp Golikov's Voronezh Front. All the 10 aforementioned Italian divisions were attacked and destroyed. • Generale di Divisione (Divisional general/Major General) Guido Boselli's 9th ID "Pasubio", Roberto Lerici's 52nd ID "Torino", Carlo Pellegrini's 2nd ID "Sforzesca", and Ettore de Blasio's 3rd Cavalry Division "Principe Amedeo Duca d'Aosta", for example, were surrounded and destroyed by Kuznetsov's 1st Guards Army. • Generale di Divisione Francesco Dupont's 3rd ID "Ravenna" and Enrico Gazzale's 5th ID "Cosseria", in turn, were also attacked by the Soviet 1st Guards Army during Operation Little Saturn (December 1942), whose primary objective, as I mentioned before, was the complete destruction of the Italian 8th Army. • Umberto Ricagno's 3rd Alpine Division "Julia" and Emilio Battisti's 4th Alpine Division "Cuneense", on the other hand, were destroyed by Fyodor Kharitonov's 6th Soviet Army. • Etelvoldo Pascolini's 156th ID "Vicenza" and Luigi Reverberi's 2nd Alpine Division "Tridentina", lastly, were also severely reduced. By the end of 1942, the 8th Italian Army was in shambles. Altogether, the Italians lost 114.520 soldiers in Russia! Stalingrad, therefore, was not only catastrophic for Hitler, where he lost Paulus' 6th Army and its 20 divisions (including Hans-Georg Leyser's 29th Motorized Division, Max Pfeffer's 297th ID, Richard Stempel's 371st ID, Hans-Heinrich von Armin's 113th ID, Heinrich-Anton Deboi's 44th ID, Eccard Freiherr von Gablenz's 384th ID, Alexander von Daniels' 376th ID, Helmuth Schlömer's 3rd Motorized Division, Hans-Adolf von Arenstorff's 60th Motorized Division, Günther Angern's 16th Panzer Division, Richard von Schwerin's 79th ID, Bernhard Steinmetz's 305th ID, Martin Lattmann's 14th Panzer Division, Arno von Lenski's 24th Panzer Division, Carl Rodenburg's 76th ID, Alexander von Hartmann's 71st ID, Werner Sanne's 100th ID, Otto Korfes' 295th ID, Erich Magnus' 389th ID and Georg Pfeiffer's 94th ID), but it was also catastrophic for Mussolini (who lost an entire army at Stalingrad), Antonescu (who lost TWO ENTIRE ARMIES at Stalingrad) and Miklós Horthy (who also lost an entire army at Stalingrad). The central point of all German operations in 1942 (especially Case Blue), in my historical analysis, should have been the Caucasus. The German primary attention should have been Wilhelm List's Army Group A (which included Kleist's 1st Panzer Army, Richard Ruoff's 17th Army and Manstein's 11th Army), NOT Weichs' Army Group B (which included Paulus' 6th Army). Had it not been for the diversion of troops and resources from Army Group A to Army Group B, Kleist's panzers would rapidly reach the Armavir-Salsk-Maykop-Grozny-Baku line (reaching Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia). Hitler's first major mistake within this sector, for example, was to transfer and divert Manstein's 11th Army to Leningrad. List's initial intention was to use the 11th Army as a mobile reserve formation during his campaign, using it whenever the campaign demanded. However, Hitler interfered in List's plans and diverted the 11th Army to Leningrad. Following Hitler's decision, List lost almost half of his infantry force. Nevertheless, Kleist's 1st Panzer Army conquered Armavir, Salsk and Maykop. Ruoff's 17th Army, on the other hand, seized Rostov. Moreover, the 17th Army also destroyed the pockets of resistance left by Kleist's panzers. Army Group A's "Achilles' Heel", however, was not necessarily the Soviet troops themselves, but the lack of fuel! As Kleist reported after the war: "The main cause of our failure was the lack of fuel". If the 1st Panzer Army had received enough fuel, the Germans could have advanced almost unopposed towards Baku. By the end of August, List's advance was completely halted. As Kleist said after the war: "We could have achieved our goal if my forces had not been gradually diverted to Stalingrad". Stalingrad, therefore, was Hitler's greatest obsession! Note (3): Hitler imagined that his position at Stalingrad in October 1942 was similar to Falkenhayn's position at Verdun (September 1916). The conquest/destruction of Stalingrad, in my historical analysis, was a personal confrontation between Hitler and Stalin. Stalingrad was vital for his "great and real task" ("Große und eigentliche Aufgabe"): the struggle with Bolshevism (Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Bolschewismus). Hitler passionately believed that the Russians "had already used their last reserves during the first winter of the war". Moreover, he assured Paulus that the Russians were at the "end of their forces" ("Die Russen sind am Ende ihrer Kraft"). By the end of October 1942, however, virtually the entire western bank of the Volga was already in German hands (including 90% of Stalingrad itself). The analysis made by General Sir Charles Gwynn (1870-1963), a retired British army officer when the Battle of Stalingrad took place, is perfectly correct: "The Germans must, from a purely military point of view, have begun to doubt whether it is really worth expending men and materials in an attempt to complete the capture of the city by assault. The Germans have already achieved much of their objective, as they practically destroyed Stalingrad as a center of war industries, gaining a position that allows them to interrupt the traffic on the Volga". Gwynn's analysis, in my opinion, was perfectly correct. Stalingrad was completely neutralized by the end of 1942. In October/November 1942, Stalingrad no longer had any strategic importance. Rather than focusing on the Caucasus and Caspian Sea oil fields (mainly Baku), Hitler, for his part, maintained his attention 100% focused on Stalingrad. The reason for that? Simple pride! As I mentioned before, the conquest/destruction of Stalingrad was a matter of honor for Hitler, that is, his true obsession. The destruction of the city bearing Stalin's name (STALINgrad), therefore, was his main goal/obsession. After Stalingrad, the Germans never regained their former military glory. In my own words, Stalingrad became a "symbol of the Soviet resistance and victory" ("Символ советского сопротивления и победы"). Hitler simply lost an entire army because of his foolish obsession/ego.
It's funny because Germany could've helped both the Romanian and Hungarian armies by giving them some of the captured Soviet equipment and thus modernizing their divisions, especially when it comes to tanks and anti tank guns. Instead they'd send it back to Germany to smelt it for steel and after Uranus threw a fit at their "allies" because, shocker, they couldn't stop hordes of tanks with WWI anti tank equipment, good will and courage. The Axis Alliance in a nutshell right there.
@@AwayWithYouVileBeggar The Romanians especially Dumitrescu, also warned the Germans about the build up of Soviets and requested help to eliminate the last Soviet bridgehead over the Don but were refused. The Luftwaffe commander Richtoffen went rogue and sent them as much help as he could get away with.
I see your point. Romanians, Italians and Hungarians were poorly equipped foe the battle and less politically motivated. So for that matter only the German 6th Army counted as a professional fighting force in all regards. But have you noticed that of all the documentaries of this battle, so far this seems to be the only one that depicts the actual amount of Soviet Armies surrounded the sole German 6th Army in Stalingrad. Nevertheless, so-called historians always boast of the catastrophic defeat of the Germans, as if Soviet strategy or some merit was superior. I see none. Beside this German guy name Gehlen who was in charge of intelligence in that sector (who later worked for the CIA after the war, I understand) failed to warn his superiors of the massive concentration of troops in October 1942. So by the time the Germans were encircled, they still did not have a clear picture of what was going on. Other encircled German battle groups had previously been supplied by air. Marshal Herman Göring assured Hitler that his Luftwaffe could do the job. But eventually he never delivered on his word, at a time when to much time had elapsed. Air commander Richthofen also complained that von Paulus troops were fighting defensively in Stalingrad, instead of trying to reach von Hoth's attempt to reach Stalingrad. And for that matter von Paulus had only served as adjutant to Field Marshal von Reichenau, previous commander of the German 6th Army. Many factors influenced the final fate of the doomed 6th Army. Not just Hitler's ego.
@@dalilaberenicepadillaloera5568 You might wanna check out TIKhistory on YT for a LONG series called Battlestorm Stalingrad (currently at 39 eps of at least 30 minutes each,, and still going) for a very elaborate breakdown of the battle
He’s not a proper historian, he doesn’t know the difference between socialism and fascism. The Battlefield documentary series was and is still the best documentary to cover Stalingrad.
@@Kieran84ire I would argue that he knows precisely what is the difference between socialism and fascism, sadly people that only vaguely bothered to read up on both ideologies make the claims like you did just now.
@@zmajooov this is the guy who thinks Hitler's national socialism and Stalin's socialism are the same thing; as much as a mess as Mein Kampf is, I think it aptly demonstrates Hitler was not a socialist and despised socialism and communism in it's entirety. The chap has videos over 40 mins long where he tries to argue national socialism and socialism are the same thing, anyone with the barest understanding of history knows they are not. He does so because he has a massive chip on his shoulder about socialism. Historians don't do that, they don't view history through a lens of ideology.
@@Kieran84ire Full degree British university ? I guess your ideology will not allow you to see that the older people who watch his presentations already know that Hitler was a socialist because it was taught in schools in the 1970s before the woke lefties took over education in British schools .You have probably been indoctrinated already by your education.
the way they said they were still churning out tanks in the battle of stalingrad even with the enemies overrunning the city must’ve felt like an intense game of battlefield repairing your tank after it’s badly damaged except it’s real life
By barbaric means and catastrophic expenses. France was so dead set on avoiding the devastation of another great war that once they realized they were out maneuvered and outmatched they had to surrender.
my great great grandfather was a pilot in the soviet air force in Stalingrad, when winter came he could not fly because the oil had frozen, so he fought on the ground
@@antonboludo8886 My uncle is an old englishman whose grandfather fought in wwi and died in wwii. Poor people have children at 20 or less. I think that in modern west europa it is less common today
1:53 You forgot to mention that Germany had to tweek it’s plan by splitting the Army Group South into two because Germany needed oil so badly that it no longer had the time or resources to take Stalingrad and the Caucuses oil fields separately before running out of fuel.
@Yieri the panzer division wouldn't have helped. German logistics were soo bad that they would have run out of fuel before they were encircled. Tik's video on case blue explains why they were withdrawn quite well
A Russian friend (and fellow Baby Boomer) told me that it was the "Katushka Rockets" that saved the Russians. She wasn't actually there, but her parents were. Interesting factoid from a History Prof. at San Francisco State; until the Germans violated their non-aggression pact with Stalin, the Russians were actually supplying ammunition to the Germans.
In reality, order "not step back" or you can be ejecuted by treason happened in all armies. The political comisaries were 1 to 10000 soldiers to watch, so the numbers of ejecutions were low. Another point is that the city wasn't evacuated, that is untrue. Not all the citizens, but they rescued half of the population or more
Besides, is insulting that you said is Stalin's fault the more deads, the NAZIS invaded the country and masacre civilians, we can speak today because millions of soviets fight until the last breath to liberate their country and europe from the 3 reich
Great you bring up the no step back order. There's too many myths about it. TIK has a great video about it: ruclips.net/video/JOKAIDpOY80/видео.html&ab_channel=TIK
@@mr.2083 His series on Stalingrad is excellent! and is currently ongoing with 20+episodes. Also, the disproportionate amount of soldiers dying in captivity is more due to the condition they surrendered ( many were starving and simply perished before they even marched to the camps).
@@nihalbhandary162 If you look up the total amount of German POWs dying in Soviet captivity, the number is much lower for all of the other battles on the Eastern Front. Out of 3 million captured German soldiers on the Eastern Front, between 300,000 - 1,000,000 died in Soviet captivity. Out of 5.7 million captured Soviet soldiers, over 3 million were killed while in German captivity, most in the first few years of the war
Prior to Stalingrad, the Mongolian "siege of Bagdad" had the deadliest battle ever. A refusal to surrender and insulting the Mongolian general, after Bagdad's capture they spent 40 days killing everyone in the city. Militarily ,Stalingrad was a defeat the Germans would never recover from.
@@krzysztofk1674 and the crusaders and every European kingdom that took part in colonisation... Anyone that committed a crime is a criminal... Doesn't matter where you come from...
@@krzysztofk1674 Dont' count on me to vote for Trump , but its true history if viewed honestly does not make white people evil. It just shows that all humans will potentially do the same evil acts if given the opportunity. .
IMPORTANT NOTE ON ORDER 227: the order primarely refered to the officers and commissars who allowed thous disastrous disorganized retreats in the prior year, contrary to popular belief it did not = in a you "will not retreat no matter what and if you even look behind your shoulder you will imidiatly get shot" like it is portrated in popular movies and this vid , because retreats did happen, the problem was that early in the war the soviet army was plagued by officers issuing unapproved retreat orders, AAAND this was true for every single army in the world, i allways found it odd that this was something the soviet got shit for when it came to insubordonation or deserters yet the same treatment was applyed to the americans, british , candians, germans, etc. good vid on the subject, but a little bit more research into order 227 would have bean appreciated, we all know the effect of the decisions of the soviet regime on both it's civilian and armed population, there is no point in makeing up stuff.
@@alexanderballa6152 yep, allthough i do prefer the west system (i'm from east europe so we know that this whole comunist system is no bueno) it does annoy me when the west side just makes shit up about the soviets, the world agreed that it was not a good system that's why it fell, and ofc there was propaganda on the soviet side, no doubt about it, but as far as i can see, there was never as much as it is on the west side, granted the citizen were not as well educated so not as much propaganda was needed to convince them of what to think/do, but i think the west overdid it.
@@Sigrid_Von_Sincluster they did over do it a bit in the usa as of anything that helps the workers aka gives more money for them to put in the econamy witch = more money for evryone
Man, another good example of poor educated sample, who just threw a phase that not worth a $0.1, guys you should stop poison the air, Gretta will find and will take all the lithium from you.
Stalingrad was an extremely important junction necessary for the Germans to take in order for them to meet their objectives. It had nothing to do with the city name.
The Soviets really went through hell and are the MVPs of WWII. Chuikov’s brilliant “hug the enemy” strategy and his command style during the battle of Stalingrad made operation Uranus possible.
Now that is dedication: You let bombs go off next to your microphone just to recreate the sounds of artillery fire & bombings! Thank you for doing something so risky, just to have great background noise!!! You're a true hero
It had nothing to do with the name(except for Gefreiter Hitler maybe). It was the last defencible position on Volga. Beyond that the Germans would enter the wide steppe to march on the Baku oil fields.
The reason the USSR could call in Siberian forces was because they knew Japan wouldn’t attack unless Moscow fell. Imagine if on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Vladivostok instead of Pearl Harbor
@Spicyleaves hello I saw you in atlas pro , I think you are like me trying to find channels for studying and yes for now the channel has 500k subs and he uploaded a personal history video ruclips.net/video/M8oJ4gXFwVc/видео.html which l think is my favorite as what I know is history is written by person who wins so we never know what is correct but when you have experienced it you know better about it so I think that’s my favourite video of this channel sadly it got very less view then it gets normally , hope when he reaches 1million he does a similar video
While this was going on, another deadly set of battles around Rzhev were going on. Over a million Russians, possibly more were lost in pointless attacks. While German positions were constantly attacked and precious reserves that could have turned the tide at Stalingrad were sent to Rzhev. The Soviets nickname the battlesite: The Rzhev Meat Grinder.
Soviet casualties killed in all Rzhev operations amount to 392 thousand people. But if you add the wounded, there are 1.1 million. People confuse the wounded with the dead.
Also Stalingrad was on the river meaning the Germans couldn’t encircle it like Minsk was or Smolensk and the Soviets could easily send more men into the city. The Germans also bombed the place completely to the ground which lead to the house to house fighting and deaths on both sides
One madman preventing his forces from breaking out the encirclement and another madman refusing to evacuate civilians and killing his own men while retreating.
Wrong, Hitler was not preventing the retreat of the 6th army. It was actually because of Manstein who refused to listen to the will of Paulus and take action immediately upon the news of how bad things were going at Stalingrad. That being said, Hitler did absolutely often create "fortress" cities out of conquered territories in order to prevent losing said conquests. But this time, it was far from Hitlers fault.
@@AtroFear also by the time German relieve attempt got going near Christmas the troops in the city had been encircled for over a month and were starving to death. By that point a breakout towards the relieve attempt would have been impossible given how short of supplies the germans were.
The description of the Soviet involvement in the war has always been weighed down in the West by prejudice. This video is the typical western work loaded with prejudices. The NKVD declasified documents mention about 278 exucution for backing out, on the entire Stalingrad front. The sporadic machine-gunning of routing troops by their own side is something the Germans also practiced, specially with their Romanian allies in Stalingrad.
The whole shooting at your retreating troops might be simply a myth and the order was aimed primarily at officers, they were not allowed to retreat without order from their superior. There is an ongoing serie of videos made on the RUclips channel TIK that covers the battle for Stalingrad that gives way more informations and debunk a lot of clichés about it.
@@kiwihaider3947 yes, you kinda have to do this. We speak about a totalitarian system where each your action must be accounted and noted - because each citizen/soldier is a state's asset and it is not your job to decide if the asset is worthy or not or "remove" that asset yourself without any explanation. There are paper-issued orders, there are combat journals of the unit, so every action of the unit is pretty traceable.
"inarguably one of the most merciless and destructive battles" Quite frankly, the most merciless and destructive. There were no such bloodiest battles in the human history comparable to Stalingrad - just take a look at the losses combined for goodness sake.
@@jacksonfoxtrot Wiki is considered to be inaccurate. Rodric Braithwaite wrote an interesting account of the battle of Moscow called " Moscow 1941". As i read it several years ago i do not recall his figures but he leaves you in no doubt as to the fact that the battle was the largest in history. I had a look at history .com, they give a figure of 2.5 million; they also state that millions of troops were rotated on this enormous battlefield. It is rather puzzling why greater emphasis is not placed on this conflict for this was the true turning point of ww2. With the Soviets taking staggering losses, and the Wehrmacht victorious everywhere, the German high command expected a crushing victory at the capitol. the fact that a crushing defeat occurred was indicative of the end for Germany. From that point on, it was a war of attrition. Germany's slender resources could not hope to keep up with the vast resources of the USSR.
In the words of Lawrence Olivier in, "The World at War": -"It was not just a defeat, it was a catastrophe. Enough equipment captured to supply one quarter of the entire German Army. "
Get your facts straight. Sovets started evacuation of people long before German attack. Over 100 thousands were evaluated. A lot of people were evaluated during the battle.
@@DarkPsychoMessiah yea, because they couldn’t evacuate everyone in time, as the Germans began bombing the Volga crossing before they even got to the city limits
I'm sorry, I'm from Russia and I know English too badly to watch your video. However, the fact that in the west someone is interested in the eastern front makes me happy. If you want, you can ask any question. I know the history of this war. And in general, to ask for something for the USSR, I will try to answer.
Yes the same that marched proudly under the arc of triumphe. So when u watch it note most of these dudes would be dead and a few surrendering in Stalingrad
They didnt surrender tbh. They fought on, but since they were encircled they got crushed from air and flanks. They surrendered only when all hope was gone.
@@АлексейП-т2е i know, but right decision would have been pulling troops from the start to avoid encirclment. While i give credit for red army for its heroic battle in stalingrad. I have to give credit to wehrmacht because they fought long time despite the ods.
The book "Prisoners of Geography" explains how the Soviets didn't have any warm water ports, probably another reason why Stalingrad was a vital city for supply chain and more.
yes the usa corporations censor history.. only the us official version is allowed.. not much to do with reality.. this is to allow a corrupt govt to exist and nullifiy the vote. which is only based on lies.. thus the corruption continues.
I think it had something to do with all the guns, bombs, tanks, artillery and aircraft. Add in some freezing weather and malnutrition and it was pretty damn dangerous.
Not a bad documentary, but I don't think it's fair to say that the surviving civilians were "forced" to build fortications and trenches. I'm sure they understood the importance of these tasks.
American propaganda implies that everyone in USSR was forced to fight for Stalin and nobody really wanted to fight. A lot of american information about the Eastern front comes from the German sources and former Nazi officers, because you gotta discredit your opponent during the Cold War somehow. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
Mussolini’s fascist regime (ruled in Italy) arrogantly sent more than three hundred thousand Italian soldiers to help Hitler conquer Russia. These Italian forces were approximately equivalent to the Italian forces invading to Abyssinia, but the fate of the Italian soldiers was different, because most of them were destroyed in the snowy steppes of Russia, and very few of them were able to survive surrendering prisoner. These Italian armies really disappeared.
Just imagine if this was in the mid 40s and the casualties surpassed millions, with todays tech and fighting techniques and strategies just imagine how many casualties will be made in the nezt major war
Orbital debris?? You're an absolute moron.! Space is not real. WTF U! At 72 miles up there is a firmament, so there is a such thing as low earth orbit where the air is very thin and they use Habs high-altitude balloons that satellites dangle from and they usually stay up for a year or two sometimes longer and when they fall lots of times in the ocean they are retrieved immediately sometimes they even fall on land you can actually find some videos where a man found 4000 lb of balloon and satellite and dragged it onto his boat soon as he got soul and they were waiting for him. You should stop listening to Bill Nye the Science Guy, who knows nothing about science or math he's actually an actor. Same with Don Pettit who said and I quote" I would go back to the Moon in a nanosecond but we destroyed that technology and it's a very painful process to get back. You don't believe me it's still on the internet you can see the interview with Don Pettit NASA smokesman
After all o heard, saw and read about Stalingrad, what made it so deadly was because both armies were exhausted to the breaking point. The strongest divisions we're almost always at 43% strength or less and the others were more often than not reduced to battalion strength. That means that neither side had the power to dislodge the other and take or defend the city meaning that the attacks only produced more dead and wounded than a overrun so the stalemate just added more corpses on useless or trivial and wasteful attacks.
@پیاده نظام خان Not really though, see Germans were stretched thin. So much so that even if Stalingrad were to be captured, the Germans still wouldn't go past Moscow in the center and probably wouldn't be able to reach the oil fields in the far south. That's how bad they were in both menpower and logistics (That includes things like oil). So Stalingrad wasn't that much of a factor. However, it did helped to sap that manpower that Germany still had left.
@@radrook2153 I am not an expert on WWII on the Eastern Front, however, from the evidence I saw, the Stalingrad defeat was the begging of the end of Natzis in Russia
@@cornelbacauanu1544 It can certainly be viewed that way. Only one more battle was fought where they had the initiative and that was at Kursk. But generally speaking, most historians, if not all, would agree with you that.
Two points of feedback: 1) There was no "chancellor" - that position was merged with head of state into the Führer 2) According to TimeGhostArmy, Stalingrad was meant to tie down the German forces, to provide enough time to prepare operation Uranus. The Soviets did their best (and succeeded) in slowing down the German mobile warfare
Buddy, he's saying "The Chancellor" because I'm certain that RUclips's algorithm would bury this video if he referred to the big H as his actual name or title.
You can see from the map it’s location on the Volga. Stalingrad was absolutely important. Without it, the Soviets would be cut off of oil and other supplies from the South. It would be very difficult to keep fighting without oil.
My grandmas uncle was fighting in Battle of Stalingrad...he was part of 369. Regiment (Croatian Volunteers) who were one of the first divisions who came to Stalingrad. Unfortunately he was shot in the leg while in battle and so sent back home...
The Wehrmacht developed the system of Blitzkreig where the panzer divisions would travel 50 or more miles a day and encircle their enemies. Most countries fell to their tactics in weeks or even less. But Stalingrad was a completely different situation. Instead of their tanks racing ahead and firing their cannons at targets more than a mile away, they got bogged down in the city rubble and at close quarters with the Russians - who threw Molotov cocktails at them.
Civilians in an ox cart cannot out run a tank. And the invaders murdered millions of civilians. To blame their deaths on that mean old Stalin is ridiculous. Go to Volgograd. Learn something.
@@CA-jz9bm how is that Stalin at least has his named mentioned in the video. We'll never know who Germany's chancellor is based on this video. I say that's pretty biased against Germany if you ask me.
This is not true. The "no step back order" was especially intended for higher ranks who retreated unauthorized. If they had authorization, they could retreat without consequences.
@@matejstarcevic6566 Yes, if they retreated without authorization. But in many occasions authorizations were given. Also, most of the times, the officers in charge were shot, not the soldiers, that listened to their officers.
Yeah, I really hate the huge misconception regarding order 227. Retreat orders were issued constantly and it wasn't an issue whatsoever. The problem was that officers (especially the political NKVD officers) issued retreat orders without even having properly tried to fight the enemy. This caused panic amongst other groups of the army and that risked more unreasonable retreat orders. It was very rare that the actual soldiers displayed cowardice, it was almost always the officers fearing for their lives. Order 227 could also be used against divisional and higher levels of officers, so it was really serious. Even Chuikov himself could've been outright shot and replaced if he started issuing such bad retreating orders. No officer were safe from order 227. Now obviously, Chuikov was pretty much fearless and relentless, his nicknames are literally "The Stone" and "The Man of Iron Will" etc. He wasn't scared whatsoever when he placed his command headquarters just shy of 800 meters from the german frontline. He was quite a commander to say the least. Does this mean regular soldiers never got shot? Of course not. But it was very, very rare. There are tons of stupid misconceptions regarding WW2. Another huge such misconception is the claim that the winter defeated the Wehrmacht, when that was literally just a minor issue in comparison to the other huge major issues. Such as the chronic lack of oil aswell as horrendous logistics, and you know... the kinda should-be-extremely-fucking-obvious relentless and neverending resistance of the Red Army.
Order 227 is actually about retreating without orders (and retreat orders did go out) and the death penalty was only for the officers of those units, and not every single soldier. Furthermore, even those caught retreating would usually get sent to penal battalions and into suicide missions, rather than outright executions, since the USSR could not simply throw away vital manpower.
after reading this i ain't going to have a peaceful sleep tonight.....
👁️👄👁️
Also once in a penal battalion you could "redeem yourself in blood " and be allowed to rejoin a ordinary army unit.
>”...and into suicide missions,..”
What incentive would soviet soldiers have to carry out a suicide mission when they know the alternative is getting executed by the USSR on the spot. What evidence is there to suggest this ?
@@xstriker69 1 Wanting to protect their families/country/whatever. Despite the myths, you would still be sent out armed and with orders. You could still do your part and for some people that can be motivating.
2 Ensuring the political safety of your family, since the families of those purged or executed would carry the stint for the rest of their lives, which would at least limit their mobility and access to jobs and that kind of stuff, and at worst could be also arrested for the crimes of the family member. Serving well, or until death, in a penal battalion, would rehabilitate you and your family
3. If you serve well and survive (a possibility, although probably unlikely), you get rehabilitated and reintegrate into the formal army, and later civilian life
4. While court-martialling people for disobeying orders in wartime was pretty commonplace in all armies, I would personally not disobey orders in a penal battalion.
I would argue that they werent suicide missions per say but that they were ordered to do the most dangerous jobs, clear mines etc. The soviet union was despite the myths in desperate need of man power and wouldnt send men to die unnecessarily.
I’d say one of the reasons that casualties were so high was because of the nature of the combat in Stalingrad. It was all fought room by room, house by house, so there was lots of extremely intense urban fighting in the city. The Russians and Germans would have been literally a stones throwaway from each other’s trenches and bunkers.
Yeah, there was also huge animosity and hatred towards eachother as literally both of the ideologies are eachothers nemesis. The germans hated the soviets and the soviets hated the germans. Chuikov also adopted the hugging tactic during the battle of stalingrad, which did certainly contribute to the high death tolls. What it meant was that he put his frontline soldiers as close as physically possible to the german frontline. The reasoning behind that was that the germans would have great difficulties in using their perfected art of combined arms warfare. You simply could not do air or artillery bombing in conjunction with an offensive due to the extreme risk of hitting your own soldiers. This completely messed up their tactical means of warfare. Stalingrad was fucking brutal to say the least... extreme close quarters, both armies being extremely starved, snipers and machine gun nests everywhere aswell as artillery and air bombings were scaringly frequent.
It's probably the worst place in time and place to be in the history of humanity. People lost their humanity completely in that grotesque battle.
@@AtroFear I always thought that trench warfare of WWI was the most brutal in human history. I still cannot fathom how WWII resulted in twice the casualties as WWI, with the new tactics and mobile warfare I suppose. WWII must have been 5x more intense in some battles than I had previously assumed.
@@natedog1619 not necessarily intense, since trench warfare in WWI was, without a doubt, the most ruthless and cruel fighting humanity has ever see. Stalingrad though, was just the apocalypse, kinda like Verdun was in WWI. Very similar tbh.
@@miguel151420 The Somme was another bloodbath, in just one day before a 4 month deployment over 20,000 men died.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- Indeed
I think a military historian could spend an entire career studying this battle.
If you haven’t already, watch TIKS series on the battle for Stalingrad, each episode he made is like 45mins- 1hour long and has over 10 episodes, it’s all on RUclips with academic references.
Rip to those brave men who faught in Stalingrad from both sides, so sad to think about.
what are there to study about?
@@Waybackwhennn rip for both sides? Many russians disagree with you. The germans was nazi. I'm glad nazi was defeated. And don't feel sorry for them.
@@Боря-в7я The Germans were professional soldiers who followed orders from their political leader. Similar to Soviet under Stalin, many innocent Russians were killed by their own security forces, did that mean all those Soviet security personnel who followed Stalin's orders were all evil?
@@tonyvu2011 similar to Soviet under Stalin?!
Yeah, very similar. But Soviet was not a fascist country. Soviet didn't consider jews or any nationality like no-human being.
You can google "Untermensch". What it means. You can read what professional solders thought about russians at the start of the war. They've changed their minds, when started to loose. But that was by the price of millions innocent russian civilians. Ask germans if they proud that their grandfathers participated in Stalingrad or in the war.
This battle is an example of Total War, both sides were involved in all out fighting they were either victorious or dead.
Hardly any other choice, considering the Wehrmacht took no prisoners of war, soldier or civilian. At least the Red Arny left people alive, when they turned the tide.
@@agamemnonofmycenae5258 Death would be much better than living in Soviet Gulags... they were much worse than Concentration Camps.
@@stalinsaysgulagtime2350 Are you seriously making such a take? Gulags were forced labour camps. People survived them even after 10,15 years. Concetration camps had basically one purpose. Extermination. With no holds barred the people there were subjected to the worst things imaginable. Read about Mengele, if you want the specifics.
@@agamemnonofmycenae5258 That is my exact argument, at least death came quickly. In Soviet Gulags, they wanted you alive to suffer.
@@stalinsaysgulagtime2350 I did not know being sewn with your twin is a death done quick. What a revelation!
Only the Russians could continue making tanks in Stalingrad all the while being under siege from the nazis. What an incredible story!
The Germans were probably wondering where all those tanks were coming from. At one point in the war, Hitler was informed that hundreds of Russian tanks had been destroyed and that the next day hundreds more appeared on the battlefield. He called them liars because to him that kind of constant and rapid replacement of tanks seemed impossible. In short, he underestimated the Russian industrial capabilities.
@@radrook2153 supplied by usa all the time ^^
@@radrook2153 land lease and pouring tons of raw materials/ half materials into the Soviet Industry made that possible
(In a factory given to them by the Americans)
The t-34 tank was built rapidly and poorly made back then
“- Lt. Hans von Witzland: The best thing about the cold is...
- Fritz Reiser: You don't have to worry about sunburn.”
- Stalingrad (1993) movie
I love that movie! So emotional and just strong in so many ways!
I still have PTSD about battle of stalingrad and the whole eastern front because of this movie
"what's your name?"
"muller"
"we've got to many of those...
at least until the next attack"
Irony: snow reflects so much light that such things as Snow Burn and blindness often occur. Snow blindness is why skiers usually wear dark goggles... not clear lenses.
frostburn is worse.. don't remember anyones body parts falling off from sunburn.
When you fight inside a city, then your casualties go up tremendously.
Remember, the Soviet Army lost as many soldiers as the Germans but the Soviets had a greater number of men and women that they could throw into the fight.
In the final thrusts against the Germans, General Zhukov threw his main forces against the German flanks, and those flanks were defended by mostly Romanians, Italians and Spaniards who had little motivation to fight.
As for fighting in a city, General Eisenhower refused to involve Allied troops in attacking Berlin giving that job to the Soviet Army, The Soviets lost over 100,000 soldiers in killed and wounded, something the Allies refused to pay that price in human lives.
Remember, the Russians realized that this was a war of extermination. If they lost, the Russian people would either be exterminated or enslaved until they die from starvation, or being overworked. The Russians understood that and fought harder than any people did before.
The Soviet’s lost way more men then the axis
Spaniards? i stopped reading after that. Spain was neutral in WWII
@@xycid The Spanish sent volunteers to the Eastern front.
ruclips.net/video/svF2FUTtZWk/видео.html
@@xycid Looks like someone never heard about division azul
Napolean was the one with a 600,000 man super army with Italians, spanish and Portuguese... he came out of russia with only 90,000 men. Napoleon and hitler both made the mistake of trying to invade a country where the weather can defeat you before there army.
“Germany’s chancellor”, are you not allowed to say Hitler?
Maybe the algorithm demonitize video with "german chancellor"
He fears me.
Yes youtube's algorithm demonitizes/flags most videos that have anything to do with germany in ww1/ww2.
@@Kannot2023 but they mention Stalin. What kind of person would make the step to monitize Stalin while demonitze Hitler?
@@Wakenbake95 why not demonitize the Soviet Union too?
Imagine being such a chad that you keep churning out tanks from burning factories
They were sending tanks out right into combat without painting them. They kept building tanks until the Germans started jumping through the factory windows
@@jamesricker3997 It is unlikely that you will be told this in history lessons. The factories that built tanks in a short time were evacuated and rebuilt from scratch in a matter of days. It was civil heroism. In Stalingrad, Russian and German soldiers were often behind a thin wall from each other. There was hell going on. truth.
But the Russians defended Pavlov's house alone longer than the whole of France. Do not anger the Russians, they are a good people, but if you do, run
Russians and the rest of Slavonic people's are descendants of Aryans that invaded India...was told that by Indians themselves...My first neighbour was Punjabi guy by the name Sorab (Plinius mentions them,Ptolomeius cartographer places them on the north between Black Sea and Caspian Sea)...In Vedas there is a mentioning of King Servants by the way that guy Sorab comes from Brahmanic caste...and Sorab is very old traditional name from where he comes from...Linguistically Vedas are closest to today's Slovene language out of all European languages and modern blood type analysis and science show that it is the true fact that protoSlavs or Soraboi(Serbs) or Scythian Farmers (Herodotus) are the Aryans who invaded India and who brought new civilisation wave...National Socialism falsificated not only Hebrew texts and tried to create Aryan Bible but also the history of the Aryans as well and all the rest just to justify push to the East...Little towns folk were not ready for great ideas steaming out from socially more progressive movements...Stalin was murderer but that whole nazi thing was built on false dogmas...
And so many people died fighting for the wrong concept build up on lies and quasi science..My mum lost all of her family and lost her father who was killed without of court hearing...murdered with his commarades by the victors...They are an army with no grave...Man who raised my mother and who taught me to walk,Croat man.was there and was wounded and he survived and was taken by plane back to Germany to hospital from were he escaped and became fugitive..deserter if you like..but he was demoralised...he somehow with help from other Croats made his way to Zagreb and was helped to regulate his status by some Croat official who helped him to join Croatian Home Guard...Somehow he survived the war but was in hiding till late 1948. only his mother knew the hiding place and was bringing a food to him...He was physically and psychologically very strong person,was still fighting for Axis till the end but that whole Russian experience was too much for him...He was americanophile and didn't like the Russians...He raised me but I had the other influences in life as well and live with the motto that only Truth liberates...The moment quasi science is used to create some new dogma,the moment they revise the history books in order to build up false alibis and excuses for their future actions that's the moment when warning red light should come on..If West intervened earlier on when Germany started to rearm again against the treaty the war would not happened..Few hundreds maybe a thousand would die in intervention but not a millions in the disaster we still remember as world war 2...
And most of them were old men, women and kids.
I lived in Stalingrad (now Volgograd) for about 6 months in 2015. The War Museum there is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. The monument of Мамая Курган (Mamaya Kurgan) is chillingly beautiful.
I also met a veteran of the battle who told me a little about his time. According to him women and small children were allowed to evacuate (when there were boats to evacuate on) but the male population was forced to stay.
Did you ever go and see Pavlovs House?
@@Puzzoozoo a replica of it sits in the war museum. There’s a bunch of cool stuff there, including a bronze map of the city. They project the battle lines with excerpts from the diaries of people who were there on the map it’s pretty cool.
It's Mamaev Kurgan
One correction, a major reason for taking Stalingrad is that taking it was necessary to take the oil from the Caucasus Mountains. At this point Germany was very low on oil, and taking Stalingrad would have allowed German forces to cut off Red Army units in the Caucasuses and push in
Part of the reason the battle was so deadly is because the Germans bombed the city to smithereens, which meant there was rubble everywhere, which made it very difficult for the German troops to maneuver their tanks and troops. Furthermore, the Soviets then took advantage of this and utilized the rubble to build up lines of trenches that the Germans were forced to repeatedly go over top of. These trenches connected defensive nodes armed with machine guns, which the Soviets used to create interlocking fields of machine gun fire. The trenches also allowed for constant communication between the defensive nodes. In addition, the Soviets used the sewers to maneuver and have communication.
In addition, General Chuikov who Stalin had sent in to take command, utilized a strategy which he called "Hug the Enemy," meaning you wanted to be no more than say a grenade throw away from the enemy. This would make it bloody for the enemy and also deny the enemy his ability to use his heavy weapons as they would kill their own men along with the enemy's.
Pushing through all of this thus turned Stalingrad into a literal meat grinder. Division after division of the 6th Army was poured into Stalingrad. This required the army to pull more and more troops from the flanks to re-enforce the center, thus weakening the flanks further and further.
Last Time i was this early we were still waiting for Steiners Attack
"Das war ein Befehl!"
Shtaina
@@Knowledgia der Angriff Steiners war ein Befehl
Mein F, Steiner konnte nicht genügen Kräfte für einen Angriff massieren, der Angriff Steiners ist nicht erfolgt.
@@godwrote01 "Wer sind Sie, damit Sie es wagen sich mir meinen Befehlen zu widersetzen?!"
Don't worry, Steiner's counter-attack will save the German 6th Army
Yes
Steiner....
Yeah and Hitler will not rant.
You should be loyal to wizard Hitler, not muggle Hitler *ron*
@@pringleaddict5827 hitler is a painter
"But Stalin, they're just citizens living in Stalingrad"
"I don't know man, seems kinda soldiers to me"
" and go to gulag"
@@nandinhocunha440 Exactly
so whats up with the pfp
@@lividbutton2813 Maybe he's Chinese, maybe he's a communist, though I do not know of communist who are fans of China except the biggest losers of the left; Dengists.
It is a myth. Until august 20 1942 there were 100 thousands evacuated.
caught me off guard with "operation uranus" LOL
Well the Germans did get bent over so there's some irony there
They penetrated the flanks!!!
Same
They penetrated deep into the germans rear .
@@ronnietarnacke5153 Apparently, it paid off.
My grandpa died in the „Kessel“ of Stalingrad with nearly the complete 6th German Army. Watchin this gave me shivers. What an unimaginable hell for both sides. RIP to all the senseless killed humans and animals of this war.
Aus welcher Stadt stammt Dein Großvater?
Those heroic women of 1077 who fought German Panzers toe to toe! I weep for your lives lost and bow to your courage.
they are going down in history as heroes
@@matthewcalhoun4011 Who ?
@@stevshaboba7476 joe mama
@@shadowfreddyplays3517 😂
Yeah its not like millions of young boys died too simp
Short answer: prolonged close quarters Urban combat is going to rack up casualties
Funny how Hitler had the habit of halting his forces and weakening them by dividing them at crucial moments. At Stalingrad, that deviation took three weeks during which time the Russians prepared a defense and brought up reinforcements.
One of my uncles was at that battle. He was a POW for 4 years after that. He lost a leg, but came back, but learned fluent Russian, Romanian and Hungarian. He used the time there well, and never complained about anything about his time there.
A real man made of steel
He was at war, traumatized and tested to the max and lost his limbs, but went onto learn the local languages and never complained
@@yeshuasage3724 Yes, this is correct. God Bless Him and God Bless You! :D
My grandma in this battle was a little girl moving-giving smokes to the soldiers in the front lines
Long live her memory in the defense of the Great Patriotic War..!
@@pittsburghpirate58 but his/her name is, greek?
Damn your grandma was a badass.
@@Kevinthelast my grandmother met my Greek grandfather in Uzbekistan in former soviet union
Interesting fate. Hello from Stalingrad
All I have to say: "Red orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad".
Good game.
It was made by the original devs behind Call of Duty 2 and it shows lmao
although it sucks that Red Orchestra has no campaign, yeah basically just play the Soviet campaign of Call of Duty 2. It’s pretty much the same game minus the much improved and more realistic Red Orchestra gameplay.
@@wisemankugelmemicus1701 Didn't know that. Interesting.
Ah a person of culture i see. RO rules!
@@Levi_o_Lusitano Hey mano, como estás? Sou eu o Ruieurope. Já não jogo a uns quantos meses, espero que esteja tudo bem. Um grande abraço. RO2 forever!
My great grandpa fought in the battle of Stalingrad. He was a medic and got his ear shot off while in the truck. Proceeded to fight back until his whole company was just about wiped out. He hid in the sewer for 3 days until he heard Russian voices again.
That is epic!
Great! My uncle was there on the German side. He lost a leg there. He spent 4 years in the Soviet prisons, but used the time to learn Russian, Hungarian and Romanian. He also made many friends. He returned to Germany but never complained about his experiences there. He always kept a smile and a sense of humour.
Smart, can't say I wouldn't do the same. Sounds exactly like the best move when overrun. Maybe an occasional explosive ambush if I had the means, I bet those sewers were used by many.
@Dharmic Indian Yes, he was a POW for four years and also lost a leg.
@Dharmic Indian I guess the Soviet doctors. I never asked him nor my father. They are both gone now, so I cannot know for sure.
Operation Uranus never fails.
Nazis got it from behind
It was doomed to failure by Hitler’s refusal to permit the Sixth army to vacate Stalingrad and meet them part of the way. They got as close as possible but had to turn back.
The freezing cold soviet winter also play a massive role in this battle.
7:13 man my sense of humor hasn't changed since 6th grade
What's so funny?
@@borisborkovic8894he said operation "uranus" and if you pronounce it, it is your anus
@@jawadsabih4979ok
За Волгой для нас земли нет!
Good Video!
Stalingrad, in MY historical analysis, was even more catastrophic, deadly, overwhelming and HUMILIATING for the so-called Axis "Satellite" Armies in Russia, which included General Dumitrescu's 3rd Romanian Army, General Constantinescu's 4th Romanian Army, General Gusztáv Jány's 2nd Hungarian Army and General (Generale d'Armata) Italo Gariboldi's 8th Italian Army. All of these aforementioned armies had obsolete equipments. The bulk of the Romanian armies, for example, were formed by infantry divisions, trained to trench warfare. Moreover, the vast majority of the Romanian equipment was obsolete. The Romanian main anti-tank weapon, for example, was the French 37 mm cannon of 1916! It was not for nothing, therefore, that Operation Uranus focused on the Romanian armies.
Note: Gusztáv Jány's 2nd Hungarian Army, in particular, was virtually annihilated at Stalingrad, more precisely during Operation Little Saturn (December 1942 - February 1943). Following the attack carried out by Filipp Golikov's Voronezh Front (which included Ivan Chernyakhovsky's 60th Army, Kirill Moskalenko's 40th Army, Nikandr Chibisov's 38th Army and Pavel Rybalko's 3rd Tank Army), the Hungarian 2nd Army was completely annihilated (the Hungarian casualties reached the figure of 84%)!
The Romanian armies, in turn, were completely destroyed by the Soviets after Operation Uranus, more precisely by Nikolai Vatutin's Southwestern Front (which included Dmitry Lelyushenko's 1st Guards Army, Romanenko's 5th Tank Army and Ivan Chistyakov's 21st Army). Ion Antonescu, the Romanian leader, simply lost two ENTIRE ARMIES at Stalingrad (Dumitrescu's 3rd Army and Constantinescu's 4th Army). Altogether, about 18 Romanian divisions were destroyed. The 8th Italian Army, however, was also severely hit and destroyed. All the 10 divisions that made up Generale d'Armata Italo Gariboldi's 8th Italian Army, with no exceptions, were completely annihilated or reduced, including the 9th ID "Pasubio", the 52nd ID "Torino", the 2nd ID "Sforzesca", the 3rd Cavalry Division "Principe Amedeo Duca d'Aosta", the 3rd ID "Ravenna", the 5th ID "Cosseria", the 3rd Alpine Division "Julia", the 4th Alpine Division "Cuneense", the 2nd Alpine Division "Tridentina" and the 156th ID "Vicenza".
Note (2): The Italians did not participate directly in the Battle of Stalingrad. However, the Italians were the primary targets of Operation "Little Saturn" (December 1942), the "continuation" of Operation Uranus, whose primary objective was the destruction of Gariboldi's 8th Italian Army and Gusztáv Jány's 2nd Hungarian Army. While the 8th Italian Army was surrounded by General Vasily Kuznetsov's 1st Guards Army (supported by Dmitry Lelyushenko's 3rd Guards Army), the Hungarians, as I mentioned before, were attacked and destroyed by Filipp Golikov's Voronezh Front. All the 10 aforementioned Italian divisions were attacked and destroyed.
• Generale di Divisione (Divisional general/Major General) Guido Boselli's 9th ID "Pasubio", Roberto Lerici's 52nd ID "Torino", Carlo Pellegrini's 2nd ID "Sforzesca", and Ettore de Blasio's 3rd Cavalry Division "Principe Amedeo Duca d'Aosta", for example, were surrounded and destroyed by Kuznetsov's 1st Guards Army.
• Generale di Divisione Francesco Dupont's 3rd ID "Ravenna" and Enrico Gazzale's 5th ID "Cosseria", in turn, were also attacked by the Soviet 1st Guards Army during Operation Little Saturn (December 1942), whose primary objective, as I mentioned before, was the complete destruction of the Italian 8th Army.
• Umberto Ricagno's 3rd Alpine Division "Julia" and Emilio Battisti's 4th Alpine Division "Cuneense", on the other hand, were destroyed by Fyodor Kharitonov's 6th Soviet Army.
• Etelvoldo Pascolini's 156th ID "Vicenza" and Luigi Reverberi's 2nd Alpine Division "Tridentina", lastly, were also severely reduced.
By the end of 1942, the 8th Italian Army was in shambles. Altogether, the Italians lost 114.520 soldiers in Russia!
Stalingrad, therefore, was not only catastrophic for Hitler, where he lost Paulus' 6th Army and its 20 divisions (including Hans-Georg Leyser's 29th Motorized Division, Max Pfeffer's 297th ID, Richard Stempel's 371st ID, Hans-Heinrich von Armin's 113th ID, Heinrich-Anton Deboi's 44th ID, Eccard Freiherr von Gablenz's 384th ID, Alexander von Daniels' 376th ID, Helmuth Schlömer's 3rd Motorized Division, Hans-Adolf von Arenstorff's 60th Motorized Division, Günther Angern's 16th Panzer Division, Richard von Schwerin's 79th ID, Bernhard Steinmetz's 305th ID, Martin Lattmann's 14th Panzer Division, Arno von Lenski's 24th Panzer Division, Carl Rodenburg's 76th ID, Alexander von Hartmann's 71st ID, Werner Sanne's 100th ID, Otto Korfes' 295th ID, Erich Magnus' 389th ID and Georg Pfeiffer's 94th ID), but it was also catastrophic for Mussolini (who lost an entire army at Stalingrad), Antonescu (who lost TWO ENTIRE ARMIES at Stalingrad) and Miklós Horthy (who also lost an entire army at Stalingrad).
The central point of all German operations in 1942 (especially Case Blue), in my historical analysis, should have been the Caucasus. The German primary attention should have been Wilhelm List's Army Group A (which included Kleist's 1st Panzer Army, Richard Ruoff's 17th Army and Manstein's 11th Army), NOT Weichs' Army Group B (which included Paulus' 6th Army). Had it not been for the diversion of troops and resources from Army Group A to Army Group B, Kleist's panzers would rapidly reach the Armavir-Salsk-Maykop-Grozny-Baku line (reaching Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia). Hitler's first major mistake within this sector, for example, was to transfer and divert Manstein's 11th Army to Leningrad. List's initial intention was to use the 11th Army as a mobile reserve formation during his campaign, using it whenever the campaign demanded. However, Hitler interfered in List's plans and diverted the 11th Army to Leningrad. Following Hitler's decision, List lost almost half of his infantry force. Nevertheless, Kleist's 1st Panzer Army conquered Armavir, Salsk and Maykop. Ruoff's 17th Army, on the other hand, seized Rostov. Moreover, the 17th Army also destroyed the pockets of resistance left by Kleist's panzers. Army Group A's "Achilles' Heel", however, was not necessarily the Soviet troops themselves, but the lack of fuel! As Kleist reported after the war: "The main cause of our failure was the lack of fuel". If the 1st Panzer Army had received enough fuel, the Germans could have advanced almost unopposed towards Baku. By the end of August, List's advance was completely halted. As Kleist said after the war: "We could have achieved our goal if my forces had not been gradually diverted to Stalingrad". Stalingrad, therefore, was Hitler's greatest obsession!
Note (3): Hitler imagined that his position at Stalingrad in October 1942 was similar to Falkenhayn's position at Verdun (September 1916). The conquest/destruction of Stalingrad, in my historical analysis, was a personal confrontation between Hitler and Stalin. Stalingrad was vital for his "great and real task" ("Große und eigentliche Aufgabe"): the struggle with Bolshevism (Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Bolschewismus). Hitler passionately believed that the Russians "had already used their last reserves during the first winter of the war". Moreover, he assured Paulus that the Russians were at the "end of their forces" ("Die Russen sind am Ende ihrer Kraft"). By the end of October 1942, however, virtually the entire western bank of the Volga was already in German hands (including 90% of Stalingrad itself).
The analysis made by General Sir Charles Gwynn (1870-1963), a retired British army officer when the Battle of Stalingrad took place, is perfectly correct: "The Germans must, from a purely military point of view, have begun to doubt whether it is really worth expending men and materials in an attempt to complete the capture of the city by assault. The Germans have already achieved much of their objective, as they practically destroyed Stalingrad as a center of war industries, gaining a position that allows them to interrupt the traffic on the Volga". Gwynn's analysis, in my opinion, was perfectly correct. Stalingrad was completely neutralized by the end of 1942. In October/November 1942, Stalingrad no longer had any strategic importance. Rather than focusing on the Caucasus and Caspian Sea oil fields (mainly Baku), Hitler, for his part, maintained his attention 100% focused on Stalingrad. The reason for that? Simple pride! As I mentioned before, the conquest/destruction of Stalingrad was a matter of honor for Hitler, that is, his true obsession. The destruction of the city bearing Stalin's name (STALINgrad), therefore, was his main goal/obsession. After Stalingrad, the Germans never regained their former military glory. In my own words, Stalingrad became a "symbol of the Soviet resistance and victory" ("Символ советского сопротивления и победы"). Hitler simply lost an entire army because of his foolish obsession/ego.
Thank you dude!
It's funny because Germany could've helped both the Romanian and Hungarian armies by giving them some of the captured Soviet equipment and thus modernizing their divisions, especially when it comes to tanks and anti tank guns.
Instead they'd send it back to Germany to smelt it for steel and after Uranus threw a fit at their "allies" because, shocker, they couldn't stop hordes of tanks with WWI anti tank equipment, good will and courage.
The Axis Alliance in a nutshell right there.
@@AwayWithYouVileBeggar The Romanians especially Dumitrescu, also warned the Germans about the build up of Soviets and requested help to eliminate the last Soviet bridgehead over the Don but were refused. The Luftwaffe commander Richtoffen went rogue and sent them as much help as he could get away with.
I see your point. Romanians, Italians and Hungarians were poorly equipped foe the battle and less politically motivated. So for that matter only the German 6th Army counted as a professional fighting force in all regards. But have you noticed that of all the documentaries of this battle, so far this seems to be the only one that depicts the actual amount of Soviet Armies surrounded the sole German 6th Army in Stalingrad. Nevertheless, so-called historians always boast of the catastrophic defeat of the Germans, as if Soviet strategy or some merit was superior. I see none. Beside this German guy name Gehlen who was in charge of intelligence in that sector (who later worked for the CIA after the war, I understand) failed to warn his superiors of the massive concentration of troops in October 1942. So by the time the Germans were encircled, they still did not have a clear picture of what was going on. Other encircled German battle groups had previously been supplied by air. Marshal Herman Göring assured Hitler that his Luftwaffe could do the job. But eventually he never delivered on his word, at a time when to much time had elapsed. Air commander Richthofen also complained that von Paulus troops were fighting defensively in Stalingrad, instead of trying to reach von Hoth's attempt to reach Stalingrad. And for that matter von Paulus had only served as adjutant to Field Marshal von Reichenau, previous commander of the German 6th Army. Many factors influenced the final fate of the doomed 6th Army. Not just Hitler's ego.
@@dalilaberenicepadillaloera5568
You might wanna check out TIKhistory on YT for a LONG series called Battlestorm Stalingrad
(currently at 39 eps of at least 30 minutes each,, and still going) for a very elaborate breakdown of the battle
Highly recommend TIK's documentary on this battle, possibly the best documentary ever made.
not possibly...surely
He’s not a proper historian, he doesn’t know the difference between socialism and fascism. The Battlefield documentary series was and is still the best documentary to cover Stalingrad.
@@Kieran84ire I would argue that he knows precisely what is the difference between socialism and fascism, sadly people that only vaguely bothered to read up on both ideologies make the claims like you did just now.
@@zmajooov this is the guy who thinks Hitler's national socialism and Stalin's socialism are the same thing; as much as a mess as Mein Kampf is, I think it aptly demonstrates Hitler was not a socialist and despised socialism and communism in it's entirety. The chap has videos over 40 mins long where he tries to argue national socialism and socialism are the same thing, anyone with the barest understanding of history knows they are not. He does so because he has a massive chip on his shoulder about socialism. Historians don't do that, they don't view history through a lens of ideology.
@@Kieran84ire Full degree British university ? I guess your ideology will not allow you to see that the older people who watch his presentations already know that Hitler was a socialist because it was taught in schools in the 1970s before the woke lefties took over education in British schools .You have probably been indoctrinated already by your education.
the way they said they were still churning out tanks in the battle of stalingrad even with the enemies overrunning the city must’ve felt like an intense game of battlefield repairing your tank after it’s badly damaged except it’s real life
“The Chancellor” 😂
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome
@@Knowledgia The overlords are listening.
@@Knowledgia Improvisieren, Anpassen, Überwinden
It's "DER FÜHRER!"
@@PeterMcJackass i think is die fuhrer
Funny how this city alone held out longer then all of France did... And even won!
By barbaric means and catastrophic expenses. France was so dead set on avoiding the devastation of another great war that once they realized they were out maneuvered and outmatched they had to surrender.
@@brianpetersen570 that's what it takes sometimes. Or you could be a coward and surrender to Nazi I guess 🙄
@@YoutubSosetXui Wow you're so brave from your behind your keyboard- I can tell you're quite the war hero
@@Jeff-fe8rf bullshit, germany suffered much more during and after ww1 and they had no help like the french
😂😂😂😂😂👌
- Why Stalingrad is the largest city on Earth?
- ???
- Because it takes a hundred days to get from one end to other other.
my great great grandfather was a pilot in the soviet air force in Stalingrad, when winter came he could not fly because the oil had frozen, so he fought on the ground
Stalingrad was only in 1942-1943. How can you you have already have 5 generations since then?
@@antonboludo8886 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@antonboludo8886 My uncle is an old englishman whose grandfather fought in wwi and died in wwii. Poor people have children at 20 or less. I think that in modern west europa it is less common today
@@juancosentino8327 I do not believe you.
"Uranus" very aptly named for how it ended for the Germans
1:53 You forgot to mention that Germany had to tweek it’s plan by splitting the Army Group South into two because Germany needed oil so badly that it no longer had the time or resources to take Stalingrad and the Caucuses oil fields separately before running out of fuel.
@Yieri the panzer division wouldn't have helped. German logistics were soo bad that they would have run out of fuel before they were encircled. Tik's video on case blue explains why they were withdrawn quite well
A Russian friend (and fellow Baby Boomer) told me that it was the "Katushka Rockets" that saved the Russians. She wasn't actually there, but her parents were. Interesting factoid from a History Prof. at San Francisco State; until the Germans violated their non-aggression pact with Stalin, the Russians were actually supplying ammunition to the Germans.
the Americans supplied the Germans with ammunition, as well as food and clothing until 1944, so calm down, money rules the world
@pepl can I get a source?
Here 11 Second Ago!
No one cares
*@KNOWLEDGIA COULD U PLS MAKE A VIDEO ON FRAXINETUM, THE MUSLM EMIRATE OF SWITZERLAND‼️‼️*
In reality, order "not step back" or you can be ejecuted by treason happened in all armies. The political comisaries were 1 to 10000 soldiers to watch, so the numbers of ejecutions were low. Another point is that the city wasn't evacuated, that is untrue. Not all the citizens, but they rescued half of the population or more
Besides, is insulting that you said is Stalin's fault the more deads, the NAZIS invaded the country and masacre civilians, we can speak today because millions of soviets fight until the last breath to liberate their country and europe from the 3 reich
propoganda
Great you bring up the no step back order. There's too many myths about it. TIK has a great video about it: ruclips.net/video/JOKAIDpOY80/видео.html&ab_channel=TIK
@@mr.2083 His series on Stalingrad is excellent! and is currently ongoing with 20+episodes. Also, the disproportionate amount of soldiers dying in captivity is more due to the condition they surrendered ( many were starving and simply perished before they even marched to the camps).
@@nihalbhandary162 If you look up the total amount of German POWs dying in Soviet captivity, the number is much lower for all of the other battles on the Eastern Front.
Out of 3 million captured German soldiers on the Eastern Front, between 300,000 - 1,000,000 died in Soviet captivity.
Out of 5.7 million captured Soviet soldiers, over 3 million were killed while in German captivity, most in the first few years of the war
Prior to Stalingrad, the Mongolian "siege of Bagdad" had the deadliest battle ever. A refusal to surrender and insulting the Mongolian general, after Bagdad's capture they spent 40 days killing everyone in the city. Militarily ,Stalingrad was a defeat the Germans would never recover from.
That’s not a battle. That’s just an execution.
And then they say that only nazis were bad, but ottomans, mongols, arabs and others in their opinion are probably good guys
@@krzysztofk1674 and the crusaders and every European kingdom that took part in colonisation... Anyone that committed a crime is a criminal... Doesn't matter where you come from...
@@flyingpiggie979 It became an execution ,but , the Abisaide Califate Sultan was over confident in his chances.
@@krzysztofk1674 Dont' count on me to vote for Trump , but its true history if viewed honestly does not make white people evil. It just shows that all humans will potentially do the same evil acts if given the opportunity. .
IMPORTANT NOTE ON ORDER 227:
the order primarely refered to the officers and commissars who allowed thous disastrous disorganized retreats in the prior year, contrary to popular belief it did not = in a you "will not retreat no matter what and if you even look behind your shoulder you will imidiatly get shot" like it is portrated in popular movies and this vid , because retreats did happen, the problem was that early in the war the soviet army was plagued by officers issuing unapproved retreat orders, AAAND this was true for every single army in the world, i allways found it odd that this was something the soviet got shit for when it came to insubordonation or deserters yet the same treatment was applyed to the americans, british , candians, germans, etc.
good vid on the subject, but a little bit more research into order 227 would have bean appreciated, we all know the effect of the decisions of the soviet regime on both it's civilian and armed population, there is no point in makeing up stuff.
Yea I mean look at WW1, British officers shot men who ran back into the trench after going over the top.
@@firingallcylinders2949 Or the Reason why the Christmas armistice was a one-time thing
I think it comes down to the cold war demonize the sovits and make tne west look better
@@alexanderballa6152 yep, allthough i do prefer the west system (i'm from east europe so we know that this whole comunist system is no bueno) it does annoy me when the west side just makes shit up about the soviets, the world agreed that it was not a good system that's why it fell, and ofc there was propaganda on the soviet side, no doubt about it, but as far as i can see, there was never as much as it is on the west side, granted the citizen were not as well educated so not as much propaganda was needed to convince them of what to think/do, but i think the west overdid it.
@@Sigrid_Von_Sincluster they did over do it a bit in the usa as of anything that helps the workers aka gives more money for them to put in the econamy witch = more money for evryone
I can just picture stalin saying, "execute order 227. Not one step back"
Soviet general: it shall be done my lord
No lords, and my, everyone is comrade, even Stalin
BLAST HIM
Man, another good example of poor educated sample, who just threw a phase that not worth a $0.1, guys you should stop poison the air, Gretta will find and will take all the lithium from you.
Haha getting
Your description of 227 was misleading as it only applied to officers who ordered unauthorized withdrawals
anticommunist myths are hard to kill
Stalingrad was an extremely important junction necessary for the Germans to take in order for them to meet their objectives. It had nothing to do with the city name.
The Soviets really went through hell and are the MVPs of WWII. Chuikov’s brilliant “hug the enemy” strategy and his command style during the battle of Stalingrad made operation Uranus possible.
Now that is dedication: You let bombs go off next to your microphone just to recreate the sounds of artillery fire & bombings!
Thank you for doing something so risky, just to have great background noise!!! You're a true hero
I think the name of the city is self-explaining, why it was so deadly and so heavily defended
That's right cousin...
It had nothing to do with the name(except for Gefreiter Hitler maybe). It was the last defencible position on Volga. Beyond that the Germans would enter the wide steppe to march on the Baku oil fields.
@@gogaonzhezhora8640 r/woosh
lmao, that explanation is savage
@@vladimirvonmongol6368 deutsche Tugenden - Überheblichkeit und Besserwisserei. How efficient of you.
The reason the USSR could call in Siberian forces was because they knew Japan wouldn’t attack unless Moscow fell. Imagine if on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Vladivostok instead of Pearl Harbor
I was there with Viktor Reznov. And it's pure madness
Dimitri, you are?
Yes
Stfu lies 😂😂😂😂
Once again you cheat death!
"A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago?
@Spicyleaves Those volumes... I really think a lot of people should read that.
@Spicyleaves Thank you so much!
@Spicyleaves hello I saw you in atlas pro , I think you are like me trying to find channels for studying and yes for now the channel has 500k subs and he uploaded a personal history video ruclips.net/video/M8oJ4gXFwVc/видео.html which l think is my favorite as what I know is history is written by person who wins so we never know what is correct but when you have experienced it you know better about it so I think that’s my favourite video of this channel sadly it got very less view then it gets normally , hope when he reaches 1million he does a similar video
I know.
Because James Bisonette didn’t sponsor it
Lmao
😂😂😂
Forgot Kelly the money maker and robwater house
While this was going on, another deadly set of battles around Rzhev were going on. Over a million Russians, possibly more were lost in pointless attacks. While German positions were constantly attacked and precious reserves that could have turned the tide at Stalingrad were sent to Rzhev.
The Soviets nickname the battlesite: The Rzhev Meat Grinder.
Soviet casualties killed in all Rzhev operations amount to 392 thousand people. But if you add the wounded, there are 1.1 million. People confuse the wounded with the dead.
Also Stalingrad was on the river meaning the Germans couldn’t encircle it like Minsk was or Smolensk and the Soviets could easily send more men into the city.
The Germans also bombed the place completely to the ground which lead to the house to house fighting and deaths on both sides
One madman preventing his forces from breaking out the encirclement and another madman refusing to evacuate civilians and killing his own men while retreating.
Wrong, Hitler was not preventing the retreat of the 6th army. It was actually because of Manstein who refused to listen to the will of Paulus and take action immediately upon the news of how bad things were going at Stalingrad. That being said, Hitler did absolutely often create "fortress" cities out of conquered territories in order to prevent losing said conquests. But this time, it was far from Hitlers fault.
@@AtroFear also by the time German relieve attempt got going near Christmas the troops in the city had been encircled for over a month and were starving to death. By that point a breakout towards the relieve attempt would have been impossible given how short of supplies the germans were.
The description of the Soviet involvement in the war has always been weighed down in the West by prejudice. This video is the typical western work loaded with prejudices. The NKVD declasified documents mention about 278 exucution for backing out, on the entire Stalingrad front. The sporadic machine-gunning of routing troops by their own side is something the Germans also practiced, specially with their Romanian allies in Stalingrad.
Because thet sure always document it, when they kill their own soldiers. 😂😂
The whole shooting at your retreating troops might be simply a myth and the order was aimed primarily at officers, they were not allowed to retreat without order from their superior.
There is an ongoing serie of videos made on the RUclips channel TIK that covers the battle for Stalingrad that gives way more informations and debunk a lot of clichés about it.
@@kiwihaider3947 because that's not how order 227 worked
@@kiwihaider3947 yes, you kinda have to do this. We speak about a totalitarian system where each your action must be accounted and noted - because each citizen/soldier is a state's asset and it is not your job to decide if the asset is worthy or not or "remove" that asset yourself without any explanation. There are paper-issued orders, there are combat journals of the unit, so every action of the unit is pretty traceable.
@@mdokuch96 and you would trust NKVD records? The department that was specifically tied with crushing political opposition, espionage, and torture?
Imagine yourself in Stalingrad during WWII
Hell hole.
I would become a real man
@@morisco56 *dead man
I do have better thoughts..
Yeah. That's a hard pass.
The great battle in history Battle of Stalingrad:🇩🇪Germany, 🇷🇴Romania,🇭🇺Hungary and 🇮🇹Italy vs Soviet Union☭
That is the Chinese flag.
@@moisuomi There is no Soviet one, so I put something to look more like
@@historyofromaniabucharest9011 ☭
@@moisuomi however, it is not the real red flag, but it works
Put Romanians and Hungarians on the same team and see what happens 😬
"inarguably one of the most merciless and destructive battles"
Quite frankly, the most merciless and destructive. There were no such bloodiest battles in the human history comparable to Stalingrad - just take a look at the losses combined for goodness sake.
It is said that the battle of Moscow was the biggest battle in history.
@@bedstuyrover
It is said that it's enough to compare the losses at Stalingrad with the losses in the battle of Moscow to find the truth
@@jacksonfoxtrot total casualties for the battle of Moscow was 2.5 million.
@@bedstuyrover wiki says otherwise. 1.5m at its top
@@jacksonfoxtrot Wiki is considered to be inaccurate. Rodric Braithwaite wrote an interesting account of the battle of Moscow called " Moscow 1941". As i read it several years ago i do not recall his figures but he leaves you in no doubt as to the fact that the battle was the largest in history. I had a look at history .com, they give a figure of 2.5 million; they also state that millions of troops were rotated on this enormous battlefield. It is rather puzzling why greater emphasis is not placed on this conflict for this was the true turning point of ww2. With the Soviets taking staggering losses, and the Wehrmacht victorious everywhere, the German high command expected a crushing victory at the capitol. the fact that a crushing defeat occurred was indicative of the end for Germany. From that point on, it was a war of attrition. Germany's slender resources could not hope to keep up with the vast resources of the USSR.
In the words of Lawrence Olivier in, "The World at War":
-"It was not just a defeat, it was a catastrophe. Enough equipment captured to supply one quarter of the entire German Army. "
Please more WW2 videos. I would love to see your take on the battle of Midway
Very insightful, incisive perspective. I have never heard this thinking before, and it rings very true. 💛🙏🏼
Get your facts straight. Sovets started evacuation of people long before German attack. Over 100 thousands were evaluated. A lot of people were evaluated during the battle.
And yet there were civilians inside the city
@@DarkPsychoMessiah yea, because they couldn’t evacuate everyone in time, as the Germans began bombing the Volga crossing before they even got to the city limits
no
The 1077th were some bad ass ladies, basically fought to the death.
Stalingrad was the epitome of bravery, determination and human suffering.
If you have never seen the German movie" Stalingrad"made in 1993 it's worth a watch.
I like the way the narrator explains with such enthusiasm
I love how these videos bring every know it all into one fold!
Brought to you by the same people who made "Mommy, why do people die when they're underwater too long?"
I'm sorry, I'm from Russia and I know English too badly to watch your video. However, the fact that in the west someone is interested in the eastern front makes me happy.
If you want, you can ask any question. I know the history of this war. And in general, to ask for something for the USSR, I will try to answer.
The German 6th army that surrendered to the Red army, was the same elite 6th army that took Paris in 2 weeks...
personel turnover must have been hellish.
Yes the same that marched proudly under the arc of triumphe. So when u watch it note most of these dudes would be dead and a few surrendering in Stalingrad
They didnt surrender tbh. They fought on, but since they were encircled they got crushed from air and flanks. They surrendered only when all hope was gone.
@@Stockfish1511 Thats when you surrender buddy, fight to the last man is what Leonidas did at Thermopalae. Soviets took like 200k POWs at Stalingrad
@@АлексейП-т2е i know, but right decision would have been pulling troops from the start to avoid encirclment. While i give credit for red army for its heroic battle in stalingrad. I have to give credit to wehrmacht because they fought long time despite the ods.
This is the real content of value on RUclips.
The book "Prisoners of Geography" explains how the Soviets didn't have any warm water ports, probably another reason why Stalingrad was a vital city for supply chain and more.
Stalin is specifically mentioned in the video but Hitler is only mentioned as "German Chancellor".
yes the usa corporations censor history.. only the us official version is allowed.. not much to do with reality.. this is to allow a corrupt govt to exist and nullifiy the vote. which is only based on lies.. thus the corruption continues.
@@stumpedii8639 wtf does the RUclips algorithm blocking adverts for the word Hitler have to do with your american paranoia and problems???
I think it had something to do with all the guns, bombs, tanks, artillery and aircraft. Add in some freezing weather and malnutrition and it was pretty damn dangerous.
Not a bad documentary, but I don't think it's fair to say that the surviving civilians were "forced" to build fortications and trenches. I'm sure they understood the importance of these tasks.
American propaganda implies that everyone in USSR was forced to fight for Stalin and nobody really wanted to fight. A lot of american information about the Eastern front comes from the German sources and former Nazi officers, because you gotta discredit your opponent during the Cold War somehow. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
@@Someone-lr6gu Your comment explains nothing.
@@rogerpattube Then what do you want me to say?
Those poor Italians. Lord knows most of them wanted no part of fighting and they ended up in maybe THE worst theater of the entire war.
Mussolini’s fascist regime (ruled in Italy) arrogantly sent more than three hundred thousand Italian soldiers to help Hitler conquer Russia. These Italian forces were approximately equivalent to the Italian forces invading to Abyssinia, but the fate of the Italian soldiers was different, because most of them were destroyed in the snowy steppes of Russia, and very few of them were able to survive surrendering prisoner.
These Italian armies really disappeared.
Just imagine if this was in the mid 40s and the casualties surpassed millions, with todays tech and fighting techniques and strategies just imagine how many casualties will be made in the nezt major war
Dear Knowledgia, thank you! You gave me the courage to make a video to Biden asking to clean up orbital debris for all our futures!
Orbital debris?? You're an absolute moron.! Space is not real. WTF U! At 72 miles up there is a firmament, so there is a such thing as low earth orbit where the air is very thin and they use Habs high-altitude balloons that satellites dangle from and they usually stay up for a year or two sometimes longer and when they fall lots of times in the ocean they are retrieved immediately sometimes they even fall on land you can actually find some videos where a man found 4000 lb of balloon and satellite and dragged it onto his boat soon as he got soul and they were waiting for him. You should stop listening to Bill Nye the Science Guy, who knows nothing about science or math he's actually an actor. Same with Don Pettit who said and I quote" I would go back to the Moon in a nanosecond but we destroyed that technology and it's a very painful process to get back. You don't believe me it's still on the internet you can see the interview with Don Pettit NASA smokesman
Nice shameless self promotion grifter
@@maximusdecimusmeridius5500 you ok?
War is when the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter into killing each other
Roman! Did you fall asleep!!?
After all o heard, saw and read about Stalingrad, what made it so deadly was because both armies were exhausted to the breaking point. The strongest divisions we're almost always at 43% strength or less and the others were more often than not reduced to battalion strength. That means that neither side had the power to dislodge the other and take or defend the city meaning that the attacks only produced more dead and wounded than a overrun so the stalemate just added more corpses on useless or trivial and wasteful attacks.
@پیاده نظام خان Not really though, see Germans were stretched thin. So much so that even if Stalingrad were to be captured, the Germans still wouldn't go past Moscow in the center and probably wouldn't be able to reach the oil fields in the far south. That's how bad they were in both menpower and logistics (That includes things like oil). So Stalingrad wasn't that much of a factor. However, it did helped to sap that manpower that Germany still had left.
Very well-made and explained video. This was the turning point of the war on the east front.
I consider the turning point when the NAZIS were repelled at Leningrad and Moscow. Prior to that, the NAZIS seemed unstoppable.
@@radrook2153 I am not an expert on WWII on the Eastern Front, however, from the evidence I saw, the Stalingrad defeat was the begging of the end of Natzis in Russia
@@cornelbacauanu1544 It can certainly be viewed that way. Only one more battle was fought where they had the initiative and that was at Kursk. But generally speaking, most historians, if not all, would agree with you that.
93 german film stalingrad is a fantastic movie. and gives great perspective into the german side against the russians.
Does it show scenes of these same German units performing mass atrocities on children etc just before they got to Stalingrad?
Drinking game: take a shot every time the video present a longtime busted myth as fact!
Ahhh my memories with Reznov. The times...
Zhukov and his 3rd Division is legendary
Another terrific video. Love these history videos. Keep it up.
During the WW2 the city of Donetsk was called Stalino, there is a typo on your map in the very beginning of the video
Two points of feedback:
1) There was no "chancellor" - that position was merged with head of state into the Führer
2) According to TimeGhostArmy, Stalingrad was meant to tie down the German forces, to provide enough time to prepare operation Uranus. The Soviets did their best (and succeeded) in slowing down the German mobile warfare
Buddy, he's saying "The Chancellor" because I'm certain that RUclips's algorithm would bury this video if he referred to the big H as his actual name or title.
@@Anonymous-ld7je seriously? Has YT stooped that low?
Very basic would recommend TIK for a more in-depth documentary
Tik?
@@hodor6994 ruclips.net/video/YAfo5mse-ag/видео.html
True- but if you only have 15 mins why not?
You can see from the map it’s location on the Volga. Stalingrad was absolutely important. Without it, the Soviets would be cut off of oil and other supplies from the South. It would be very difficult to keep fighting without oil.
My grandmas uncle was fighting in Battle of Stalingrad...he was part of 369. Regiment (Croatian Volunteers) who were one of the first divisions who came to Stalingrad. Unfortunately he was shot in the leg while in battle and so sent back home...
rather fortunately for him
@@impaugjuldivmax I know...I just said how he told my grandma when he came home...he wanted to fight
And how exactly was he sent home ? Thats just bs
>open a historical video about Russia
>click at random time
>"Stalin refused to evacuate civilians"
>close the video
Because everyone was firing at each other.
The Wehrmacht developed the system of Blitzkreig where the panzer divisions would travel 50 or more miles a day and encircle their enemies. Most countries fell to their tactics in weeks or even less. But Stalingrad was a completely different situation. Instead of their tanks racing ahead and firing their cannons at targets more than a mile away, they got bogged down in the city rubble and at close quarters with the Russians - who threw Molotov cocktails at them.
Great video. Thanks from Brazil.
Can we take a moment to appreciate Stalin naming a surprise attack penetrating deep into the rear of the German army "Uranus"?
Civilians in an ox cart cannot out run a tank. And the invaders murdered millions of civilians. To blame their deaths on that mean old Stalin is ridiculous. Go to Volgograd. Learn something.
i find this channel to be very biased and not well informed on russian history
That is like believing Stormfront on whether Hitler was a nice guy.
@@CA-jz9bm how is that Stalin at least has his named mentioned in the video. We'll never know who Germany's chancellor is based on this video. I say that's pretty biased against Germany if you ask me.
The German northern pocket continued to holdout for a lot longer after Paulus surrendered.
....2 days
Though admittedly, 2 days fighting for survival under constant attack must seem like an eternity
This is not true. The "no step back order" was especially intended for higher ranks who retreated unauthorized. If they had authorization, they could retreat without consequences.
Its True 😉
@@matejstarcevic6566 Yes, if they retreated without authorization. But in many occasions authorizations were given. Also, most of the times, the officers in charge were shot, not the soldiers, that listened to their officers.
Yeah, I really hate the huge misconception regarding order 227. Retreat orders were issued constantly and it wasn't an issue whatsoever. The problem was that officers (especially the political NKVD officers) issued retreat orders without even having properly tried to fight the enemy. This caused panic amongst other groups of the army and that risked more unreasonable retreat orders. It was very rare that the actual soldiers displayed cowardice, it was almost always the officers fearing for their lives. Order 227 could also be used against divisional and higher levels of officers, so it was really serious. Even Chuikov himself could've been outright shot and replaced if he started issuing such bad retreating orders. No officer were safe from order 227. Now obviously, Chuikov was pretty much fearless and relentless, his nicknames are literally "The Stone" and "The Man of Iron Will" etc. He wasn't scared whatsoever when he placed his command headquarters just shy of 800 meters from the german frontline. He was quite a commander to say the least. Does this mean regular soldiers never got shot? Of course not. But it was very, very rare.
There are tons of stupid misconceptions regarding WW2. Another huge such misconception is the claim that the winter defeated the Wehrmacht, when that was literally just a minor issue in comparison to the other huge major issues. Such as the chronic lack of oil aswell as horrendous logistics, and you know... the kinda should-be-extremely-fucking-obvious relentless and neverending resistance of the Red Army.
Russia stopping Germany at the gates of Moscow, then pushing them all the way back to Berlin, is the greatest military feat in history.
No it isn’t. There’s far more militaristic success and wonders that happened through history
TIK has some 30 episodes on this battle...I can not recommend that channel enough.