It looks very similar to Finnish propaganda during the winter war - all people knew was they were constantly winning, and at one moment, government says they surrender and give Soviets everything they wanted. It was a shock for Finnish people as they had absolutely no idea what really happens on the front.
You should add links to your previous Stalingrad videos for people who missed them. All together these videos are some of the best sources on Stalingrad.
I would have been grateful for this insight when I was younger. There was so little information available in the 80's and 90's. The Internet can be a good thing sometimes.
Interesting end point about the soldiers morale and determination going up after Goebbels' "now for total war" message. Similar to the mid-1942 Stalin order promising death to deserters and defeatists. The Red Army soldiers in the line who were being badly beaten by the Germans thought - "Good, now we know were we stand. No fooling around now." and their determination went up.
Lets wait 20 minutes before people come here denying any propaganda from any sides. Soviet or German. And then we'll know "the real truth" about the war! Anyhow, on a serious note, great video! The actuall encirclement of the city and the situation in it is very often overlooked in all kinds of history books or documentaries. Very enjoyable to see any content at all around it. And quite a plus to have someone who knows their stuff making videos about it!
The Soviets also have a lot of propaganda from this campaign. Not just about the brave fighting for the city, but also about the whole Uranus and Saturn operations. For example the Tatskinskaya raid was used for a lot of propaganda even using that the 24th mechanised corps was almost anihilated (it only survived because the 5th Tank Army made a successful relief operation and managed to divert the German forces encircling it, thus allowing the 24th corps to retreat). Other parts used for propaganda were scenes like the fighting for the Volga (the Volga gunboat flotilla was part of lots of Soviet propaganda) and the fighting for the western railway station (interestingly one of the Soviet officers in that fighting was in fact Spanish, lieutenant Rubén Ruiz Ibárruri, posthumous Order of Lenin, and son of the Spanish politician Dolores Ibárruri, nicknamed "La Pasionaria"). Or the guerrilla and snipers' fighting in the streets. People like Vasili Zaitsev were also used for propaganda, like his "hunt game" with a German sniper who would have been (according to Soviet propaganda) specifically sent to kill Zaitsev. You can say that almost every unit and important soldier fighting the campaign on the Soviet side was used for propaganda purposes. The "gallant heroism" of the 62nd and 64th armies in the city, the "wild ride" of the Soviet mechanised corps in Operation Uranus and Operation Saturn and the skills of the Soviet infantry for urban combat. It would also be interesting to make a video about the evolution of urban warfare and how the Soviets had a great advantage on it due to the lessons learned in the Spanish civil war (which included large scale urban warfare like the Battle for Madrid).
i heard that soviets had advantages in urban warfare because the experience from Rodimtsev, the commander of 13th guard rifle division, he was a veteran from spanish civil war, is it true ?
Hey Bernhard. I find this format just as stimulating as the visualized and illustrated videos. If this means you can make videos more often all the better.
Great video although I think your narrative would have been more effective if you had showed the "Thy died so the Fatherland could live" headline of the Völkische Beobachter!
You would if you understood what was waiting you in the enemy camps. Communist and national socialist are the most bitter enemies in the world, you should just look at what the communist did the the iron guard of Romanian. It isn't some made up masturbating machine bullshit you hear about the Germans either.
Silent Guy While that was true for the average soldier. Paulus was treated pretty well because he was a Field Marshal and could have had important information. He was even allowed to live in East Germany until he died.
James Tang I suspect it had a lot to do with the propaganda value of capturing a Fieldmarshal and proving to the masses that they were fighting for the just cause. I'm not saying either side was just, I just think it is the most logical explanation considering the brutality with which POW were treated by the Soviets
Your Stalingrad Propaganda analysis is excellent. I really enjoyed this. In early November, 1942, during one of Hitler's speeches, he just about announced that Stalingrad battle was won. This speech, as you well noted, was premature and required a new propaganda strategy. Excellent work.
really interesting, as allways. will you bring something about the ARMIR (Armata Italiana In Russia, italian army in russia) and the retreat of the winter 1943? they were encircled in stalingrad but thanks to the italian mountain troops, the alpini, some thousands of them escaped. here in italy it's a well known story but not in the rest of the world, i'm interested to understand how the italians managed to escape but not at least a part of the 6th army. thanks :)
I don't really understand the surprise of this. The soldiers of the Italian armed forces fought well in many wars including World War Two. They beat the Turks in 1911-1912 and the Austro-Hungarians in 1918 resoundingly. Going into WW2 their industry was simply not developed to the point where they could keep their soldiers equipped on par with the allies as far as tanks, anti-tank guns and aircraft were concerned. Regardless the British spoke highly of the Italian soldiers they fought in North Africa and Sicily. It was their equipment that let them down.
what? diaz was a master in defensive opeartions. he reorganized the army after caporetto and lead the defense of the piave river and the mount grappa, and commanded the army who broke the austro-hungrians durinf the vittorio veneto battle in 1918 who basically wonn the war on the italian front.
Matteo...from a german point of view....during ww2...italy and the italian army was a disaster for germany.....there was no single strategic victory from the italian army.....finally when it got hot they changed to the winners side.....they are great soldiers....lol
It's also interesting to note that the defeat at Stalingrad inspired Kurt Huber to write his sixth and final letter criticizing the war. Love the channel!
Hey, can you do a video on why Manstein advised Hitler to NOT retreat from Stalingrad? I read some interesting material that Stalingrad was held not because of the so called morale importance of Stalingrad, but because it was deemed better to leave the Army Group B surrounded, since it occupied the Soviet army in trying to eliminate the pocket, rather than leave the whole of Army Group South exposes in the Caucasus
Military History Vlogs, well, that’s what I really Love about your channel! You always seem to be willing to tackle the hardest problems. Anyways, it was just a suggestion. I’m sure you’ve got other ideas going on. Love your videos! Thanks for all your work
>not because of the so called morale importance of Stalingrad On the "moral meaning." At that time Donetsk was called Stalino. For him, such a meat grinder was not there - it was more likely just that it coincided that practical tasks were realized near the city of Stalingrad.
Jacq Wasp Germans knew that losing Stalingrad meant losing oil supply from Caucasus. When Stalingrad fell, Germans had to abandon Caucasus. Another reader wanted to know why Germans didn't just surround city. North of the city, German tank offensive was being bled to death by Russian counter offensives. Germans tried to cut off Stalingrad but never got close
: Are you speaking of the Kotluban battles just North of Stalingrad? I understand 3 German Divisions were badly damaged from those engagements which caused an unwanted delay in the advance on Stalingrad. Of course, the Germans inflicted great losses on the soviets as well, but as usual the soviets had a near endless man- power advantage, didn't they? Such losses thru the German meat grinder meant absolutely nothing to ole "uncle Joe", or ole Georgi Zhukov, did they? To say the Germans never "got close" to cutting off Stalingrad is not true. Before the encirclement, the Germans controlled over 90% of the city, however, supplies of nearly everything was fast running out, especially food and ammunition. The Germans were starving to death, but amazingly kept fighting with everything they had left. A fact rarely mentioned in most discussions about Stalingrad is that the battle did not end on Feb. 2nd, 1943. Paulus surrendered himself and his staff, that is true. But, not the rest of Sixth Army. They were free to fight on. His reasoning was that since he became a POW he was no longer their commander and could not give them orders. Most of the rest did decide to surrender after a little while longer. However, there was still one more force of about 11,000 Germans who still managed to hold out under the city until about the middle of March, 1943 before finally capitulating. About 3,000 were killed outright and the rest became POW's.
There are many types of propaganda, involved with Stalingrad: the wartime Soviet propaganda, the post-victory Soviet propaganda, the today's Russian nationalistic propaganda, the German wartime propaganda before the battle was lost, the German propaganda after losing the 6th Army, the German propaganda after the death of Hitler, blaming him for all, the Western Allies wartime propaganda, the Western Cold War propaganda and new war myths, the post-Cold War anti-Russian propaganda, the new polit-correct history propaganda etc. etc.
It's interesting to think of a scenario where things recovered for Germany after Stalingrad (no need to turn the whole war, just to have the Nazis exist longer), where this myth of "no one survived, they're all dead" had to be perpetuated.
If you could do more videos similar to this or the kohlm pocket i think it would be really great! seeing these videos are always really fascinating to see the eastern front be objectively disected
One of the best and most informative videos. One question, after the capture of 6th army how did letters were written to germany to soldiers families? Was the Soviet Union allowing POWs to write home and provided postal services? One request: can you do a full video or lead me to a video about battle of stalingrand similar that bazbattles and historia civilis makes ? what tactics were used, how the encirclement happened. Was Fredrick at fault ? or he did his best?
Dear Hakan......no letters no nothing......the last soldiers returned 1952/53 after the german chancler Adenauer asked the russians to do so.......women and children were standing in the stations hoping that their husband or father would leave the train.......for the most of the people nobody left the train....sad
Als Literatur darüber empfehle ich Jens Ebert: Feldpostbriefe aus Stalingrad. November 1942 bis Januar 1943 sowie, Wolfram Wette / Gerd Ueberschär: Stalingrad: Mythos und Wirklichkeit einer Schlacht
I missed one crucial word, that would be great if someone could enlight me: At 0:32 : "This time, the [???] couldnt be blame so easily, because Hitler took the high command of the wermacht" And by the way, whatever this word was, I fail to understand how putting the blame on one or another was problematic, it's not like propaganda had to rely on actual facts after all. Anyway, great video as usual. Thats a rather small detail but the thumbnail is nicely done too!
Well Hitlers Generals mislead him how bad the supply situation was in Stalingrad, so in this case I actully think that the military actully deserves most of the blame. Perhaps Hitler would have ordered a breakout if he knew that his Army needed atleast 5 times more supply than the official estimate? Perhaps some more sober and realistic words from Göring about the propects of this air supply project would have forced Hitler to rethink his decision.
> Perhaps Hitler would have ordered a breakout if he knew that his Army needed atleast 5 times more supply than the official estimate? There is not so simple everything. Paulus own mobile units were extinguished in battles. And to retreat / advance only by infantry in the bare field - the Soviet side was so washed with blood near Kotluban'. Therefore, the position "sit, we will pull you out" was not without meaning. Another thing is that Mannstein could not break through the corridor, after that it was possible to declare mourning for the 6th Army boldly - without supply and reserves, they were waiting for death or captivity.
On the Eastern Front the Russians would set up loudspeakers and play the sound of a clock ticking with the cheery news that every 7 seconds a German soldier died. During the 'kessel' phase of Stalingrad the loudspeakers played this 24/7. If anyone was severely affected by propaganda it was the soldiers of the 6th Army by their own propaganda ministry. Those that did have access to radios (and lucky enough to recount it later) said they became enraged when they heard Radio Berlin playing a 'check in' by various stations including Stalingrad; it was obviously fake. It was also how they found out they were being forsaken and sacrificed by the high command.
I'd love to see a video (if there isn't one already) on how much Goering's unrealistic commitments played into key German failures (e.g., Stalingrad airlift, preventing Dunkirk evacuation, defeating the RAF in the Battle of Britain, stopping Allied bombing of Germany).
no idea, it just mentioned that it was the job of the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) to "catch" it and that the botched it with a letter from a general's wife. Good question, but I don't think I have any books at hand that could answer that question quickly. Although, I will try to keep it in mind.
I do believe the red cross did have some function to provide families of pow's with news that their son/husband/etc. was still alive, so maybe they also on occasion managed to get letters back and forth. Just speculating here, but it makes sense in my head.
>As far as I know the Soviets did notallow the red Cross to operate in the Soviet Union because they didnt sign the genever convention. Geneva convention has nothing to do with it. The GC on POW's of the USSR was not signed, but the Hague convention was accepted (on 19 July 1941, Third Reich was notified about this through Sweden). Attempts of the USSR to negotiate with the Red Cross were. At the beginning. On July 27, Molotov announced the consent of the exchange of lists of POWs, in August in Ankara there were talks about the exchange of those lists, but they reached a deadlock. Wehrmacht was not interested in this issue, USSR in turn was suspicious of the idea of neutral inspections. Finally, this initiative was buried by the fact that in the USSR they began to know how the Germans actually keep with soviet POWs.
I think the late war Wochenschau episodes are so boring with less jolly news that the early episodes and there are no parades in front of a happy führer, and the narrotor voice is less enthusiastic. Instead the movie clips rather focus on local victories won by minor units. And the late war Signal magazine seems to talk less and less about the war as the war turns badly for Germany, and the late war editions get filled with advertisements and fashion instead of war reportage.
On the subjects of propaganda and Stalingrad: Anyone remember the scene in Enemy at the Gates where the Russians wonder how to motivate the troops to fight better? They all shout suggestions about being ever more brutal to their own men, and then one guy suggests giving them hope, and everyone else is just completely flabbergasted at this crazy idea. As if the Soviet political officer corpse had never heard of propaganda before. It was pure cringe.
>: Anyone remember the scene in Enemy at the Gates where the Russians wonder how to motivate the troops to fight better? Are you now seriously trying to talk about history using the "scene from enemy at the gates"?
Well, the NKVD was basicly much like just that. A million men where court martial, and an even higher number of Russian men were forced to serve in penal battalions to make suicide attacks against German lines or clearing minefields with their own feets.
nattygsbord Oh, I'm not arguing that it was a very, very bad time to be a Russian soldier. It was just the complete bafflement at the idea of using propaganda to make the soldiers feel better that had me laughing.
Okay, I'm so sorry. Simply, I do not even know how to explain this. As for me this film is missing only fighting bears. Is it in the West that someone else still takes it seriously?
Not much talk that Allied captured more German soldiers in North Africa (130 000) than Red Army in Stalingrad (92 000). Allied captured also some 300 000 Italian soldiers.
Peace-Of-Mind Its not just about the POWs taken but the actual numbers killed and the ramification for the rest of the front because of it. The African theatre was tertiary for the Wehrmacht & Hitler.
No answer was given so I’ll give mine Now if you’re talking historically like “was there a missed win?” The answer is no, the German plan used never ends in victory How could they have with some different choices? Well in my view one is to commit more forces to cutting the northern arctic ports, severing the allied aid, in historical situation the Battle of Moscow featured some British Matilda tanks for the Soviets to use, this could be facilitated with more not needed occupation troops (in Greece France Norway Belgium Netherlands) to the arctic front, although historically the arctic front was plagued with shit terrain and the big thing for me was Hitler’s original argument that Barbarossa should focus north and south, to deny the enemy their ability to replenish forces, so instead of the large army group center, a larger army group north and south, historically army group north couldn’t break Leningrad and link up with the Finns, whereas army group south got stalled a lot and wasn’t reinforced as the OKH wanted to push towards Moscow and sent most of the extras/reserves to army group center In short I’m saying the focus from day one should’ve been the collapse of the southern fronts and the capture or at least cut off of the Caucasus, if you’re thinking I’m recommending Fall Blau but in 1941 you are somewhat correct except with better troops, better supplies, and an enemy that did not have a year of hard experience to learn from, historically in 1942 the Soviets learned that the not one step back order led to large encirclement (Kiev was a painful lesson) so they pulled back, a big assumption in Fall Blau was the enemy wouldn’t retreat from encirclement How well this would work? Hard to say we don’t have a Barbarossa with 1 million army group north 1.5 million army group south 750,000 army group center to work with, but its no doubt better attempting to secure resources that the Germans desperately need rather than trying to capture a strategically meh city but muh capital
I've got a question bothering me for quite a time here. A whole bunch of steamers had played the latest COD and there were a numerous drop of the non-Reich weapon during the playthrough, such as PPsh-41. So how was the Wehrmacht or any SS-div. armed around the landing zone in truth? Was there any substantial and outstanding obstacles that caused the troops to have far-taken-Ostland arms rather than made-in-Reich weapon? or this is just another compromise made to improve the 'Playability' with a few weapon publicly famed? And I thought the flamethrower wasn't used in the WF because German signed the Geneva thing? (Not meant to increase your workload for some, well mabye personnal favored content, but just my curiosity on these related things told me not to trust simple google.)
They couldnt let good weapons ly all around eastern europe, could they? It would be the partisans dreams. The transport vehicles propably had a lot of free space while driving back to germany do to most transports beeing only to the front, not back again (except post).
Military History Vlogs Dann drück ich's anders aus. "Сталинград" kommt von "Сталин" wobei "С" einem scharfen "S" (=ß) entspricht. Die der originalen , russischen Aussprache am nächsten stehende Aussprache ist demzufolge die im Englischen geläufige. :D
Military History Vlogs Dann war wohl auch das ungünstig formuliert... Die Englische Aussprachen beinhaltet die Trennung zwischen S und T und da ich offensichtlich fälschlicherweise annahm die Englische Aussprache sei dir familiärer als die Russische , versuchte ich dir ohne Russisch-Kenntnisse vorauszusetzen , die dem Original am nächsten stehende Aussprache zu demonstrieren.
danke, ein Großteil meiner Subscriber sind aus den Staaten und UK, die hören gerne Akzente etc. und Stalingrad wird in meiner Gegend (wo auch viele eingekesselt) wurden Schtalingrad ausgesprochen.
NKVD was more a militarised police than anything else. In fact the name means "People's Commisariat (Ministry) for National Security", so it would be equivalent to the US's national guard. About penal battalions, those were the ONLY units whose men could be shot for retreating, as they were mostly formed out of convicted men who were given the choice between going to prison and serving on the Army. Also, the kind of tactics shown in the film are NOT the normal USSR infantry tactics, in fact those kind of tactics were against the whole Soviet regulations and military doctrine. According to the Soviet infantry manual "the first thing any infantry unit should do is take cover, thus they must be on covered positions unless when moving, and only move from one cover position to another while nearer allied units give supressing fire on the enemy". For example, a platoon would advance squad by squad from a covered position to another while the other squads are giving suppression fire with their rifles and MGs, and while the platoon support unit hammer the enemy with mortar fire.
Enemy at the gates are just a bunch of separate facts mixed togheter into a movie scene which highlights the desperate situation USSR was in back then. This movie doesn't represent the normal circumstances on the eastern front throughout the war, but during this time period Russia had some units that lacked rifles for everyone, and other units had men who were completly untrained to use their weapons, and the NKVD (the predecessor of KGB) was using blocking detachments against "cowards". And the bar for getting called "coward", "traitor" or "German spy" was not very high set. If your unit was destroyed in a foolish frontal attack against the Germans you would be called a traitor or coward if you retreated back to your own lines to join the fight once again. And while it is reasonable to be suspicious of some solidier coming from enemy lines could be a spy, the Russians took this fear to an extreme level with their paranoia - which could be seen by the huge numbers of men that the NKVD put in their penal batallions or sent to Siberia. No other country (except perhaps China) would have been able to afford to waste manpower as much as Russia did during this war.
None of those units with lack of rifles was at Stalingrad or at the frontlines. Also NKVD never though that "tactic" to be effective, they prefered leading from the front. Foolish frontal attacks were not something common in the Eastern front, that comes from the western front during the FIRST world war. During the second world war, the USSR had very advanced offensive tactics, as seen in that battle itself, in the counteroffensives of winter 1942. Sorry but that film is not based in real facts or events, rather in cold war propaganda not quite accurate for that issue. Specially taking into account that the Red Army had learned a lot of lessons from the Spanish civil war (if there was something in that war was urban warfare). About that "paranoia", not paranoia, but the real conditions. As you mention, the USSR had a lot of manpower, so even if the absolute amount of penal battalions (or people sent to prison) is high, the percentage overall is low.
It looks very similar to Finnish propaganda during the winter war - all people knew was they were constantly winning, and at one moment, government says they surrender and give Soviets everything they wanted. It was a shock for Finnish people as they had absolutely no idea what really happens on the front.
same in armenian side in karabakh war
@Binky Bonky they also prisoned soviet kids in camps
You should add links to your previous Stalingrad videos for people who missed them. All together these videos are some of the best sources on Stalingrad.
I would have been grateful for this insight when I was younger. There was so little information available in the 80's and 90's. The Internet can be a good thing sometimes.
Interesting end point about the soldiers morale and determination going up after Goebbels' "now for total war" message. Similar to the mid-1942 Stalin order promising death to deserters and defeatists. The Red Army soldiers in the line who were being badly beaten by the Germans thought - "Good, now we know were we stand. No fooling around now." and their determination went up.
Comrade Zhukov execute order 226
Lets wait 20 minutes before people come here denying any propaganda from any sides. Soviet or German. And then we'll know "the real truth" about the war!
Anyhow, on a serious note, great video! The actuall encirclement of the city and the situation in it is very often overlooked in all kinds of history books or documentaries. Very enjoyable to see any content at all around it. And quite a plus to have someone who knows their stuff making videos about it!
@Дмитрий Донской it took more than 20 minutes, at least
very informative, and great pacing
5:15 'being sacrificed' versus 'self -sacrificing'
The Soviets also have a lot of propaganda from this campaign. Not just about the brave fighting for the city, but also about the whole Uranus and Saturn operations. For example the Tatskinskaya raid was used for a lot of propaganda even using that the 24th mechanised corps was almost anihilated (it only survived because the 5th Tank Army made a successful relief operation and managed to divert the German forces encircling it, thus allowing the 24th corps to retreat).
Other parts used for propaganda were scenes like the fighting for the Volga (the Volga gunboat flotilla was part of lots of Soviet propaganda) and the fighting for the western railway station (interestingly one of the Soviet officers in that fighting was in fact Spanish, lieutenant Rubén Ruiz Ibárruri, posthumous Order of Lenin, and son of the Spanish politician Dolores Ibárruri, nicknamed "La Pasionaria"). Or the guerrilla and snipers' fighting in the streets. People like Vasili Zaitsev were also used for propaganda, like his "hunt game" with a German sniper who would have been (according to Soviet propaganda) specifically sent to kill Zaitsev.
You can say that almost every unit and important soldier fighting the campaign on the Soviet side was used for propaganda purposes. The "gallant heroism" of the 62nd and 64th armies in the city, the "wild ride" of the Soviet mechanised corps in Operation Uranus and Operation Saturn and the skills of the Soviet infantry for urban combat.
It would also be interesting to make a video about the evolution of urban warfare and how the Soviets had a great advantage on it due to the lessons learned in the Spanish civil war (which included large scale urban warfare like the Battle for Madrid).
i heard that soviets had advantages in urban warfare because the experience from Rodimtsev, the commander of 13th guard rifle division, he was a veteran from spanish civil war, is it true ?
@@soviettankmen both sides had veterans from the Spanish civil war.
Hey Bernhard. I find this format just as stimulating as the visualized and illustrated videos. If this means you can make videos more often all the better.
+Alejandro Betancourt yeah that is the plan.
Red Army: "Curb your Drang nach Osten"
Great video although I think your narrative would have been more effective if you had showed the "Thy died so the Fatherland could live" headline of the Völkische Beobachter!
yeah, yet copyright and other issues.
7:04 I wouldn't commit suicide either :P . But it was surely terrifying to be a solider in stalingrad with nobody knowing you're still there.
I would say that it was terrifying to be a solder in Stalingrad . period, fullstop :D
You would if you understood what was waiting you in the enemy camps. Communist and national socialist are the most bitter enemies in the world, you should just look at what the communist did the the iron guard of Romanian. It isn't some made up masturbating machine bullshit you hear about the Germans either.
Silent Guy
While that was true for the average soldier. Paulus was treated pretty well because he was a Field Marshal and could have had important information. He was even allowed to live in East Germany until he died.
James Tang I suspect it had a lot to do with the propaganda value of capturing a Fieldmarshal and proving to the masses that they were fighting for the just cause. I'm not saying either side was just, I just think it is the most logical explanation considering the brutality with which POW were treated by the Soviets
DelToro Perdedor
Well yeah that too. I mean Stalin sacrificed his own son for this guy.
Glad you mentioned second channel. I wasn't paying attention, and was thinking this was the channel I already subbed to. Subbed here now too.
Your Stalingrad Propaganda analysis is excellent. I really enjoyed this. In early November, 1942, during one of Hitler's speeches, he just about announced that Stalingrad battle was won. This speech, as you well noted, was premature and required a new propaganda strategy. Excellent work.
really interesting, as allways. will you bring something about the ARMIR (Armata Italiana In Russia, italian army in russia) and the retreat of the winter 1943? they were encircled in stalingrad but thanks to the italian mountain troops, the alpini, some thousands of them escaped. here in italy it's a well known story but not in the rest of the world, i'm interested to understand how the italians managed to escape but not at least a part of the 6th army. thanks :)
I don't really understand the surprise of this. The soldiers of the Italian armed forces fought well in many wars including World War Two. They beat the Turks in 1911-1912 and the Austro-Hungarians in 1918 resoundingly. Going into WW2 their industry was simply not developed to the point where they could keep their soldiers equipped on par with the allies as far as tanks, anti-tank guns and aircraft were concerned. Regardless the British spoke highly of the Italian soldiers they fought in North Africa and Sicily. It was their equipment that let them down.
the shortest book in the world....italian military heorism...lol
what? diaz was a master in defensive opeartions. he reorganized the army after caporetto and lead the defense of the piave river and the mount grappa, and commanded the army who broke the austro-hungrians durinf the vittorio veneto battle in 1918 who basically wonn the war on the italian front.
yes but we wonn that war at the end and this is important. it's not like the germans or the austro-hungarians were in-land-gods impossible to defeat.
Matteo...from a german point of view....during ww2...italy and the italian army was a disaster for germany.....there was no single strategic victory from the italian army.....finally when it got hot they changed to the winners side.....they are great soldiers....lol
It's also interesting to note that the defeat at Stalingrad inspired Kurt Huber to write his sixth and final letter criticizing the war. Love the channel!
Hey, can you do a video on why Manstein advised Hitler to NOT retreat from Stalingrad? I read some interesting material that Stalingrad was held not because of the so called morale importance of Stalingrad, but because it was deemed better to leave the Army Group B surrounded, since it occupied the Soviet army in trying to eliminate the pocket, rather than leave the whole of Army Group South exposes in the Caucasus
yeah, at one point, it seems really complicated from what I read so far.
Military History Vlogs, well, that’s what I really Love about your channel! You always seem to be willing to tackle the hardest problems. Anyways, it was just a suggestion. I’m sure you’ve got other ideas going on.
Love your videos! Thanks for all your work
>not because of the so called morale importance of Stalingrad
On the "moral meaning." At that time Donetsk was called Stalino. For him, such a meat grinder was not there - it was more likely just that it coincided that practical tasks were realized near the city of Stalingrad.
Jacq Wasp Germans knew that losing Stalingrad meant losing oil supply from Caucasus. When Stalingrad fell, Germans had to abandon Caucasus. Another reader wanted to know why Germans didn't just surround city. North of the city, German tank offensive was being bled to death by Russian counter offensives. Germans tried to cut off Stalingrad but never got close
: Are you speaking of the Kotluban battles just North of Stalingrad? I understand 3 German Divisions were badly damaged from those engagements which caused
an unwanted delay in the advance on Stalingrad. Of course, the Germans inflicted great losses on the soviets as well, but as usual the soviets had a near endless man-
power advantage, didn't they? Such losses thru the German meat grinder meant absolutely nothing to ole "uncle Joe", or ole Georgi Zhukov, did they?
To say the Germans never "got close" to cutting off Stalingrad is not true. Before the encirclement, the Germans controlled over 90% of the city, however, supplies of
nearly everything was fast running out, especially food and ammunition. The Germans were starving to death, but amazingly kept fighting with everything they had left.
A fact rarely mentioned in most discussions about Stalingrad is that the battle did not end on Feb. 2nd, 1943. Paulus surrendered himself and his staff, that is true. But,
not the rest of Sixth Army. They were free to fight on. His reasoning was that since he became a POW he was no longer their commander and could not give them
orders. Most of the rest did decide to surrender after a little while longer. However, there was still one more force of about 11,000 Germans who still managed to hold
out under the city until about the middle of March, 1943 before finally capitulating. About 3,000 were killed outright and the rest became POW's.
There are many types of propaganda, involved with Stalingrad: the wartime Soviet propaganda, the post-victory Soviet propaganda, the today's Russian nationalistic propaganda, the German wartime propaganda before the battle was lost, the German propaganda after losing the 6th Army, the German propaganda after the death of Hitler, blaming him for all, the Western Allies wartime propaganda, the Western Cold War propaganda and new war myths, the post-Cold War anti-Russian propaganda, the new polit-correct history propaganda etc. etc.
It's interesting to think of a scenario where things recovered for Germany after Stalingrad (no need to turn the whole war, just to have the Nazis exist longer), where this myth of "no one survived, they're all dead" had to be perpetuated.
If you could do more videos similar to this or the kohlm pocket i think it would be really great! seeing these videos are always really fascinating to see the eastern front be objectively disected
Encirclement only means that the real battle has begun.
Didn't know that about sacrifice in german. In serbian there is "žrtva" for victim and "žrtvovanje" for sacrifice
nesa1126 same word on the russian, жертвование - zhertvovanie
Maybe they are all from an indo European root
Good discussion, thank you for the video
One of the best and most informative videos.
One question, after the capture of 6th army how did letters were written to germany to soldiers families?
Was the Soviet Union allowing POWs to write home and provided postal services?
One request: can you do a full video or lead me to a video about battle of stalingrand similar that bazbattles and historia civilis makes ? what tactics were used, how the encirclement happened.
Was Fredrick at fault ? or he did his best?
Dear Hakan......no letters no nothing......the last soldiers returned 1952/53 after the german chancler Adenauer asked the russians to do so.......women and children were standing in the stations hoping that their husband or father would leave the train.......for the most of the people nobody left the train....sad
keiner vondaoben despite my constant criticisms of the red army I can’t say I blame the Soviets that most of the 6th army didn’t come home
Has anyone heard the Soviet speakers during the encirclement? "Every seven seconds a German soldier dies in Russia. Stalingrad mass grave"
that could be correct.....but it means every 1-2 seconds a russion soldier died.
It was a propaganda speaker there is recordings of them playing It. They played it over and over again as phycological warfare.
keiner vondaoben ruclips.net/video/kg_JPSe0pMY/видео.html footage of it
could be.....the russian did that
As with all propaganda, the seven seconds is an exaggeratedly small number.
Rail transportation failed because the German and Russian rail width was different size.
Ah das erklärt einiges
Hab nämlich immer die Wochenschau gesucht welche die einkesselung von Stalingrad beschreibt/erklärt
jo, wo nix is, da is nix.
Als Literatur darüber empfehle ich Jens Ebert: Feldpostbriefe aus Stalingrad. November 1942 bis Januar 1943
sowie, Wolfram Wette / Gerd Ueberschär: Stalingrad: Mythos und Wirklichkeit einer Schlacht
For english speakers i'd recommend Anthony Beevor's "Stalingrad"
Ich wollte einen Witz erzählen aber jemand Stalingrad. Wehrmacht denn so was?
Arne Krug Um Himmlers Wille
Valentin Glanz Also jetzt Reichsadler! SSkaliert hier gleich!
I always had a soft spot for German wordplay :)
Miodrag Mijatović And yet people say Germans don't have a sense for humor.
Probably due to German humor being untranslatable
>Hitler already said that Stalingrad was captured
How do you say " major oops" in German? Dad Oops der Grosse? Or Der sturmbahnfuhrer Oops?
Олег Козлов probably oops dear grosse (or große, same thing) because sturmbanführer is a military rank
"Ach du Scheisse!"
Олег Козлов NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN will suit just rightly
Олег Козлов I
Um, how about FAKE NEWS. I am the first fuhrer ever to have taken Stalingrad period.
TIK is doing a very interesting series on Stalingrad currently. You might want to check that out.
Excellent analysis.
I missed one crucial word, that would be great if someone could enlight me:
At 0:32 :
"This time, the [???] couldnt be blame so easily, because Hitler took the high command of the wermacht"
And by the way, whatever this word was, I fail to understand how putting the blame on one or another was problematic, it's not like propaganda had to rely on actual facts after all.
Anyway, great video as usual. Thats a rather small detail but the thumbnail is nicely done too!
"the generals"
Well Hitlers Generals mislead him how bad the supply situation was in Stalingrad, so in this case I actully think that the military actully deserves most of the blame. Perhaps Hitler would have ordered a breakout if he knew that his Army needed atleast 5 times more supply than the official estimate? Perhaps some more sober and realistic words from Göring about the propects of this air supply project would have forced Hitler to rethink his decision.
> Perhaps Hitler would have ordered a breakout if he knew that his Army needed atleast 5 times more supply than the official estimate?
There is not so simple everything. Paulus own mobile units were extinguished in battles. And to retreat / advance only by infantry in the bare field - the Soviet side was so washed with blood near Kotluban'.
Therefore, the position "sit, we will pull you out" was not without meaning. Another thing is that Mannstein could not break through the corridor, after that it was possible to declare mourning for the 6th Army boldly - without supply and reserves, they were waiting for death or captivity.
Military History with hair ..... I am speechless
Nice video
On the Eastern Front the Russians would set up loudspeakers and play the sound of a clock ticking with the cheery news that every 7 seconds a German soldier died. During the 'kessel' phase of Stalingrad the loudspeakers played this 24/7.
If anyone was severely affected by propaganda it was the soldiers of the 6th Army by their own propaganda ministry. Those that did have access to radios (and lucky enough to recount it later) said they became enraged when they heard Radio Berlin playing a 'check in' by various stations including Stalingrad; it was obviously fake. It was also how they found out they were being forsaken and sacrificed by the high command.
I'd love to see a video (if there isn't one already) on how much Goering's unrealistic commitments played into key German failures (e.g., Stalingrad airlift, preventing Dunkirk evacuation, defeating the RAF in the Battle of Britain, stopping Allied bombing of Germany).
how exactly would the POW post get to their families? Did they use a neutral country for post exchanges?
no idea, it just mentioned that it was the job of the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) to "catch" it and that the botched it with a letter from a general's wife. Good question, but I don't think I have any books at hand that could answer that question quickly. Although, I will try to keep it in mind.
I do believe the red cross did have some function to provide families of pow's with news that their son/husband/etc. was still alive, so maybe they also on occasion managed to get letters back and forth.
Just speculating here, but it makes sense in my head.
As far as I know the Soviets did notallow the red Cross to operate in the Soviet Union because they didnt sign the genever convention.
Wouldn't the Soviets be interested in passing over the correspondence of captured soldiers, at least before they were sent to Siberia?
>As far as I know the Soviets did notallow the red Cross to operate in the Soviet Union because they didnt sign the genever convention.
Geneva convention has nothing to do with it. The GC on POW's of the USSR was not signed, but the Hague convention was accepted (on 19 July 1941, Third Reich was notified about this through Sweden).
Attempts of the USSR to negotiate with the Red Cross were. At the beginning. On July 27, Molotov announced the consent of the exchange of lists of POWs, in August in Ankara there were talks about the exchange of those lists, but they reached a deadlock. Wehrmacht was not interested in this issue, USSR in turn was suspicious of the idea of neutral inspections. Finally, this initiative was buried by the fact that in the USSR they began to know how the Germans actually keep with soviet POWs.
I think the late war Wochenschau episodes are so boring with less jolly news that the early episodes and there are no parades in front of a happy führer, and the narrotor voice is less enthusiastic. Instead the movie clips rather focus on local victories won by minor units.
And the late war Signal magazine seems to talk less and less about the war as the war turns badly for Germany, and the late war editions get filled with advertisements and fashion instead of war reportage.
Stalingrad proved that you need at least to pass thru officer school before thinking of yourself as GROFAZ
On the subjects of propaganda and Stalingrad: Anyone remember the scene in Enemy at the Gates where the Russians wonder how to motivate the troops to fight better? They all shout suggestions about being ever more brutal to their own men, and then one guy suggests giving them hope, and everyone else is just completely flabbergasted at this crazy idea. As if the Soviet political officer corpse had never heard of propaganda before. It was pure cringe.
>: Anyone remember the scene in Enemy at the Gates where the Russians wonder how to motivate the troops to fight better?
Are you now seriously trying to talk about history using the "scene from enemy at the gates"?
Лена Пушкарская I am trying to talk what total ahistorical bullshit that scene was.
Well, the NKVD was basicly much like just that. A million men where court martial, and an even higher number of Russian men were forced to serve in penal battalions to make suicide attacks against German lines or clearing minefields with their own feets.
nattygsbord Oh, I'm not arguing that it was a very, very bad time to be a Russian soldier. It was just the complete bafflement at the idea of using propaganda to make the soldiers feel better that had me laughing.
Okay, I'm so sorry. Simply, I do not even know how to explain this. As for me this film is missing only fighting bears. Is it in the West that someone else still takes it seriously?
Where are the pictures, diagrams and photos on the things your talking about?
I got an add by PragerU about Communism and the Soviet Union. What coincidence.
NEVER BELIEVE PRAGERU ON ANYTHING. MORE LIKE PERVERT U
Niew wideo! Yay
Not much talk that Allied captured more German soldiers in North Africa (130 000) than Red Army in Stalingrad (92 000). Allied captured also some 300 000 Italian soldiers.
Peace-Of-Mind Its not just about the POWs taken but the actual numbers killed and the ramification for the rest of the front because of it. The African theatre was tertiary for the Wehrmacht & Hitler.
Make video on 1971indo pak war, the greatest surrender ever after World war 2. With 93k surrender.
Question! What could the germans have done to defeat the soviets in operation barbarossa?
No answer was given so I’ll give mine
Now if you’re talking historically like “was there a missed win?” The answer is no, the German plan used never ends in victory
How could they have with some different choices? Well in my view one is to commit more forces to cutting the northern arctic ports, severing the allied aid, in historical situation the Battle of Moscow featured some British Matilda tanks for the Soviets to use, this could be facilitated with more not needed occupation troops (in Greece France Norway Belgium Netherlands) to the arctic front, although historically the arctic front was plagued with shit terrain
and the big thing for me was Hitler’s original argument that Barbarossa should focus north and south, to deny the enemy their ability to replenish forces, so instead of the large army group center, a larger army group north and south, historically army group north couldn’t break Leningrad and link up with the Finns, whereas army group south got stalled a lot and wasn’t reinforced as the OKH wanted to push towards Moscow and sent most of the extras/reserves to army group center
In short I’m saying the focus from day one should’ve been the collapse of the southern fronts and the capture or at least cut off of the Caucasus, if you’re thinking I’m recommending Fall Blau but in 1941 you are somewhat correct except with better troops, better supplies, and an enemy that did not have a year of hard experience to learn from, historically in 1942 the Soviets learned that the not one step back order led to large encirclement (Kiev was a painful lesson) so they pulled back, a big assumption in Fall Blau was the enemy wouldn’t retreat from encirclement
How well this would work? Hard to say we don’t have a Barbarossa with 1 million army group north 1.5 million army group south 750,000 army group center to work with, but its no doubt better attempting to secure resources that the Germans desperately need rather than trying to capture a strategically meh city but muh capital
My favourite historian
Thx
I've got a question bothering me for quite a time here.
A whole bunch of steamers had played the latest COD and there were a numerous drop of the non-Reich weapon during the playthrough, such as PPsh-41.
So how was the Wehrmacht or any SS-div. armed around the landing zone in truth? Was there any substantial and outstanding obstacles that caused the troops to have far-taken-Ostland arms rather than made-in-Reich weapon? or this is just another compromise made to improve the 'Playability' with a few weapon publicly famed?
And I thought the flamethrower wasn't used in the WF because German signed the Geneva thing?
(Not meant to increase your workload for some, well mabye personnal favored content, but just my curiosity on these related things told me not to trust simple google.)
as far as I remember HGV answers this in his video: ruclips.net/video/vKC_wBxmF_c/видео.html
let me know if the video answers your question (I watched it a while ago and not entirely sure).
That was quick, question answered, although I think it's a quite considerable logistic effort to transport that much weapon from the eastern front.
They couldnt let good weapons ly all around eastern europe, could they? It would be the partisans dreams.
The transport vehicles propably had a lot of free space while driving back to germany do to most transports beeing only to the front, not back again (except post).
Yeah, that's a reasonable point and I forgot about it, thanks.
ẞtalingrad , nicht Schtalingrad ;)
www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Stalin Section "Aussprache".
Military History Vlogs Dann drück ich's anders aus. "Сталинград" kommt von "Сталин" wobei "С" einem scharfen "S" (=ß) entspricht.
Die der originalen , russischen Aussprache am nächsten stehende Aussprache ist demzufolge die im Englischen geläufige. :D
und wieso glaubst du, dass ich es auf Englisch ausspreche? Soll ich jetzt Panzergrenadier auch auf Englisch aussprechen?
Military History Vlogs Dann war wohl auch das ungünstig formuliert... Die Englische Aussprachen beinhaltet die Trennung zwischen S und T und da ich offensichtlich fälschlicherweise annahm die Englische Aussprache sei dir familiärer als die Russische , versuchte ich dir ohne Russisch-Kenntnisse vorauszusetzen , die dem Original am nächsten stehende Aussprache zu demonstrieren.
danke, ein Großteil meiner Subscriber sind aus den Staaten und UK, die hören gerne Akzente etc. und Stalingrad wird in meiner Gegend (wo auch viele eingekesselt) wurden Schtalingrad ausgesprochen.
Oh hey a prager “u” ad right before this video on propaganda.
Oh, the irony.
Ef all the Prager "U" and Hillsdale ads. Not only propaganda, but lying propaganda.
dude! where's your beard?
NKVD was more a militarised police than anything else. In fact the name means "People's Commisariat (Ministry) for National Security", so it would be equivalent to the US's national guard. About penal battalions, those were the ONLY units whose men could be shot for retreating, as they were mostly formed out of convicted men who were given the choice between going to prison and serving on the Army.
Also, the kind of tactics shown in the film are NOT the normal USSR infantry tactics, in fact those kind of tactics were against the whole Soviet regulations and military doctrine. According to the Soviet infantry manual "the first thing any infantry unit should do is take cover, thus they must be on covered positions unless when moving, and only move from one cover position to another while nearer allied units give supressing fire on the enemy". For example, a platoon would advance squad by squad from a covered position to another while the other squads are giving suppression fire with their rifles and MGs, and while the platoon support unit hammer the enemy with mortar fire.
Enemy at the gates are just a bunch of separate facts mixed togheter into a movie scene which highlights the desperate situation USSR was in back then. This movie doesn't represent the normal circumstances on the eastern front throughout the war, but during this time period Russia had some units that lacked rifles for everyone, and other units had men who were completly untrained to use their weapons, and the NKVD (the predecessor of KGB) was using blocking detachments against "cowards".
And the bar for getting called "coward", "traitor" or "German spy" was not very high set. If your unit was destroyed in a foolish frontal attack against the Germans you would be called a traitor or coward if you retreated back to your own lines to join the fight once again. And while it is reasonable to be suspicious of some solidier coming from enemy lines could be a spy, the Russians took this fear to an extreme level with their paranoia - which could be seen by the huge numbers of men that the NKVD put in their penal batallions or sent to Siberia.
No other country (except perhaps China) would have been able to afford to waste manpower as much as Russia did during this war.
None of those units with lack of rifles was at Stalingrad or at the frontlines. Also NKVD never though that "tactic" to be effective, they prefered leading from the front.
Foolish frontal attacks were not something common in the Eastern front, that comes from the western front during the FIRST world war. During the second world war, the USSR had very advanced offensive tactics, as seen in that battle itself, in the counteroffensives of winter 1942. Sorry but that film is not based in real facts or events, rather in cold war propaganda not quite accurate for that issue. Specially taking into account that the Red Army had learned a lot of lessons from the Spanish civil war (if there was something in that war was urban warfare).
About that "paranoia", not paranoia, but the real conditions. As you mention, the USSR had a lot of manpower, so even if the absolute amount of penal battalions (or people sent to prison) is high, the percentage overall is low.
Shtalingrad
*STALINGRAD MASSENGRAB*
hey just wondering why do you always call them the "national socialists" instead of nazis or germans?
huh? He called them nazis several times in this vid.
That's the official term. It would be cringe to call them nazis just like it would be cringe to call the soviets "commies" or "reds"
124th
First
Paulus was a traitor!
nah he was cool.