WORLD WAR II- FIRTS DEFEAT SUFFERED BY HITLER

 

Unfortunately in all the countries the Axis armies occupied the enemy soldiers were ruthlessly killed. POW’s have been sent to labour camps for work. Many women have been raped and used by the army and lakhs of them converted into prostitutes for the use of soldiers. Hitler too had been merciless with the Jews and also with the opposition party leaders and even the physically handicapped and they have all been killed mercilessly..In this way Germany in Europe and Japan in Asia committed many war crimes. People were praying god to save them from the Axis powers and god seems to have heard their cries.

The battle for Stalingrad was a critical turning point in the 2^nd world war. The winter neutralized the Axis troops and both Moscow and Stalingrad could not be taken and the Soviet army went on resisting them. Looking to the delay, Hitler now changed the war plan which was not to the liking of his Generals. Angered, Hitler dismissed them and took command.

What was Hitler’s new plan? To weaken the Soviet army he wanted to stop them from getting fresh arms and oil supplies. Stalingrad had many industries manufacturing arms and the oil fields were in the Caucasus mountains. The weapons are supplied through the Volga river. So Hitler felt if he could win Stalingrad, Volga river and Caucasus then it would be game over for the Soviets. He named this operation “Case Blue”. It went on from 28^th June 1942 to 24^th Nivember 1942. Hitler wanted to start this operation immediately after winter in May 1942 but due to the battle of Kharkov that too place between the German troops and Russia he had to shift the operation by 2 months. This turned out to be very costly for Hitler.

For Case Blue operation Hitler deployed 13,00,000 soldiers and 1500 aircraft. He divided it into group “A” and group “B”. Group “A” consisted of 17^th army and 1^st Panzer army commanded by Wilhelm List. This group has to penetrate deep and occupy the oil reserves at Baku. After taking hold of Caucasus they have to join Group “B”

Group “B’ consisted of 6^th German army, 4^th Panzer army, 2 armies from Romania, 1 army from Italy and 1 army from Hungary. Their target is to take the Olga river and Stalingrad. Field Marshal Fedor Von Bock was commanding this group.

 The was fierce, but by 20^th August 1942 the German army crossed the Don River and reached the outskirts of Stalingrad. Immediately Stalin ordered that all the foodstuffs as well as cows and goats are to be shifted out of the city. But he ordered that the 400,000 people of Stalingrad to stay put. The German army had 270,000 soldiers, 500 tanks and 600 aircraft and 3000 artillery pieces. The Soviet army 190,000 soldiers, 4000 tanks, 3000 aircraft and 2200 artillery pieces. Although the German troops had the numerical advantage in soldiers the Russian tanks and aircraft are far more in number.

The Luftwaffe bombed Stalingrad left and right heavily and thousands of people died. The 201 aircraft that came for counter attack were downed by teh Luftwaffe in just 8 days. By September the German forces closed in on Stalingrad. Here Hitler made another blunder in over confidence. He pulled back the 4^th Panzer army from Stalingrad and ordered them to join the group “A” that was attacking the Caucasus area as they could not progress fast enough. If that army stayed on Stalingrad would have fallen before the winter set in. The Soviet army nevertheless gave a very tough battle to the Germans partly because Stalin has brought an order called Order 227 as per which they cannot back down. The order says “Not a step back”. So it had to fight back or perish. As the Soviet soldiers died new soldiers joined them by transport by river Olga. Operation Barbarossa saw the death of 5 million Soviet soldiers and 1 million German soldiers.

The cruelty shown by the German soldiers in the operation was terrible. They have massacred many POW’s, gassed many Jews and raped the women.

In the seize of Stalingrad snipers played a key role. A sniper called Vasilli Zaitsev has killed over 200 soldiers including 10 snipers on the German side. He intelligently targeted the officers of higher ranks in the German army and troubled them very much. He also trained Soviet civilians and made over 3 dozen effective snipers.

Despite all this by the end of October 90% of Stalingrad fell into German hands. When the Germans were almost about to seize the city the Russian winter set in. Assuming that to be the appropriate time to defeat the Germans the Soviet Generals put in 800,000 fresh troops into defending Stalingrad. This is named “Operation Uranus” (19-23 Nov 1942). Commander General Nikolay Vatutin lead the attack. The Soviets then attacked the Germans from 2 sides and in just 4 days 265,000 German armies were caught in between. In the meantime the group “A” sent to Caucasus could not get hold of it in time to come and join this German group “B”. Even then the German 6^th army had the capacity to fall back through the pincer of both the Soviet armies. But Hitler said no fight back. We are sending you reinforcements through Luftwaffe. That is tantamount suicide but his troops had no choice. The Luftwaffe could not bring in any soldiers as the skies were well defended by the Soviet air force. In the meantime the soldiers of teh German 6^th army did not even have food to eat. There is no chance to escape now and only one option is left and that is surrender. But Hitler messaged do not surrender under any circumstances and fight till the end. Not only that he promoted the head of the 6^th Army General Friedrich Paulus to Field Marshal. The idea being that till that time not a single German Field Marshal ahs surrendered in battle, and so made it impossible for Paulus to surrender.

The conditions became very severe and soldiers were dying of starvation one after another. Some soldiers were freezing to death. Paulus could not bear it any longer, he thought let my name be tarnished but I cannot let my men die like this. and surrendered on 7^th Feb 1943 along with 110,000 soldiers of the 6^th army that were left  This is the first biggest defeat suffered by Germany in the 2^nd World War. This is the battle after which Hitler’s downfall started. Soviets released only 5000 soldiers of the 6^th army after the war which means they have killed the rest.