Comments on: No Encirclement at Stalingrad?

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:19:51 +0000

My thoughts and feelings towards the Stalingrad campaign is that facing the Soviet onslaught along the Don-Volga bend on Nov 19 was too little, too late. (Too far forward and overextended.) The Germans along that sector might have had a better chance had they stopped as soon as they had failed to storm Stalingrad in one go. Not to mention that they did not advance all the way to Stalingrad until only recently, so no time to even construct extensive defensive positions to face the Soviet onslaught.

So, if the Germans were to have change stretegic/operational plan, they would have had to do so before the end of summer, before they gambled away all of their stack of cards.

By: Terje Olsen

Terje Olsen — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:25:29 +0000

If General Paulus had not held Stalingrad until february, army group B would have been trapped in Caucasus. Manstein anticipated the German south front could not have been restored unless given the time Paulus and his men bought him. The war had alredy become a disaster to the germans and Stalingrad was only its logic continuation.

By: Tim Allgood

Tim Allgood — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:56:05 +0000

The real difference was that the Italians “never stopped running”, as a German general told Count Ciano in response to his question about the fighting ability of the Italians at Stalingrad. It was as simple as that. The Romanians were at least trying to fight as the ran. The Italians never looked back.

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:43:44 +0000

Eurastus is right! That was the secret…altough was very simple to anticipate…Stalingrad was 95% destroied by germans before september 1942. Big mistake to insist on 5% insted to consolidate flanks. Don’t blame the romanian soldiers…good fighters…remember Odessa, Sevastopol, Crimeea, Caucasus…they where just poor equiped at the Don Bend.
My opinion was a bad decisions from german command center to insist on the city of Stalingrad.

By: kent hickie

kent hickie — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:49:31 +0000

regards 6 army at stalingrad. when attack by russians began if the germans had had an effective panzer force to support the italian and rumanian forces they may have blunted this attack and been able to stop the enciclement. The speed at which the russian forces rolled up the italians and the romanians caught the germans by surprise and not having effective reserves they just could not react to the attack. Paulus should have known better and ensured his flanks were covered by german units capable of thwarting russian attacks of this nature and could have done so relatively easily had he managed his available resources better. He was doomed by being shortsighted and should have used italian and romanian forces in stalingrad allowing german units bettor fighting opportunitys in the steppes regions. The german high command was also shortsighted as they also took their eye off the ball and focused only at Stalingrad instead of a much wider area around the entire city and region. Given this they could have had an opportunity to draw the russian attack in and stopped it cold. Once done Stalingrad would have fallen, the Volga river would have been cut and german forces could then have attacked south into the oilfields.

By: Eurastus

Eurastus — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 05:47:02 +0000

Such disparity is certainly due to a number of factors… no one thing could have caused two drastically different outcomes. However, as a former regular Armor officer I can tell you that any flat, open area is considered by tankers to be “tank country”. I think that is a key factor in the success of the Stalingrad breakthrough.

During the days of the Cold War, we constantly worried about sudden Soviet advances into West Germany. And, the area we worried the most about was Northern Germany because of its flat plains… tank country. When tanks break through defenses in open areas you cannot predict the paths they will take even if you know their destination!

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:27:40 +0000

I would disagree with Gerald on the lines of communication. Central Russia was heavily forested whereas the Russian steppes were fairly devoid. The German’s used the forest to their advantage to channel the Russian tanks, creating kill zones. They didn’t have a lot of defensive lines to fall back on outside of Moscow, they just did it better.
The Romanian’s, Italian’s & Hungarian’s although generally good fighters, lacked the leadership & weapon’s especially anti tank guns to stop the Russians. But, if the German mobile forces had been keep in reserve rather than chewed up piecemeal, they could have done just like Manstein did in the spring to the Russian forces. They would most certainly have given the 6th Army time to withdraw (if Paulus had the guts)but could also have given Manstein more punch when he started his relief effort.

By: Gerald

Gerald — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:12:52 +0000

This is hypocracy. The German Army near Moscow had familiatrity with the landscape as they had traversed it one year before. They could fall back to familiar reinforced defensive positions, and were not bogged down in rural fighting in a city which had captured the epitomy of the German and Russian concept of victory. I would also add the lines of communications were much better for the pre-established German forces before Moscow from the previous failures the winter before. (Railway tracks had been relaid to accomodate German freight, road maps made, work arounds on problems in all climates, etc. etc. )