But now we have to roam around this horrible . The horses have already been eaten. . Trapped inside this crucible were the 22 divisions and over 160 different units of the German 6th Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army, numbering to about 330,000 soldiers. Reese's account shows how the Nazi war machine corrupted ordinary people. enormous field post office of the adversary, along with diaries and other What was womens role in the Battle of Stalingrad? 4 pages, ebook First published January 1, 1942 Book details & editions About the author William Hoffman .. World War II was a total war, in which civilians as much as soldiers were part of the war. by Lawrence Tandy 21 Aug 2003, 20:32, Post 330,000 people were trapped. After months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, German forces (numbering now only about 91,000 surviving soldiers) surrender at Stalingrad on the Volga. . Our regiment, and the whole division, are today celebrating victory. I believe that for Stalingrad the Fiihrer will decorate evenme.. . But the historians drew confidence from history, notably the War of 1812, when the Russian people had been able to defeat a technologically superior invader. Yesterday we got vodka. Here it is: http://imgur.com/a/22mHD Our old soldiers have never experiencedsuch bitter fighting before. an effort to communicate impressions to relatives, an effort to share the truth Yes, leading generals of the Stalingrad battle, like Chuikov, were able to publish accounts of their role in the battle, but they carefully omitted any reference to executions within the Red Army. 'He has started to sing with a slurring voice, so great is his pain. . . 'It is just awful. December 23.Still no orders. 'Next, I have to take care of Oberholz. Our regiment is attacking the Barrikady settlement. People who are now sent from All are fleeing in panic. September 16. The fighting in Stalingrad, lasting from August 1942 to February 1943, and ending with the surrender of Hitler 's army, changed the course of World War II and world history. By 1945, Stalin made sure that official publications referred to him as the sole architect of Soviet victory over fascism. The Russians are fighting desperately like wild beasts, dont give themselves up, but come up close and then throw grenades. . Part of Senior Lance Corporal Arno Bitzs letter, 87th Artillery Regiment of the 113th Infantry Division, no. The Russians have stopped surrendering at all. . .. . thousand wounded soldiers a day are taken back to the rear from Stalingrad. The battle is remembered for ferocious street fighting. the rest were wounded and killed. 16:56 GMT 17 Jun 2021. Februar 1943 endet die Schlacht von Stalingrad. Victory is not far away. Why Do Some People Look Totally Different In Pictures Than In Real Life? . . His tone changes from exicted and hopeful to a darker tone toward the end. .. It may just be me, but every time people start to realize that maybe the Germans were not a race of butchers and that maybe Germans were also subjected to the horrors of total war, that something like this comes out of left field to paint them all as murdering scum again. Dozhd TV channel taken off air in some markets, January by Oleg Grigoryev 21 Aug 2003, 22:03, Post Privacy Policy. Let the generals and officers fight the war themselves. The only hope is to be wounded and taken back to the rear. Fighting is going on inside the elevator. ', As the Germans advanced towards Leningrad (St Petersburg) in July 1941, the young officer is convinced of the Nazis' goal to end Bolshevism, calling the local population a 'big herd of submissive cattle.'. In the north our troops capture a part of Stalingrad and reach theVolga, but in the south the doomed divisions are continuing to resist bitterly. The Russians are firing on allsides. The interviews were conducted by historians from Moscow who responded to the German invasion in 1941 with a plan to document the Soviet war effort in its totality, and from the ground up. . By the spring of 1943, even Hitler. by tonyh 21 Aug 2003, 18:14, Post It was night but we saw many crosses with our helmets on top. convinced that they cant stop us. Confessions of the Enemy.. Fanaticism. From a letter from soldier Otto Zechtig, 1st Company of the The battalion is suffering heavy losses. The retreat of the Nazis in that particular battle is seen by many historians as the turning point of WWII. Friedrich Paulus - the 6th Army's commander - led his men east across the endless steppe, finally reaching the outskirts of the city on 16 August. . . We are on hunger rations and waiting for the rescue that the Fuhrer promised. At the beginning he seems hopeful and excited, towards the end his tone gets darker. Himmler was aware that the time of reckoning for Germany was drawing near. Only lets get it over. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. September 28. . By the time it was realized that the army could not be relieved by outside forces it was too late, while few of the Germans made . I briefly jump onto the tank to look at Weigand. From a letter from Senior Lance Corporal Joseph Tzimach, no. This is nothing new. In this cauldron, 22 divisions and more than 160 separate . I want to scream. The battle commenced in August 1942 and finally ended in February 1943 when the last of the German forces surrendered. After weeks of desperate fighting 100,000 surviving Germans went into Russian captivity. Germans and Russians battled with dogged ferocity over every part of the city; 99 percent of Stalingrad was reduced to rubble. We had no peace all night from the Russian artillery and aero planes. By February 1943, German forces in the Soviet Union were back to their po-, sitions of June 1942. . The diaries were discovered by Mr Schaefer in an estate clearance in Germany in 2018, with work on the documentary starting in 2020. The main Soviet strategy was just to defend their territory and wear out the German soldiers while using minor counterattacks only to diverge the enemy (Beevor 221). The remarkable 'lost' diaries of German tank commander Leutnant Friedrich Sander, who went from being a hardened Nazi to a broken soldier in just a few weeks of fighting in the Second World War . The Germans became very impressed with this. German intelligence did notice suspicious troop movements, but the German army command did not take these reports seriously, as it was convinced that the Soviets had run out of available human reserves. .. Its just terrible. It must be mothers prayersthat have taken me away from the companys trenches . He wrote them throughout the battle of Stalingrad. In just the last two days, our battalion has lost 60 killed, injured and frostbitten men; more than 30 men have escaped; there is only enough ammunition to last until evening; the soldiers have not eaten at all in three days, and many of them have frostbitten feet. There have been a number of cases of self inflicted wounds and malingering among the men. The entries start at July 29th 1942 and end December 26th 1942. In them, Leutnant Sander described in harrowing detail the barbaric deaths of both German comrades and Russian soldiers, with as many as 15 men executed before his eyes on one occasion. 'The diaries are so powerful, so vivid and so rich that interviews with historians, presenters and re-enactment are all unnecessary. While it would be more than another year before the Red Army liberated the death camps in Poland, the Battle of Stalingrad disrupted the Nazi death machine. Up to a Thesefragmentsfrom letters, diary entries and testimonials were first published in File.rf in Russian. .. Ahead of us is either death or captivity. . Every soldier sees himself as a condemned man. . "It is pure hell here." The entire German. Clothing freezes on our bodies. Red Army soldiers describe how they fought their way into the city center, blowing up basements and entire buildings filled with Germans after at least some of them refused to lay down their arms. Even civilians were considered vital defenders of Fortress Stalingrad and not allowed to evacuate until several days after the beginning of the bombardment. 'His voice unbiased by the horrors that were to come.'. 'His spine is broken, and he is totally paralysed. This morning katyushi attacks caused the company heavy losses: twenty-seven dead and fifty wounded. August 23. But it is for The Russians lauded the 'everyday heroism' of their troops, while the Germans cast the Soviet soldiers as subhuman beings who fought without any respect for life, even their own. by Weiss Wurst 21 Aug 2003, 18:01, Post Did he survive the war? . it says in the diary that Russian soldiers treated people just as savagely. On this sector also the Russians wont let you lift your head. Barbarism. I just want to scream it all away. At 11 o'clock, Russian tanks and Katyusha attack us. My question is, what happened to him? When we got to Stalingrad, there were . The story of the Eastern Front through the eyes of one young German. I believe that the Fuhrer will carry the thing through to a successful end. This is simply unbelievable. Szepanski finishes them off with a rifle. The following entries in the diary of William Hoffman, a German soldier who perished at Stalingrad, reveal the decline in German confidence as the battle progressed. Russian soldiers stood at the entrance to the basement of the. . Decades later, Prof. Jochen Hellbeck became the first historian to read their stories. The book is based on interviews with Red Army soldiers that you found in the archives. It marked the beginning of a campaign that would ultimately decide the outcome of the Second World War. 'Both legs are only attached to the body by thin strips of sinew and flesh. Do we even know? . Stalingrad is a grave for the German soldiers. . Its a happy thought that the end of the war is getting nearer. By December 21, 1941, when the Red Army had turned the tide of the German advance and the invaders were enduring the harsh conditions of the Russian winter, Leutnant Sander started to doubt the Nazi cause. . On the morning of January 10 we read a pamphlet that This website uses cookies. 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