Dan Snow's History Hit - On the Frontline at Stalingrad

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

Dan explains the bloody Battle of Stalingrad alongside exclusive, never before heard frontline accounts from the German soldiers who were there. They shed light on the agonising final moments of the men trapped in the ruins of Stalin's city, and the circumstances that brought them there in the first place. To watch the exclusive History Hit Original documentary 'Stalingrad: The Last Letters', sign up for History Hit HERE. Use code 'DANSNOW' for 50% off for 3 months.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.We'd love to hear from you - what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

It's February 1943 in Stalingrad, a Soviet industrial city on the banks of the Volga River. And it's a city that has become a real focus for Hitler and Stalin in their vicious war on the Eastern Front. Hitler and Stalin in their vicious war on the Eastern Front. The final vestige of a once mighty German army are huddled in a former tractor factory. They're encircled, their situation is hopeless, and they bow to the inevitable and surrender, ending the bloody struggle for this city on the Volga. The German 6th Army, which Adolf Hitler once said could storm the heavens, was no more.

The catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad, which I marked on this podcast a year or two ago for the 80th anniversary, it marked for many the psychological turning point of the Second World War. It's hard to believe that just 12 months earlier, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht were eagerly awaiting the start of a new campaigning season. They were confident that this time around they would finally defeat Stalin's forces and return home victorious. What follows in this podcast is a play-by-play account of the battle, as told by the men who fought it. Their experience documented in letters and diaries written from the front line. It's through their words that we're now going to experience the horrors of Stalingrad.

T-minus 10. The Thomas bombs dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. another gate. And lift off. And the shuttle has cleared the tower. By the spring of 1942, German troops had been in the Soviet Union for nearly a year. Since the launch of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, they'd advanced deep into the USSR. They'd captured and

killed nearly three million Soviet soldiers whilst conquering territory in Lithuania, Belarusia, Latvia, Estonia and parts of Ukraine. But their key objective, the destruction of the Red Army and the capture of Moscow, had remained just out of reach and the Soviet Union was very much still in the war. The German high command, German troops were bitterly disappointed at their failure in the winter of 1941. But as that winter turned to spring in 1942, optimism amongst the men started to return. Here's an excerpt from the diaries of rifleman Josef Bach from the 4th of April 1942. Thank goodness we are through with winter now. It's still cold at night, but otherwise it's nice, and the snow has almost completely disappeared.

If we don't get another period of rain, the earth will soon be dry, and I think the offensive will start soon. All the signs point to that. Replacements are on the way, weapons and everything is rolling forwards. Well, the Russians will be in for a surprise. Until then, we'll hold out for a few more weeks. After the setbacks of the winter of 1941, Hitler ordered a change of strategy. Moscow would no longer be the immediate target. Instead, he would push south to destroy Soviet armies in Ukraine,

as he put it, Ford of the Don, meaning the River Don, and he would capture the resource-rich oil fields of the Caucasus, right down in southern Russia, in a move that Hitler hoped would bring about a complete collapse of the Soviet war effort. German forces would, as part of that sweep, eliminate a crucial armaments and transport hub on the Volga, the industrial city of Stalingrad. But it wasn't a major target in their initial planning. Scheduled for the early summer, the campaign was codenamed Fall Blau, Case Blue. Despite Hitler's confidence, there were many within the German armed forces who knew that the upcoming campaign would not be easy. A 26-year-old veteran of Operation Barbarossa,

1st Lieutenant Friedrich Wilhelm Sander of the 11th Panzer Regiment, wrote, The Russian is far from being beaten. My estimate is that the Russian can still produce 600 to 800 tanks per month. And in addition to that, he has all the equipment which the Americans are shipping in via Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. I'm of the opinion that we in Germany are probably producing 200 to 300 tanks per month. Of those, a good part is going to Africa, where they will face whatever the English and Americans can produce. What will be victorious?

Will it be spirit, moral, and skill? Or will it be the mass of their industrial output and their human resources? We'll see the result of that equation very soon, probably already next year. If the latter wins, it's over for us. Army Group South would conduct the summer offensive. Initially, the northern wing of that army group was to capture the large city of Voronezh on the river Don, then advance southwards along the Don and encircle enemy forces in cooperation with a second advance from the Kharkov region of Ukraine. In the third part of the operation, the advance, the Volga, was to be made towards Stalingrad to take that city, or at least

neutralise it with artillery fire and things, which denied it to the Soviets and cut off a vital supply route up into central Russia. The final phase of the operation then envisaged an advance to the south, across the Don River, to conquer the Caucasian oil fields near Mykop and Grozny, as well as across the Volga, east to Baku on the Caspian Sea. Much to the dismay of some German soldiers, they'd be joined by men from the other Axis nations, Hungary, Italy, Romania. Private Wolfgang Behrens wrote,

The Italians are generally useless, stinking lazy at work and have a big mouth. Everywhere they go, they suffer one defeat after another. The Germans don't have the honour of reconquering the lost territories. They are people with a big mouth and nothing behind it. It's exactly the same of the Romanians. First Lieutenant Sander wrote to the poor treatment of the Romanian rank and file by the superiors, noting with surprise that

The Romanian rankers get a monthly pay of one mark. Yes, one whole mark. Their families and relatives at home get no support at all. The Romanian superiors may beat and flog their men. The officers are supplied by their own kitchen, as are the NCOs. The enlisted men get an inedible gruel cooked together from what the officers and NCOs don't want to eat. But all that has improved somewhat now that they regularly receive German rations. Fall Blau began on the 28th of June 1942, with the 4th Panzer Army and the Allied Hungarian 2nd Army advancing from the Kursk area towards the Don. They met little Soviet resistance.

German forces made good progress, and by day two of the campaign, they'd covered half the distance to their target, the Don at Voronezh. The plan originally called for the 4th Panzer Army to link up with the 6th Army and form the first encirclement of the campaign. On the 4th of July, the two pincers met

at the industrial city of Stary Azkul, but the encirclement was incomplete and the bulk of Soviet forces did manage to escape before the net could be closed. The Soviets' use of tactical retreats surprised and infuriated Hitler and made the first main objective of the offensive, the destruction of Soviet troops in front of the River Don, impossible to achieve. Realising that the Red Army would not meet them in open battle, Hitler told Field Marshal von Bock that the advance should continue, so not to delay the capture of the industrial centre of Voronezh. In response, the 4th Panzer Army began its advance southwards towards the Don to capture the city.

Voronezh fell to German force on the 7th July after they'd covered a distance of nearly 300 kilometres in just nine days. The following excerpt gives an insight into the state of mind of a typical German soldier, Private Heinz Mencken. The tank spearhead must be very far away by now. You can no longer hear or see them. Last year it was different. Hopefully this year everything will work out so that we can finally get out of this bloody stinking Russia. I'm really fed up. You lose all standards in this cursed country. It's nice to get to know the dirty side of life, but we've got so used to it that we don't even notice it anymore, and we find a lot of things acceptable that we would otherwise deeply despise.

And that is dangerous. How gladly I sacrificed my young years to our great and just cause. But in Russia, you not only lose time, you also become stupid. And that is much worse. On the 9th of July, the 1st Panzer Army and the 17th Army launched an attack on the Soviet southern flank between Izyum and Taganrok. The two large German formations advanced a southern pincer across the Donets towards the Great Don Bend. And then together with the northern pincer of the 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army, they tried to encircle Red Army formations

between the Don and the Donets. But again, the Soviet troops retreated faster than the Germans could follow, but they would occasionally pause to counterattack overstretched German units wherever possible. Private Peter Wenzel writes of his frustration. Please excuse the fact that I don't write as often as I did, but that is the way on an advance like this. The old men tell me that they have rarely been in the middle of such a mess as they were this time. We had to close the pocket in the east and had enemies in front of us and behind us. Those were critical days, and sometimes we were almost surrounded when the Russians broke through. The artillery shoots damn well into our village and rutters join in.

Here the Russians often attack with tanks and many lie mangled and burnt hard by the roadside. General Feldmarschall von Bock was here yesterday and inquired about the situation. I was able to take photos of him. Five days later, on the 13th of July, von Bock warned in a telegram that the destruction of essential numbers

of enemy forces could not be achieved in an operation that would lead right into the heart of the enemy. Aware of the risks that now faced his most advanced units, which had become isolated by the speed of the attack, he wanted to pause and eliminate Soviet forces in the immediate vicinity before continuing too deeply into Soviet-held territory. Hitler, however, was fully convinced the Red Army was done for. On the verge of collapse, he angrily dismissed von Bock from his position. For the troops on the ground, unaware of any disputes among senior commanders, the campaign continued, taking them ever deeper into Russia. Here's Private Mencken again. A secret order from Stalin found that Russians should not take a step backwards

and should rather let themselves be beaten to death, as otherwise Russia would be lost. The Bolsheviks admit their considerable losses, and indeed, the Russians would rather be beaten to death than surrender. Everywhere they put up the toughest resistance, just like last year, but this time with the most modern weapons and equipment. In Tychovo, a Russian prisoner somehow stole a pistol and shot three Germans with it, one Feldwebel dead, the other two seriously injured.

They cut him down with a bayonet. Certain that the main Soviet threat had been eliminated and Russia really no longer had the military resources needed to withstand the German attack, with a bayonet. Certain that the main Soviet threat had been eliminated and that Russia really no longer had the military resources needed to withstand the German attack, Hitler made a series of changes to fall Blau in July 1942. Stalingrad, once a secondary target, was now given the same priority as the campaign's main objective, the seizure of the Soviet oil fields. To achieve this, Army Group South was split into two smaller army groups, A and B. Army Group A's job was to secure the original goal, to capture those Soviet oil fields on the Caucasus,

while Army Group B, led by Colonel General Maximilian von Weichs, where it would smash enemy forces concentrating there and occupy the city of Stalingrad. At the same time, rapidly advancing forces were to push southeast along the Volga to Astrakhan, cutting off the vital waterway and heading towards the Caspian. At the tip of the spear, heading towards Stalingrad, was the 6th Army. Wilhelm Kaufmann wrote to his family as the 6th Army moved towards the city. I'm taking a short break to write you a few lines. At the moment we are advancing south with the tanks.

I think our goal for now is Stalingrad. At least that's what I've heard from the tankers. In this section the Russians are running so fast that we can't keep up with them on our wheels. And our daily marches are certainly not short. 50 to 120 kilometers. I have now driven 1,326 kilometers across Russia in my car. Once the water pump had to be replaced. That was the only repair so far. Very little, considering the vehicles are brand new and need to be broken in on Russian roads. Of the 20 vehicles we had in the group, seven have so far broken down completely. Two

cars were attacked by 13 Russian tanks and set on fire. The drivers managed to escape in time. In general, it all comes down to fuel, which we will find in abundance in Baku. Ammunition is a minor issue, as there's not much shooting going on. In command of the 6th Army was a 52-year-old General Friedrich Paulus, a career soldier. He'd served in the First World War on both the western and eastern fronts. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was promoted to Chief of Staff for the 10th Army, when that unit was renamed the 6th Army after the victory in Poland. He was then promoted to Deputy Chief of the German General Staff. In that role, he was responsible for coming up with many of the plans for Operation Barbarossa. And in January 1942, perhaps as a reward, he was given command of the

6th Army. He wasn't a natural field commander. It was the first time, in fact, he'd been in charge of a unit of more than a thousand men. Interestingly, he succeeded Field Marshal Wolder von Reichenau, who was a national socialist to his core, a Nazi responsible for appalling war crimes. Now under Paulus's command, the 6th Army headed towards Stalingrad. It would be a gruelling advance from the 23rd of July onwards, made clear in the words of Josef Backe. We are on our feet day and night. Wherever things get dicey, we are deployed, either attack, defense in the main line of battle, and so on. At the moment, we are in Slavyansk, facing west. The Russians have broken through somewhere. There's going to

be a pocket. Our Stukas are blowing up the bridges over the Donetsk, not far from us, and the Russians are trapped. In general, we've had good support from Stukas and Panzers recently, but we still have to do most things on our own. They might call us the queen of all arms, but I'll give you one piece of advice. If you do become a soldier, do everything not to join the infantry. It is the worst, and the casualties are enormous.

The German 6th Army was regarded as the most distinguished formation on the Eastern Front, an elite force capable of succeeding in any kind of operation. And like the rest of the German Army, it was becoming increasingly radicalized by Nazi ideology. Therefore, the soldier must fully understand the necessity of harsh but just atonement for the Jewish subhumanity. It has the further purpose of nipping in the butt any uprising in the rear of the Wehrmacht, which experience has shown were always instigated by Jews. Only in this way will we fulfill our historical task of freeing the German people from the Asiatic Jewish danger once and for all. As the German war machine punched ever deeper into the USSR, units behind the front lines were conducting a series of so-called special operations.

That's a bureaucratic term for the murder of thousands of men, women and children. In an episode that became known as the Holocaust by Bullets, Private Anton Schroeder callously wrote that They've made very short work of the Jews here and that's how it should be done everywhere. Then we'd finally have peace from these wretched people. So far the Russians have not had any great successes, but have suffered fairly heavy losses.

The prisoners taken in the last few days are completely exhausted again as they're not doing well in the field positions in the heat. Russia, incomprehensible with your two faces, the humble devout face and the merciless mask of the devil. Despite having lost millions of soldiers, Stalin still had nearly 16 million men to call upon. In addition, the Soviets had had enormous success in uprooting their armaments industry and moving it hundreds, thousands of miles to the east, beyond the Urals. This meant the German forces couldn't touch them there, and those factories were now producing tanks and aircraft.

These supplemented the huge pool of vehicles and weapons that were being supplied by the Americans and Brits as part of their Lend-Lease program. On the German side, though, there were shortages of equipment and manpower. A million soldiers had been lost in the fighting already, and of the tanks originally committed to Operation Barbarossa, something like one in ten was still in operation, and replacements were slow to get

to the front. So it's under these circumstances that Hitler unwisely ordered the simultaneous attacks on Stalingrad and the Caucasus. On the 29th of July, in what would prove to be a very prescient message, Paulus warned Hitler's personal adjutant that the 6th Army was too weak to take the city on its own. But despite these reservations, he didn't question the Fuhrer, and Hitler's harebrained scheme went ahead. On the 10th of August, advancing German forces began clearing the forests west of the River Don of Soviet stragglers. The fighting was brutal. The first day was inconclusive

and continued through the night into the next morning. Frustrated by the lack of progress, German troops actually set fire to the undergrowth to drive the Soviets out into the open. One non-commissioned officer named Manfred Westermann wrote of the relentless fighting that took place. This forest is truly a hell on earth and it has cost us a lot of blood so far. It's easy to get in, but terribly hard to get out.

The damned Ivan invites us in and then easily surrounds and ambushes us. An easy game in his position. Following an order issued by Stalin himself on the 28th of July that there would be no more retreats, sustained counterattacks against the German invaders wherever and whenever, the Germans found themselves locked in a fierce battle for Kalach. The Soviets were throwing the kitchen sink at the Germans, trying to stop their advance on Stalingrad.

Eventually, the German 6th Army did prevail, but at some cost. On the 21st of August, they did cross the River Don at Kalach and began the advance towards the outer suburbs of Stalingrad. On the 23rd of August, advanced units of the German 16th Panzer Division managed to cross the Volga at Rheinock to the north of the city, but soon had to switch to defending against strong Soviet counterattacks from the north. On the same day, the Luftwaffe launched a massive air raid on Stalingrad, which, on Stalin's orders, had yet to be evacuated. Here are the words of Luftwaffe pilot Captain Herbert Pabst, who details his experience that day.

23rd August 1942. Today was a big day. 23rd of August, 1942. Today was a big day for the Luftwaffe and tanks. Since the early morning, we have been over the top of the tanks again and again, helping them forward with bombs and machine guns, landing, refuelling, attaching bombs, reloading ammunition and taking off again. There was a lot going on and things were moving forward splendidly. When we flew in, others were already coming back. Further and further ahead, we had to search for friend and foe.

Once I was caught by a group of Russian fighters. I had already expended all my ammunition and Wolecz's gun had jammed. Three of them attacked me in an ungentlemanly manner. One of them kept hanging behind me, and I could see the small flames licking from his machine-gun barrels. I was fighting for my life, and got away without a hit in my bird. You can't be too happy about something like that. In the evening the tanks were already hard north of Stalingrad. There we got a lot of fire from the flak. I flew back along the route of advance. The cornfields and steps were burning for miles. The columns were heading eastwards in

a dense succession in enormous clouds of dust. Prisoners trotted westwards in large packs without guards. An image that I will always remember, an unforgettable image of war. The dawn, huge white sandbanks, many tributaries, a few strips of forest, and then again step. This foreign land is so vast, so boundless, and so lonely. By the beginning of August, 40,000 Soviet civilians had been killed in German air raids. It was not until the end of the month that residents began to be relocated to areas across the Volga. But with such a large population, swollen by refugees, it was too late to evacuate Stalingrad completely.

More than 75,000 civilians would be forced to remain in the city during the coming fighting. Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe continued to pound Stalingrad day and night, transforming the city into a sea of rubble. Here's Captain Pabst again. 25th August 1942. Calm. The huge clouds of dust blown up by the squadrons taking off still hang over the field, covering everything and everyone with a grey layer. before these clouds have cleared enough for you to see the ground as you hover in. The whole country is covered in a thick haze of dust,

from which you only emerge into the clear high-altitude air at around 2,000 meters. Above the combat area, this layer of smoke and dust is so thick from the moving tanks and columns, from the fires and explosions, that one has great difficulties with orientation and spotting one's targets. Tanks crawling across the step. Are they friend or foe? It is so difficult and so important to distinguish. Today we destroyed an anti-aircraft battery that was firing on us and it blew apart thunder and smoke. Our tanks down below often thank us by radio. Thank you very much. The attack was successful. Have a good flight back. Supported from the air, German ground forces arrived at the gates of the burning city by the end of the month. Lance Corporal Heinz Meyer was among them, battling his way through

Russian defences into the city. The Russian is firing shrapnel over our positions. Impacts of artillery and machine guns on the hilltops. A scary howling, whistling and crashing. Around noon we have to evacuate two kilometres to the northeast. Russian artillery and flak pummeling the railway line. Yesterday, when we wanted to drive along the railway line, we were fired on immediately by the Russian flak So that the splinters threw up the dust around the car Tanks are already on the Volga Two men of the 1st company were killed yesterday by Russian tanks

One seriously wounded 4th company, one dead Now the Russians are shedding the road 200 meters from us Russian planes are bombing the road 200 meters from us. Russian planes are bombing the roads all around. Damn thing. In the afternoon our Stukas finally arrive and bomb the Russians who have closed the ring around us. Towards Stalingrad huge and thick clouds of smoke. Again tank or artillery fire on the kolkhoz next to which we are standing. A cloud of smoke of enormous proportions has been hanging over Stalingrad all day. Everything must be on fire.

When you go to Stalingrad today, or Volgograd as it was when I went there, you notice the extraordinary geography. There are very high ridges that dominate the city that slopes down to the banks of the river Volga. And on one of those ridges, just a couple of miles from the heart of Stalingrad, senior members of the 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army met on the 2nd of September and began planning the offensive on the city centre. They were very surprised by the intensity of the fighting against the enemy they thought had been beaten down and out. The German high command ordered a temporary halt to the offensive while they considered their next steps. Here are the thoughts of the non-commissioned officer Wilhelm Wolter from the 5th of September.

You wouldn't believe the hard fighting here. The Russians are defending themselves to the last and have dugout after dugout armed with steel cupolas. If you had seen the firing display in front of us in the last few days, in which we attack day after day, from morning to night, with the heaviest weapons. The Stukas are at work around the clock. About hundred artillery pieces let loose their salvos on the positions from dusk till dawn. And anti-aircraft, anti-tank guns and other weapons are at work. The Russians have just dropped another five bombs close to me. The dirt hit my tent and the air pressure turned off my lights. Furious that Stalingrad was yet to be captured, desperate to claim Stalin's city as his own, Hitler ordered that the city was to

be taken immediately. The Russians, he declared, were at the end of their strength. In response, on the 13th September, German forces launched a major offensive on the city. Captain Pabst writes of the chaos he saw from the air above. I strapped myself into my bird, freezing. Then the clouds cleared over the dawn, and I flew into the glare of the red rising sun. At first, it was still a little warm in the cabin from the engine, but at 3,000 metres above the target there was a biting cold, so that we arrived frozen stiff. The flak, which had been pretty much dormant for the last few days, had become unpleasantly alert again. Russian fighters

are also back in the area, showing little grit, but it's still not exactly cosy. The battle is now about blocks of houses, streets and railway stations. Thick black clouds of smoke make it difficult to see in the fall, with only burnt-out ruins in sight. The Russians tenaciously defend every pile of rubble, no matter how small. The attack slowly eats its way into the destroyed city. Wind and rain showers all day. Five times over Stalingrad, seven hours in the aircraft. That's enough. As the German bombing continued, German infantry divisions advanced against Stalingrad's main railway station,

the central ferry pier in the city centre. The German 14th Panzer Corps deployed in the north of the city and they had to fend off Soviet counter-attacks and the German entry into the city proper really marked a deadly new chapter in the battle for Stalingrad. Helped ironically by the destruction wrought by the Luftwaffe, Soviet defenders turned every crater, every pile of rubble, every bombed out factory into a fortress. German troops, when advancing through the ruins of a city, find themselves fighting a war at point-blank range, in houses, in factories, cellars, underground, and sewers, against men using submachine guns,

knives, spades, hand grenades. They nicknamed this type of war Rattenkrieg, the War of the Rats. Casualties were enormous. Here are some of the experiences of Infantry Sergeant Werner Habitsch. The Russian defends himself with unimaginable vigour. That's why we often can't move on until we've assembled a Stoßtrupp to clear such an obstacle out of the way. These are volunteers who have to clear the houses with all sorts of weapons. And this often leads to scenes that even father never saw in the last war. The main weapon is the submachine gun, followed by the pistol. But especially in the flats, action often has to be quick and spontaneous.

And then bayonets, spades and knives are often used. spontaneous, and then bayonets, spades and knives are often used. One comrade, for example, hit Ivan in the shoulder with a spade so hard that it lodged in the bone and he was unable to remove it. Meanwhile, Ivan stabbed him in the thigh with a knife. Then another man finished him off with a pistol. It all happens so fast that you hardly know what happened to you. You can't be squeamish here, especially where the prisoners are concerned. The Russians behave bestially towards our people. They gouge out prisoners' eyes, slit their throats and even cut off their genitals. So don't expect any sympathy from us. This is Dan Snow's History. There's more on this topic coming up.

I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes.

Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. By the middle of September, German troops had managed to pin Soviet forces back into a nine-mile-by-three strip clinging to the edge of the Volga.

German victory appeared imminent. But in a desperate attempt to halt the German advance, Soviet reinforcements were rushed into that strip that they held onto. They crossed the Volga under German bombardment and were sent straight to the front. These forces did manage to shore up Soviet positions on the western bank of the Volga, particularly between the Red October steelworks and the massive Mamayev Hill. In response, the 6th Army shifted their focus to attacking the industrial complexes to the north of the city. The fighting was terrible, particularly around two railway stations, a grain silo, a Soviet fortress called Pavlov's House, the Mamayev Hill, and the large factories to the north,

House, the Mamaev Hill, and the large factories to the north, the Red October Steelworks, the Barricades Gun Factory, and the Zhizhinsky Tractor Factory. The Soviets had been battered, but they had survived, and by the end of the month, they retained their grip on their positions in the city on the west bank of the Volga. An unidentified member of a German flak battalion wrote on the 26th of September about the relentless Soviet attempts to retake the city. We are still lying in the same old spot. The Russian is trying to relieve Stalingrad day and night from the north. His attacks are always repulsed in streams of blood. But all this is also costing us a lot.

In Stalingrad itself, the other divisions also continue to advance. Every night the Russians bombard us with all calibers. Terrible fireworks. All around our trenches and bunkers there is a desolate field of rubble, crater after crater. But none of it helps the Russians. It's just a pity about all those comrades. Otherwise, I'm still doing well. I always look forward to receiving your kind parcels. As the Soviets fought doggedly to hold their positions and even push forward, German casualties mounted. Aid stations set up in former Soviet hospitals just behind the front line, received a flood of German casualties 24 hours a day. For the German troops embroiled in this hellish battle, there was no escaping the

gigantic losses they were suffering. Almost everyone had lost a friend, a comrade in the fighting. One private wrote of the Soviet defence with begrudging admiration. The Russians are putting up an organised resistance that seems to exceed anything that has been offered so far. Here one gives oneself up to the hope that this is the last such resistance of the Russians, these imbeciles. The Russians are far superior in tanks and aircraft. The troops are brilliantly trained and equipped, of courage without equal. This Stalingrad seems to us a new Verdun. Even if it falls, it will not be the last.

And our troops no longer have the grit and élan of 39, 40 and even 41. They are willing, disciplined, but their unconditional faith has been shaken. Where is this going to lead? On the 30th of September, as the fighting neared its bloody climax, Hitler announced in a radio broadcast that the fall of Stalingrad was inevitable. He stated, you can be sure that no human being will later drive us out of this place. For those listening within the bunkers, the burnt out houses, the shell scrapes of Stalingrad. Their Fuhrer's words provided assurance that the Red Army could not continue their resistance.

Surely, the fighting would soon be over. On the next day, the 1st of October, the Luftwaffe commenced a massive bombardment of the city, pounding Soviet positions in one of the most intense raids to date. Captain Pabst once again found himself flying above the hellscape that was Stalingrad. Five sorties, seven hours in the cockpit, blazing heat. Stalingrad burns under a rain of bombs and shells. You turn and dive in thick black smoke that literally blocks out the sun up to an altitude of 3,000 meters. On approach, the division transmitter below announces the target. In the target area A11, northwest, attack the large group of houses, strong enemy resistance there. It is extremely

difficult to spot and hit these difficult targets in the thick smoke. The Ivans are different, but in this brutal battle, the only thing that counts is violence, fire, cunning without any rules, killing by any means. The primitiveness of these steppe people has its advantages. God knows, this is a battle between two worlds and woe betide the West if it doesn't win. this is a battle between two worlds and woe betide the West if it doesn't win. By the end of October, Soviet troops held on to around just 10% of the devastated city. But they were still there. They were still fighting on. Losing patience with his commander's inability to finish the job,

Hitler ordered the formation of assault pioneer units. These were shock troops, specially trained to knock down obstacles and fortifications. They were engineers as well as infantrymen. The hope was that they would finally, well, literally dismantle Soviet resistance in something called Operation Hubertus. As part of this assault, the barricades gun factory and the tennis racket railway loop east of the giant Mamiyev Hill were designated targets for the offensive for the newly arrived assault battalions. Other key targets were the Red October steelworks and the Commissar's house and pharmacy to the east of the weapons factory. On the 6th of November, these well-prepared, specialised pioneer battalions arrived in the city and they were sent straight to the front.

Between the 9th and the 14th of November, in freezing temperatures plunging to 20 below zero, the pioneers launched multiple attacks on the Soviets. There was near constant fire. There was brutal hand-to-hand fighting. Hundreds died in hellish conditions. Men clawing at each other in tunnels, in underground galleries,

cellars, and the ruins of factory buildings. There were some gains as a result of Operation Hubertus. The Commissar's house, the pharmacy were taken, but the factory complexes were only partly secured for the Germans. Meanwhile, the attacks on the Red October steelworks were repulsed and it remained in Soviet hands. Of the 3,000 German soldiers deployed, a thousand were killed in a matter of days and many more wounded. After the operation, the decimated remnants of these five battalions, while they were all amalgamated, they were combined into just one battalion, and from then on they were just deployed as regular infantry. It's with this failure that German forces really lost their last chance to bring about some kind of victory before the onset of winter. But nobody told Adolf Hitler. Despite the gigantic losses sustained in Hubertus and the arrival of bitter winter,

Hitler expected his men to go on grinding through the ruins of Stalingrad. But eventually, reality caught up, even with Adolf Hitler. In the early hours of the 19th of November, things got a lot worse for Axis forces. After three months of heavy fighting, with around 90% of the city under German control, all hell broke loose. Not in the city itself, but in the countryside surrounding it.

A barrage fired by 3,500 guns announced the launch of Operation Uranus, the long-planned-for, bold Soviet operation to encircle and destroy German and their allied troops in and around Stalingrad. The Red Army first targeted the ill-equipped Romanian forces stationed to the northwest of the city. Their defensive lines were quickly overwhelmed and their troops scattered. The 6th Army now faced an existential threat. Paulus ordered German troops into blocking positions in an attempt to prop up the ailing Romanian forces and slow the Soviet advance. But just hours later, Soviet forces launched a second devastating attack. 30 Soviet

divisions smashed through Romanian lines, putting the ill-equipped men to flight. By the evening, the Red Army had penetrated something like 35 kilometres into the flank of the 6th Army, threatening their vital organs. Disaster was imminent. German troops were kicked to find a scapegoat for what had happened. Here's First Lieutenant Sander again. There are lots of Romanians here, all of whom have run away. Hundreds of them are queuing at our distribution points begging for some food. The bastard should be at the front. Now it is the German troops who can clean up for them. The mood among the Romanians had once even been quite good, he told me, but now they feel betrayed by their officers.

He told me that in the unit in which one of his friends served, the commander and all the officers had driven away three days before the great Russian attack on the 20th of November, and they didn't drive west, they drove east. When the Russians attacked, not a single officer had been there to take charge. Ammunition hadn't been delivered, and to make the few rounds they had count, their NCOs had told them to let the Russians come as close as possible before opening fire. Yet when the Russians came close, they had decided to throw away their rifles and to run away. If you can believe it, there was worse to come. Just one day later, on the morning of the 20th November,

two Soviet armies broke through again, this time on the front of the 6th Romanian Army Corps, down to the south of Stalingrad. Here too, resistance of poorly equipped, poorly motivated Romanians collapsed. German attempts to slow down the Soviet advance failed. Two pincers were now swinging towards each other, one from the north, the other from the south. In the early hours of the 22nd November, a Soviet advance party captured the undamaged bridge over the Don at Kalach and established a bridgehead on the west bank of the river. Although slightly premature, Paulus reported, army surrounded. That did in fact come

to pass on the afternoon of the following day, the 23rd of November. The northern and southern pincers of the Red Army met at the Sovjetsky rail station near Kalach. The noose had been knotted. 260,000 German and Allied soldiers, quarter of a million troops, were now trapped in a pocket measuring 60 by 40 kilometres. In response, around 10pm that night, the 6th Army received a radio message from the headquarters of the Supreme Army Command. It was from Hitler, who hoped that words might succeed where tanks, guns and defences had failed. The 6th Army is temporarily

surrounded by Russian forces. I know the 6th Army and its commander-in-chief and I know that it will hold out bravely in this difficult situation. The 6th Army must know that I am doing everything I can to help and relieve it. I will issue my orders in good time. But it would take a lot more than words to stave off disaster. Paulus and his staff desperately tried to stabilise the various fronts and then planned for a breakout to the south, back towards German lines. But it was quickly clear that the equipment, the vehicles needed, just didn't exist. Paulus was very well aware of the severity of his situation, and he made several desperate requests, pleading for a freedom to act. What that meant was pleading for the freedom to

attack with all his forces back to the west to rejoin German lines, but each time he was ordered to hold his position, and with every passing hour, Soviet forces grew stronger and stronger surrounding the pocket. All Paulus and his men were allowed to do, by their Fuhrer, by Hitler, was to dig into the ruins of Stalingrad, where they were trapped, and wait. On the 28th of December 1942, a non-commissioned officer in Armoured Division, Karl Erhard Frey, wrote, Perhaps you've all heard the news. An encircled Armoured Division fights heroically for its freedom. Well, it was a lot worse. But it could have been even worse for us. No water, freezing

cold, eight days and nights without sleep. The Russians 100 meters in front of us. The Romanians abandoned everything and just fled. Our division stood alone in Great Russia. The battalion was surrounded, and almost all officers and non-commissioned officers of my company were killed. Only the Hauptfeldwebel and two Unteroffiziere survived. Willy Bröckling has just been promoted to Unteroffizier and is no longer there, probably killed. The Russian beats and strangles all the prisoners to death. I can only tell you, there were cruel days and

nights. Right now it's a mess here. On the 22nd of November I had to lead a recon party. I only noticed the Russians when I was 15 meters from their positions. I quickly turned around and by then it was already too late. An anti-tank shell of seven and a half centimeters hit my fuel tank and I ran out. Luckily the coffin didn't burn out and I was able to tow it away under the cover of artificial fog. I thanked the good Lord that he had been with me again. Yesterday, a shell hit the ground two metres in front of me. You listen to Dan Snow's down on the Volga. The plan was that they would be resupplied by air.

This had been done in the so-called Demyansk Pocket earlier in the year. German forces had been supplied by their Luftwaffe. However, at the Demyansk Pocket, 96,000 troops had been supplied over a distance of 30 kilometers, whereas at Stalingrad, a quarter of a million troops had to be supplied over a distance of 60 kilometers. It was an impossible task given the tools, the heavy lift aircraft that the Luftwaffe had available. Nevertheless, unfortunately for everybody involved, the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, claimed that it would in fact be possible to supply the 6th Army by air. The men trapped

in Stalingrad just had to hope and trust that this promise would be kept. As it turned out, only on three days during the whole of December was it possible to fly in the minimum required 350 tonnes into the Stalingrad cauldron. The men were now staring disaster in the face. It was clear the situation could only get worse. But without orders from Hitler, there was absolutely nothing they could do. They had no choice but to sit tight and just watch as their fighting strength was inexorably whittled away. The German Luftwaffe General Martin Feibig summed up the situation as follows.

Führer's order. Sixth Army remains in the hedgehog position, contrary to other assessments of the situation, that a breakthrough is necessary because a sufficient air supply is not possible. So now everything must be done to fulfill the Führer's order. Major offensive by the enemy all along the line. Everything is under extreme tension. Do people at home realize the extent of these events?

And we are still heading into winter. No daylight, bad weather and yet we have to get through. The 6th Army must also be saved. Things are in flux. In the encircled city, the fighting, suffering and dying continued. Soviet propaganda troops used loud speakers to blast the demoralised men of the 6th Army with music and political messages. It was from these speakers that the Soviets taunted the German troops with the infamous message, every seven seconds a German soldier dies, Stalingrad, mass grave, which was followed by the monotonous sound of the ticking

of a clock and the so-called deadly tango music. With no certainty that they would ever be read, German soldiers continued to record their experiences in letters and diaries. Here's non-commissioned officer Friedrich Kranzner. Most of our companies are only 30 to 50 men strong. Our line is patchily manned and we are waiting for replacements. We have moved as closely as possible to the Russians, as that way the Stalin organs can't hit us without hitting their own men. In some places we are only a grenade throw away from them. During the day we can't show our heads, as the Russians have snipers everywhere. Here we have started to conduct all movements and entrenching work at night. We use tent squares to drag the excavated soil towards the rear

and spread it out far behind our position. While we have not received rations for three days now, replacements have arrived sporadically. But they are mostly older men from support units, badly trained and know very little about infantry service. Hitler did eventually give some hope to the trapped men of the 6th Army when he ordered the creation of Army Group Don. Under the command of Erich von Manstein,

Army Group Don was tasked with breaking through the encirclement and freeing the trapped German soldiers in an operation that would be codenamed Winter Storm. The plan was to drive a wedge into the Soviet armies now encircling Stalingrad and create a lifeline, a corridor, through which trapped men could escape from the frozen city. Manstein will come became a common saying in the cauldron. By the 12th of December 1942, Panzer and infantry divisions were hacking their way through terrible winter conditions and Soviet forces desperately trying to break through

to reach their encircled comrades. But in the encircled city, Paulus vetoed any attempt to fight their way out towards the sounds of Manstein's guns. While other senior German generals prepared to ignore the Fuhrer's order and attempt to break out with any forces still mobile enough, to break out with any forces still mobile enough, Paulus refused. The 6th Army was going nowhere. On the 21st of December, Hitler finally authorised an attempt by the 6th Army to break out of the encirclement, to attack towards Manstein. But the Army High Command knew that the trapped troops only had enough fuel to advance around 30 kilometers. That wouldn't reach the foremost armored spearheads of Manstein, which had become stuck 40 kilometers outside the city. On being informed of this, Hitler revised his authorization. He withdrew his permission for

the 6th Army to break out. With this, the tiniest chink, the narrow window of opportunity that might still have existed for some in the 6th Army to escape, was firmly slammed shut. For soldiers like Sander, who had taken part in Winter Storm in high spirits, full of confidence, the failure weighed heavily. Here he is again. The tank battle of Verchnikumsky, the thrust towards Stalingrad, everything is again. The tank battle of Verchnikumsky, the thrust towards Stalingrad, everything is over. No day on which there wasn't any fighting. Light at first,

so light that there was the faint hope that the Russian had not even realized that we were thrusting deep into his territory. In advance of nearly 40 kilometers in the first twenty-four hours. Then the inferno. Relentless Russian attacks, often at regimental strength and supported by armor, had to be repelled. No water, little food, the entire village in flames our own casualties rising by the hour attack and counter-attack again and again. Only our Luftwaffe brought respite

when our Junkers 88s and Junkers 87s dropped their eggs on the Reds. The regiment now has only 22 operational tanks left. I'm told that in total we have destroyed over 200 enemy tanks, but still they kept on coming. On the 25th of December, it was all over. We are hopelessly outnumbered and in many respects technically inferior. Superior leadership, morale and training alone is not sufficient. Without ammunition, fuel, food, water and spare parts, the Russians are wearing us down.

The infantry here is already broken, and the sole appearance of a Russian armoured car is enough to cause entire picket lines of tired, exhausted Lanzers to fall back. The men trapped in the city could hear the fire of their approaching comrades, but the orders from headquarters to hold their positions and not to break out were unambiguous, they were clear, and so the fighting and the dying continued where they were. This letter is an attempt, and probably my last, to get in touch with you. We have been surrounded. The recent days were just horrible, and I can't find the words to describe them. Huge numbers of wounded are coming in, and they are all filing past me. I record their names, send them to the other room where they stand or lie like sardines in a tin. The very bad cases remain in another room, which we keep slightly heated. That room is always full. Some lie there, some are kneeling, others are wrapped in blankets. Another is moaning in pain and gets a morphine shot. Others are wrapped in blankets.

Another is moaning in pain and gets a morphine shot. I have to cool the feverish lips and gently stroke the heads of those young boys. Now tomorrow the first evacuations are supposed to begin with Junkers aircraft. I am so happy about that. In captivity the fate of the wounded is even more terrible than what awaits us. Yes, I confess that I am praying for an easy death, and I pray that I will not be a disgrace to our Lord Jesus when the time comes. On Christmas Eve 1942, in a dramatic flash of Nazi propaganda, the Deutschlander Broadcasting Service connected 12 radio stations together in a special Christmas broadcast.

From the Arctic Ocean to North Africa, from the Volga to the Atlantic coast, the German people would hear the voices of their fathers, their sons and their brothers, who were spending yet another Christmas fighting and dying for the Reich. The recordings were real, but they'd been taped in the days and the weeks before. The recordings from Stalingrad had been flown out on one of the few flights still in operation. On the day that it was broadcast, it's chastening to think of the 65 German soldiers in Stalingrad who would have starved to death on that day. Because by the end of December, it was thirst, it was hunger, it was cold that had become the chief enemy. When the Red Army had encircled the

German Sixth Army, there were still seven airfields under German control. All of these were located to the west of Stalingrad, on the west bank of the Volga, between 10 and 30 kilometers or so from the embattled city centre. For two months, these airfields presented the only lifeline to the trapped men. But that lifeline was incapable of delivering enough supplies. Starving German troops resorted to ever more desperate measures in their search for food. An unidentified soldier from one of the pioneer battalions wrote, Russia can be compared to a cold iron coffin whose lid hasn't been sold yet, because now and then there is time to ventilate the contents a little.

Can you blame the boys that they have begun to mulishly teeter along? Desperation might be a great enemy of the soldier, but enemy number one was and is the hunger. It hurts so much that we search the dead Russians for bread, and often find pea flour too, which we then cook in water, without salt. You can imagine how hungry we are. By the end of December, only 80 grams of bread was issued per soldier. A few days later, it was down to 50 grams. The army had long since eaten its horses. Now the men began slaughtering dogs, which in turn had been feeding on rats and corpses. On the 10th of January 1943, a great Soviet offensive began to extinguish the Stalingrad cauldron.

Within 10 days, the cauldron was reduced to about a third of its original size. A flight out was the only, a flight was the only way out of the cauldron. But even that was not a sure thing. German airfields were now under nearly constant attack by Soviet fighters and artillery, making any operations by German aircraft incredibly hazardous. Here's Major Klesinski, who describes chaotic scenes on the ground when he landed during a Luftwaffe supply run. All the aircraft landed about 100 metres behind each other on the rolled runway. Bomb craters and wrecked aircraft to the right and left of the 50-metre-wide runway made landing very difficult. When, after a few minutes, no personnel could be

seen, I decided to roll up to a nearby road where lorry convoys were driving past. I unloaded the rations. The passing troops pounced on the unloaded loaves of bread and tinned food. An attempt to push the soldiers back at gunpoint was unsuccessful. I took six members of the Luftwaffe with me. I couldn't take any more, as Russian fighters were waiting over the field and their attack was to be expected. The airfields at Bazagino and Pitomnik were overrun by Soviets on the 14th and 16th of January 1943.

Supplies could only now really reach the Axis troops from two very makeshift airfields, Gumrak and Stalingradski. On the 22nd and 23rd, they were captured too by the Soviets. Trapped German troops now had to rely on airdrops. By then, 12,000 wounded were lying untreated in the ruins of Stalingrad. When the Red Army made yet another breakthrough on the 22nd of January, Paulus radioed his high command requesting permission to end the fighting, to surrender. In a show of support, Manstein also begged that these troops be allowed to lay down their weapons, but again Hitler refused, stating, a surrender of the 6th Army is not possible from the point

of view of honour alone. Paulus and his staff obeyed, but for many others, there was no longer any use in delaying the inevitable. On the 25th of January, the remnants of the 297th Infantry Division became the first big German unit to surrender. As the end approached, one German soldier wrote to his dad. Now it really seems that the end is near. To be frank, I'm quite relieved that the mental strain and anxiety of the previous days has now come to an end. I still can't quite get my head around the fact that we really failed to hold out,

but the Russians are too strong and our men are weakened by the cold and hunger. Here the mood differs a lot. One bears it with composure while some others don't. It is an interesting character study. Each of us wonders in which way he will come to an end. Well, I have your Mauser pistol from the Great War on my belt, still with the same fourteen rounds. It has brought you luck, and maybe it will be beneficial to me as well. Hitler expressed his gratitude by promoting Paulus to field marshal. It was his reward as commander-in-chief of the glorious 6th army,

the heroic defender of Stalingrad. The message could not have been clearer though. An officer of this rank in the German army had never been taken prisoner. Hitler was expecting Paulus to take his own life. On the same day, an address to the German people was broadcast from the Hall of Honor of the Reich Aviation Ministry in Berlin. As the Fuhrer obviously never wanted to be connected in public with a defeat, it fell to the second man of the Reich, Goering, to inform the German public of the unfolding catastrophe. Shortly before 8 o'clock on the 31st of January, with Soviet troops just outside his command post, Paulus sent his final message. As for the rest of German troops across the city, well, they they readied themselves for the end. Medical Sergeant Werner Eisenhower described the final bloody moments for his division

Now, you wanted to know what the end was like for us The Russian artillery fired non-stop from every barrel All hell broke loose With us was everything that could still carry a rifle Everything from the baggage train, cars and truck drivers, tailors and shoemakers. We only fired when the Russians attacked. All of a sudden, there was dead silence.

We looked out of our holes. Then they arrived and drove with T-34 tanks. Anyone who still managed to crawl out of the holes was caught by the tank tracks and crushed. The snow turned blood red. That was the end of our division. For weeks, Paulus had obeyed all of Hitler's orders to hold out. He'd rejected several offers of surrender from the Red Army. But now, in a final act of defiance, Paulus disobeyed Hitler. He authorised Major General Fritz Roske to negotiate a surrender with Soviet forces. For the exhausted German troops, the end had finally arrived.

On the 31st of January, for the first time in German history, a field marshal, Friedrich Paulus, went into enemy captivity. He surrendered. As he did so, German forces in the southern parts of the cauldron followed his lead and surrendered too. This was followed two days later, on the 2nd of February, by the surrender of the last holdouts in the northern pocket of the city. The battle was over. The Soviets had won. At midday on the 3rd of February, the Supreme Command of Nazi Germany issued a special announcement informing the German public of the fate of the 6th Army. issued a special announcement informing the German public of the fate of the 6th Army. It stated that generals, officers, NCOs and men fought shoulder to shoulder until the last bullet.

The army's sacrifice was not in vain. They died so that Germany could live. This announcement did not mention that over 100,000 soldiers, including the 6th Army's commander, Paulus, had marched into captivity. Stalingrad's fall decisively ended the myth of German invincibility. It marked a pivotal shift in the war. Millions had perished in what is by some standards the greatest battle ever fought. It was a tale of unimaginable suffering. And for the over 100,000 German survivors who were taken prisoner, that suffering had not come to an end.

Only 6,000 of them ever returned home. Thank you for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's History Hit. As I mentioned, we recorded several episodes for the 80th anniversary of Stalingrad. So go and check your feed for things like Stalingrad with Ian McGregor and the end of Stalingrad with Jo go and check your feed for things like Stalingrad with Ian McGregor and the end of

Stalingrad with Jochen Helbeck. That was back in February 2023. Thank you as ever for listening. See you next time. you