Stalingrad Death of an Army 1st Edition

Ben Skipper
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Mid-October 1942 and a StuG provides cover somewhere in Stalingrad,
surrounded by the detritus of war. (Bundesarchiv)
BattleCraft

STALINGRAD

DEATH OF AN ARMY

Ben Skipper
Contents

Introduction

STALINGRAD – DEATH OF AN ARMY

Setting the Scene: Key Commanders of Stalingrad; the Principal Cast

The Supporting Cast – Order of Battle (ORBAT) from 19 November 1942

Prelude: Case Blue

Act One, Scene One: Ride of the Valkyries

Act One, Scene Two: The Die is Cast

Act One, Scene Three: A Sense of Urgency

Act One, Scene Four: Hubris

Act Two, Scene One: Storm Front

Act Two, Scene Two: The Noose Tightens

Act Three: Futility and Fire

Endings: 2 February 1943 – Humiliation Complete

QUARTERMASTER’S SECTION

Sturmgeschütz III (StuG III)

T-34

Junkers Ju 87 Stuka

Yakovlev Design Bureau Yak-9

First published in Great Britain in 2023

by Pen & Sword Military

An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire – Philadelphia

Copyright © Pen & Sword Ltd, 2023

ISBN 978 1 39900 774 0

EPUB ISBN 978 1 39900 775 7

MOBI ISBN 978 1 39900 775 7

The right of Ben Skipper to be identified as Author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.

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INTRODUCTION
A symbol of defiance and of loss. The famous ‘Children’s Dance’ fountain on the
station square in Stalingrad at the end of the battle. (Sergey Strunnikov)

On 28 June 1942 Axis offensive operations on the Eastern Front were

relaunched with the start of Case Blue (Fall Blau). The plan was to deprive the
Soviets of the life blood of modern warfare: oil. To do this two operations were
launched using a divided Army Group South. Operation Edelweiss, with Army
Group A, would see Axis troops drive south towards the Caucasus and capture
the oil fields of Baku. To the north Operation Fischreiher (Heron), by Army
Group B, would drive towards the Volga and Stalingrad.

On 26 July 1942 Army Group B, led by the Sixth Army, made contact with the
first of the Soviet defences along the Don as it drove on towards Stalingrad. The
Sixth Army was the acme of German military might and on paper it should have
easily overwhelmed the Soviet defenders. However, its commander, General
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus, lacked field experience and his army would pay
the price. Stalingrad was a new type of battlefield and it would test the mettle of
attacker and defender to the very limit, and all the while the thermometer
plunged.
Graduates of Chuikov’s ‘Stalingrad Academy of Street Fighting’ survey their
handiwork. (RIA Novosti)
Planning the campaign: a relaxed Paulus meeting subordinates on the Eastern
Front. (Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe)

Stalingrad would become the pyre upon which the effort to win the war in the
East by the Axis powers would be thrown. It would see the hubris and hypocrisy
of Hitler’s psyche exposed and witness the pitiful collapse and death of one of
the most powerful armies of the age; Paulus’ Sixth Army.
Romanian cavalry saddles lie abandoned at the bridgehead. (RIA Novosti)
STALINGRAD – DEATH OF AN ARMY

Due to the sheer scale of the battle of Stalingrad a number of well known and
notable commanders were involved on both sides; however, there are
commanders whose quality and influence in battle marked them above their
peers in one way or another, be it political or martial. It was these men whose
experiences had prepared them for the task ahead.
Paulus, accompanied by General Hermann Hoth, observes the front through a
Scherenfernrohr SF09 stereoscopic telescope. (Wydawnictwo Prasowe Kraków-
Warszawa)

GERMAN COMMANDERS

General der Panzertruppe Friedrich Paulus was born on 23 September 1890 in

Breitenau, Germany, the son of a treasurer. He initially tried to join the navy but
was rejected due to his social background. After a brief period as a student at the
University of Marburg studying law, Paulus joined the army in 1910. He was
commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 3rd Baden Infantry Regiment the
following year. At the outbreak of the First World War Paulus was adjutant of
the regiment’s 3rd Battalion and by 1915 was assigned to the staff of the 2nd
Prussian Jäger Regiment. He was moved once again two years later to the
operations staff of the Alpine Corps.
A portrait of Paulus taken in June 1942. Within six months Paulus would become
a shadow of his former self, broken and isolated with the walls of Stalingrad
closing around him. (Deutsches Bundesarchiv)

After the war Paulus served as adjutant of the 14th Infantry Regiment at
Konstanz as part of the Reichswehr. In 1922 Paulus received General Staff
training, joining Army Group 2 at Kassel the following year. From 1924 to 1927,
he was posted as a General Staff officer at Wehrkreis (Military District) V at
Stuttgart. Paulus’ behaviour as a staff officer attracted the attention of senior
commanders with one commenting he was ‘slow, but very methodical’, whilst
another complained that he ‘lacked decisiveness’. Yet Paulus continued to be
promoted and in 1930 became a tactics instructor with the 5th Infantry Division.
Despite the Versailles Treaty’s restrictions on numbers the Reichswehr still
needed to practise the craft of war and men like Paulus helped shape and
develop a modern army. (Deutsches Bundesarchiv)
When is a tank not a tank? Early Reichswehr armoured manoeuvres used
wheeled vehicles with body modifications to get around the restrictions of the
Treaty of Versailles. (IWM)

By 1934 Paulus held the rank of lieutenant colonel in charge of Section 3 of the
now burgeoning Reichswehr motor transport pool. In September the following
year Paulus succeeded Heinz Guderian as chief of staff to the commander of
Germany’s mechanized forces, General der Panzertruppe Oswald Lutz.
Considered to be an expert in the field of motorized warfare, Paulus was further
promoted to major general. In 1939 he became director of training for
Germany’s four light divisions which were made up of a tank battalion, two
motorized infantry, one reconnaissance and one motorized artillery regiment.

Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, Paulus became General Walther
von Reichenau’s chief of staff with the Tenth Army, later taking part in the
invasion of Poland in September 1939. He remained with the Tenth Army for the
Western offensive in Belgium and France.
German and Soviet soldiers fraternize in Sambor (Lwów Voivodeship), during
the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939. (Unknown)

June 1940 brought Paulus further promotion, this time to lieutenant general and
in September he became deputy chief of the General Staff. In this role Paulus
was to visit General Erwin Rommel in North Africa on a fact-finding tour. His
report was highly critical of Rommel, his methods and troops, but the report was
not acted upon. This mission was followed by a strategic survey of the Soviet
Union in preparation for the proposed invasion, Operation Barbarossa. Paulus’
main point to senior commanders and Hitler was not to give the Red Army the
opportunity to retreat into the interior of the Soviet Union, arguing that battles of
encirclement would be far more effective. Paulus also suggested that the main
advance eastwards should be made north, avoiding the Pripyat Marshes in
southern Belarus and northern Ukraine, to enable the capture of Moscow.
Under the spotlight. Rommel, a famous self-publicist, had his campaign in North
Africa scrutinised by Paulus. The report was far from positive. (Wydawnictwo
Prasowe Kraków-Warszawa)
September 1942 and German armour pauses on its way to Stalingrad. (IWM)

Promoted to general on New Year’s Day 1942, Paulus took up his appointment
as commander of the Sixth Army and fought his first battle at Dnepropetrovsk in
central Ukraine. After heavy fighting which lasted until May 1942, Paulus and
the Sixth Army were able to begin their advance eastwards towards Stalingrad as
part of Case Blue operations.

SOVIET COMMANDERS

Colonel General Konstantin Rokossovsky was born in Warsaw, then part of the
Russian Empire, on 21 December 1896 to a Polish father and a Russian mother.
Historically the Rokossovskys were part of the Polish nobility, whose connection
to the cavalry was well known. Orphaned at 14, Rokossovsky earned a living by
working in a stocking factory, and some time later he became an apprentice
stonemason.
Victors at the Lair. Senior Allied commanders meet in Berlin; Georgy Zhukov
and Konstantin Rokossovsky meet with Bernard Montgomery and team. (Library
and Archives Canada/Bibliothèque et Archives Canada)
Members of the newly-formed Red Army take a moment to pose for a photograph
before fighting in the Civil War. (Unknown)
Brothers in arms. Graduates of the Leningrad Higher Cavalry School 1924/25
Sitting in the second row (right to left): 1. Bagramyan, 3. Yeremenko. In the third
row (right to left): 1. Zhukov, 5. Rokossovsky, 8. Ivan Konev. Standing in the
fourth row (right to left): 2. Semyon Timoshenko. (Unknown)

Rokossovsky’s patronymic Ksaverovich was Russified to Konstantinovich on

enlistment into the 5th Kargopol Dragoon Regiment of the Russian army at the
start of the First World War. His qualities as a soldier and leader were honed by
his service, which saw him wounded twice and awarded the Cross of St George.

In 1917, Rokossovsky joined the Bolshevik Party and entered the ranks of the
Red Army, serving in the Kargopolsky Red Guards Cavalry Detachment during
the subsequent Civil War. During this period he campaigned in the Urals where
he was wounded once more but his actions saw him given the Order of the Red
Banner, the highest Soviet award at the time.

In 1921 Rokossovsky was commanding the 35th Independent Cavalry Regiment

stationed in Irkutsk, a Siberian city close to the Mongolian border. Once in post
he helped bring the founder of the Mongolian People’s Republic, Damdin
Sükhbaatar, to power, helping to secure an important buffer between Soviet
Russia and China.

Between 1924 and 1925 Rokossovsky attended the Leningrad Higher Cavalry
School, where he first met Georgy Zhukov, thereafter returning to a training post
with the Mongolian People’s Army. This was followed by a posting to the
Special Red Banner Eastern Army under Vasily Blyukher, taking part in the
Russo-Chinese Eastern Railroad War of 1929–30. Rokossovsky’s career
continued to develop and as commander of the 7th Samara Cavalry Division he
worked with Zhukov, then a brigade commander. This period also saw
Rokossovsky realize the potential of armoured assault.
Early Soviet armour design, like this T-16, was part of the first steps men like
Rokossovsky were able to take and go on to create formidable combined-arms
tactics in the Second World War. (Unknown)
The unmistakable visage of General of the Army Georgy Zhukov on guard whilst
Marshal Semyon Timoshenko observes the manoeuvres of the Kiev military
district, 1940. (Unknown)

Rokossovsky continued to hold senior commands until August 1937 when he

was accused of being a spy during the Great Purge. There has been much
speculation as to why he was arrested, but the most likely explanation was a
result of military rivalries. Rokossovsky survived the Great Purge, in part due to
his refusal to sign a fabricated confession despite repeated beatings at the hands
of his NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) jailers. A trial
followed and Rokossovsky was sent to the Kresty Prison in Leningrad, from
which he was released without explanation on 22 March 1940.
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