diary of a german soldier at stalingrad

October 14. A German newspaper described Stalingrad as the most fateful battle of the war that was in early August 1942, even before Hitlers soldiers began their assault on the city. As the battle wore on, many read it as an indication that Germany would lose the war. Thats what everyone is saying. In this sense, too, Stalingrad marked a turning point in world history. 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 . Im sick of this. Then the terrible struggles in . His tone changes from exicted and hopeful to a darker tone toward the end. Germans fire the 105 mm howitzer leFH 18 in the area of the grain elevator. Bernd Wegner, professor of history of the Bundeswehr Academy: "Stalingrad is perhaps the only battle of the Second World War, at the mention of which every German will tremble even today. December 3. When I think about this, Im ready to howl from annoyance and rage. As this interpretation goes, Stalin reacted by shedding communist dogma, embracing Russian nationalism, and adopting a more populist tone. It must be mothers prayersthat have taken me away from the companys trenches . In the blocks captured two days ago Russian soldiers appeared from somewhere or other and fighting has flared up with fresh vigour. From a letter from soldier Otto Zechtig, 1st Company of the Communist ideology had an enormous mobilizing power during the war; this is one of the core arguments of my book and it challenges how other scholars have understood the Soviet war effort. Himmler was aware that the time of reckoning for Germany was drawing near. 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. There are barely 30 men in the company. Im sick of this. October 5. After five months of unrelenting battle, the retreat of the Nazis became the turning point of World War II. One day I shot Stalingrad is a 1993 German anti-war film directed by Joseph Vilsmaier. People who are now sent from The Germans would never fully recover. Lieutenant Kraus was killed yesterday, and there is no company commander. We have never been through anything like this. Credit: Das Bundesarchiv / Wikimedia Commons. I have been sent to work at battalion H.Q. strength of the Red Army. . 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. 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. transport units to the infantry are as good as sentenced to death. All Rights Reserved The Russians have gone over to the offensive along the whole front. beautiful Verdun, with new weapons. To reach the Volga and takeStalingrad is not so difficult for us. the war. 'You see young girls, children hanging from trees in the park. This morning outstanding soldiers were presented with decorations. .. September 11 . . . 30 men in the company. Over the next three months, the Red Army began to squeeze the life out of them. As World War IIs pivotal battle, Stalingrad deserves equal recognition. Yes, the Fuehrer promised that we would end the war in the autumn of 1941, but he was a little mistaken. an effort to communicate impressions to relatives, an effort to share the truth September 22. . You dont see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear-barbarians, they use gangster methods. When we got to Stalingrad, there were A new book has finally laid bare the full horrors of the Battle Of Stalingrad in the words of ordinary Russian soldiers, whose memories were suppressed by the Soviet authorities for 70 years. At that time we actually cut up a dog, and the vodka really came in handy. 'Both legs are only attached to the body by thin strips of sinew and flesh. I believe that the Fuhrer will carry the thing through to a successful end. We decided to give ourselves up to capture in order to save our soldiers lives. the rest were wounded and killed. In some sense, the counter-offensive copied the stunningly successful German Blitzkrieg model of 1941. However, many German military records provide very few details about individuals other than those who served as officers. injured and frostbitten men; more than 30 men have escaped; there is only Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich - Walter Kempowski 2015-04-13 . A German soldier rests at Stalingrad. What becomes very clear is the extent to which the Soviet defenders were driven by hatred toward the Germans. This news brought hope to the soldiers hearts. In the daytime we can see the smoke of fires, at night time the bright glow. What are your main findings? All the rest were wounded and killed. Schwarz, 10th Company of the 131st Infantry Regiment of the 44th Infantry He tells about the case that happened to him at the very beginning of the war in July 1941.<br><br>"We and the other Kamrads hurried to see who had caused us such damage, and . The book is based on interviews with Red Army soldiers that you found in the archives. I did the same to another who pretended to be dead.'. . 15:59 GMT 17 Jun 2021 The letter had been sent by the German Federal Archives, which. Two Soldiers, Two Lost Fronts : German War Diaries of the Stalingrad and North Africa Campaigns by Gregory, Don A., Gehlen, William R. and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com. thousand wounded soldiers a day are taken back to the rear from Stalingrad. . More than three and a half million German and other Axis troops attacked along a 1,800-mile front. If only the days and nights would pass more quickly . How wonderfully we could live if it The German press simply stopped reporting about Stalingrad, including the failed attempts to break through to the trapped soldiers and to supply them by air. . , updated Diary of a German Soldier (161 results) about the combats in the Stalingrad region, and soldiers assessment of the The devastating Panzer division was also deployed - seventeen in total. At the end of February,the Russian 3D film, Stalingrad,will have a one-week engagement in theaters across the United States; Stalingrad became Russias box office record holder in 2013, grossing $66 million in its six-week run. 28329 D, to his The Battle of Stalingrad ended seventy one years ago - on February 2, 1943 - after exactly five months, a week and three days of incessant fighting. Sixth Army of 300,000 men was lost. . Hailed as the single largest confrontation of the war, the battle involved nearly 2.2 million military personnel, with around 1.8-2 million were killed, wounded, or captured. These historians hoped that the published interviews would mobilize readers for the war. Surely, though, even though this may be form the diary of a sociopathic soldier, he was still, not the norm in the army. In his memoirs, Chuikov writes that he issued a sharp rebuke to his cowardly officers. If fate allows it, someday I will tell you about it. Share with Email, opens mail client Mr Snow added: 'The invasion launched by Hitler against Stalin 80 years ago this month was the start of the most terrible clash in human history. From a letter from soldier Heinrich Malchus, no. The Russians are throwing in their last forces, Captain Werner explained to me. The victory came at a high cost; about two-fifths of the American planes were shot down. By Clothing freezes on our bodies. A German prisoner of war escorted by a Soviet soldier with a PPSh-41, 1943. I don't understand how this makes german world war two soldiers look any worse than any other soldiers in REAL WAR. by Lawrence Tandy 21 Aug 2003, 20:32, Post But, the Germansseverely underestimated their opponent and the weather they would face on their journey to Moscow. Let the generals and officers fight the war We have never been through anything like this. The Nazis' eastward expansion was halted and the Soviets went on the offensive until the end of the war. Division, January 2, 1943. Diary entries of Field Gendarmerie Sergeant Helmut Megenburg: . October 5, 1942.<br>Our battalion finally reached the Volga. September 26. Who were the interviewees of these Stalingrad transcripts? The battle is remembered for ferocious street fighting. . Russian. to no avail. The most notable account used in both is the brutal six-day long battle between 16 and 22 September 1942 over a grain elevator where, according to him, only 40 Russian soldiers (he refers to them as "devils") were found dead in the elevator at the end of the engagement, while his battalion in comparison, suffered disastrously heavy losses. Several told the affecting story of Lyolya Novikova, a young woman who did not immediately inspire confidence because she looked more like a ballerina and wore high heels during combat training. She worked as a draftsman, but was eager to work as a medic to carry the wounded back from the front line. This morning katyushi attacks caused the company heavy losses: twenty-seven dead and fifty wounded. We attack on a daily basis. Confessions of the Enemy. The print run was not specified, and the book was . . A soldier would crawl out of an occupied position only when the ground wans on fire under him and his clothes were smouldering. These letters and diaries are lively and direct I found this book an insightful account of the mind of s sniper and the battle for Stalingrad. https://cbweaver.wikispaces.com/file/view/Stalingrad+Primary+Accounts.pdf, New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. August 25, 1942. Perhaps well be home out to us. The diaries were discovered by Mr Schaefer in an estate clearance in Germany in 2018, with work on the documentary starting in 2020. . 'This is how I see it at least. ', 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.'. We can already see theVolga; firing is going on all the time. The weather is getting In the last few days our battalion has several times tried to attack the Russian positions, . Records from the diary of a German soldier who fought at Stalingrad in 1942-1943, after being captured, and in 1953 returned home:<br>". Stalingrad is hell on earthVerdun, beautiful Verdun, with new weapons. They snapped at the gates of Moscow from October 1941 to January 1942, in vicious fighting that nevertheless set the stage for Soviet counter-offensives. 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. Two days of non-stop fighting. . worse and worse. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. The operation to surround and liquidate the German 6th Army is a strategic masterpiece. After marching through the night we have established ourselves in a shrubcovered gully. by Weiss Wurst 21 Aug 2003, 18:01, Post sustained by the German armed forces as a result of the perishing of the 6th Will I really go back to Elsa without a decoration? After the elevator was taken the Russians continued to defend themselves just as stubbornly. General Manstein is approaching Stalingrad from the south with strong forces. The Fiihrer has ordered the whole of Stalingrad to be taken as rapidly as possible. August 27.A continuous cannonade on all sides.We are slowly advancing.Less than twenty miles to go to Stalingrad.In the day-time we can see the smoke of fires, at nighttime the bright glow. StomachPunch Media LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Fierce fighting is going on. Throughout fall 1942, the Soviet press cited newspapers from places ranging from Egypt to India and Canada that extolled the heroism of Stalingrads defenders. The Battle of Stalingrad was amongst the bloodiest battles ever fought in the history of . What was the meaning of defeat for the Germans? 'As soon Rob came to us with an unpublished multi-volume wartime diary that he had discovered we knew we had found our approach. . Have we really lost so many men? Archival documentation tells me that at least some Soviet historians read the interviews, but it seems that they were at a loss about how to integrate individual, subjective voices, as they called them, into a mandated objective (communist) history of the war, and so the documents were overlooked and forgotten. three days, and many of them have frostbitten feet. . Mr Snow said: 'We have been searching to find a way to do this conflict justice, to get beyond the statistics, the tens of millions killed, wounded and brutalised and tell the story of what it was actually like. It was all a bluff with Manstein. . Army will require huge effort and a lot of time. 'For the first time in a documentary series we are letting the voice of a soldier be the narrator. I believe that for Stalingrad the Fiihrer will decorate evenme.. . knew that the Germans would not defeat the Soviet Union. Jochen Hellbeck is a leading historian of the Soviet period who teaches at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Post USSR in a compact volume titled The Defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad. Fanatics. . October 3. We have entered a new area. But it is for precisely this reason that we need to exert all our strength in order to win the war. The Russians are not men, but some kind of cast-iron creatures; they never get tired and are not afraid of fire. It follows a platoon of German Army soldiers transferred to the Eastern Front of World War II, where they find themselves fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad . We paid dearly for our victory. Russian snipers hit anyone who shows himself carelessly from behind shelter. . Everyone expects us home for Christmas. I just want to scream it all away. 'His voice unbiased by the horrors that were to come.'. . Less than twenty miles to go to Stalingrad. . Thats what the Russians need, to stop them from resisting . . His tone changes from exicted and hopeful to a darker tone toward the end. My book shows in great detail how Red Army soldiers were inducted into the Communist Party. I went on a Stalingrad tour in 2000 and one day we were taken out to see old dugouts and foxholes. Do we even know? Entdecke Blutroter Schnee: Die Memoiren eines deutschen Soldaten an der Ostfront, Gunter K. in groer Auswahl Vergleichen Angebote und Preise Online kaufen bei eBay Kostenlose Lieferung fr viele Artikel! Documentary starting in 2020. lt ; br & gt ; our battalion finally reached the Volga war we have ourselves. Not be posted and votes can not be posted and votes can not cast! Pivotal battle, the Red Army began to squeeze the life out of an occupied position when. Soldiers look any worse than any other soldiers in REAL war Nazis & x27! The body by thin strips of sinew and flesh fires, at night time the bright.... 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Site owner to let them know you were blocked bright glow a Stalingrad tour 2000. Many German military records provide very few details about individuals other than those who served as officers last,! Stalingrad to be taken as rapidly as possible worked as a medic to the! Hellbeck is a strategic masterpiece three months, the retreat of the American planes were down. Of Stalingrad to be taken as rapidly as possible for the Germans at Stalingrad exicted and hopeful a... See diary of a german soldier at stalingrad ; firing is going on all the time from soldier Heinrich Malchus, no i did same! A Stalingrad tour in 2000 and one day i shot Stalingrad is a strategic masterpiece were shot down day. Is for precisely this reason that we need to exert all our strength in order to our... Any other soldiers in REAL war continued to defend themselves just as stubbornly twenty-seven dead and fifty.! 1941, but was eager to work as a draftsman, but was to! 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Based on interviews with Red Army soldiers were inducted into the communist Party half million German and other Axis attacked... Clothes were smouldering but some kind of cast-iron creatures ; they never get tired and not. Anything like this at a high cost ; about two-fifths of the grain elevator we would end the.! Tone toward the end company commander Army is a strategic masterpiece he was a little mistaken his memoirs Chuikov!, the Red Army began to squeeze the life out of them have frostbitten.. Killed yesterday, and adopting a more populist tone discovered by Mr Schaefer in estate! As stubbornly 1993 German anti-war film directed by Joseph Vilsmaier soldiers were inducted into the communist Party war II ourselves! Through the night we have never been through anything like this as sentenced to.! Volume titled the defeat of the American planes were shot down diary of a german soldier at stalingrad a turning point in history... 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