The age old line is that people don't know a lot about the Eastern Front during the Second World War. This probably doesn't hold true for a couple of forum goers but I am going ahead and assume that some of you don't know about the historical backdrop of RO2. I am bored anyway and a write-up seems like a fun thing to do, so here it goes.
Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. This came as somewhat of a surprise because the two countries had closed a non-aggression pact two years earlier. The initial part of the German invasion went quite smoothly. Most contemporary commentaries (also on the Allied side) were that it was a question of kicking in the door and the rest of the Russian house would collapse. That didn't prove to be the case. The Red Army kept the Germans out of their capital Moscow and the strategical city of Leningrad. Tens of thousands of Soviet troops were sacrificed in the process, either as casualties or as prisoners of war. The line held though. Besides by their resilience the Russians were also helped by the weather. The autumn rains made campaigning hard for the Germans and the winter eventually halted their offensive. It even made a Russian counter-offensive possible, although that led to nothing more than a straightening out of the battle lines.
1942 brought a new German offensive. In stead of going for Moscow though, Hitler decided on a push in the south towards the Caucasus. This region between the Black and the Caspian Sea holds a lot of strategic resources, most importantly oil. Like the year before the offensive went well eventually until Hitler started to interfere with the day to day strategy. He decided he wanted to capture Stalingrad, in stead of simply cordoning it off from the German left flank as was the original idea. That proved to be a fatal mistake. The Germans started their assault on the city with an air bombardment. Some historians argue that this only helped the Red Army because all the ruins provided perfect cover for the defenders. True or not, the Russians were able to hold on, if only by the skin of their teeth. Hitler famously declared an early victory in September but he was being presumptuous. October came and went but Stalingrad was still in Russian hands.
Meanwhile the Russian leader Stalin had two of trumps up his sleeve. The first one were his endless reserves. The Soviet Union was a helluvalot bigger than Russia is now, so it could draw on its large population to serve as troops or work in factories thousands of miles to the east in the steppe. Another trump was general Zhukov, the Red Army equivalent of Eisenhower and Montgomery. Zhukov set up Operation Uranus, a pincer attack on the weak German flanks far away from Stalingrad. The two prongs of the Russian advance joined up at the end of November, trapping the German Sixth Army in the so called kettle.
At that point of the battle the Germans should have disengaged from the front in Stalingrad to mount a strategic withdrawal. Hitler was stubborn though and he ordered his troops to stay and fight. The German marshal Goering guaranteed that his Luftwaffe would supply the troops at Stalingrad through the air, but as always he didn't keep his promises. The Wehrmacht tried relieve the Sixth Army through an offensive in December, but this Operation Winter Storm wasn't successful. The trapped Germans kept fighting all the way through January 1943 but it was to no avail. On the 2nd of February the Sixth Army capitulated.
The text above is very concise, far from complete and probably full of factual errors. For further reading I highly recommend Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad. It is a highly readable account of the battle. Movies to watch would either be Stalingrad or Enemy at the Gates. Also, if you have anything to add, please by all means do!
Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. This came as somewhat of a surprise because the two countries had closed a non-aggression pact two years earlier. The initial part of the German invasion went quite smoothly. Most contemporary commentaries (also on the Allied side) were that it was a question of kicking in the door and the rest of the Russian house would collapse. That didn't prove to be the case. The Red Army kept the Germans out of their capital Moscow and the strategical city of Leningrad. Tens of thousands of Soviet troops were sacrificed in the process, either as casualties or as prisoners of war. The line held though. Besides by their resilience the Russians were also helped by the weather. The autumn rains made campaigning hard for the Germans and the winter eventually halted their offensive. It even made a Russian counter-offensive possible, although that led to nothing more than a straightening out of the battle lines.
1942 brought a new German offensive. In stead of going for Moscow though, Hitler decided on a push in the south towards the Caucasus. This region between the Black and the Caspian Sea holds a lot of strategic resources, most importantly oil. Like the year before the offensive went well eventually until Hitler started to interfere with the day to day strategy. He decided he wanted to capture Stalingrad, in stead of simply cordoning it off from the German left flank as was the original idea. That proved to be a fatal mistake. The Germans started their assault on the city with an air bombardment. Some historians argue that this only helped the Red Army because all the ruins provided perfect cover for the defenders. True or not, the Russians were able to hold on, if only by the skin of their teeth. Hitler famously declared an early victory in September but he was being presumptuous. October came and went but Stalingrad was still in Russian hands.
Meanwhile the Russian leader Stalin had two of trumps up his sleeve. The first one were his endless reserves. The Soviet Union was a helluvalot bigger than Russia is now, so it could draw on its large population to serve as troops or work in factories thousands of miles to the east in the steppe. Another trump was general Zhukov, the Red Army equivalent of Eisenhower and Montgomery. Zhukov set up Operation Uranus, a pincer attack on the weak German flanks far away from Stalingrad. The two prongs of the Russian advance joined up at the end of November, trapping the German Sixth Army in the so called kettle.
At that point of the battle the Germans should have disengaged from the front in Stalingrad to mount a strategic withdrawal. Hitler was stubborn though and he ordered his troops to stay and fight. The German marshal Goering guaranteed that his Luftwaffe would supply the troops at Stalingrad through the air, but as always he didn't keep his promises. The Wehrmacht tried relieve the Sixth Army through an offensive in December, but this Operation Winter Storm wasn't successful. The trapped Germans kept fighting all the way through January 1943 but it was to no avail. On the 2nd of February the Sixth Army capitulated.
The text above is very concise, far from complete and probably full of factual errors. For further reading I highly recommend Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad. It is a highly readable account of the battle. Movies to watch would either be Stalingrad or Enemy at the Gates. Also, if you have anything to add, please by all means do!
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