Battle of Stalingrad 1941 1945. Battle of Stalingrad: briefly the most important thing about the defeat of German troops

On October 15, 1967, it was solemnly opened in Volgogradmonument-ensemble “To the Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad” .

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The ceremony of handing over the honorary sword - a gift from King George IV of Great Britain to the citizens of Stalingrad in commemoration of the heroic defense of the city: November 1943: photograph. [B. m.], 1943 .

The Battle of Stalingrad became a turning point in the Great Patriotic War and throughout the Second World War. The battle is divided into two periods: the first, defensive, which lasted from July 17 to November 18, 1942; second, offensive, from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943.

Defensive period of the Battle of Stalingrad

After the defeat near Moscow, Hitler and his command decided that during the new summer campaign of 1942 it was necessary to strike not along the entire length of the Soviet-German front, but only on the southern flank. The Germans no longer had enough strength for more. It was important for Hitler to capture Soviet oil, the Maikop and Baku fields, get grain from Stavropol and Kuban, and take Stalingrad, which divided the USSR into central and southern parts. Then it would be possible to cut the main lines of communication that supplied our troops and obtain the necessary resources to wage an arbitrarily long war. Already on April 5, 1942, Hitler’s fundamental directive No. 41 was issued - the order to conduct Operation Blau. The German group was supposed to advance in the direction of the Don, Volga and Caucasus. After capturing the main strongholds, the German Army Group South was to split into Army Group A (advancing into the Caucasus) and Army Group B (advancing towards Stalingrad), the main force of which was the 6th Army of General Paulus.

Already before the start of the main attack in the south of the USSR, the Germans were able to achieve serious successes. Our spring offensive operations near Kerch and Kharkov ended in major failures. Their failure and the heavy losses of the Red Army units that were surrounded helped the Germans achieve rapid success in their general offensive. Wehrmacht formations began to advance when our units were demoralized and began to withdraw in eastern Ukraine. True, now, taught by bitter experience, the Soviet troops tried to avoid encirclement. Even when they found themselves behind enemy lines, they infiltrated through German positions before the enemy front became dense.

Soon heavy fighting broke out on the approaches to Voronezh and in the bend of the Don. The command of the Red Army tried to strengthen the front, bring up new reserves from the depths, and give the troops more tanks and aircraft. But in oncoming battles, as a rule, these reserves were quickly exhausted, and the retreat continued. Meanwhile, Paulus's army advanced. Its southern flank was to be covered by the 4th Panzer Army under the command of Hoth. The Germans struck Voronezh - they broke into the city, but were unable to completely capture it. They were detained on the banks of the Don, where the front remained until January 1942.

Meanwhile, the elite German 6th Army, which numbered more than 200 thousand people, advanced inexorably along the bend of the Don towards Stalingrad. On August 23, the Germans carried out a fierce air raid on the city, which involved hundreds of aircraft. And although more than 20 vehicles were shot down by Soviet anti-aircraft gunners and air defense aircraft, the city center, train station and most important enterprises were virtually destroyed. It was not possible to remove civilians from Stalingrad in time. The evacuation was spontaneous: primarily industrial equipment, agricultural implements, and cattle were transported across the Volga. It was only after August 23 that the civilian population rushed east across the river. Of the nearly half a million population of the city, only 32 thousand people remained in place after the fighting. Moreover, to the 500 thousand pre-war population it is necessary to add tens of thousands more refugees from Ukraine, from the Rostov region and even from besieged Leningrad, who by the will of fate ended up in Stalingrad.

Simultaneously with the fierce bombing on August 23, 1942, the German 14th Tank Corps managed to make a multi-kilometer march and break through to the banks of the Volga north of Stalingrad. The fighting took place near the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. From the south, German columns of the 4th Tank Army, transferred from the Caucasus, were advancing towards the city. In addition, Hitler sent the Italian and two Romanian armies to this direction. Near Voronezh, positions were occupied by two Hungarian armies, covering the attack on the main direction. Stalingrad went from being a secondary goal of the summer 1942 campaign to becoming the main objective for the German army.

A. Jodl, chief of staff of the operational leadership of the Wehrmacht, noted that the fate of the Caucasus was now being decided at Stalingrad. It seemed to Paulus that it was necessary to throw one more additional regiment or battalion into the breakthrough and he would decide the outcome of the battle in favor of the German army. But the battalions and regiments left one after another for battle and did not return. The Stalingrad meat grinder ground up Germany's human resources. Our losses were also very large - the Moloch of war was merciless.

In September, protracted battles began in the quarters (or rather, in the ruins) of Stalingrad. The city could fall at any moment. The Germans had already reached the Volga in several places within the city limits. Essentially, only small islands of resistance remained from the Soviet front. From the front line to the river bank there was often no more than 150–200 meters. But the Soviet soldiers held out. For several weeks the Germans stormed individual buildings in Stalingrad. The soldiers under the command of Sergeant Pavlov resisted enemy fire for 58 days and never gave up their positions. The L-shaped house, which they defended to the last, was called “Pavlov’s House.”

An active sniper war also began in Stalingrad. To win it, the Germans brought from Germany not just experts in their field, but even leaders of sniper schools. But the Red Army also produced wonderful cadres of sharp shooters. Every day they gained experience. On the Soviet side, the fighter Vasily Zaitsev, who is now known throughout the world from the Hollywood film “Enemy at the Gates,” distinguished himself. He destroyed more than 200 German soldiers and officers in the ruins of Stalingrad.

Nevertheless, in the fall of 1942, the position of the defenders of Stalingrad remained critical. The Germans would probably have been able to completely take the city if not for our reserves. More and more units of the Red Army were transferred across the Volga to the west. One day, the 13th Guards Rifle Division of General A.I. Rodimtsev was also transferred. Despite the losses suffered, she immediately entered the battle and recaptured the Mamaev Kurgan from the enemy. This height dominated the entire city. The Germans also sought to take possession of it at any cost. The battles for Mamayev Kurgan continued until January 1943.

In the most difficult battles of September - early November 1942, the soldiers of the 62nd Army of General Chuikov and the 64th Army of General Shumilov managed to defend the ruins remaining behind them, withstand countless attacks and tie up the German troops. Paulus carried out the last assault on Stalingrad on November 11, 1942, but it also ended in failure.

The commander of the 6th German Army was in a gloomy mood. Meanwhile, our command increasingly began to think about how to radically turn the tide of the battle for Stalingrad. A new, original solution was needed that would influence the entire course of the campaign. .

The offensive period of the Battle of Stalingrad lasted from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943.

Back in mid-September, when the Germans sought to destroy the Soviet troops in Stalingrad as soon as possible, G. K. Zhukov, who became the First Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief, instructed some senior officials in the General Staff of the Red Army to develop a plan for an offensive operation. Returning from the front, he, together with the Chief of the General Staff A. M. Vasilevsky, reported to I. Stalin about the plan of the operation, which was supposed to tip the scales of the grandiose confrontation in favor of the Soviet troops. Soon the first calculations were made. G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky proposed bilateral coverage of the Stalingrad enemy group and its subsequent destruction. Having listened to them carefully, I. Stalin noted that it was necessary, first of all, to hold the city itself. In addition, such an operation requires the involvement of additional powerful reserves, which will play a decisive role in the battle.

Reserves from the Urals, the Far East and Siberia arrived in increasing quantities. They were not immediately introduced into battle, but accumulated until time “H.” During this period, a lot of work was carried out at the headquarters of the Soviet fronts. The newly formed Southwestern Front of N.F. Vatutin, the Don Front of K.K. Rokossovsky, and the Stalingrad Front of A.I. Eremenko were preparing for the offensive.

And now the moment has come for the decisive throw.

On November 19, 1942, despite the fog, thousands of guns on the Soviet front opened fire on the enemy. Operation Uranus began. Rifle and tank units went on the attack. Aviation was waiting for more favorable weather, but as soon as the fog cleared, it took an active part in the offensive.

The German group was still very strong. The Soviet command believed that about 200 thousand people were opposing them in the Stalingrad area. In fact, there were over 300 thousand of them. In addition, on the flanks, where the main attacks of the Soviet troops were carried out, there were Romanian and Italian formations. Already by November 21, 1942, the success of the Soviet offensive was evident, which exceeded all expectations. Moscow radio reported that the Red Army had advanced more than 70 km and captured 15 thousand enemy troops. This was the first time such a major breakthrough of enemy positions had been announced since the Battle of Moscow. But these were only the first successes.

On November 23, our troops took Kotelnikovo. The cauldron slammed shut behind the enemy troops. Its internal and external fronts were created. More than 20 divisions were surrounded. At the same time, our troops continued to develop their offensive in the direction of Rostov-on-Don. At the beginning of January 1943, the forces of our Transcaucasian Front also began to move. The Germans, unable to withstand the onslaught and fearing that they would end up in a new gigantic cauldron, began to hastily retreat from the foothills of the Caucasus. They finally abandoned the idea of ​​taking possession of Grozny and Baku oil.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Command Headquarters was actively developing the plan for a whole cascade of powerful operations that were supposed to crush the entire German defense on the Soviet-German front. In addition to Operation Uranus (encircling the Germans at Stalingrad), Operation Saturn was planned - encircling the German armies in the North Caucasus. In the central direction, preparations were being made for Operation Mars - the destruction of the 9th German Army, and then Operation Jupiter - the encirclement of the entire Army Group Center. Unfortunately, only Operation Uranus was successful. The fact is that Hitler, having learned about the encirclement of his troops at Stalingrad, ordered Paulus to hold on at all costs, and ordered Manstein to prepare a relief strike.

In mid-December 1942, the Germans made a desperate attempt to rescue Paulus's army from encirclement. According to Hitler's plan, Paulus should never have left Stalingrad. He was forbidden to strike towards Manstein. The Fuhrer believed that since the Germans had entered the banks of the Volga, they should not leave there. The Soviet command now had two options at its disposal: either continue the attempt to envelop the entire German group in the North Caucasus with a huge pincer (Operation Saturn), or transfer part of its forces against Manstein and eliminate the threat of a German breakthrough (Operation Little Saturn). We must give credit to the Soviet Headquarters - it assessed the situation and its capabilities quite soberly. It was decided to be content with a bird in hand, and not look for a pie in the sky. A devastating blow to Manstein’s advancing units was delivered just in time. At this time, Paulus’s army and Manstein’s group were separated by only a few tens of kilometers. But the Germans were driven back, and the time had come to liquidate the pocket.

On January 8, 1943, the Soviet command offered Paulus an ultimatum, which was rejected. And just two days later, Operation Ring began. The efforts made by the armies of the Don Front of K.K. Rokossovsky led to the fact that the encirclement began to quickly shrink. Historians today express the opinion that not everything was done perfectly then: it was necessary to attack from the north and south in order to first cut the ring in these directions. But the main blow came from west to east, and we had to overcome long-term fortifications of the German defense, which were based, among other things, on positions built by Soviet troops on the eve of the Battle of Stalingrad. The fighting was fierce and lasted for several weeks. The air bridge to the surrounded people failed. Hundreds of German planes were shot down. The diet of German military personnel dropped to a meager level. All the horses were eaten. There have been cases of cannibalism. Soon the Germans lost their last airfields.

Paulus was at that time in the basement of the city's main department store and, despite requests to Hitler for surrender, never received such permission. Moreover, on the eve of complete collapse, Hitler awarded Paulus the rank of field marshal. This was a clear hint: not a single German field marshal had ever surrendered. But on January 31, Paulus chose to surrender and save his life. On February 2, the last northern German group in Stalingrad also stopped resisting.

91 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers and officers were captured. In the city blocks of Stalingrad themselves, 140 thousand corpses of German military personnel were subsequently buried. On our side, the losses were also great - 150 thousand people. But the entire southern flank of the German troops was now exposed. The Nazis began to hastily leave the territory of the North Caucasus, Stavropol, and Kuban. Only a new counter strike from Manstein in the Belgorod area stopped the advance of our units. At the same time, the so-called Kursk salient was formed, events on which would take place in the summer of 1943.

US President Roosevelt called the Battle of Stalingrad an epic victory. And King George VI of Great Britain ordered a special sword forged for the residents of Stalingrad with the engraving: “To the citizens of Stalingrad, strong as steel.” Stalingrad became the password of Victory. It was truly the turning point of the war. The Germans were shocked; three days of mourning were declared in Germany. The victory at Stalingrad also became a signal for countries allies of Germany, such as Hungary, Romania, Finland, that it was necessary to look for the fastest way out of the war.

After this battle, Germany's defeat was only a matter of time.

One of the largest battles of the Great Patriotic War was the Battle of Stalingrad. It lasted more than 200 days from July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943. In terms of the number of people and equipment involved on both sides, world military history has never known examples of such battles. The total area of ​​the territory where intense fighting took place was more than 90 thousand square kilometers. The main result of the Battle of Stalingrad was the first crushing defeat of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front.

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By the beginning of the second year of the war, the situation at the fronts had changed. The successful defense of the capital, followed by a counterattack, made it possible to stop the rapid advance of the Wehrmacht. By April 20, 1942, the Germans were pushed back 150-300 km from Moscow. For the first time they encountered organized defense on a large section of the front and repelled the counter-offensive of our army. At the same time, the Red Army made an unsuccessful attempt to change the course of the war. The attack on Kharkov turned out to be poorly planned and brought huge losses, destabilizing the situation. More than 300 thousand Russian soldiers died or were captured.

With the arrival of spring, there was a lull on the fronts. The spring thaw gave both armies a respite, which the Germans took advantage of to develop a plan for the summer campaign. The Nazis needed oil like air. The oil fields of Baku and Grozny, the capture of the Caucasus, the subsequent offensive into Persia - these were plans of the German General Staff. The operation was called Fall Blau - “Blue Option”.

At the last moment, the Fuhrer personally made adjustments to the plan for the summer campaign - he divided Army Group South in half, formulating individual tasks for each part:

Correlation of forces, periods

For the summer campaign, the 6th Army under the command of General Paulus was transferred to Army Group B. It was she who was assigned key role in the offensive, the main goal fell on her shoulders - the capture of Stalingrad. To complete the task, the Nazis gathered enormous forces. 270 thousand soldiers and officers, about two thousand guns and mortars, and five hundred tanks were placed under the general’s command. We provided cover with the 4th Air Fleet.

On August 23, the pilots of this formation were almost wiped the city off the face of the earth. In the center of Stalingrad, after the air raid, a firestorm raged, tens of thousands of women, children, and old people died, and ¾ of the buildings were destroyed. They turned the flourishing city into a desert covered with broken bricks.

By the end of July, Army Group B was supplemented by Hermann Hoth's 4th Tank Army, which included 4 army motorized corps and the SS Panzer Division Das Reich. These huge forces were directly subordinate to Paulus.

The Stalingrad Front of the Red Army, which was renamed the South-Western Front, had twice as many soldiers, was inferior in quantity and quality of tanks and aircraft. The formations needed to effectively defend an area 500 km long. The main burden of the fight for Stalingrad fell on the shoulders of the militia. Again, as in the battle for Moscow, workers, students, yesterday's schoolchildren, took up arms. The sky of the city was protected by the 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment, 80% consisting of girls 18-19 years old.

Military historians, analyzing the features of military operations, conditionally divided the course of the Battle of Stalingrad into two periods:

• defensive, from July 17 to November 18, 1942;
• offensive, from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943.

The moment the next Wehrmacht offensive began came as a surprise to the Soviet command. Although this possibility was considered by the General Staff, the number of divisions transferred to the Stalingrad Front existed only on paper. In fact, their number ranged from 300 to 4 thousand people, although each should have more than 14 thousand soldiers and officers. There was nothing to repel tank attacks with, since the 8th Air Fleet was not fully equipped and there were not enough trained reserves.

Fighting at distant approaches

Briefly, the events of the Battle of Stalingrad, its initial period, look like this:

Behind the meager lines that are in any history textbook, thousands of lives of Soviet soldiers are hidden, forever remaining in the Stalingrad land, the bitterness of retreat.

City residents worked tirelessly in factories converted into military ones. The famous tractor plant repaired and assembled tanks, which from the workshops, under their own power, went to the front line. People worked around the clock, staying overnight at their workplace and sleeping for 3-4 hours. All this is under continuous bombing. They defended themselves with the whole world, but there was clearly not enough strength.

When the advanced units of the Wehrmacht advanced 70 km, the Wehrmacht command decided to encircle the Soviet units in the area of ​​the villages of Kletskaya and Suvorovskaya, occupy the crossings across the Don, and immediately take the city.

For this purpose, the attackers were divided into two groups:

1. Northern: from parts of Paulus's army.
2. South: from units of the Gotha army.

As part of our army restructuring took place. On July 26, repelling the advance of the Northern Group, the 1st and 4th Tank Armies launched a counterattack for the first time. There was no such combat unit in the Red Army's staffing table until 1942. Encirclement was prevented, but on July 28 the Red Army left for the Don. The threat of disaster loomed over the Stalingrad front.

No step back!

During this difficult time, Order No. 227 of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR of July 28, 1942, or better known as “Not a step back!” appeared. The full text can be read in the article dedicated to the Battle of Stalingrad by Wikipedia. Now they call him almost cannibalistic, but at that moment the leaders of the Soviet Union had no time for moral torment. It was about the integrity of the country, the possibility of further existence. These are not just dry lines, prescriptive or regulating. He was an emotional appeal, call to defend the Motherland to the last drop of blood. A historical document that conveys the spirit of the era, dictated by the course of the war and the situation at the fronts.

On the basis of this order, penal units for soldiers and commanders appeared in the Red Army, and barrage detachments from soldiers of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs received special powers. They had the right to use the highest measure of social protection against looters and deserters, without waiting for a court verdict. Despite apparent cruelty, the troops accepted the order well. First of all, he helped restore order and improve discipline in the units. Senior commanders now have full leverage over negligent subordinates. Anyone guilty of violating the Charter or failure to comply with orders could end up in the penalty box: from privates to generals.

Fighting in the city

In the chronology of the Battle of Stalingrad, this period is allocated from September 13 to November 19. When the Germans entered the city, its defenders fortified themselves on a narrow strip along the Volga, holding the crossing. With the help of troops under the command of General Chuikov, Nazi units found themselves in Stalingrad, in real hell. There were barricades and fortifications on every street, every house became a center of defense. To avoid constant German bombing, our command took a risky step: to narrow the combat zone to 30 meters. With such a distance between the opponents, the Luftwaffe risked being bombed by its own.

One of the moments in the history of defense: during the battles on September 17, the city station was occupied by the Germans, then our troops drove them out of there. And so 4 times in one day. In total, the station's defenders changed 17 times. The eastern part of the city, which the Germans continuously attacked, defended from September 27 to October 4. There were battles for every house, floor, and room. Much later, the surviving Nazis would write memoirs in which they would call the city battles the “Rat War,” when a desperate battle was going on in the apartment in the kitchen, and the room had already been captured.

Artillery worked on both sides with direct fire, and there were continuous hand-to-hand fights. Defenders of the Barrikada, Silikat, and tractor factories desperately resisted. In a week, the German army advanced 400 meters. For comparison: at the beginning of the war, the Wehrmacht marched up to 180 km per day inland.

During the street fighting, the Nazis made 4 attempts to finally storm the city. Every two weeks, the Fuhrer demanded that Paulus put an end to the defenders of Stalingrad, who held a 25-kilometer-wide bridgehead on the banks of the Volga. With incredible efforts, spending a month, the Germans took the dominant height of the city - Mamayev Kurgan.

The defense of the mound went down in military history as example of boundless courage, the resilience of Russian soldiers. Now a memorial complex has been opened there, the world-famous sculpture “The Motherland Calls” stands, the defenders of the city and its residents are buried in mass graves. And then it was a bloody mill, grinding battalion after battalion on both sides. The Nazis lost 700 thousand people at this time, the Red Army - 644 thousand soldiers.

On November 11, 1942, Paulus's army launched the final, decisive assault on the city. The Germans did not reach the Volga 100 meters, when it became clear that their strength was running out. The offensive stopped and the enemy was forced to defend.

Operation Uranus

Back in September, the General Staff began developing a counteroffensive at Stalingrad. Operation Uranus began on November 19 with a massive artillery barrage. Many years later, this day became a professional holiday for artillerymen. For the first time in the history of the Second World War, artillery units were used in such a volume, with such a density of fire. By November 23, an encirclement ring had closed around the army of Paulus and the tank army of Hoth.

The Germans turned out to be locked in a rectangle 40 by 80 km. Paulus, who understood the danger of encirclement, insisted on a breakthrough and withdrawal of troops from the ring. Hitler personally, categorically, ordered to fight on the defensive, promising full support. He did not give up hope of taking Stalingrad.

Manstein's units were sent to save the group, and Operation Winter Storm began. With incredible efforts, the Germans moved forward, when 25 km remained to the encircled units, they encountered Malinovsky’s 2nd Army. On December 25, the Wehrmacht suffered a final defeat and rolled back to its original positions. The fate of Paulus's army was decided. But this does not mean that our units moved forward without encountering resistance. On the contrary, the Germans fought desperately.

On January 9, 1943, the Soviet command presented Paulus with an ultumatum demanding unconditional surrender. The Fuhrer's soldiers were given a chance to surrender and stay alive. At the same time, Paulus received another personal order from Hitler, demanding that he fight to the end. The general remained faithful to the oath, rejected the ultimatum, and carried out the order.

On January 10, Operation Ring began to completely eliminate the encircled units. The battles were terrible, the German troops, split into two parts, held firm, if such an expression is applicable to the enemy. On January 30, Paulus received the rank of field marshal from Hitler with a hint that Prussian field marshals would not surrender.

Everything has the ability to end, on the 31st at noon it ended the Nazis' stay in the cauldron: The field marshal surrendered with his entire headquarters. It took another 2 days to finally clear the city of Germans. The history of the Battle of Stalingrad has ended.

The Battle of Stalingrad and its historical significance

For the first time in world history, a battle of such duration took place, in which enormous forces were involved. The result of the defeat for the Wehrmacht was the capture of 90 thousand and the killing of 800 thousand soldiers. The victorious German army suffered for the first time a crushing defeat, which was discussed by the whole world. The Soviet Union, despite the seizure of part of the territory, remained an integral state. In the event of defeat at Stalingrad, in addition to occupied Ukraine, Belarus, Crimea, and part of central Russia, the country would be deprived of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

From a geopolitical point of view, significance of the Battle of Stalingrad It can be briefly described as follows: the Soviet Union is able to fight Germany and defeat it. The Allies stepped up assistance and signed agreements with the USSR at the Tehran Conference in December 1943. Finally, the issue of opening a second front was resolved.

Many historians call the Battle of Stalingrad the turning point of the Great Patriotic War. This is true not so much , from a military point of view, how much with moral. For a year and a half, the Red Army was retreating on all fronts, and for the first time it was possible not only to push the enemy back, as in the battle for Moscow, but to defeat him. Capture the field marshal, capture a large number of soldiers and equipment. People believed that victory would be ours!

On November 19, 1942, the Red Army's counteroffensive near Stalingrad began (Operation Uranus). The Battle of Stalingrad is one of the greatest battles in the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War. The military chronicle of Russia has a huge number of examples of courage and heroism, the valor of soldiers on the battlefield and the strategic skill of Russian commanders. But even in their example, the Battle of Stalingrad stands out.

For two hundred days and nights on the banks of the great rivers Don and Volga, and then at the walls of the city on the Volga and directly in Stalingrad itself, this fierce battle continued. The battle took place over a vast area of ​​about 100 thousand square meters. km with a front length of 400 - 850 km. More than 2.1 million soldiers took part in this titanic battle on both sides at different stages of the fighting. In terms of significance, scale and ferocity of hostilities, the Battle of Stalingrad surpassed all the world battles that preceded it.

This battle includes two stages. The first stage was the Stalingrad strategic defensive operation, it lasted from July 17, 1942 to November 18, 1942. At this stage, in turn, we can distinguish: defensive operations on the distant approaches to Stalingrad from July 17 to September 12, 1942 and the defense of the city itself from September 13 to November 18, 1942. There were no long pauses or truces in the battles for the city; battles and skirmishes went on continuously. For the German army, Stalingrad became a kind of “graveyard” for their hopes and aspirations. The city crushed thousands of enemy soldiers and officers. The Germans themselves called the city “hell on earth,” “Red Verdun,” and noted that the Russians were fighting with unprecedented ferocity, fighting to the last man. On the eve of the Soviet counteroffensive, German troops launched the 4th assault on Stalingrad, or rather its ruins. On November 11, 2 tank and 5 infantry divisions were thrown into battle against the 62nd Soviet Army (by this time it consisted of 47 thousand soldiers, about 800 guns and mortars and 19 tanks). By this point, the Soviet army was already divided into three parts. A hail of fire fell on the Russian positions, they were flattened by enemy aircraft, and it seemed as if there was nothing alive there anymore. However, when the German chains went on the attack, Russian riflemen began to mow them down.

By mid-November, the German offensive had run out of steam in all major directions. The enemy was forced to decide to go on the defensive. This completed the defensive part of the Battle of Stalingrad. The Red Army troops solved the main problem by stopping the powerful advance of the Nazis in the Stalingrad direction, creating the preconditions for a retaliatory strike by the Red Army. During the defense of Stalingrad, the enemy suffered heavy losses. The German armed forces lost about 700 thousand people killed and wounded, about 1 thousand tanks and assault guns, 2 thousand guns and mortars, more than 1.4 thousand combat and transport aircraft. Instead of maneuver warfare and rapid advancement, the main enemy forces were drawn into bloody and furious urban battles. The German command's plan for the summer of 1942 was thwarted. On October 14, 1942, the German command decided to transfer the army to strategic defense along the entire Eastern Front. The troops were given the task of holding the front line; offensive operations were planned to continue only in 1943.

It must be said that the Soviet troops also suffered huge losses in personnel and equipment at this time: 644 thousand people (irrecoverable - 324 thousand people, sanitary - 320 thousand people, over 12 thousand guns and mortars, approximately 1400 tanks, more than 2 thousand aircraft.

The second period of the Battle of the Volga is the Stalingrad strategic offensive operation (November 19, 1942 - February 2, 1943). The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff in September-November 1942 developed a plan for the strategic counter-offensive of Soviet troops near Stalingrad. The development of the plan was led by G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky. On November 13, the plan, codenamed "Uranus", was approved by Headquarters under the chairmanship of Joseph Stalin. The Southwestern Front under the command of Nikolai Vatutin received the task of delivering deep blows to enemy forces from bridgeheads on the right bank of the Don from the Serafimovich and Kletskaya areas. The group of the Stalingrad Front under the command of Andrei Eremenko advanced from the Sarpinsky Lakes region. The offensive groups of both fronts were supposed to meet in the Kalach area and take the main enemy forces near Stalingrad into an encirclement ring. At the same time, the troops of these fronts created a ring of external encirclement in order to prevent the Wehrmacht from releasing the Stalingrad group with attacks from the outside. The Don Front, under the leadership of Konstantin Rokossovsky, launched two auxiliary strikes: the first from the Kletskaya area to the southeast, the second from the Kachalinsky area along the left bank of the Don to the south. In the areas of the main attacks, due to the weakening of secondary areas, a 2-2.5-fold superiority in people and a 4-5-fold superiority in artillery and tanks was created. Due to the strictest secrecy of the development of the plan and the secrecy of the concentration of troops, strategic surprise of the counteroffensive was ensured. During defensive battles, the Headquarters was able to create a significant reserve that could be thrown on the offensive. The number of troops in the Stalingrad direction was increased to 1.1 million people, about 15.5 thousand guns and mortars, 1.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, 1.3 thousand aircraft. True, the weakness of this powerful group of Soviet troops was that about 60% of the troops were young recruits who had no combat experience.

The Red Army was opposed by the German 6th Field Army (Friedrich Paulus) and 4th Panzer Army (Herman Hoth), the Romanian 3rd and 4th Armies of Army Group B (commander Maximilian von Weichs), which numbered more than 1 million. soldiers, about 10.3 thousand guns and mortars, 675 tanks and assault guns, more than 1.2 thousand combat aircraft. The most combat-ready German units were concentrated directly in the Stalingrad area, participating in the assault on the city. The flanks of the group were covered by Romanian and Italian divisions, which were weaker in terms of morale and technical equipment. As a result of the concentration of the main forces and means of the army group directly in the Stalingrad area, the defensive line on the flanks did not have sufficient depth and reserves. The Soviet counter-offensive in the Stalingrad area would be a complete surprise for the Germans; the German command was confident that all the main forces of the Red Army were tied up in heavy fighting, were bleeding and did not have the strength and material means for such a large-scale attack.

On November 19, 1942, after a powerful 80-minute artillery preparation, the troops of the Southwestern and Don Fronts went on the attack. By the end of the day, the Southwestern Front units had advanced 25–35 km; they had broken the defenses of the 3rd Romanian Army in two areas: southwest of Serafimovich and in the Kletskaya area. In fact, the 3rd Romanian was defeated, and its remnants were covered from the flanks. On the Don Front the situation was more difficult: Batov’s advancing 65th Army met fierce enemy resistance, by the end of the day it had advanced only 3-5 km and was unable to break through even the enemy’s first line of defense.

On November 20, after artillery preparation, units of the Stalingrad Front went on the attack. They broke through the defenses of the 4th Romanian Army and by the end of the day they had covered 20-30 km. The German command received news of the advance of Soviet troops and the breakthrough of the front line on both flanks, but there were virtually no large reserves in Army Group B. By November 21, the Romanian armies were completely defeated, and the tank corps of the Southwestern Front were uncontrollably rushing towards Kalach. On November 22, tankers occupied Kalach. Units of the Stalingrad Front were moving towards the mobile formations of the Southwestern Front. On November 23, formations of the 26th Tank Corps of the Southwestern Front quickly reached the Sovetsky farm and linked up with units of the 4th Mechanized Corps of the Northern Fleet. The 6th field and the main forces of the 4th Tank Army were encircled: 22 divisions and 160 separate units with a total number of about 300 thousand soldiers and officers. The Germans had never experienced such a defeat during World War II. On the same day, in the area of ​​​​the village of Raspopinskaya, the enemy group capitulated - more than 27 thousand Romanian soldiers and officers surrendered. It was a real military disaster. The Germans were stunned, confused, they did not even think that such a catastrophe was possible.

On November 30, the operation of Soviet troops to encircle and block the German group in Stalingrad was generally completed. The Red Army created two encirclement rings - external and internal. The total length of the outer ring of the encirclement was about 450 km. However, Soviet troops were unable to immediately cut through the enemy group in order to complete its liquidation. One of the main reasons for this was the underestimation of the size of the encircled Stalingrad Wehrmacht group - it was assumed that it numbered 80-90 thousand people. In addition, the German command, by reducing the front line, were able to consolidate their battle formations, using the already existing positions of the Red Army for defense (their Soviet troops occupied in the summer of 1942).

After the failure of the attempt to release the Stalingrad group by Army Group Don under the command of Manstein - December 12-23, 1942, the encircled German troops were doomed. The organized “air bridge” could not solve the problem of supplying the encircled troops with food, fuel, ammunition, medicine and other means. Hunger, cold and disease decimated Paulus's soldiers. From January 10 to February 2, 1943, the Don Front conducted the offensive Operation Ring, during which the Stalingrad Wehrmacht group was eliminated. The Germans lost 140 thousand soldiers killed, and about 90 thousand more surrendered. This concluded the Battle of Stalingrad.