Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942–1943

Stalingrad is a nonfiction military history book published in 1998 by renowned British historian and author Antony Beevor. The book tells the story of the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) during the Second World War, exploring the events that led up to it and its legacy. Stalingrad garnered significant acclaim upon its release, receiving the 1999 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and the Wolfson History Prize in the same year.

This study guide refers to the 2011 Penguin Books Reissue. Citations are for page numbers in this edition.

Content Warning: The source text contains detailed historical descriptions of extreme wartime violence and suffering, including combat, execution, war crimes, torture and cruelty, interrogation, physical and psychological trauma, starvation, mass loss of life, destruction, and sexual violence and coercion. The guide refers to these elements as necessary for analysis.

Summary

In the early morning of June 22, 2041, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union, that directed three “Army Groups” toward the Baltic Sea, Moscow, and Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union). Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union, had convinced himself that no German attack was forthcoming and so had not prepared defenses along the border. This allowed for German units to make rapid progress in the summer months of 1941. Hitler and his generals became split over the aims of the campaign, causing equivocation on whether to target Moscow or Ukraine the most. The tenacious defense by Soviet soldiers delayed progress long enough to prevent the conquest of Moscow.

Recognizing that Operation Barbarossa was in a deadlock, in 1942 Hitler planned a new offensive directed against Southern Russia, to the east of Ukraine. The plan—codenamed Case Blue—called for the encirclement and destruction of Russian forces in Ukraine to allow for the conquest of the Caucus oil fields further into Russian territory. A major aim was to boost Germany’s dwindling fuel supply and cripple Russian oil resources. Before the campaign was launched, command personnel changes placed the inexperienced Friedrich Paulus in command of the Sixth Army. His lack of battlefield skill and personal admiration of Hitler combined to limit the Sixth Army’s ability to take the initiative throughout the campaign.

On July 28, 1942, Case Blue was officially launched. While it made some progress, Hitler grew worried about pace and split the force into Army Group A (which was to turn south and seize the Caucuses) and Army Group B (which was to destroy the local Russian forces). Army Group B, ostensibly headed by Paulus’s Sixth Army, was soon given the additional task of taking the city of Stalingrad. As the German forces advanced, Stalin issued Order 227, known as the “Not One Step Back” order. This set out to deter Red Army units from routing by demanding executions for those with “defeatist” sentiments or who fled before the German army. General Vasily Chuikov was placed in charge of the Soviet 62nd Army and tasked with defending Stalingrad to the death.

The 62nd Army of the Soviet Union and the Sixth Army of Nazi Germany became embroiled in a protracted struggle for Stalingrad. Fierce urban warfare broke out across a city that was rapidly destroyed by aerial and artillery bombardments. The intense and relentless combat in Stalingrad took a heavy physical and mental toll on both soldiers and civilians. To discourage desertion, Soviet officers frequently executed their own soldiers. German forces made steady but slow and exceptionally costly progress until, by mid-November, Soviet presence in the city was reduced to a few bridgeheads over the Volga River.

By feeding reinforcements into Stalingrad, the Soviets had been able to prolong the battle until Hitler viewed it as a contest of prestige between him and Stalin, making the German retreat unpalatable. The Soviets prepared a counterstrike to cut off German forces, called Operation Uranus. Far behind Stalingrad, the flanks of the Sixth Army were secured by poorly supplied forces from Germany’s ally, Romania. The Soviet Union planned to strike the Romanian-held areas in the north and south of the German formation, allowing them to encircle the forces around Stalingrad. Operation Uranus was made possible by the huge industrial might of the Soviet Union and its allies, which provided massive tanks, artillery pieces, and air support.

Despite the Russian emphasis on secrecy, hints that a build-up of armaments was occurring did not go unnoticed. Paulus took no action to create a useful reserve, however, as Hitler did not order it. Thus when, on November 19, 1942, Operation Uranus was launched, German forces were unprepared. The massed Russian tanks smashed Romanian lines and encircled Axis forces between the Don and Volga Rivers. The Sixth Army was trapped in a pocket—or Kessel, meaning “kettle” in German.

Rather than order a breakout attempt—a challenge because of fuel shortages—Hitler insisted that the Sixth Army dig in. He was convinced that the Kessel could be resupplied by air indefinitely. In fact, the failure of the aerial resupply to achieve minimum targets and the failure of a subsequent relief attempt from ground forces led to worsening conditions within the Kessel until it was destroyed by Russian forces. Hitler demanded Paulus and the other generals kill themselves instead of surrendering but this was ignored. The remaining German soldiers in Stalingrad surrendered on February 2, 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad was a decisive turning point in the war.

After this defeat, the Soviet Union launched its offensive on Germany, a significant factor in Germany’s eventual surrender in 1945. The Russians gained the initiative on the Eastern Front and were ultimately given a free hand to arrange territories in Eastern Europe by the Allies post-war. Arguably, this victory allowed for the Russian rise to global superpower status, culminating in the Cold War. Although hailed as a Soviet victory, vast numbers of civilians and Russian soldiers died at Stalingrad, amounting to more than a million lives lost.