. sustained by the German armed forces as a result of the perishing of the 6th 6. .. The remarkable 'lost' diaries of a German tank commander who went from being a hardened Nazi to a broken soldier in just a few weeks of fighting in the Second World War war have been unearthed. It was the most ferocious battle in human history, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands. Three questions are obsessing every soldier and officer: When will the Russians stop firing and let us sleep in peace, if only for one night? It has been fantastic since morning: our aeroplanes and artillery have been hammering the Russian positions for hours on end; everything in sight is being blotted from the face of the earth. . We had no peace all night from the Russian artillery and aero planes. He can hardly speak. . . It was announced this morning that the Fuhrer has said: The army can trust me to do everything necessary to ensure supplies and rapidly break the encirclement.. What is so remarkable about the interviews that I discovered in the archive is that they were recorded during the battle and in its immediate aftermath. 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. We killed thousands of Russians and Jews with wives and children around Kiev and Kharkov. But the historians drew confidence from history, notably the War of 1812, when the Russian people had been able to defeat a technologically superior invader. I want to scream. Together with our tank crews we have taken the southern part of the city and reached the Volga. October 10. It is pure hell here. . Our regiment has lost many men from [he katyushi, which belch out terrible fire. The Nazi's loss at Stalingrad was the turning point in the war and Zaitsev played a key role in demoralising the Germans which lead to their ultimate defeat. 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. Haaretz.com, the online English edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, gives you breaking news, analyses and opinions about Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World. 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. Spirits were so high that Leutnant Sander even took a bottle of champagne with him to toast his division's first attack. We have never been through anything like this. On November 30 he described coming across the sight of eight partisan fighters, including two women, who had been hanged by the Germans. "Yes, we all together are not worth two of these Russians !"<br><br>Records from the diary of a German soldier who died at Stalingrad.<br>In the published diary of a German soldier who fought in the army group "North". . Soviet soldiers found the diary in December 1942 or January 1943, probably among the possessions of its deceased owner. He wrote them throughout the battle of Stalingrad. . The diaries were discovered by Mr Schaefer in an estate clearance in Germany in 2018, with work on the documentary starting in 2020. 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. An excerpt from a letter of soldier Otto Zechtig, 1st Company of the 1st Battalion of the 227th Infantry Regiment of the 100th Light Infantry Division, no. I own many books about WW2; the personal accounts are always the best. One day I shot . 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. In the interviews I was surprised to discover the source of this hatred. At the time of the invasion German combat effectiveness had reached its peak and the forces invading Russia represented the best it had to offer. Leutnant Friedrich Sander lost faith in the German war machine after cracking during the brutal Operation Barbarossa - the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began in June 1941. The defeat of the German troops in the vicinity of Stalingrad will have a major influence on how the war proceeds. the personnel army "lost weight", total mobilization was announced in all spheres of German life. morning we manage to advance 20 metres, in the evening the Russians throw us Diary of a German Soldier During Stalingrad. The fighting in Stalingrad, lasting from August 1942 to February 1943, and ending with the surrender of Hitlers army, changed the course of World War II and world history. September 20. 4 pages, ebook First published January 1, 1942 Book details & editions But even such Nazi ideological work paled against the systematic, communist, political conditioning that took place in the Red Army from the hour the Germans attacked in 1941. In fact for some people, its essential that they become inhuman and numb to the daily horror that surrounds them, to block out the madness that threatens to engulf all the time. 173.236.223.132 German Infantry in position for attack during the Battle of Stalingrad. . . I read the ultimatum, and a burning malice I was struck by how they made this decision as early as fall 1941, when the Soviet Union seemed to be teetering under the German assault. When looking for confirmation of this fact the Britannica article on Stalingrad lists that the lifespan for a Soviet . Russia, and for what? The elevator is occupied not by men but by devils that no flames or bullets can destroy. Ironically, Stalins death and demise [in 1953] dealt another blow to the defenders of Stalingrad. Thats what everyone is saying. Our division has a cemetery near Stalingrad where more Post Trapped inside this crucible were the 22 divisions and over 160 different units of the German 6th Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army, numbering to about 330,000 soldiers. How wrong they are. They also wanted to create an archival record for posterity. Russian. 16:56 GMT 17 Jun 2021. I will wait to pass judgement until I read it though. October 3. Recently, the Orthodox Church has incorporated Stalingrad into its prayers, even though the church was hardly present during the battle itself. Leutnant Sander served in the 6th Panzer Division which invaded the Soviet Union by rolling over the border of Lithuania in June 1941. The Russians have two alternatives, either to flee across theVolga or give themselves up. Nov. 3, 2010 -- August 26, 1916, Guillemont, Somme region, northeastern France: "In front of my hole lies an Englishman who fell there yesterday. During the most ferocious battle in human history, Soviet historians interviewed over 200 Red Army soldiers about the 1943 fighting that helped seal Nazi Germany's fate. The first months of the operation were a success for Nazi troops, who made it to within 15 miles of Moscow before a Soviet counter-offensive pushed them back from December 1941. That, for instance, is how sniper Zaitsev talked about how he got inducted into the party. The letters and diary entries were direct and animated testimonials of the Battle of Stalingrad from the front lines, a long way off from the trenches and the bunkers. Over 1.8 million became casualties. . The We are slowly advancing. Why Do People Stay In Abusive Relationships? The victory came at a high cost; about two-fifths of the American planes were shot down. Our regiment is involved inconstant heavy fighting. Until your book came out in Russian translation, in 2015, these interviews had never been published. After months of bitter fighting, 100,000 surviving Germans, huddled in the ruined city, surrendered to Soviet troops.During the battle and shortly after its conclusion, scores of Red Army commanders and soldiers . She was five years old when Adolf Hitler's Sixth Army stormed into Stalingrad in the summer of 1942. Our old soldiers have never experiencedsuch bitter fighting before. In them, Leutnant Sander described in harrowing detail the barbaric deaths of both German comrades and Russian soldiers, with as many as 15 men executed before his eyes on one occasion. Russian tanks pass us and attack from the flank and rear. On February2, 1943, the remnants of the Sixth Army surrendered. September 8. It is pure hell here. Yet Nazi leaders could not stay silent about the rout of the Sixth Army, which Hitler had once declared could storm the heavens. The global media reports pushed both sides onward. When we got to Stalingrad, there were the Wehrmacht characterized their situation after they ended up in the ring fiance, December 29, 1942. Division, no. But now we have to roam around this horrible Stalingrad is hell on earthVerdun, Heziel Pitogo is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE. Can you talk about the nature of the violence? His fascinating 2015 book, Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich, and the Battle that Changed World History (PublicAffairs; also available in German, Russian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, and Chinese editions), tells the story of this battle from the Soviet side. August 23. . 1942. The horses have already been eaten. In a total war for refusing to . In the north our troops capture a part of Stalingrad and reach theVolga, but in the south the doomed divisions are continuing to resist bitterly. A group of Russian soldiers fight to hold a strategic building in their devastated city against a ruthless German army, and in the process become deeply connected to two Russian women who have been living there. 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. Megenburg. Diary entries of Field Gendarmerie Sergeant Helmut Megenburg: . The interviews, as well as rare photographs and letters shared by the veterans, show how differently the battle is remembered on both sides. 'He has started to sing with a slurring voice, so great is his pain. The majority of the writings date from November 'This is how I see it at least. 87th Artillery Regiment of the 113th Infantry Division, no. This was before the tide turned. There are very few men left in the companies. 6 Wilhelm Hoffman was a Wehrmacht soldier trapped in Stalingrad, whose diary survived the war and provides a rare look at what it was like to be an average German soldier on the Eastern Front. . trenches and bunkers. 'Am I myself convinced by what I try to convincingly explain to my men? Hitler's soldiers stormed the city in September 1942 in a bid to complete the conquest of Europe. Seventy-one year ago, February 2, 1943, the The Battle of Stalingrad, finally ended. A German soldier rests at Stalingrad. . . September 5. We killed thousands of Russians and Jews with wives and the German 6th Army is a strategic masterpiece. This is worse than any torture. in the vicinity of Stalingrad will have a major influence on how the war . an effort to communicate impressions to relatives, an effort to share the truth In his memoirs, Chuikov writes that he issued a sharp rebuke to his cowardly officers. . The German 6th Army (300 000 men) was formed at the inception of Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union). injured and frostbitten men; more than 30 men have escaped; there is only Look at the confidence and aggression on the face of the soldiers. From a letter from Senior Lance Corporal Joseph Tzimach, no. There was in addition ample violence within the Red Army, perpetrated against soldiers who were unwilling to risk their lives. 'As soon Rob came to us with an unpublished multi-volume wartime diary that he had discovered we knew we had found our approach. . .. Do we even know? 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. The operation to surround and liquidate the German 6th Army is a strategic masterpiece. It must be mothers prayersthat have taken me away from the companys trenches . 'And if we fail to stop them, then this will be the beginning of the end. Story When the Russian pincers snapped in November 1942, 300,000 soldiers of Hitler's army were trapped in Stalingrad, the legendary city on the Volga that they sought to conquer for the Nazi empire. decided to give ourselves up to capture in order to save our soldiers lives. . https://cbweaver.wikispaces.com/file/view/Stalingrad+Primary+Accounts.pdf, New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. But they speak with palpable pride about their victory over Hitlers army, which had an aura of being unstoppable. The YouTube channel is a generally reputable source but this fact made me skeptical. Yet Stalingrad never fell. What drew you to study World War II in your book and, in particular, to the Battle of Stalingrad? Even civilians were considered vital defenders of Fortress Stalingrad and not allowed to evacuate until several days after the beginning of the bombardment. . The violence and the horror during the fighting for Stalingrad were ferocious. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1250ab68a49c24 A bored and cold German soldier plays a game of "eenie-meenie-miny-moe", aiming at a group of children, most too young to even comprehend the danger. They evidently decided to bury us in this hellish place once and for all. We shall obviously be seeing them next in the other world. What Did Edward Snowden Actually Reveal About the U.S Government? 10521 V, to Hetti Kaminskaya, December 29, 1942. From the diary of Field Gendarmerie Sergeant Helmut Sixth Army of 300,000 men was lost. But with thousands of Soviet guardsmen poised to launch a furious counter-attack, his triumph was to be short-lived. We are apparently going to attack the factories, the chimneys of which we can see clearly. .. We are on hunger rations and waiting for the rescue that the Fuhrer promised. We marched all night and by dawn had reached Voroponovo Station. Asked by the historians about what motivated him to keep fighting to the point of exhaustion and beyond, he talked about scenes he had personally witnessed: of German soldiers dragging a woman out of the rubble, presumably to rape her, while he helplessly listened to her screams for help. The Germans were being rounded up prior to marched to death. By Something incomprehensible is, in fact, going on. . The prevailing notion in scholarship is that Stalin was politically bankrupt when the war began duped by the Germans, on the defensive, and deeply unpopular. Confessions of a Man Who Has Never Had Sex With His Wife. convinced that they cant stop us. The Fuhrers orders were read inevitably soon be over. contained an ultimatum. units of the German 6th Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army amounting to 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. This could not fail to influence our decision. Source: Zelma/RIA Novosti. According to entries from the diary of a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ukrainian soldiers defending Artemivsk do not want to go on the attack and do not understand what the command wants from them. October 5. "It is pure hell here." In the Battle of the Coral Sea, on May 78, 1942, American naval forces stopped the, Japanese advance and temporarily relieved Australia of, the threat of invasion. Dozhd TV channel taken off air in some markets, January Wherever you look is fire and flames. . Battle of Stalingrad, seen as the bloodiest fights in WWII, and perhaps, in whole history of war. It was all a bluff with Manstein. . The weather is getting worse and worse. After seeing many colleagues killed and horrifically maimed from driving through a minefield he wrote: 'I have had enough. God, let it be! Szepanski finishes them off with a rifle. 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. It was largely because of its symbolic charge that the battle for Stalingrad turned into a decisive showdown between the two regimes. which both sides took severe losses. . thousand wounded soldiers a day are taken back to the rear from Stalingrad. Russians consider it to be one of the greatest battles of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. During that meeting, Lyolya Novikova was posthumously accepted into the Communist Party. 15:59 GMT 17 Jun 2021 If we take any prisoners its because they are hopelessly wounded, and cant, move by themselves.Stalingrad is hell. Poor fellow, hes got three children. Up to then, the German army had seen victory after victory and Hoffman felt confident they could conquer Stalingrad and then the rest of Russia. During the day the Germans managed to accupy only two blocks. The letters of the German soldiers are imbued with frankness, This morning katyushi attacks caused the company heavy losses: twenty-seven dead and fifty wounded. I see that the wiki article states he was killed, but I'm not sure I trust it. . . The Nazis' eastward expansion was halted and the Soviets went on the offensive until the end of the war. I briefly jump onto the tank to look at Weigand. . The action you just performed triggered the security solution. We decided to give ourselves up to capture in order to save our soldiers lives. Diary of a German Soldier William Hoffman 4.50 4 ratings2 reviews Want to read Buy on Amazon Rate this book 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. Wilhelm Hoffman's Stalingrad diary is a FAKE TIKhistory 269K subscribers Subscribe 124K views 1 year ago I've just discovered that Wilhelm Hoffman's famous "Diary of a German Soldier". Click to reveal September 22. The Russians have gone over to the offensive along the whole front. 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. More Soviet soldiers died in the five-month battle than Americans in the entire war. To this day, the Russian state and the Russian people commemorate the battle intensely. Stalingrad is a grave for the German soldiers. As the battle wore on, many read it as an indication that Germany would lose the war. We attack on a daily basis. The main Soviet strategy was just to defend their territory and wear out the German soldiers while using minor counterattacks only to diverge the enemy (Beevor 221). October 22. The weather is getting A German prisoner of war escorted by a Soviet soldier with a PPSh-41, 1943. . Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich - Walter Kempowski 2015-04-13 . The devastating Panzer division was also deployed - seventeen in total. Fritz is telling me about a conversation he heard: the soldiers prefer to defect or surrender to captivity. Army will require huge effort and a lot of time. by Odessa2 21 Aug 2003, 19:09, Post The commander has congratulated us on our victory. by Oleg Grigoryev 21 Aug 2003, 22:03, Post Himmler was aware that the time of reckoning for Germany was drawing near. by August 21 Aug 2003, 11:24, Post Barbarism. December 6. On her second day out on the battlefield, while dressing and recovering wounded soldiers, Novikova was killed. Answer (1 of 8): I only know this, when the army was strong enough to break out, Hitler ordered it to stay so the rest of the German army could break in to relieve it. Life in the Third Reich & Weimar Republic, Kriegsmarine surface ships and Kriegsmarine in general, Luftwaffe air units and Luftwaffe in general, German Strategy & General German Military Discussion, NSDAP, other party organizations & Government, The Dieter Zinke Axis Biographical Research Section, The Ron Klages Panzer & other vehicles Section, Panzer & other vehicles - Photo threads, Axis Documents, Feldpost numbers, Postcards & Other Paper Items, The United Kingdom & its Empire and Commonwealth 1919-45, The Allies and the Neutral States in general, German Colonies and Overseas Expeditions, The end of the Ottoman Empire 1908-1923, Translation help: Breaking the Sound Barrier, http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.as ld&rLink=0. He banked on the psychological blow that the fall of Stalins city, which is what Stalingrad literally means, would deliver to Stalin. January 5. . A letter from Elsa today. Less than twenty miles to go to Stalingrad. I would eat a cat; they say its meat is also tasty. I highly recommend the Book "Forgotten Soldier". by Oleg Grigoryev 21 Aug 2003, 22:05, Post . . the rest were wounded and killed. . Born in Bonn, West Germany, Prof. Hellbeck, 51, is also founder of an online project, facingstalingrad.com, at the heart of which is a series of in-depth interviews conducted jointly in 2009-2010 with photographer Emma Dodge Hanson with surviving veterans of the fateful battle from both Germany and Russia.

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