The Battle Of Stalingrad

The city of Volgograd.Not many people know it by this name though the city bears the name of River Volga (considered a lifeline for Russia) and has retained this name for the past 48 years!So, what is it that forces this name into a relative obscurity when compared to it's other name-"STALINGRAD"(which isn't even used officially any longer) .The reasons can be traced back to the time when a GEORGIAN, by the name of JOSEPH STALIN was at the helm of the affairs in the erstwhile USSR.Was it only the name of STALIN associated with it that has propelled it's name into almost every history book in the world? Most certainly not.It will forever be remembered for the heroism, the resilience, the courage,in short, the SUPERHUMAN EFFORT it's people showed between August of 1942 and February of 1943.The fate of the entire world rested on the events unfolding at this place during these 6 months .The subsequent turn of events marked an epoch making phase in world history and have forever been immortalized as THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD- THE MOTHER OF ALL BATTLES.
The steamroller of the German army was leveling everything in western Europe.IT had captured most of western and parts of eastern Europe by 1941.Great Britain and Soviet Union were the only 2 countries in the entire continent, that remained Nazi or Nazi satellite free.With Britain almost on it's knees,Hitler was soon shifting his focus from the west to the east.This led to the operation Barbarossa in June 1941-a war of annihilation against Soviet union.The war against Soviet Union was not merely a war between it's people but also an ideological clash between two starkly contrasting methodologies- the National Socialism in Germany and Bolshevism in Russia.Somehow Hitler saw Bolshevism as being entwined with Jews and this meant complete liquidation of the entire Soviet state.The war began with the initial Blitzkrieg of the German armies achieving the expected success . The poorly equipped and ill prepared red army bled to death.Half of it's soldiers and war equipment had been decimated in the very first months and the road was soon lay open for the seizure of Moscow .The Germans, pressing on their advantage with a brutality and relentlessness quite unmatched,were quite confident of taking over Moscow in no time at all.But somehow, contrary to all expectations, Moscow managed to fend off the German armies within kms from the city lines.The Russian winter once again had a great share in the success.Totally exasperated by the dogged defense of Moscow, Hitler now issued directives to hold on to existing lines and to resume operations only when the weather showed signs of improvement.This cooling off period gave both sides ample time to review strategies,revamp their armies...replenish them with additional men and material,and most importantly, raise the morale!The strategies were being planned meticulously by both sides.Hitler always the one to extract faster results by expediting developments, loathed engaging in futile stalemates.Seeing that Moscow could prove to be a deadlock, he pressed on a move south wards .His original focus on Moscow now took a backseat.Most of his top generals were against such a move, as they strongly believed that the already overextended German supplies would not be able to bear the further strain.They wanted him to revert back to his original plan of taking over Moscow.But Hitler was adamant as usual.This paved way for Operation Blue.The plan called for an army group A, which would speed it's way into the Caucasus mountains and lay it's hands on the rich oil fields.The other half of this operation included the sixth army and a panzer division, that would go south and lay siege on the city of Stalingrad.One of the objectives of this operation was to have control over the oil fields, which was a prospective target from the beginning.The oil fields were to fuel the German war machine further into the Soviet Union.The city of Stalingrad was of great strategical importance, as the side controlling the city had a complete access to the Volga river.This river was considered a lifeline to Soviet army, also the name Stalin associated with it added to it's significance.Many believed that an end to Stalingrad would mean an end to soviet union.ONCE the operations recommenced, the blitzkrieg offensive was achieving success quite comfortably .In no time was the Wehrmacht, just kms away from the Stalingrad.Now the Soviets were in a critical situation.They knew the tactical importance of Stalingrad.The fall of Rostov had further magnified it's importance.The soviets, at this juncture, were hanging merely by a thread and were completely aware that they had to leave no stone unturned in the defense of Stalingrad.But a well organised defense called for some extra time and this they were awarded, when German army complacent with initial success , waited outside the walls, leisurely preparing for the battle.The delayed offensive gave the Soviets enough time to ship all the imp raw materials through volga into the east and to gather the necessary war materials to fortify defensive positions.Though the Soviets seemed mightily poised to give Wehrmacht a good fight,they suffered initial setbacks.The Wehrmacht began pressing hard into the city,and with the Luftwaffe completely overpowering the VVS, the Germans exercised complete control over skies. This made life hard for the soviet soldiers.At one point in the battle, the average life expectancy of a soviet soldier was less than 24 hours and the perilous journey for the fresh reinforcements through the incessantly bombed Volga river only added to their woes.The soviets began countering this by drawing the soviets defense lines as close to the German lines as possible , so that the Germans would not risk bombing their own lines.The strategy worked,though the Germans occupied 90% of the city at one point,they knew the battle was nowhere near the end.What had started as a modern mechanized warfare soon transformed into a battle of attrition, with petty gunfights raging in every nook and the corner of the city.This rat fight soon engulfed the whole of the city,with not a building spared.Germans had to fight it out for every inch they advanced,sometimes the battle would come down to soldiers of either side capturing and recapturing a single room of a building!This was taking a toll on both sides.Meanwhile,the Russian Supreme commander for the battle, general Zhukov was waiting for the right opportunity for a pincer type counter offensive from the west and the south, that would encircle the German armies,leaving them completely isolated.It would then slowly tighten the noose around the Wehrmacht to bleed it to death.By now, Hitler was getting obsessed with the city,he wanted the city captured and destroyed at all costs.H e paid little heed to what his generals had to say and started throwing everything into the gamble.The astute Zhukov was waiting for this.The concentration of troops in the city meant the flanks of the Wehrmacht were severely exposed and hence completely vulnerable.It was time for Zhukov to exploit the foolishness of Hitler.Zhukov sensing that the tide was in his favour, wasted no time in launching operation Uranus. With the Russian winter aiding the offensive and Hitler sticking to his meaningless stand,the timing could not have been better(the Russians had held on till the winter for the snow to come to their aid,Russians had mastered the art of winter fighting whereas Germans would often suffer from a frost bite)The offensive was a resounding success.Over 2,50,000 German troops were completely cut off from the rest of the army.The subsequent German aerial supplies were not in required quantities to attain the objectives.Soon battle worn German soldiers were starving to death in frigid conditions.Hitler instead of asking his men to break free from the encirclement and flee,urged them to fight till death.The always error prone Hitler had now made the biggest blunder of his life.The 6 th army was supposed to be one of the finest and one of the most dreaded German units.The battle officially ended on January 31 when about 100,000 German soldiers inside Stalingrad surrendered with 113,000 killed already.All in all, some 2 million people were killed on both sides.This was by no means a negligible figure.This also meant that the entire 6th army was completely wiped out.The men and material loss was irreplaceable.This, notwithstanding the psychological impact it had, was the the beginning of the end for the Germans.The Germans would never again match the superiority they once showed.In the ensuing battle of Kursk,the Germans could feel the impact of Stalingrad.They had lost the initiative.For soviets and the rest of the world, it was a turning point.It set the tone for things to come.For the first time the Germans were beaten on a scale that raised questions about Germany's further success.This also broke the myth relating to aura of invincibility surrounding the German army.The German army was for the first time vanquished beyond repair.It would also mark the beginning of the era of the iron curtain.
For many the battle was a pivotal point in WW2.It had resulted in the complete, 180 degree reversal of fortunes of the 2 great dictators.The tide was initially swinging Germany's way but soviets,post Stalingrad, manged to force it their way.They responded to the German threat beautifully.The soviets, taking a cue from initial setbacks,were executing operations with complete co ordination and synchronization.The soviet industry also played a key role.The way in which they were relocated from the German territories and then bolstered into industrial powerhouses that would soon outpace the German production, was simply remarkable!The initial set backs were more due to the lack of preparedness on the part of the Soviets, who were completely taken aback by the initial German onslaught,despite intelligence reports suggesting a possible invasion.They(Stalin in particular) never expected the Germans to breach the non aggression pact.But Germans did, and with that invited their own doom.The capabilities USSR developed during the war actually catapulted it into a superpower.Germans,who once looked invincible,were made to bite the dust.Germany never really recovered from the trauma it had to endure during the battle, and would never again be a force to reckon with.The iconic clash between two contrasting ideologies, espoused by two tyrants, resulted in the demise of one and the rise of the other.Perhaps no other war in the history of mankind had such a profound impact on the ideology,the social structure, and the culture as ww2 did.When we look around,every modern aspect of life can in some way attributed to the lessons learnt in ww2.The Europeans learnt their lessons the hard way .They now realised that brute force,as in physics, would always result in a an equal an opposite force in the opposite direction.It quickened the collapse of the imperial empires,brought about the cultural revolutions during 60's(women were employed to compensate the labour shortage caused by forced conscription,this brought about the working class women),it made the Americans have a slight change in their opinion about blacks,it brought about the cold war(Stalin,who never really cared much for human values , continued with his draconian policies, but communism was to last less than 9 decades) and also ushered in the nuclear age. The current society is tailored in every possible WAY to prevent WW3.I sincerely hope that we will be able to avert a catastrophic ww3 in every way possible.But what if, despite our best measures, the inevitable does happen???
in such a scenario , i will only repeat what Einstein had to say about 60 years ago......
I have absolutely no knowledge of the weapons that will be used in ww3,but i certainly do know how ww4 is going to be fought-"back to stones".


This blog comes as a tribute to all those who have put down their lives in the most gruesome ways possible and in doing so have laid the foundation for the relatively peaceful and serene life we are experiencing today!A life which they were not fortunate enough to live.

Let us all pay homage to the 55 million odd people(does not really matter if they were Germans,Italians,Japanese or the Soviets...they were humans first!) who sacrificed their noble lives during world war 2, whose valour,courage,determination ( not the wise decisions of those who were occupying the highest posts and never had the slightest tryst with the harsh ground reality)single-handedly ended the "WAR TO HAVE ENDED ALL WARS".

to start with, this is going to be my first post! How do i start?? is often the first question that pops up in my mind everytime i initiate proceedings. I will have to answer such questions one by one and simultaneously morph these questions into a blog. This would be my kind of blogging. I hope i do succeed in my endeavors. So before i actually start blogging i will have to try understanding as to what a blog is .An affirmative definition about a blog and it's purpose,but should i really be coming up with such questions??
Now is that the question that seeks a valid answer??
and am i the person who has all the answers????
no end to such trivial questions!!
but then how do i start if such questions keep sprouting up every minute...
just how?? is the question!!
any answers!!
I think i have written enough....but is this a blog? It appears to be in the vicinity of a blog,but it isn't actually a blog yet,a good blog as the internet dictionary refers to, is something that has a definitive social motive or a purpose behind it.
So in order to transform this post into a blog, i will have to lay a firm framework which will form the basis of my blog.
But then how do i build the framework i so desperately need to be the blogger i am longing to be
I can only accomplish this by putting all my trifling questions to rest!
But then how do i put them to rest??
Is an answer to a question the only way of getting rid of the question?
Can a question in itself answer another question?
let us try....
To answer all my questions
i will have to ask one seminal question most fundamental to the very functioning and progress of the human race
WHY DO WE QUESTION?
is there a comprehensive answer to such a question......?
What would have happened if we lacked the very power of questioning....??
Could we have been the race we are today??
Could we have understood that we are all born equal??
Could we have understand that a person who toils in the sun for a whole day is entitled to the same pay as some of the others??
Could we have better understood as to why we waste so many of our resources to fulfill the insatiable greed of a privileged few??
Could we ever have understood as to why some of the richer nations and their policies have resulted in unimaginable no. of deaths?
Could we have understood as to how we have limited peace??
Could we have understood as to why we have partitioned our land into 200 odd fragments??
Could we have questioned as to why some people are born with everything at their disposal and some others with nothing??
Could we have questioned as to why we are brought to this planet and then sent to the heavenly abode without our consent??
Could we have understood life and it's purpose better?
Could we have understood the fact that differentiating people is quite inane in us and that we have to think beyond?
Could we have made this a better place to live in ?
Could we or do we??
do we really have a definitive answer to such questions?
Some questions can never be answered and some answers never be questioned!
I do think i have just finished writing what the internet dictionary refers to as a blog!!
Have i or have i not???