About book Enemy At The Gates: The Battle For Stalingrad (2003)
One would not be entirely correct if one thinks that the movie Enemy At The Gates was based on this book, even though the movie posters claims it to be so. Somehow, it resembles more with the book War of the Rats by David L. Robbins, which is a fictionalized account of the duel between two sharpshooters in the warzone of Stalingrad. In my opinion, Stalingrad (1993) is a way better movie than the Hollywood one.This book in fact covers the whole battle of Stalingrad from the German perspective. Following statistics shows the magnitude of horror that perpetrated at Stalingrad which makes a personal duel between two sharpshooters relatively inconsequential if one looks at the whole picture. Lives lost at Stalingrad:Russians: 750,000 men killed, wounded or missing in action.Germans: almost 400,000 men lost.Italians: 130,000 men lost out of 200,000 total.Hungarians: 120,000 men killed.Rumanians: 200,000 men lost.Civilian population of Stalingrad: There were 500,000 people prior to the outbreak of War. After the war ended, a census found only 1,515 people who had lived in Stalingrad in 1942. Sure, many were evacuated before the siege, but it has to be noted that about 40,000 civilians were known to have died in the first two days of bombing in the city.In five months of fighting and bombings, 99 percent of the city had been reduced to rubble. More than forty-one thousand homes, three hundred factories, 113 hospitals and schools had been destroyed.But with hindsight, one wonders, why try to capture Stalingrad at all?Infact, the original plans for Case Blue (Fall Blau) did not call for the capture of Stalingrad. The city was not even a primary target for attack. As originally conceived, the strike force was to consist of two groups of armies, A and B. Army Group A, under the command of Field Marshal List, included the Seventeenth and First Panzer armies. Army Group B, under Fedor von Bock, boasted the Fourth Panzer and Sixth armies, which were to be aided by the Hungarians in support of their rear echelons. The army groups were to move eastward on a broad front to the line of the Volga River "in the area of" the city of Stalingrad. After "neutralizing" Russian war production in that region by bombing and artillery fire, and after cutting the vital transportation line on the Volga, both army groups were to turn south and drive on the oil fields of the Caucasus. But Hitler himself had altered the scope of the campaign after German intelligence reported that the Russians had few reliable divisions on the west bank of the Volga. The Armed Forces High Command also determined that the defense lines between the Don and Volga were primitive at best. Hitler concluded that the Red Army was not about to make a major stand at Stalingrad, and he ordered Sixth Army to seize the city by force as soon as possible.Thus the onus of conquering Stalingrad fell upon the shoulders of Col. Gen. Friedrich von Paulus, commander of the Sixth Army. Paulus (as indicated by William Craig) stopped annihilation of the Jews by the 6th Army which was done by clockwork precision until Paulus took over the command from his predecessor. And until the fiasco of Stalingrad, Nazis were considered invincible by almost everybody. The battle of Stalingrad changed that. For the first time the Allies realized that after all, Germans were not supermen. But one has to take into account the fact that the battle of Stalingrad was totally different from other theaters. And the serious shortcomings of the Nazi War Machine were exposed at Stalingrad. As they relied heavily on U-Boats in the naval warfare while ignoring the superior power of aircraft carriers, similarly at the land arena, Germans depended heavily on their Blitzkrieg tactics which were rendered useless in the street fighting of Stalingrad. The Russians in Stalingrad hid in cellars and used the sewer systems to good advantage. And the mighty Russian Winter also played a huge role in the German defeat.For example, the Dzerhezinsky Tractor Works in Stalingrad, the assembly point for thousands of farm machines, which since the war was one of the principal producers of T-34 tanks for the Red Army, ran for more than a mile along the main north-south road. Its internal network of railroad tracks measured almost ten miles. And Stalingrad was full of such factories which was a real achievement for the socialist regime. For once, the name "Stalin" was attached to something in which the Soviet citizens took real pride - Stalingrad. As I said earlier, the movie of the same name only addresses a minor event that took place at Stalingrad, and true to its commercial "Hollywoodian" nature, the script only tells a fraction of the truth. Even if you overlook the British accent of Jude Law while depicting a real life Russian hero Vassili Zaitsev (He could have at least tried to sound more like a Russian, to give the movie an authentic feel), the film never fails to disappoint. Yes, there truly was a 15 year old boy named Sacha Fillipov who lived in the suburb of Dar Goya with his family. While his parents and ten year old brother stayed inside their house, the diminutive, frail Sacha went out to fraternize with the enemy. A master cobbler from his training at trade school, Sacha introduced himself to German officers occupying a nearby building and offered his services to them while infact he was working as a double agent and was pointing out the precise locations of the German army to the Russians. His end was bad as depicted in the movie but more depressing. He was hanged in front of his parents alongwith two other boys by the retreating Germans when his true purpose was found out.And Tania Chernova was more badass than the film leads one to believe. She embarked on a relentless war against the enemy, whom she always referred to as "sticks" that one broke because she refused to think of them as human beings. As a partisan, she had broken several "sticks" in the forests of Byelorussia and the Ukraine until she came to Stalingrad to break more “sticks”. The famous sharpshooter, Vassili Zaitsev had killed nearly forty Germans in ten days time, and correspondents gloatingly wrote of his amazing ability to destroy his enemies with a single bullet. Tania Chernova was one of his students. They also became lovers. But alas, after the war, they were separated as Tania was told incorrectly that Vassili Zaitsev was killed in action. But he survived and Tania came to know of his survival only after more than two decades. But by then, Zaitsev was married for more than 15 years to another woman. As Zaitsev was a national hero, and as his fame spread across no-man's-land, the Germans took an inordinate interest in him. They called a Major Konings out from Berlin to kill him. Unaware of the German plan, Zaitsev continued his one-man war and began to teach thirty other Russians his specialty. The third morning, Zaitsev had a new visitor, a political agitator named Danilov, who came along to witness the contest. At first light, the heavy guns began their normal barrage and while shells whistled over their heads, the Russians eyed the landscape for a telltale presence. Danilov suddenly raised himself up, shouting: "There he is. I'll point him out to you." Konings shot him in the shoulder. As stretcher bearers took Danilov to the hospital, Vassili Zaitsev stayed very low and finally was able to kill Konings once his hiding place was revealed to him. With a total of 240 confirmed kills by the end of the war, Vassili Zaitsev became one of the most well known Russian shooters of World War II.Zaitsev and Tania were even sent on a mission to kill Paulus at his 6th army headquarters but he was not there.The book follows many such brave heroes that fought on both sides. On the Russian side, Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov was made commanding general of the 62nd Army, which was to hold Stalingrad itself. He developed the important tactic of “hugging the enemy,” by which under-armed Soviet soldiers kept the German army so close to them as to minimize the superior firepower enjoyed by the Wehrmacht. This tactic also rendered the German Luftwaffe ineffective, since they could not attack Red Army positions without firing upon their own forces. Dr. Ottmar Kohler, a surgeon in the German army, kept treating wounded soldiers even though he broke his upper jaw in Russian shelling. He held his jaws together by inserting a cork into his mouth while treating the wounded. He had moved his hospital to within a half mile of the front. Stubbornly insisting that all German aid stations treat men within minutes of their being wounded, he had fought the traditions of the German Army. And one of the most famous “sites” of the battle of Stalingrad was perhaps “Pavlov’s House” where a relentless Russian soldier named Jacob Pavlov had created a stronghold in the central part of Stalingrad. Once four tanks came and fired pointblank into the building. But the wily Pavlov was ready for them. Because the tanks could neither elevate nor depress their cannon at such close range, he had moved some of his men to the fourth floor and others to the cellar. A single shot from his lone antitank gun put one enemy panzer out of action and machine-gun fire scattered the German infantry. As the foot soldiers bolted, the tanks skidded back to safety around the corner. “Pavlov’s House” became a beacon of resilience for Russian soldiers fighting for Stalingrad.Captain Ignacy Changar was an expert guerrilla fighter and preferred to work with a knife—a technique he had perfected in the forests of the Ukraine, where he spent months during the first year of the war. There he had seen the Germans at their worst and the experience affected him deeply. One of his skirmishes with the Germans at Stalingrad is worth mentioning here.Ordered to occupy a half-demolished building west of the Barrikady Plant, he had led fifty men into it only to find a sizable German force entrenched in a large room across a ten-foot-wide hallway. The corridor was impassable. No one on either side dared mount a rush, and Changar tried to estimate the size of the opposition. From the babble of voices, he judged it sufficient to hold him in check. Days went by. Food and ammunition were passed in through the windows. Changar assumed the Germans were doing the same so he ordered special equipment: spades, shovels, and 170 pounds of dynamite. The Russians broke through the concrete floor and started a tunnel. Digging two at a time, they slowly worked a passageway under the corridor. To mask the noise of the tools, they sang songs at the top of their voices. The Germans also burst into song from time to time, and Changar immediately figured the enemy was planning to blow him up, too. On the eleventh day, Changar ordered a halt to further excavation. After carefully placing the dynamite at the end of the tunnel, he cut and lined a fuse along the dirt passage up into the main room. The Germans were singing again, and someone on the other side of the hall had added a harmonica as accompaniment. While his men sang a last lusty ballad, Captain Changar lit the fuse and hollered to the two men still in the hole to "run like hell." With the fuse sputtering, everyone tumbled out the low windows and scattered hastily across the yard, but the explosion came too quickly. It picked them up and hurled them down again with stunning force. The shaken Changar looked back to see the strongpoint rising slowly into the air. It expanded outward, then broke into hundreds of pieces. A huge ball of fire catapulted up from the debris. He rose and called for his men. Only two had failed to get clear, the men who had been in the hole. Changar realized he had cut the fuse too short and he worried about the error until the next day, when he went back to examine his handiwork. He counted three hundred sixty legs before he lost interest and left, satisfied that the 180 dead Germans were a partial payment for his error.While the street fighting was ongoing, Russians had already launched a major offensive to take Stalingrad back, Operation Uranus.Despite severe casualties, Paulus’s requests of the German retreat were repeatedly refused by Hitler, even though Stalingrad was no longer worth the price. If it (6th Army) left Stalingrad, Hitler declared, "we'll never get it back again."The 6th army needed to retreat immediately before the Russians gathered enough forces to crush it under its pincer movements. Even to hold out until relief arrived from north under Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, 200 tons of air supplies were required daily, as supply from land had become impossible. No German soldier believed that the Luftwaffe was upto that daunting task and the final decision of a timely retreat depended on that decision. Hermann Göring – much to the chagrin of everybody else except Hitler – promised loftily to fulfill the 200 ton quota of daily requirement of the 6th army through air drops. As expected, he failed miserably. But by then, the chance of retreat has passed as the 6th army was now completely surrounded by the Russians. There was no way out anymore. Even the "freedom of action" on Russian ultimatum of surrender was denied to Paulus by Hitler. The Führer was insisting on a fight to the death, because "…every day the Army holds out helps the entire front…." Hitler was now looking for a glorious chapter of German martyrdom which, according to him, would resonate with the battle of Thermopylae. The battle of Stalingrad had eventually degenerated into a personal struggle between the egos of Stalin and Hitler.Finally the combination of pincer tactics adopted by the mighty Red army and the great Russian winter proved too much for the Germans. Paulus surrendered to the Russian army on 31 January 1943, thus starting a chain of events that would end with the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the eventual fall of Berlin henceforth obliging World War-II historians to rightly note that, Stalingrad was the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.
Stalingrado fue, junto a El Alamein, una de las batallas en las que se invirtió el rumbo de la II Guerra Mundial. En ella, los alemanes perdieron a varios de sus mejores ejércitos, además de la iniciativa, que tomaron los soviéticos al empezar a avanzar hacia Berlín.Napoleón fracasó al invadir Rusia y Hitler cometió los mismos errores, y algunos más. Intentó hacer una campaña relámpago y cuando se quedó atascado se le echó el invierno encima. Después de eso, los rusos sólo tuvieron que contener a los alemanes, mientras estos se iban muriendo de inanición y frío. Además, algunas decisiones de Hitler demostraron ser, una tras otra, absolutamente catastróficas para sus ejércitos.La campaña comenzó en junio de 1942. Los alemanes rompieron unilateralmente el pacto de no agresión con la URSS y lanzaron un ataque a gran escala para tomar los campos petrolíferos del Cáucaso y privar a los rusos de materia prima para su industria. Los alemanes estaban divididos en dos grupos de Ejércitos, el A y el B. En el grupo de ejércitos B estaban el IV Ejército Panzer y el VI Ejército.Las primeras fases de la Operación Azul iban cumpliéndose con precisión milimétrica. El VI Ejército, dirigido por el general Von Paulus, que antes había tomado Polonia, era la punta de lanza de la ofensiva alemana. Una tras otra, las ciudades iban cayendo en el camino hacia Moscú, sin que la desperdigada resistencia rusa pudiera hacer nada por evitarlo. Eran barridos del mapa por una fuerza muy superior, o hechos prisioneros, cuando no huían hacia el interior de Rusia. Stalin no pensaba en principio defender Stalingrado. Pero los informes de sus espías en Alemania le hicieron cambiar de opinión. Llamó al General Yeremenko y le pidió que defendiera la ciudad. Era una misión imposible en aquellos momentos. No había tiempo para fortificar ni tropas suficientes. Yeremenko aceptó el desafío con fatalismo ruso, pero se puso a trabajar duramente. Triunfaría.Y aquí llegó la primera decisión catastrófica de Hitler. Como el avance era tan rápido, decidió que el grupo de Ejércitos B, que iba hacia Stalingrado (el grupo A iba más al norte), no necesitaba al IV Panzer. Ordenó que el IV Panzer se separara del Grupo B y se uniera al grupo A, al norte. Para hacer esto, tuvieron que cruzar por delante de la línea de avance del VI Ejército, provocando un inmenso atasco de tráfico que tardó 4 días en resolverse. Cuando el IV Panzer se iba, Paulus se dio cuenta de que con ellos se llevaban la mayoría del combustible que debían compartir ambos cuerpos. Fueron necesarias dos semanas más para que el VI Ejército volviera a estar completamente equipado y en orden de marcha. Después de todo el follón, Hitler volvió a ordenar que el IV Panzer se uniera al VI Ejército. Resultado, 20 días que ganó Yeremenko para fortificar Stalingrado y elaborar un plan de defensa. En la batalla de Orlov, a 30 km de Stalingrado, los alemanes hicieron 57.000 prisioneros y destruyeron al LXII Ejército ruso y la mayor parte del I Ejército de carros. El avance seguía imparable. A partir de entonces, los planes empezarían a no salir bien.El cerco a Stalingrado debía ser efectuado simultáneamente por tres grupos de combate alemanes. Mientras se desplegaban, se colaron entre sus líneas varios cuerpos de ejércitos soviéticos, que ayudarían en la defensa de la ciudad. Cada palmo de ciudad estaba erizado de defensas y trampas tendidas por los rusos, que estaban decididos a aguantar hasta el final. La NKVD, policía política soviética, “ayudaba” a crear esta resistencia a muerte por el simple método de fusilar a cualquiera que tuviera pinta de no estar en su puesto. La ciudad estaba sitiada, pero continuaron llegando refuerzos durante toda la campaña desde el otro lado del río Volga. Cruzar el río bajo el bombardeo alemán daba más o menos un 50% de posibilidades de sobrevivir. Aún así, durante casi toda la campaña no faltaron barcazas que cruzaban el Volga de noche llevando tropas y víveres. Mapa sacado de aquíLos alemanes entraron en la ciudad y perdieron la potencia de sus Panzer. Entre tanto escombro los carros eran casi inoperantes. Al cabo de una semana consiguieron llegar al centro de la ciudad y se dirigieron hacia el grueso de la resistencia rusa, en las factorías del norte. Allí fueron contenidos por la feroz resistencia rusa.Fue una batalla casa por casa, sótano por sótano, y esquina por esquina. Ambos bandos tuvieron grandes pérdidas. En medio de la batalla surgió una historia que es el hilo central de la película europea Stalingrado, el enemigo a las puertas (título original de este libro en inglés, por cierto): la batalla de los francotiradores. Vasily Zaitzev era un cazador de ciervos lobos de las estepas rusas los Urales que estaba entre los defensores de la ciudad. Poseía una puntería prodigiosa, forjada a lo largo de muchos años como cazador, pero además era paciente y sabía cuándo disparar para no revelar su posición. A lo largo de la batalla mató a 149 alemanes, la mayoría de ellos altos oficiales. Los alemanes enviaron a Stalingrado al comandante Konings, gran francotirador alemán, para eliminar a Zaitzev. Éste tenía además una novia, también francotiradora, Tania Chernova. Durante días estos hombres lucharon una batalla paralela, que terminó cuando Zaitzev le metió una bala entre los ojos a Konings. Cuando los alemanes quedaron atascados en la ciudad, que llegaron a dominar en un 95%, Paulus advirtió que era cuestión de tiempo que los rusos lanzaran una ofensiva. Los flancos del ejército B estaban formados por rumanos, italianos y húngaros a un lado y otro. Ambos ejércitos estaban peor preparados y equipados que los alemanes. Paulus, que en junio ya estaba preocupado por este tema, solicitó una retirada táctica para evitar que un ataque por los flancos encerrara a los alemanes. Hitler dijo que no (segunda decisión catastrófica). Y el ataque ruso llegó. Simultáneamente, desde el norte y el sur, los rusos bombardearon las posiciones rumanas para atacar luego con dos ejércitos de carros T-34. Los rumanos no pudieron hacer nada y fueron barridos. Las dos pinzas de la tenaza comenzaron a acercarse peligrosamente, amenazando con dejar dentro a más de 300.000 alemanes del VI Ejército. Eric Von Manstein, que estaba a unos kilómetros al sur de la ciudad, fuera del cerco, pidió permiso a Hitler para colarse por entre medias de las dos pinzas y aguantar hasta que Paulus saliera del cerco aún imperfecto. Se le denegó (tercera orden catastrófica, repetición de la segunda). Después de eso, viendo la que se les venía encima a los alemanes, Manstein le dijo a Paulus que hiciera caso omiso de las órdenes de Hitler y escapara con todos sus hombres por el cada vez más estrecho hueco, pero Paulus no quiso desobedecer una orden directa de Hitler. El cerco se cerró dos días después. Una vez encerrados, los alemanes tenían que intentar salir. Paulus solicitó que la salida fuera inmediata. Tenía armas y alimentos para un par de semanas, y quería intentarlo con sus tropas en perfecto estado. Hitler dijo que debía conservar Stalingrado. El VI Ejército de paulus necesitaba 500 toneladas al día de suministros. Herman Goering, jefe de la Luftwaffe, dijo que podía suministrárselas. Paulus le dijo que era imposible, que con el mal tiempo que se avecinaba y las cada vez mayores defensas antiaéres rusas en la zona iba a ser una misión imposible. Hitler creyó a Goering y prohibió la retirada de Paulus, de nuevo, para ordenar que empezaran los suministros aéreos (cuarta orden catastrófica). Los suministros comenzaron siendo de unas 125 toneladas al día, claramente insuficientes, y según fueron pasando los días bajaron a 60 toneladas. Durante las últimas semanas no hubo suministros. Paulus tenía razón, los aviones no podían contra el mal tiempo y la aviación rusa y su ejército empezaba a morirse de hambre. Los rusos empezaron a avanzar y fueron ahora los alemanes los que se fortificaron en Stalingrado para resistir el ataque. Pocas semanas después, los rusos destruían el último aeródromo alemán de la zona. Se habían terminado los suministros. Sin comida ni municiones, con las temperaturas invernales de la estepa rusa, los alemanes estaban condenados al fracaso. Paulus intentó varias veces romper el cerco, cada vez con menos éxito. Terminó rindiéndose cuando habían disparado el último cartucho. El final de la batalla de Stalingrado es una triste historia de prisioneros, campos de concentración, muertes por inanición y deserciones. Los rusos no se cebaron con los prisioneros alemanes, pero no podían alimentarlos a todos (es posible que tampoco pusieran todo el empeño del mundo en hacerlo). Alemanes, rumanos, húngaros e italianos murieron por millares a causa del hambre, el tifus y el frío. Alemania había perdido su segunda gran batalla tras El Alamein y comenzaba el cambio de tornas de la Guerra.Las bajas de la batalla de Stalingrado son sobrecogedoras. Hubo 120.000 bajas (entre muertos, heridos y prisioneros) italianas, 130.000 húngaras, 200.000 rumanas, 450.000 alemanas y 750.000 rusas. Una de las batallas más cruentas de la historia.Hitler, al igual que Napoleón, subestimó la capacidad de sufrimiento de los rusos y sobreestimó la potencia de la Luftwaffe. Y ni siquiera quiso intentar una retirada, condenando a sus tropas. Sin estas decisiones, es posible que el rumbo de la batalla hubiera sido otro. Los rusos aguantaron gracias a la disciplina en combate y a un inmenso caudal de hombres que eran enviados al matadero al principio de la contienda, cuando estaban en clara desventaja de armamento. Pero resistieron, contra todo pronóstico, en el último rincón de la ciudad, deteniendo a los alemanes y permitiendo la operación envolvente. En el monte de Mamayev Kurgan, donde los enfrentamientos fueron más duros, se hallaron más de mil cartuchos por metro cuadrado tras la batalla. Hoy en día hay allí una inmensa estatua de la Madre Rusia conmemorando la batalla. La ciudad de Stalingrado fue rebautizada como Volgogrado en 1961.Mi nota: Muy bueno.
Do You like book Enemy At The Gates: The Battle For Stalingrad (2003)?
This is an interesting book on the battle for Stalingrad. As many USA historians seems to do (like Stephen E. Ambrose), Craig digs on the experiences and memories of the soldiers and civilians who struggle there for survival. So it comes to the personal experiences of the people who were right there, through all the horror that was that German's fumble.Then, it is a book more directed to the mass readers rather than to the interested on history. And this is clear since the beginning from the novelized style that Craig uses to stitch together the myriads of accounts. Because this is what it is all about. A lengthy number of memories and stories put all together to form something like a continuum history. Which it is not. The stitching is not seamless. You may think of it like a big underneath background (not well explained) from where some pictures are taken to the front for you to know.For the people that know nothing or little for the Russian campaign in WWII this book will tell them little more. So if you are just seeking for some military information here, just skip this. Although I do recommend to read it earnestly, because it gives an impressive account of the human tragedy that took place there, which cannot be ignored.At the end, I think it could be a better book.
—Malquiviades
One of the best battle accounts incorporating both sides while keeping a fair perspective. Fascinating and bloody, the battle was a key turning point to the war and this one should be read. *Oct 2012 Reread* This book remains a "must-read" on Stalingrad. It ranges from the grand strategy of Hitler's invasion of the USSR down to the grunts in the cellars and rubble of the city. Horror, cruelty and suffering yet flashes of humanity and charity in a titanic battle. Excellent reading even if it is almost 40 years since it was first published.
—Mike
I really never knew anything about the eastern front half of WWII so I decided to read this book which Kate found on her grandfather's shelf. The movie was about this one tiny little part; a sniper duel that took place during the months of battle. The book is about the battle as a whole, which took months and totally destroyed the entire German Sixth army of a quarter million men. Two interesting things about this book, one, it's the only thing I've ever read that actually manages to make you feel a little sorry for the Germans. Not for Hitler, who was an idiot it turns out, in addition to being evil. Just for the individual german soldiers, freezing to death and starving and resorting to cannibalism because Hitler refuses to give up this battle. And two, it really helped me appreciate the Russians. If they had managed to lose this battle, which they easily could have done, we might have lost the war entirely. And they really took a lot of abuse. But they pulled it out. We did help them by sending them food and stuff, and we did invade Africa about this time, but really they were the only ones actively fighting the Germans at this point and they really pulled it out. I don't really read enough military stuff to understand some parts of this though. I can't keep track of all the divisions and brigades and panzer units and everything. I kept having to flip back to the maps and figure out where everyone was. But there were enough personal stories and anecdotes to make the book compelling.
—John
