I did the same to another who pretended to be dead.'. His tone changes from exicted and hopeful to a darker tone toward the end. In July 1942, the Germans resumed their advance into the U.S.S.R. begun the previous summer, seeking to conquer Stalingrad, a vital transportation center located on the Volga River. We are advancing towards Stalingrad along the railway line. Victory is not far away. After weeks of desperate fighting 100,000 surviving Germans went into Russian captivity. We go in a direction on Surovikino. Credit: Das Bundesarchiv / Wikimedia Commons. In just the last two days, our battalion has lost 60 killed, All our sacrifices would have been in vain.'. .. The defect or surrender to captivity. January 15. We havent eaten or slept in three The letter had been sent by the German Federal Archives, which. "German WWII soldiers get proper burial after 60 years", The Age (2008) The German War Graves Commission's (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgrberfrsorge) . 'It is just awful. At that time January 5. On November 8, Hitler announced that the German Sixth Army had taken Sta- lingrad, but in fact, on November 19 and 20, the Soviets attacked German positions north and south of Stalingrad, and by November 23 they had surrounded the German forces. The documentary 'Barbarossa: The Lost Diaries' will be coming soon via History Hit TV. Confessions of the Enemy.. Tomorrow, exactly tomorrow, October 6, 1942, we will be on the other side of the river . By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. I was extraordinarily lucky to have been the first historian to fully explore the 215 interviews conducted with Soviet defenders of Stalingrad, and publish them. Today, after wed had a bath, the company commander told us that if our future operations are as successful, well soon reach the Volga, take Stalingrad and then the war will quickly end. Making up for colossal losses in people, equipment and ammunition sustained by the German armed forces as a result of the perishing of the 6th Army will require huge effort and a lot of time. Im sick of this. The retreat of the Nazis in that particular battle is seen by many historians as the turning point of WWII. The company commander says the Russian troops are completely broken, and cannot hold out any longer. What was the role of world media before and during this battle? September 13. The global media reports pushed both sides onward. Hetti, I have 14 Therapist Reveal Unusually Common Things They Often Hear, That People Are Hesitant To Disclose, Confessions of a Man Who Shot Himself In The Head And Survived, Caveman Circus | Contact | Privacy Policy | DMCA Copyright 2023 StomachPunch Media, LLC. While the German army was penetrating deeply into Russia, he believed that victory was not far away and dreamed of returning home with medals. After the elevator was taken the Russians continued to defend themselves just as stubbornly. The Germans would never fully recover. December 21.We are waiting for the order, but for some reason or other it has been a long time coming. November 19. . During that meeting, Lyolya Novikova was posthumously accepted into the Communist Party. Her research deals with World War II, gender and the history of psychology in the 20th century. What were the conditions that made the violence and the loss of life so immense? From 1942 to 1945, they interviewed close to 5,000 people most of them soldiers, but also partisans, civilians who worked in the war economy or fought in the underground, and Soviet citizens who had survived Nazi occupation. Diary Of A German Soldier Fighting In Stalingrad February 6, 2020Leave a Comment In July 1942, the Germans resumed their advance into the U.S.S.R. begun the previous summer, seeking to conquer Stalingrad, a vital transportation center located on the Volga River. . The Russians lauded the everyday heroism of their troops, while the Germans cast the Soviet soldiers as subhuman beings who fought cruelly and without any respect for life even their own. For the socialist motherland! and For comrade Stalin! these were some of the slogans of those fighting in Stalingrad. . . Get the week's best stories straight to your inbox. On the morning of January 10 we read a pamphlet that contained an ultimatum. sustained by the German armed forces as a result of the perishing of the 6th December 6. Recently, the Orthodox Church has incorporated Stalingrad into its prayers, even though the church was hardly present during the battle itself. Im sick of this. by Oleg Grigoryev 21 Aug 2003, 18:17, Post . . . writings by captured soldiers. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. They also wanted to create an archival record for posterity. A soldier prepares to throw a grenade. Who were the interviewees of these Stalingrad transcripts? and our The action you just performed triggered the security solution. After months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, German forces (numbering now only about 91,000 surviving soldiers) surrender at Stalingrad on the Volga. All run away again. This could not fail to influence our decision. 'And if we fail to stop them, then this will be the beginning of the end. He was so disillusioned that he predicted that Germany would lose the Second World War by as early as December 1941. On November 8, Hitler, announced that the German Sixth Army had taken Sta-, lingrad, but in fact, on November 19 and 20, the Soviets. Everyone expects us home for Christmas. Being German, I am of course also susceptible to Stalingrads towering place in German collective memory. October 5, 1942.<br>Our battalion finally reached the Volga. By the end of February, Stalingrad, the Russian 3D film which became Russias box-office holder for 2013 and grossed $66 million in its one-and-a-half run, will be shown in US theaters for a week. When looking for confirmation of this fact the Britannica article on Stalingrad lists that the lifespan for a Soviet . Confessions of the Enemy. The print run was not specified, and the book was Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved. A Soviet soldier waving the Red Banner over the central plaza of Stalingrad in 1943. 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. Credit: Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad, My Aunt Had a Dinner Party, and Then Took Her Guests to Kill 180 Jews, Germany Marks Munich Massacre With Memorial, but Still Avoids Taking Responsibility, How a neo-Nazi Group Recruited Her Majestys Soldiers. Click to reveal Yet Stalingrad never fell. The German press simply stopped reporting about Stalingrad, including the failed attempts to break through to the trapped soldiers and to supply them by air. The operation to surround and liquidate the German 6th Army is a strategic masterpiece. In three weeks we have occupied about five and a half square miles. His commitment was so strong that he sent a huge number of troops to carry out the invasion. This website uses cookies. . 1943. In just the last two days, our battalion has lost 60 killed, injured and frostbitten men; more than 30 men have escaped; there is only enough ammunition to last until evening; the soldiers have not eaten at all in three days, and many of them have frostbitten feet. . It revealed that many people kept diaries, contrary to popular belief. toward our generals boiled up in me. $152,972. 17189, dated November 13, 1942 to Private First Class Karl Weitzel: . There have been a number of cases of self inflicted wounds and malingering among the men. The Russians are so close to us that our planes cannot bomb them. .. The majority of the writings date from November This could not fail to influence our decision. . Less than twenty miles to go to Stalingrad. . The economy, culture and society were fully mobilized by governments. Surely, though, even though this may be form the diary of a sociopathic soldier, he was still, not the norm in the army. . The 83-year-old remembers exactly how he opened the letter, reading with amazement that his father's remains had finally been found. I have enough. We attack on a daily basis. . 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. ', As the Germans advanced towards Leningrad (St Petersburg) in July 1941, the young officer is convinced of the Nazis' goal to end Bolshevism, calling the local population a 'big herd of submissive cattle.'. Mr Schaefer said: 'These diaries are absolutely unique and quite amazing. The gruesome acts were enough to tip the highly decorated Panzer commander over the edge. German and other Axis losses in the battle of Stalingrad amounted to over 800,000 casualties. Yesterday Russian katyushi [small rocket launchers] and then tanks halted our regiment. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. 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. . Thats what the Russians need, to stop them from resisting . Share with Email, opens mail client Schwarz, 10th Company of the 131st Infantry Regiment of the 44th Infantry . . With the help of an arctic wstopped just before Moscow. 10 Women Who Gave Creepy Guys A Chance, Describe Their Experiences, A Few Videos Guaranteed To Make You Feel Better About Life. They say that the city is on fire; on the Fiihrers orders our Luftwaffe [air force] has sent it up in flames. I read the ultimatum, and a burning malice We killed thousands of Russians and Jews with wives and But the regime took further steps: Visiting the Treblinka death camp in eastern Poland just one month after the defeat at Stalingrad, Heinrich Himmler ordered the exhumation and cremation of all the bodies of the 700,000 Jews who had been killed there. 'We will live through the war in the east as he lived it.'. Our regiment is attacking the Barrikady settlement. Did he survive the war? . Box office. A question looms before us: Russian. I would eat a cat; they say its meat is also tasty. He wrote them throughout the battle of Stalingrad. 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. They describe shocking violence. . The elevator is occupied not by men but by devils that no flames or bullets can destroy. Then aged 24, he recalled the moment he and his colleagues stood around to listen to Adolf Hitler's address at the start of the operation that would result in almost one million deaths. . I want to scream. Stalingrad is a grave for the German soldiers. 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. I want to scream. 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. If in the morning we manage to advance 20meters, in the evening the Russians throw us backward. . I own many books about WW2; the personal accounts are always the best. [Quoting Zaitsev]: Or another time you see young girls, children hanging from trees in the park. . From a letter from soldier Otto Zechtig, 1st Company of the . From a letter from soldier Heinrich Malchus, no. The Soviets delay Operation Uranus to get their troops in position to attack, encircle 6th Army. A German prisoner of war escorted by a Soviet soldier with a PPSh-41, 1943. The devastating Panzer division was also deployed - seventeen in total. .. Viktor Nekrasov's novella "In the trenches of Stalingrad" came out to acclaim in 1946, and 10 years later he was able to make a humanistic, de-heroizing screenplay out of it. 'You see young girls, children hanging from trees in the park. . 'His spine is broken, and he is totally paralysed. Heziel Pitogo is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE. Sergeant-Major Nuschke waskilled today running across a street. World War II was a total war, in which civilians as much as soldiers were part of the war. Ahead of us is either death or captivity. Hitler remarked that with the 6th Army, he "could storm the Heavens". I briefly jump onto the tank to look at Weigand. Nov. 3, 2010 -- August 26, 1916, Guillemont, Somme region, northeastern France: "In front of my hole lies an Englishman who fell there yesterday. . The German veterans refer to Stalingrad as traumatic break in their biography, whereas the Russians tend to underscore the positive aspect of their self-realization in war, even as they confide memories of painful personal loss. By the spring of 1943, even Hitler. . It was the most ferocious battle in human history, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands. September 26. An extract for August 24 described the horrific aftermath of one fight his crews engaged in. The interviews were recorded in Stalingrad, during the final stage of the battle and its immediate aftermath. We have been told we are soon going to be withdrawn to be brought back up to strength. Among the last Wehrmacht soldiers to leave Stalingrad by air were a group of 18 wounded and sick Croat legionnaires, including Lt. Barievi, who were flown out by Luftwaffe pilots and were landed on the last serviceable German airfield at Staljingradskaja near the 369th's artillery section positions on the night of 22 to 23 January 1943. . Our regiment has failed to break into the factory. It was the most ferocious battle in human history, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands. Among the trophies of the Soviet troops was an the German 6th Army is a strategic masterpiece. The number of soldiers cemeteries is growing .. Stalin's order no. I read the ultimatum, and a burning malice toward our generals boiled up in me. by Odessa2 21 Aug 2003, 19:03, Post The horses have already been eaten. .. By We have never been through anything like this. .. Can it be that it is not true about Manstein?