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The encirclement of the German fascist troops at Stalingrad. Battle of Stalingrad: briefly the most important thing about the defeat of German troops

Taking into account the tasks to be solved, the peculiarities of the conduct of hostilities by the sides, the spatial and temporal scale, as well as the results Battle of stalingrad includes two periods: defensive - from July 17 to November 18, 1942; offensive - from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943

The strategic defensive operation in the Stalingrad direction lasted 125 days and nights and included two stages. The first stage is the conduct of defensive combat operations by the front forces on the distant approaches to Stalingrad (July 17 - September 12). The second stage is the conduct of defensive actions to hold Stalingrad (September 13 - November 18, 1942).

The German command inflicted main blow forces of the 6th army in the direction of Stalingrad along the shortest path through the large bend of the Don from the west and south-west, just in the defense zones of the 62nd (commander - major general, from August 3 - lieutenant general, from September 6 - major general, from September 10 - lieutenant general) and 64th (commander - lieutenant general V.I. Chuikov, from August 4 - lieutenant general) armies. The operational initiative was in the hands of the German command with an almost double superiority in manpower and equipment.

Defensive hostilities by front forces on the distant approaches to Stalingrad (July 17 - September 12)

The first stage of the operation began on July 17, 1942, in the big bend of the Don, with combat contact of 62nd Army units with forward detachments German troops... Fierce fighting ensued. The enemy had to deploy five out of fourteen divisions and spend six days to approach the main defense zone of the Stalingrad Front troops. However, under the onslaught of superior enemy forces, Soviet troops were forced to retreat to new, poorly equipped or even unequipped lines. But even under these conditions, they inflicted significant losses on the enemy.

By the end of July, the situation on the Stalingrad direction continued to remain very tense. German troops deeply embraced both flanks of the 62nd Army, reached the Don in the Nizhne-Chirskaya area, where the 64th Army held the defenses, and created a threat of a breakthrough to Stalingrad from the southwest.

In connection with the increased width of the defense zone (about 700 km) by the decision of the Supreme Command Headquarters, the Stalingrad Front, which was commanded by the Lieutenant General from July 23, was divided on August 5 into the Stalingrad and South-Eastern fronts. To achieve closer cooperation between the troops of both fronts, from August 9, the leadership of the defense of Stalingrad was united in the same hands, in connection with which the Stalingrad Front was subordinated to the commander of the South-Eastern Front, Colonel-General.

By mid-November, the advance of the German troops was halted along the entire front. The enemy was forced to finally go over to the defensive. This was the end of the strategic defensive operation of the Battle of Stalingrad. The troops of the Stalingrad, South-Eastern and Don fronts fulfilled their tasks, holding back a powerful enemy offensive in the Stalingrad direction, creating the preconditions for a counteroffensive.

During the defensive battles, the Wehrmacht suffered huge losses. In the struggle for Stalingrad, the enemy lost about 700,000 killed and wounded, over 2,000 guns and mortars, over 1,000 tanks and assault guns, and over 1,400 combat and transport aircraft. Instead of a non-stop advance towards the Volga, enemy troops were drawn into protracted, exhausting battles in the Stalingrad region. The plan of the German command for the summer of 1942 was thwarted. At the same time, the Soviet troops also suffered heavy losses in personnel - 644 thousand people, of which irrecoverable - 324 thousand people, ambulances 320 thousand people. Armament losses amounted to: about 1400 tanks, more than 12 thousand guns and mortars, and more than 2 thousand aircraft.

Soviet troops continued their offensive

D fierce battles and battles of the Battle of Stalingrad did not abate for days and nights on the vast territory between the Volga and Don rivers. This great battle in scope, tension and consequences it was unparalleled in history. It was the most important milestone on the path of the Soviet people to victory.

In the course of a defensive battle, Soviet troops repulsed the onslaught of the enemy, exhausted and bled his shock groups, and then, in a counteroffensive, brilliant in design and execution, completely defeated the main one.

The strategic offensive operation of the Soviet Armed Forces to encircle and defeat the fascist troops at Stalingrad lasted from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943. According to the nature of the operational and strategic tasks, the operation can be conditionally divided into three major stages: breaking through the defense, routing the enemy flank groupings, and the encirclement of the 6th and part of the forces of the 4th tank German armies; disrupting enemy attempts to unblock the encircled grouping and the development of a counteroffensive Soviet troops on the outer front of the encirclement; completion of the rout of the encircled Nazi troops.

By the beginning of the counteroffensive, the troops of the opposing sides in the Stalingrad direction occupied the following position.

The Southwestern Front was deployed in a 250-kilometer strip from Upper Mamon to Kletskaya. To the southeast, from Kletskaya to Erzovka, the Don Front operated in a 150-kilometer strip. From the northern outskirts of Stalingrad to Astrakhan, the troops of the Stalingrad Front were stationed in a strip up to 450 km wide.

The fascist German Army Group "B", on whose right wing the main blow of the Soviet troops was to fall, defended a front with a length of about 1400 km. Its left-flank 2nd German army, located northwest of Voronezh, covered the Kursk direction. The neighboring 2nd Hungarian Army operated on the right bank of the Don in the Kharkov direction. Further along the Don, from Novaya Kalitva to Veshenskaya, the 8th Italian army was located in the Voroshilovgrad direction, to the east, from Veshenskaya to Kletskaya, the 3rd Romanian army took up defense. In the area immediately adjacent to Stalingrad, the unsuccessful offensive battles of the 6th German compound persistently continued, and south of the city to Krasnoarmeisk - the 4th German tank army. From Krasnoarmeisk and further south. The troops of the 4th Romanian Army, which was under the operational control of the 4th German Tank Army, were defended. On the far right wing of the Army Group up to the Manych River, where the dividing line between Army Groups B and A passed, the 16th Motorized Division of the 4th German Panzer Army fought on a wide front.

The German-fascist troops were supported by the aircraft of the Doi Air Force command and part of the forces of the 4th air fleet 1. In total, the enemy had more than 1200 aircraft in this direction. The main efforts of the enemy aviation were directed towards striking Soviet troops in Stalingrad and the crossings across the Volga and Don.

Thus, the most combat-ready German formations were located directly in the Stalingrad area. Their flanks were covered by the Romanian and Italian troops, which were defending on a wide front. The enemy defense in the Middle Don and south of Stalingrad, although it improved over a month and a half, did not have sufficient depth. In engineering terms, the enemy equipped only a tactical defense zone with a depth of 6 km or more. It was based on a system of strong points, which included trenches, sections of trenches and communication passages, as well as timber and earth structures for fire weapons. The approaches to the strongholds were covered with obstacles and all kinds of fire. There were no defensive lines prepared in advance in the operational depth.

The reserve of Army Group B had eight divisions, including three tank divisions (of which one was Romanian). The activity of Soviet troops in other sectors of the front did not allow the enemy to transfer forces and equipment to Stalingrad.

Soviet troops significantly outnumbered the enemy in artillery and especially in tanks, which was decisive for breaking through the enemy's defenses and rapidly developing success in the operational depth. The greatest superiority in tanks was possessed by the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts, which were assigned a decisive role in the operation.

The Soviet command also managed to achieve a slight advantage over the enemy in aircraft. The air force of the fronts of the Stalingrad direction slightly outnumbered the enemy aviation in the number of fighters, but was much inferior to it in the number of day bombers. True, the latter circumstance was largely offset by the fact that the Soviet Air Force had attack aircraft and night bombers. In addition, the main forces of long-range aviation were involved in the Stalingrad direction.

The strike group of the Southwestern Front, consisting of the 5th Tank Army of General P.L. Romanenko and the 21st Army of General I.M. Chistyakov, was to go on the offensive from bridgeheads in the Serafimovich and Kletskaya areas. She had to break through the enemy's defenses, defeat the 3rd Romanian army and, developing a rapid offensive

1 KTB / OKW. Bd. II. Frankfurt a / M., 1963, S. 911, 999.

in the general direction of Kalach, on the third day of the operation to connect with the troops of the Stalingrad Front 1. At the same time, it was envisaged by the forces of the 1st Guards Army - commander General D.D. Cheer and create an active external front of the encirclement here. Air cover and support for the troops were assigned to the 17th Air Army under the command of General S. L. Krasovsky. The formations of the 2nd Air Army were also involved - commander General K.N.Smirnov.

Table 6. The ratio of the forces and means of the sides on the Stalingrad direction by the beginning of the Soviet counteroffensive2.

Table 6. The ratio of the forces and means of the sides on the Stalingrad direction by the beginning of the Soviet counteroffensive 2.

Troops	Personnel (thousand people)	Guns and mortars	Tanks and assault guns
In the strip of the Southwestern Front Soviet troops	399,0	5 888
German fascist troops	432,0	4 360
Ratio:	1:1,1	1,4:1	2,8:1
In the strip of the Don Front Soviet troops	296,7	4 682
German fascist troops	200,0	1980
Ratio:	1,5:1	2,4:1
In the strip of the Stalingrad front Soviet troops	410,4	4 931
German fascist troops	379,5	3 950
Ratio:		1,2: 1	3,2:1

By the decision of the commander of the Stalingrad Front, the 64th, 57th and 51st armies, commanded by Generals M.S.Shumilov, F.I.Tolbukhin and N.I. Trufanov, delivered the main blow. The shock group of the front received the task of going over to the offensive from the Sarpinskie Lakes region, crushing the 6th Romanian Army Corps and, developing an offensive to the north-west, in the direction of Sovetskiy, Kalach, here to link up with the troops of the Southwestern Front. Part of the front's forces was to advance in the direction of Abganerovo, Kotelnikovsky and create an external encirclement front at this line 3. The efforts of the 8th Air Army of the front — commander General T. T. Khryukin — were to be concentrated on covering and supporting the front's strike grouping.

1 Archive MO, f. 229, op. 590, d. 2, ll. 12-19.

2 Compiled from: IVI. Documents and materials, f. 244, op. 287, d. 7, ll. 7 - 9; f. 239, op. 98, d.411, ll. 34-38; Great victory on the Volga. M., 1965, p. 254; 50 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR, p. 345. When preparing the table, some data were specified.

3 Archive MO, f. 220, op. 451, d. 163, ll. 1-46.

The Don Front struck from a bridgehead in the Kletskaya area with the forces of the 65th army of General P.I.Batov and from the Kachalin area with the forces of the 24th army of General I.V. Galanin. The task of these armies was that, developing an offensive in converging directions to Vertyachiy, encircle and destroy enemy formations defending in the small bend of Don 1. go on the offensive on November 19, and the 24th Army three days later. This was due to the fact that the latter had to break through the enemy's defenses at a considerable distance from the strike grouping of the Southwestern Front and the neighboring 65th Army, and therefore its success largely depended on the pace of advance towards Vertyachy of the 65th Army, which had to go through before settlement greater distance than the 24th Army. The 16th Air Army under the command of General S.I.

Long-range aviation was planned to be used in the zone of the Southwestern Front. Covering the troops in Stalingrad was assigned to the 102nd Air Defense Fighter Air Division. General coordination of the actions of all aviation was entrusted to the representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters for Aviation, General A.A. Novikov.

The armies of the Southwestern Front were given three days to complete missions 120-140 km deep, and the Stalingrad Front, whose operation depth did not exceed 100 km, was given two days. After completing the immediate tasks, all three fronts had to build on the achieved success in order to dismember and destroy the enemy grouping as quickly as possible, repelling all enemy attempts to break out of the encirclement or release the encircled by attacks from the outside.

The commanders of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts, in accordance with the plan of the Supreme Command Headquarters, provided for the creation of an encirclement simultaneously with the internal and external front, the total length of which could be 300-350 km, and allocated forces and means for this purpose. The formation of an external front of encirclement as the most important factor designed to create conditions for the main forces of the fronts for the successful liquidation of the encircled enemy, was a further development of the Soviet military art.

In accordance with the decisions of the front commanders, groupings of forces and means were created, the armies were assigned tasks for the offensive. Table 7 shows the width of the offensive zones and breakthrough areas, as well as the depth and pace of the planned front and army operations.

The armies operating in the directions of the main strikes of the fronts (5th Panzer, 21st and 51st) had the greatest depth of operation. For them, a high rate of advance was planned for mobile formations, which were to play a decisive role in completing the encirclement of the enemy grouping.

The peculiarity of the decisions of the front commanders consisted in the concentration of the main forces on the directions of the main attacks, which was possible thanks to a good knowledge of the position and intentions of the enemy, as well as the covert implementation of all measures to prepare for the offensive. The principle of massing forces and means in such a volume has not yet been applied in any of the preceding offensive operations.

1 Archive MO, f. 422, op. 10496, d. 36, l. 27.

Table 7. Scope of planned front and army operations 1

Operational associations	Width offensive strip (km)	Breakthrough section width (km)	Depth of operation (km)	Duration of surgery (days)	Rate of advance (km / day)
Operational associations	Width offensive strip (km)	Breakthrough section width (km)	Depth of operation (km)	Duration of surgery (days)	infantry troops	mobile troops
Southwestern Front
5th Panzer Army
21st Army
1st Guards Army
Stalingrad front
64th Army
57th Army
51st Army
Don front
65th Army
24th Army

The Southwestern Front concentrated the main forces in the offensive zone of the 5th Panzer and 21st Armies, which delivered the main blow in the operation. In the breakthrough sectors of these armies, 22 km wide, which accounted for 9 percent of the entire length of the front, there were half of the rifle divisions, three tank and two cavalry corps, about 85 percent of the artillery of the RVGK and all rocket artillery. In the interests of this grouping, the entire aviation of the 17th Air Army of the front, the 2nd Air Army of the Voronezh Front and long-range aviation were to act.

On the Stalingrad front, the width of the breakthrough sections was 40 km, or 9 percent of the total length of the front line. Here were concentrated two-thirds of the rifle divisions of the 64th, 57th and 51st armies, operating in the direction of the front's main attack, the mechanized, tank and cavalry corps, as well as the bulk of the artillery. The strike group was to be supported by the main forces of the front-line aviation.

In an effort to ensure sufficient striking power of the armies in breaking through enemy defenses and developing success, the front commanders transferred all tank, mechanized and cavalry corps to their composition. This decision was largely due to the fact that front-line and army operations had the same depth, not exceeding 100-140 km, as well as the fact that there were no prepared defensive lines in the enemy's operational depth.

The depth of troop formation was achieved by the echeloning of forces and assets in the armies making the breakthrough. Typical in this respect can be considered the operational formation of the 5th Panzer Army of mixed composition, which was in the first echelon of the front. It advanced in the "km zone," and broke through the enemy's defenses in the 10 km sector. Of the six in the rifle divisions, two were deployed in a 25 km strip, and four were concentrated on a 10-kilometer sector (two divisions, reinforced by a tank brigade and a battalion, were in the first echelon, and two in the second). The 1st, 26th Panzer and 8th Cavalry Corps made up the army's mobile group and were intended to build on success. It was also envisaged to use them, if necessary, to complete the breakthrough of the enemy's tactical defense zone.

1 Compiled from: The Great Victory on the Volga, pp. 233, 240, 245.

The 21st Army, operating in a 40-kilometer strip, broke through the enemy's defenses in a 12-kilometer stretch. Of its six rifle divisions, four with reinforcements were in the first echelon (three in the breakthrough sector and one on the remaining 28-kilometer front). Two rifle divisions were allocated to the second echelon. The mobile group of the army included the 4th Panzer and 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps. A similar construction (with some difference in combat strength) was also in other armies, designed to break through defenses, develop success in the operational depth, complete the encirclement and destroy the enemy grouping.

Skillful massing of forces and means made it possible to create a significant superiority over the enemy in the directions of the main strikes of the fronts. Thus, the troops of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts outnumbered the enemy in the breakthrough sectors: in men - 2-2.5 times, in artillery and tanks - 4-5 and more times.

The combat use of the branches of the Armed Forces and combat arms, primarily artillery and aviation, was especially carefully planned. Much attention was paid to the organization of clear interaction between units and units.

The headquarters of the Supreme Command transferred 75 artillery and mortar regiments to the fronts of the Stalingrad direction for the operation. In total, there were 250 artillery and mortar regiments in the fronts, there were more than 15 thousand guns and mortars - twice as many as in the counteroffensive near Moscow. In addition, there were 1250 combat vehicles and rocket artillery machines in the fronts, capable of firing 10 thousand shells in one salvo. 1100 anti-aircraft guns were used to cover the troops and the most important objects in the rear.

The bulk of the artillery was used to support the shock groupings of the fronts, which made it possible to concentrate from 40 to 100 or more guns, mortars and rocket artillery combat vehicles per 1 km of the breakthrough area. The highest density of artillery - 117 units per 1 km of the breakthrough area - was in the 5th Panzer Army; the smallest - 40-50 units per 1 km - in the armies of the Stalingrad Front, which created certain difficulties in organizing a reliable suppression of the enemy's defense.

The planning of aviation combat operations was based on the principle of massing its forces in the directions of the main strikes and close interaction of aviation with ground forces. To this end, the command posts of the commanders of the air armies were deployed near the posts of the commanders of the front troops, and aviation representatives with communications equipment were sent to the headquarters of the combined arms armies.

For the first time on a large scale, artillery and air support for troop operations was planned in the form of artillery and air offensives. The artillery offensive included three periods: artillery: preparation of the attack, artillery support for the attack, and artillery1 support (escort) of infantry and tank combat in depth. The duration of the artillery preparation was planned for 80 minutes in the Southwestern and Don fronts, in Stalingrad, in various armies -! 40-75 minutes. It was planned to carry out artillery support of the attack on all fronts by the method of sequential concentration of fire. Artillery support for the entry into battle of mobile formations was assigned to the artillery groups of armies and rifle divisions, and the support of their operations in the operational depth was assigned to the standard artillery and artillery attached to tank, mechanized and cavalry formations.

Air offensive as new form the operational use of aviation was specifically developed in the plans of the air armies. Its essence consisted in the continuity of support for ground forces from the air during the entire period of the offensive, including the preparation of the attack, the attack and the actions of troops in the depth of the defense. It consisted of two periods: direct aviation training and support for troops in breaking through the defenses and their actions in depth.

Great importance was attached to the engineering support of the offensive. The engineering troops had to first of all equip the crossings across the Don and Volga and the routes of approach to these crossings. The engineering troops of the Southwestern Front built 17 bridges and 18 ferry crossings across the Don, prepared 12 frontal routes, 2 main and several additional roadways. For the transfer of troops, military equipment and cargo to the right bank of the Volga southeast of Stalingrad, 10 crossings were equipped, along which more than 111 thousand people, 427 tanks, 556 guns, 6561.5 tons of ammunition were transported only from November 1 to 20. On the Don Front in November, 3 bridges and 4 ferry crossings were built across the Don. In addition, the front had several crossings across the Volga. The following fact testifies to the intensity of their work. Only by crossing in the Antipovka area (25 km south of Kamyshin) from 8 to 17 November 12,800 people, 396 guns, 1,684 cars and 822 carts were transported 1.

At the same time, the engineering troops were engaged in other types engineering support- the deactivation of minefields in the initial areas for the offensive, the laying of column routes for mobile troops during the period of their entry into battle, etc.

In preparing for the counter-offensive, it was very important to timely concentrate reserve formations in the initial regions, as well as material and technical means arriving from the depths of the country. The headquarters and agencies of the front and army rear services worked in extremely unfavorable conditions. Troops and material and technical means were delivered along three single-track railway tracks, which were under constant enemy air pressure. The formations, which were moving to the initial regions on their own, as well as automobile and horse-drawn transport with cargo, had to overcome significant difficulties due to the autumn thaw and the complexity of river crossings.

A large amount of work in preparation for the operation was carried out by the Volga military flotilla under the command of Rear Admiral D. D. Rogachev. Its ships carried out transportation on all the main crossings of the Stalingrad Front. In September-November 1942, the flotilla transported 65 thousand soldiers to the right bank of the Volga, up to 2.5 thousand tons of various cargo, and on return flights evacuated more than 30 thousand wounded and tens of thousands of civilians. In addition, she sailed along the Volga, covering a large number of transport ships from enemy aircraft2.

All preparatory measures were carried out in strict secrecy.

In connection with the autumn ice drift that began on November 12, the level of the Volga rose and in a number of places the approaches to the crossings were flooded. This further complicated the delivery of troops and goods to the right bank. From the high right bank of the Don, the enemy in clear weather could view the terrain for a long distance. Therefore, in order to achieve secrecy of operational regroupings and supply shipments, any movements in the rear of the Soviet troops were carried out only at night or in inclement weather.

1 Great Victory on the Volga, pp. 236, 243, 246.

2 History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1041 - 1945. T. 3. M., 1964, p. 22.

All these circumstances did not allow the preparation of the operation to be completed by the scheduled date. The beginning of the offensive had to be postponed for several days. On November 13, Generals G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky, returning from the Stalingrad region to Moscow, reported at a joint meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, GKO and Headquarters on the state of preparation of the fronts for the upcoming counteroffensive. At the same time, the final dates for the start of the operation were determined: for the Southwestern and Don fronts - November 19, for the Stalingrad - November 20.

By mid-November, as a result of the efforts of the Supreme Command Headquarters and its representatives in the fronts, the intense activity of the troops, the command and staffs of all levels, units and agencies of the rear, the preparation for the operation was basically completed. However, the situation with the accumulation of ammunition was not entirely safe (Table 8).

Table 8 Provision of the fronts with ammunition as of November 19, 1942 (in combat kits) 1

Ammunition types	Fronts
Ammunition types	Southwestern	Donskoy	Stalingrad
82 mm mines
120mm mines
76 mm PA shells
76 mm shells YES
122 mm howitzer shells
122 mm cannon shells
152 mm howitzer shells

As can be seen from Table 8, the Southwestern Front was better supplied with ammunition. In the Don and Stalingrad fronts, ammunition, especially mines, was clearly lacking, which made itself felt already in the first days of the offensive.

The presence of fuel in the fronts is shown in Table 9.
Table 9 Fuel supply to the fronts as of November 19, 19422

Table 9 Provision of the fronts with fuel as of November 19, 1942 2

Fuel types	Fuel availability
Fuel types	in tons	in gas stations
High-octane gasolines	6628
Gasolines B-70, KB-70	4006	10,6
Car gasoline	8595
Diesel fuel	5578
Kerosene tractor and ligro in	6074	11,3

The table shows that the fronts had a very limited amount of fuel for road transport. Its lack had a negative impact on the actions of the troops during the operation.

1 The Stalingrad Epic, p. 433.

2 IVI. Documents and materials, inv. No. 1284, fol. 52.

Before the offensive, party-political work was widely developed in the troops, which was led by military councils and political agencies of the army fronts, commanders and political workers of all levels. Generals A.S. Zheltov, K.F. Telegin, N. S. Khrushchev were members of the military councils of the fronts, and the chiefs of political departments were Generals M.V. Rudakov, S.F. Galadzhev, P.I.Doronin. All the activities of political agencies, party and Komsomol organizations during this period were aimed at solving the main task - the all-round improvement of the political and moral state of the troops, mobilizing them for the successful fulfillment of combat missions, ensuring a high offensive impulse of soldiers during the operation.

The preparations for the offensive coincided with the 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. In the appeals of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), in the report of the Chairman of the State Defense Committee, in the festive order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 345 of November 7, 1942, firm confidence in victory was expressed. “The enemy has already experienced the force of the blows of the Red Army near Rostov, near Moscow, near Tikhvin,” pointed out JV Stalin. Every dog has his day!" 1 These historical documents were communicated to every soldier, each of their positions was widely explained.

Considering the urgent need for continuous party influence on the personnel during the offensive, the political administration of the fronts, the political departments of the armies and formations carried out a tremendous amount of work to strengthen the primary party organizations through the most expedient placement of communists and the admission of the best soldiers to the party. By the beginning of the offensive, party organizations or party groups had been created in almost all companies and batteries. So, in the units of the 21st Army by mid-November 1942, there were 841 company and equal party organizations and 1,158 Komsomol organizations. In November alone, the party organizations of the Stalingrad Front accepted over 5,300 fighters and commanders into their ranks - three times more than in July of the same year 2.

The strengthening of the existing and the creation of new party organizations contributed to the increase in the combat effectiveness of units and subunits. Communists rallied military collectives, brought up soldiers in the spirit of courage, heroism, readiness to accomplish a feat.

One of the most important areas of party political work in the period of preparation for the offensive was educational work with a new replenishment, which in some formations amounted to about 60 percent of the personnel. It was necessary in a short period of time to instill confidence in the strength of their weapons in untrained soldiers, to cultivate courage, determination, and hatred of the enemy. Seasoned soldiers and officers passed on their experience to the newcomers, introduced them to the combat traditions of units and formations. In a solemn atmosphere, in front of the formation, young soldiers were handed personal weapons. The warriors swore to skillfully use it in battle.

Among the recruits were fighters of various nationalities. A significant part of them knew little Russian. The task has become of great importance: to bring in the replenishment more quickly, to make it combat-ready, to rally military collectives in the spirit of friendship of the peoples of the USSR. Guided by the directive of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army of September 17, 1942 No.

1 I. Stalin. About the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. M., 1953 p. 81.

2 The Stalingrad Epic, p. 447; The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941 - 1945. A Brief History. Ed. 2. M., 1970, p. 216.

"On educational work with the Red Army and junior commanders of non-Russian nationality", the commanders and political workers used various forms and methods educational work with this category of personnel. Without lowering their exactingness, they showed sensitivity and concern to the Red Army soldiers of non-Russian nationality, instilled in them love for their socialist Fatherland, hatred for the German fascist invaders 1.

The military councils and political agencies of the fronts sent servicemen who were fluent in the languages of the peoples of the USSR to work with soldiers of non-Russian nationality. In the units and formations where these soldiers constituted the majority, commanders, political workers, agitators, secretaries of party and Komsomol organizations, who spoke the national languages, were appointed. Along with political education, they taught them to masterfully use weapons and military equipment.

Newspapers in the languages of the peoples of the USSR were published on the fronts. Mass propaganda literature was sent by Rlavnoe political governance... The Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Union republics sent local newspapers to the troops, sent agitators to the front from among the most trained party workers. The letters and appeals of the working people who were sent to the front from all corners of our Motherland were of tremendous educational value. For example, at the end of October 1942, the newspaper Pravda published an appeal of the workers of Uzbekistan to the soldiers, which said: “Free son and free daughter of the Uzbek people! Your people are the brainchild of the Soviet Union. Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Azeri, Georgian, Armenian, Tajik, Turkmen, Kazakh and Kyrgyz, together with you, for twenty-five years, day and night, built our big house, our country, our culture ... Now to the house of your older brother - Russian, a German Basmach burst into the house of your brothers - a Belarusian and a Ukrainian ... But if a robber took the house from your brother, return the house to him - it's your duty, Uzbek fighter! This is your duty, all Soviet soldiers! " 2

Letters to the front came from the working people of Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and other union and autonomous republics.3 These letters of instruction were brought to every soldier, rallies, meetings, and conversations were dedicated to them. They called on the won-nos to selflessly fight for the liberation of the Soviet land. Soldiers and commanders perceived these letters as the demands of their people, their loved ones.

Among the personnel of the fronts, the appeal of the solemn meeting of the Stalingrad City Council of Working People's Deputies to the Soviet soldiers on November 5, 1942 was widely promoted. , and we are full of confidence that you will not only not surrender your positions in the future, but will inflict a crushing blow on the enemy and soon liberate our beloved city from the fascist scum.

The Soviet people and the working people of the city of Stalingrad are confident that the battle for Stalingrad will be a decisive battle and that it will serve as the beginning of the complete and final defeat of the fascist hordes ”4.

1 Archive MO, f. 62, op. 7U5436, D.V., ll. 129-160.

3 Party-political work in the Armed Forces of the USSR. 1918__1973

Historical sketch. M., 1974, p. 231.

4 In the days of the great battle. Collection of documents and materials about the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalingrad, 1958, p. 150.

Before the start of the offensive, appeals from the military councils of the fronts were read out in the troops. These inspiring documents called upon the soldiers to show courage and dedication in battle, to inflict a crushing blow on the enemy, and to fulfill combat missions with honor. Party and Komsomol meetings were held in units and divisions. The decisions taken at them obliged the Communists and Komsomol members to show examples of courage and courage, to carry all the soldiers along with them.

The broad scope, concreteness and purposefulness of party political work ensured a high political and moral state of the troops. Summing up the results of the multilateral preparations for the counteroffensive, Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky writes in his memoirs: "With a feeling of special satisfaction, we reported to the Headquarters about the high morale and fighting mood of our troops, about their confidence in success."

The order to go over to the offensive was announced to the troops of the Southwestern and Don fronts on the night of the 19th, and to the troops of the Stalingrad Front on the night of November 20, 1942.

The long-awaited first day of the historic Soviet counter-offensive on the Volga has arrived. Even before dawn on November 19, 1942, units and formations of the Southwestern and Don fronts took up their initial position. Eeyore airfields, ready-to-fly crews awaited commands to unleash their deadly cargo on the enemy. However, nature has made significant adjustments to the use of aviation and artillery. A thick fog and snowfall covered the entire area of the forthcoming hostilities in a continuous veil. The visibility did not exceed 200 m. Due to the bad weather, the aviation operated only in small groups. Artillery could only conduct unobserved fire on targets. It was necessary to transfer part of the tasks to suppress the enemy, according to the plan assigned to aviation, to artillery. However, it was decided to carry out the developed plan of the artillery offensive in the main in full.

Despite the extremely unfavorable meteorological conditions, at 0730 hours, as planned, an 80-minute artillery preparation began with a salvo of rocket artillery. Then the fire was transferred to the depths of the enemy defense. Following the explosions of their shells and mines, the attacking infantry and tanks of the 5th Panzer, 21st armies of the South-West and the strike grouping of the 65th Army of the Don fronts rushed to the enemy positions. In the first two hours of the offensive, Soviet troops in the areas of the breakthrough wedged into the enemy defenses for 2-3 km. Enemy attempts to resist fire and counterattacks were thwarted by massive Soviet artillery fire strikes and skillful actions of advancing rifle and tank units.

To quickly complete the breakthrough of the enemy's tactical defense zone and reach the operational depth by the advancing troops, the commander of the Southwestern Front decided to bring into battle the 1st and 26th tank corps of the 5th Panzer Army and the 4th Panzer Corps of the 21st Army. Together with the rifle formations, they completed the breakthrough of the defense of the 3rd Romanian army and entered the operational space. On the first day of the offensive, ground attack aviation of the 17.2nd and 16th Air Armies, operating in small groups and single aircraft, made a total of 106 sorties to suppress individual targets.

How did the fascist German command react to the unfolding events?

1 A Vasilevsky. Life's Work, p. 225.

On the morning of November 19, the main command of the ground forces, stationed in East Prussia, received a telegram from Army Group B; "A powerful artillery bombardment of the entire Romanian front northwest of Stalingrad began." The message left no doubt that the very offensive had begun, in the possibility of which the enemy so did not want to believe. With each passing hour, more and more alarming information came to the headquarters of the Wehrmacht. In order to localize the incipient breakthrough of the Soviet troops, it transferred the 48th Panzer Corps (22nd German and 1st Romanian Armored Divisions), which was in its reserve, to the disposal of Army Group B.

The command of Army Group B did not immediately determine the true direction of the main attack. At first, it believed that the Soviet troops were delivering the main blow from the Kletskaya area, and the auxiliary one from the bridgehead southwest of Serafimovich. Proceeding from this, the commander of the group, General M. Weichs, ordered the 48th Panzer Corps to deliver a counterattack in the direction of Kletskaya. However, he soon realized that the Soviet troops were delivering the main blow from the bridgehead southwest of Serafimovich, and turned the corps to the northwest in order to attack the Soviet formations that had broken through to the southwest of this point. During the maneuver, the corps divisions lost contact with each other and, acting separately, were attacked by the 1st and 26th Panzer Corps. Having suffered losses, the formations of the 48th Panzer Corps were forced to go over to the defensive.

The troops of the Southwestern Front continued to develop the offensive. On November 19, the 26th Tank Corps of General A.G. Rodin and the 4th Tank Corps of General A.G. Kravchenko, which fought for 20-35 km, were especially successful. By the end of the day, 4th Panzer Corps had captured Manoilin, and 26th Panzer Corps at dawn on November 20 broke into Perelazovsky and defeated the headquarters of the 5th Romanian Army Corps located there.

Stubborn battles on the first day unfolded in the offensive zone of the right-flank formations of the 65th Army of the Don Front, where German units defended together with the Romanian troops. The first two lines of trenches were captured relatively quickly. However, the decisive battles unfolded for the chalky heights behind them, which the enemy had turned into strong strongholds. The approaches to them were covered with minefields and barbed wire. The former commander of the 65th Army, General PI Batov, says: “We saw one of the most tense moments in the military operations of the troops. Let the reader imagine this area: winding deep ravines abut against a chalk cliff, its steep walls rise 20-25 meters. There is almost nothing to grasp with your hand. Feet slipping on the soaked chalk ... It was visible how the soldiers ran to the cliff and climbed up. Soon the entire wall was strewn with people. They broke, fell, supported each other and stubbornly crawled upward ”*. At the cost of great exertion and great heroism, the advancing troops, with the support of artillery, broke the enemy's resistance and by 16 o'clock occupied a group of heights in the Melo-Kletskop area. But the German and Romanian units, retreating to the rear line, again met them with intense fire. With heavy fighting, the 65th Army's formations advanced 3-5 km by the end of the day, but could not completely break through the first line of the enemy defense.

1 P. Batov. In campaigns and battles. M., 1966, pp. 208-209.

Thus, by the end of the first day of the offensive, the troops of the strike group of the Southwestern Front had achieved the greatest success. The defense of the 3rd Romanian army was broken through in two sectors: southwest of Serafimovich and in the Kletskaya area. The 2nd and 4th Romanian corps were defeated, and their remnants, together with the 6th Army Corps, located in the Raspopinskaya area, were swept from the flanks. Zeitzler admits that the Romanian front presented a sad picture of complete chaos and disorder, the reports painted a general picture of the panicky flight of troops when Russian tanks appeared in their deep rear 1.

The command of Army Group B, having assessed the current situation, decided to eliminate the threat of encirclement that had matured on the flanks by means of a Persian grouping of the 6th Army's forces. On the evening of November 19, General Weichs sent an order to the commander of this army, in which, recognizing the complexity of the situation and the need to take radical measures to cover the flank of the 6th Army and ensure the safety of its supply by rail, he demanded that all offensive operations in Stalingrad be stopped immediately. Weichs ordered two motorized formations, one infantry division and, if possible, one motorized auxiliary formation to be separated from the army. These four formations, reinforced with anti-tank weapons, were to be subordinated to the headquarters of the 14th Panzer Corps, concentrated in echelon behind the left flank of the army with the aim of striking in the northwestern or western direction.

Having received this order, the command of the 6th Army on the night of November 20, developed measures for its implementation, which provided for the creation of a shock group of the 14th Panzer Corps and the 14th Panzer Division subordinate to it, and a forced march to send this grouping to the Don in the Golubinsky area to inflict a flank counterattack against the Soviet forces advancing to the south. It was planned to take a bridgehead on the western bank of the Don near Kalach in order to reliably cover the bridge located there. It was planned to remove some units from the sectors of the 8th and 51st Army Corps and create a reserve of the 6th Army from them. The army headquarters from Golubinsky on November 21 was transferred to Nizhnechirskaya.

As a result of the measures taken by the enemy command, the enemy's resistance in the entire zone of offensive of the troops of the Southwestern and Don fronts on November 20 increased. Relying on the nodes of resistance and maneuvering tank units operating on the flanks and rear of the Soviet tank corps, German and Romanian troops in a number of places managed to draw the main forces of the advancing strike groupings into protracted battles. As a result, the tank corps of the Southwestern Front did not achieve noticeable success during the second day of the counteroffensive.

Combined arms formations of the 5th Tank and 21st Armies and the 8th Cavalry Corps of General M.D.Borisov and the 3rd Cavalry Corps of General I.A. On the inner flanks of these armies, in the Raspopinskaya area, it was possible to cover the 4th and 5th Romanian corps, which found themselves in the rear of the Soviet shock groupings.

On November 20, the troops of the Stalingrad Front went over to the offensive. The news of this greatly worried the German-fascist command, since the blow of the Soviet troops south of Stalingrad was completely unexpected for him.

1 3. Westphal and others. Fatal Decisions, p. 169.

2 G. Doerr. Campaign to Stalingrad (Operational review). Translated from German. M., 1957, p. 69.

Only now did the leaders of the Wehrmacht realize the seriousness of the threat hanging over the grouping of troops operating in the Stalingrad region. It finally became clear to the command of the German ground forces that neither the commander of Army Group B nor the commander of the 6th Army were able to prevent the encirclement of their troops.

The offensive of the troops of the Stalingrad Front also began in unfavorable meteorological conditions, moreover, at different times. Hoping for an improvement in the weather, the front commander postponed the start of the artillery barrage several times. And as soon as the fog cleared somewhat, the artillery of the armies, concentrated in the areas of the breakthrough, unleashed powerful fire on the enemy.

After artillery preparation, the troops of the 57th and 51st armies under the command of Generals F.I.Tolbukhin and N.I. Trufanov attacked the enemy. In a few hours, the rifle divisions of these armies broke through the defenses of the 4th Romanian army in a defile between the Sarpa lakes. Tsatsa and Barmantsak. The left-flank formations of the 64th Army, using the success of the 57th Army, launched an offensive in the direction of Elhi.

By the middle of the day, favorable conditions were created in the offensive zone of the strike group of the Stalingrad Front for the introduction of mobile formations into the breakthrough. The 4th Mechanized Corps of General V.T.Volsky entered the battle in the zone of the 51st Army. Overcoming the resistance of the scattered parts of the enemy, he advanced to a depth of 40 km2 in 17 hours and by noon on November 21 occupied the Zetas. The 4th Cavalry Corps of General T. T. Shapkin was introduced into the breakthrough late in the evening on November 20, following the 4th Mechanized Corps. Developing an offensive to the west, in the morning he next day captured the station and the settlement of Abganerovo, providing the troops of the front strike group from the south.

The 13th Panzer Corps of the 3rd General T.I. Tanaschishin, introduced into the breakthrough in the zone of the 57th Army, launched an offensive in the general direction of Nariman and by the end of the day advanced 10-15 km. The enemy put forward the 29th motorized division against him, with which the corps entered into a heavy battle.

As a result of the two days of the offensive, the troops of the fronts achieved major successes: the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies suffered a heavy defeat; the flanks of the 6th and 4th Panzer German armies were outflanked; a deep coverage of the grouping of Romanian troops in the area of Raspopinskaya became apparent.

At the same time, the troops of the 1st Guards and 5th Tank Armies of the Southwestern Front and the 51st Army of the Stalingrad Front successfully solved the problem of creating an external front of encirclement.

In this situation, the front commanders on the evening of November 20 clarified the tasks for the armies and demanded to maximize the pace of the offensive. The mobile formations were to, without getting involved in protracted battles with the counterattacking enemy, bypass his strong points 0 to move forward rapidly in order to complete the encirclement of the enemy's main forces as quickly as possible.

In connection with the deep penetration of the shock groupings of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts into the operational depth of the troops of Army Group B, Hitler's headquarters began a feverish search for a way out of the situation. At the same time, two opposite points of view on further actions 6th German Army.

The leaders of the Wehrmacht - Hitler, Field Marshal V. Keitel and Colonel General A. Jodl - considered it necessary to hold their positions in the Stalingrad area, making a small regrouping of forces - Jodl, in particular, proposed leaving the Volga sector of the 6th Army's front and strengthening its southern sector ...

1 3. Westphal and others. Fatal Decisions, p. 175.

2 Great Victory on the Volga, p. 270.

3 It was similar in composition to the mechanized corps.

Zeitzler and the command of Army Group B pushed for more radical solution: to withdraw the troops of the 6th Army from Stalingrad to the west, seeing this as the only way to avoid a catastrophe.

As a result of the discussion different options it was decided to urgently transfer two tank divisions from the North Caucasus to Stalingrad. Not wishing to reckon with the real situation, the leaders of the Wehrmacht still hoped to stop the offensive of the Soviet troops with separate counterattacks by tank formations. 6th Army received orders to remain in place. Hitler assured the commander of the army F. Paulus that he would not allow the encirclement of the army, and if this did happen, he would take measures to unblock it. He stubbornly and categorically declared: "I will not leave the Volga, I will not leave the Volga!" 1

While the fascist German command was looking for ways to prevent the impending catastrophe, the Soviet offensive continued successfully. On November 21, the 26th and 4th Panzer Corps of the Southwestern Front reached the Manoilin area and, turning sharply to the east, along the shortest route, rushed to the Don, to the Kalach area. Counterattacks by the 24th German Panzer Division against the 4th Panzer and 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps failed to delay their advance. The advance units of the 4th Panzer Corps by the end of the day approached Golubinsky. On that day, the headquarters of the 6th German army, instead of a planned redeployment, fled in panic from Golubinsky to Nizhnechirskaya.

The first adjutant of the army headquarters V. Adam describes this "displacement" as follows: "Spurred on by the fear of Soviet tanks, trucks, cars and staff cars, motorcycles, horsemen and animal-drawn vehicles rushed westward; they ran into each other, got stuck, toppled over, blocked the road. Pedestrians made their way between them, stamped, squeezed, climbed. Those who stumbled and fell to the ground could no longer get to their feet. He was trampled, moved, crushed. In a feverish quest to save own life people left everything that interfered with their hasty escape, threw down their weapons and equipment, cars completely loaded with ammunition stood motionless on the road, field kitchens and carts from the convoy ... Wild chaos reigned in Verkhne-Chirskaya. The fugitives from the 4th Panzer Army were joined by soldiers and officers of the 3rd Romanian Army and the rear services of the 11th Army Corps moving from the north. All of them, seized with panic and stunned, looked alike. All fled to Nizhnechirskaya ”2.

Meanwhile, 26th Panzer Corps was rapidly advancing towards Kalach. The timely exit of its units to the rear of the enemy largely depended on the rapid capture of the Don crossings in this area. The corps commander decided to take possession of them with a surprise night attack. This task was assigned to the forward detachment, headed by the commander of the 14th motorized rifle brigade, Lieutenant Colonel G. N. Filippov.

A few hours before dawn on November 22, the detachment began to carry out a combat mission. On approaching Kalach, it turned out that the bridge across the Don near the city had been blown up. Then local Gusev led the detachment to another bridge, located northwest of the city. Acting decisively and boldly, the detachment, unnoticed by the enemy, went along the coast to the bridge. In a short battle, the soldiers destroyed the guard of the bridge and occupied all-round defense... Attempts by the enemy, seeking to destroy a handful of brave Soviet soldiers and to return the crossing, they had no success. Towards evening, tanks of the 19th tank brigade of Lieutenant Colonel N.M. Filippenko broke through to the bridge. The success of the vanguard was consolidated. The capture of the serviceable bridge ensured the rapid overcoming of the Don River by the formations of the 20th and then the 4th tank corps.

1 3. Westphal and others. Fatal decisions; p. 174.

2 V. Adam. Difficult decision... Ed. 2. Translation from German. M., 1972. p. 176.

The next day, after a fierce battle, units of the 20th Panzer Corps occupied Kalach. The homeland highly appreciated the feat of the tankers. For the courage and heroism shown during the capture of the bridge and the capture of the cities of Kalach, soldiers and commanders were awarded orders and medals, and Lieutenant Colonels G. N. Filippov and N. M. Filippenko were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The Soviet patriot Gusev, who led the tankers along the shortest route to the crossing on the Don, was awarded the Order of the Red Star.

At a time when the mobile formations of the Southwestern Front were fighting for the crossings across the Don, brigades of the 4th Mechanized Corps of the Stalingrad Front approached them from the southeast. On November 21, they captured several important strongholds on the way to Sovetskoye, including Verkhnetsaritsynsky, where they thoroughly battered the headquarters of the 4th German Panzer Army located there. This army was dissected. By the end of November 21, the distance separating the forward formations of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts was reduced to 80 km.

To complete the encirclement of the enemy, it was necessary to increase the pace of the offensive and cut the last communications of the 6th German army as soon as possible. To accomplish these tasks, the 26th Panzer Corps had to overcome the Don with its main forces. The 8th Cavalry Corps was to develop an offensive in the direction of Oblivskaya, and the 1st Tank Corps of General V.V. Butkov was to capture the Surovikino railway station. The commander of the Southwestern Front paid special attention to the destruction of the grouping of Romanian troops in the Raspopinskaya area, the encirclement of which was actually completed by the end of November 21. In an order to the commander of the 21st Army, he demanded that the destruction of this group be completed no later than 10 a.m. on November 23 1.

The commander of the Stalingrad Front ordered the 57th and 51st armies to accelerate their advance in the direction of Sovetsky, Karpovka, in order to link up with the troops of the Southwestern Front as soon as possible. The commander of the Don Front demanded from the 65th and 24th armies to intensify actions to encircle and destroy the enemy group in the small bend of the Don.

In accordance with the tasks received, the troops of the fronts continued the offensive. The 4th Mechanized Corps successfully advanced in the north and west. His advanced units broke into the Soviet that day. The distance between the mobile formations of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts was reduced to 10-12 km.

The hopes of the command of the 6th German army to prevent a catastrophe were dispelled to dust. At 18:00 on November 22, General Paulus transmitted a report by radio to the headquarters of Army Group B, in which, in particular, he reported that the army was surrounded, fuel supplies would soon run out, the situation with ammunition was critical, and there would only be enough food for about days. He further reported that he intended to hold the remaining space at his disposal from Stalingrad to the Don. At the same time, Paulus asked to give him freedom of action in case it was not possible to organize a perimeter defense, since he believed that the situation could force the withdrawal of troops from Stalingrad and the northern sector of the front,

1 Archive MO, f. 232, op. 590, d.5, l. thirty.

to attack the Soviet troops with all their might on the southern sector of the front between the Don and the Volga and link up with the 4th Panzer Army here. In response, an order came from the Hitlerite headquarters, which categorically rejected the idea of leaving the encirclement. The commander of the 6th Army, together with the headquarters, was asked to immediately go to Stalingrad from Nizhnechirskaya, organize a perimeter defense there and wait for outside help.

The operation to encircle the enemy grouping reached its climax by 16:00 on November 23, when Colonel P.K. Rodionov from the 4th Mechanized Corps. Mobile formations of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts, reaching the Kalach, Sovetsky, Marinovka area, completed the operational encirclement of the German fascist forces. 22 divisions and more than 160 were in the cauldron separate parts, which were part of the 6th and partly 4th tank German armies. By the end of November 23, realizing the senselessness of further resistance, the enemy's Raspopin group surrendered. The troops of the 5th Panzer and 21st armies took prisoners 27 thousand soldiers and officers of the 5th and 4th Romanian corps.

The formations of the Don Front, despite the insistent demands of the Headquarters, failed to encircle the enemy grouping in a small bend of the Don south of Sirotinskaya 2. The troops of the 24th Army, which went on the offensive only on November 22, were unable to break through the heavily fortified enemy defenses and were drawn into protracted battles. The introduction of the 16th Panzer Corps into battle also did not bring the expected results. The corps was unable to complete the breakthrough of the enemy's defenses and cut off the escape routes of its Zadonsk grouping. The 11th and 8th German army corps, restraining the onslaught of the Soviet troops, slowly retreated in a southeast direction. The total length of the outer front of the encirclement between Rybny and Umantsevo by this time was over 450 km. Maximum distance between the outer and inner fronts of the encirclement on the Southwestern Front fluctuated within 100 km, and on the Stalingrad front - 20-80 km. The Soviet command was especially concerned about the fact that the smallest distance (up to 20 km) between the external and internal fronts was exactly where there was no continuous front of our troops, that is, on the Soviet, Nizhnechirskaya and Soviet, Aksai directions.

Under these conditions, it was required not only to quickly eliminate the encircled grouping, but also to solve another equally important task - to create a stable external front of the encirclement and move it as far as possible to the west in order to reliably isolate the encircled enemy troops from outside help.

The representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters in the fronts of the Stalingrad direction, Chief of the General Staff A.M. Vasilevsky, on November 23, with a regular report to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, assessing the situation and defining the tasks of the troops, believed that the enemy would immediately take all measures to rescue his encircled troops near Stalingrad with attacks from the outside. Therefore, the most important task, in his opinion, consisted in the fastest liquidation of the encircled enemy grouping and the release of their forces engaged in this operation.

1 KTB / OKW, Bd. II, S. 84, 85.

2 Archive MO, f. 132a, he. 2642, d. 32, l. 196.

At the same time, he believed that before solving this main task, it was necessary to isolate the encircled grouping from suitable fresh enemy forces as reliably as possible, and for this it was necessary to urgently create a strong external encirclement front and have sufficient reserves of mobile troops behind it. Further, A.M. Vasilevsky proposed that the troops of all three fronts, located on the internal front of the encirclement, from the morning of November 24, without any significant regrouping and additional preparation, would continue decisive actions to eliminate the encircled enemy.1 The Supreme Commander-in-Chief approved the proposal of Chief Gena, military headquarters, which, on the night of November 24, set the front commander with the task of eliminating the encircled troops.

The general plan of the fronts' actions was to dismember the encircled group and destroy it in parts by strikes in the converging directions to Gumrak. The following were involved in this task: from the west - the 21st Army of the Southwestern Front, reinforced by the 26th and 4th tank corps, from the north - the 65th, 24th and 66th armies of the Don Front, from the east and south - 62, 64th and 57th armies of the Stalingrad front. The troops of the 1st Guards and 5th Tank Armies of the Southwestern Front had to firmly gain a foothold on the occupied lines along the Krivaya and Chir rivers and prevent an enemy counterstrike from the southwest. From the south, the support of the operation was entrusted to the 4th Cavalry Corps and the rifle divisions of the 51st Army of the Stalingrad Front.

During November 24-30, the troops of the fronts continued their offensive. Overcoming the stubborn resistance of the enemy, they tightened the encirclement ring ever more closely. The weather was gradually improving. This favored the use of front-line aviation. Formations of the 17th, 16th and 8th air armies increased the activity of their operations, carrying out up to 800-1000 sorties per day. Striking the enemy, the aviation of the fronts flew about 6 thousand sorties only from November 24 to 30, of which more than half were to support the troops, exceeding the number of enemy air force sorties by 5 times.

By November 30, the territory occupied by the encircled enemy had more than halved. Its length from north to south reached 30-40 km and from west to east 70-80 km. However, it was not possible to dissect the troops trapped in the ship. The enemy withdrew his formations from the small bend of the Don and strengthened their positions west of the river Rossoshka. Having consolidated the battle formations of troops, he actively maneuvered reserves inside the encirclement ring and skillfully used advantageous defensive lines prepared in anti-tank terms. Also affected was the fatigue and losses of Soviet troops during the continuous ten-day offensive in conditions harsh winter and off-road.

One of the reasons that slowed down the liquidation of the encircled group was the fact that the number of its personnel was not precisely determined. According to the initial intelligence data of the fronts that took part in the counteroffensive, as well as the General Staff, the total number of the encircled group, commanded by Colonel General Paulus, was determined at 85-90 thousand people. In fact, it numbered, as it became known later, more than 300 thousand. Information about military equipment, especially artillery, tanks, weapons, which the encircled troops had, were also understated. In these conditions, larger forces were required to defeat the enemy. The need for reliable support of the external front of the encirclement was becoming increasingly clear.

1 A. Vasilevsky. Life's Work, pp. 229, 230.

Thus, the troops of the Southwestern, Don and Stalingrad fronts in a short time managed to encircle a large grouping of enemy troops near Stalingrad. The success of this operation was largely predetermined by the high skill of the Soviet command, which correctly chose the directions of the main strikes of the fronts and the time for the troops to go over to the counteroffensive, when the enemy's offensive capabilities were exhausted and the defense of the lines occupied by them had not yet been prepared. The attacks of the Soviet troops on converging directions and the rapid development of the offensive did not allow the enemy to take effective measures to localize the breakthrough.

A decisive role in the implementation of the encirclement operation was played by a skillfully organized and skillfully carried out artillery offensive, coordinated actions of infantry and tanks when breaking into the enemy's tactical defenses, the bold and decisive use of mobile front formations, and most of all tank and mechanized units, the heroism and courage of Soviet soldiers, their high offensive impulse and combat prowess. Commanders, political agencies, party and Komsomol organizations with all forms of party political work supported the soldiers' indomitable desire for victory, the desire to fulfill the order of the Motherland at any cost and defeat the hated enemy.

The first stage of the counteroffensive ended with the encirclement of the German fascist group at Stalingrad. Soviet troops firmly seized the strategic initiative in the southwestern direction and created the prerequisites not only for eliminating the encircled grouping, but also for conducting new offensive operations.

The fascist German command planned in the summer of 1942 to crush Soviet troops in the south of the country, seize the oil regions of the Caucasus, the rich agricultural regions of the Don and Kuban, disrupt communications connecting the center of the country with the Caucasus, and create conditions for the end of the war in their favor. This task was entrusted to Army Groups A and B.

For the offensive on the Stalingrad direction, the 6th Army under the command of Colonel-General Friedrich Paulus and the 4th Panzer Army were allocated from the German Army Group B. By July 17, the 6th German army had about 270 thousand people, three thousand guns and mortars, about 500 tanks. It was supported by the 4th Air Fleet (up to 1200 combat aircraft). The German fascist troops were opposed by the Stalingrad Front, which had 160 thousand people, 2.2 thousand guns and mortars, about 400 tanks.

It was supported by 454 aircraft of the 8th Air Army, 150-200 long-range bombers. The main efforts of the Stalingrad front were concentrated in the big bend of the Don, where the 62nd and 64th armies took up defenses in order to prevent the enemy from crossing the river and breaking it by the shortest route to Stalingrad.

The defensive operation began on the distant approaches to the city at the border of the Chir and Tsimla rivers. The headquarters of the Supreme High Command (VGK) systematically strengthened the troops of the Stalingrad direction. By the beginning of August, the German command also introduced new forces into the battle (the 8th Italian army, the 3rd Romanian army).

The enemy tried to encircle the Soviet troops in a large bend of the Don, reach the area of the city of Kalach and break through to Stalingrad from the west.

By August 10, Soviet troops withdrew to the left bank of the Don and took up defenses on the outer edge of Stalingrad, where on August 17 the enemy was temporarily stopped. However, on August 23, German troops broke through to the Volga north of Stalingrad.

On September 12, the enemy came close to the city, the defense of which was entrusted to the 62nd and 64th armies. Fierce street fighting unfolded. On October 15, the enemy broke through to the area of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. On November 11, German troops made a final attempt to capture the city. They managed to break through to the Volga south of the Barricades plant, but they could not achieve more.

With continuous counterattacks and counterattacks, the troops of the 62nd Army minimized the enemy's successes, destroying it manpower and technique. On November 18, the main grouping of the German fascist troops went over to the defensive. The enemy's plan to capture Stalingrad failed.

Even during the defensive battle, the Soviet command began to concentrate forces to launch a counteroffensive, preparations for which were completed in mid-November. By the beginning of the offensive operation, Soviet troops had 1.11 million people, 15 thousand guns and mortars, about 1.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery installations, over 1.3 thousand combat aircraft.

The enemy opposing them had 1.01 million men, 10.2 thousand guns and mortars, 675 tanks and assault guns, 1216 combat aircraft. As a result of the massing of forces and equipment in the directions of the main strikes of the fronts, a significant superiority of Soviet troops over the enemy was created: on the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts in people - 2-2.5 times, artillery and tanks - 4-5 or more times.

The offensive of the Southwestern Front and the 65th Army of the Don Front began on November 19, 1942, after an 80-minute artillery preparation. By the end of the day, the defense of the 3rd Romanian army had been broken through in two sectors. The Stalingrad Front launched its offensive on November 20.

Striking the flanks of the main enemy grouping, the troops of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts on November 23, 1942, closed the ring of its encirclement. It included 22 divisions and more than 160 separate units of the 6th army and partly of the 4th tank army of the enemy.

On December 12, the German command made an attempt to unblock the encircled troops with a strike from the area of the village of Kotelnikovo (now the city of Kotelnikovo), but did not achieve the goal. On December 16, the Soviet troops launched an offensive in the Middle Don, which forced the German command to finally abandon the release of the encircled group. By the end of December 1942, the enemy was defeated in front of the outer front of the encirclement, its remnants were thrown back 150-200 kilometers. This created favorable conditions for the liquidation of the grouping surrounded at Stalingrad.

To defeat the encircled troops by the Don Front, under the command of Lieutenant General Konstantin Rokossovsky, an operation was carried out under the code name "Ring". The plan provided for the successive destruction of the enemy: first in the western, then in the southern part of the encirclement ring, and later - the dismemberment of the remaining grouping into two parts by a strike from west to east and the elimination of each of them. The operation began on January 10, 1943. On January 26, the 21st Army joined up with the 62nd Army in the Mamayev Kurgan area. The enemy group was split into two parts. On January 31, the southern grouping of forces, led by Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, ceased resistance, and on February 2, 1943, the northern grouping, which was the completion of the destruction of the encircled enemy. During the offensive from January 10 to February 2, 1943, over 91 thousand people were taken prisoner, about 140 thousand were destroyed.

During the Stalingrad offensive operation, the German 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army, the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies, and the 8th Italian Army were defeated. The total losses of the enemy amounted to about 1.5 million people. For the first time in the war years, national mourning was declared in Germany.

The Battle of Stalingrad made a decisive contribution to the achievement of a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet armed forces seized the strategic initiative and held it until the end of the war. The defeat of the fascist bloc at Stalingrad undermined the credibility of Germany on the part of its allies and contributed to the intensification of the Resistance movement in European countries. Japan and Turkey were forced to abandon plans for active actions against the USSR.

The victory at Stalingrad was the result of the unyielding fortitude, courage and mass heroism of the Soviet troops. For military distinctions shown during the Battle of Stalingrad, 44 formations and units were given honorary names, 55 were awarded orders, 183 were reorganized into guards.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and officers have been awarded government awards. 112 of the most distinguished soldiers became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

In honor of the heroic defense of the city, the Soviet government established on December 22, 1942, the medal "For the Defense of Stalingrad", which was awarded to more than 700 thousand participants in the battle.

May 1, 1945 in the order Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalingrad was named a hero city. On May 8, 1965, in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, the hero city was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.

The city has over 200 historical sites associated with its heroic past. Among them are the memorial ensemble "To the Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad" on the Mamayev Kurgan, the House of Soldiers' Glory (Pavlov's House) and others. In 1982 the Panorama Museum "Battle of Stalingrad" was opened.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

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For two hundred days and nights, the fierce battles and battles of the Battle of Stalingrad did not subside on the vast territory between the Volga and Don rivers. This great battle in scope, intensity and impact was unmatched in history. It was the most important milestone on the path of the Soviet people to victory. In the course of a defensive battle, Soviet troops repulsed the onslaught of the enemy, exhausted and bled his shock groups, and then, in a counteroffensive, brilliant in design and execution, completely defeated the main one. The strategic offensive operation of the Soviet Armed Forces to encircle and defeat the fascist troops at Stalingrad lasted from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943. According to the nature of the operational and strategic tasks, the operation can be conditionally divided into three major stages: breaking through the defense, routing the enemy flank groupings, and the encirclement of the 6th and part of the forces of the 4th tank German armies; disrupting the enemy's attempts to unblock the encircled grouping and the development of the Soviet counteroffensive on the external front of the encirclement; completion of the rout of the encircled Nazi troops.

By the beginning of the counteroffensive, the troops of the opposing sides in the Stalingrad direction occupied the following position: the South-Western Front was deployed in a 250-kilometer strip from Upper Mamon to Kletskaya. To the southeast, from Kletskaya to Erzovka, the Don Front operated in a 150-kilometer strip. From the northern outskirts of Stalingrad to Astrakhan, the troops of the Stalingrad Front were stationed in a strip up to 450 km wide.

The fascist German troops were supported by the aircraft of the Don Air Force command and part of the forces of the 4th Air Fleet. In total, the enemy had more than 1200 aircraft in this direction. The main efforts of the enemy aviation were directed towards striking Soviet troops in Stalingrad and the crossings across the Volga and Don. In the reserve of Army Group B, there were eight divisions, including three tank divisions (of which one was Romanian). The activity of Soviet troops in other sectors of the front did not allow the enemy to transfer forces and equipment to Stalingrad.

In the course of fierce defensive battles, the fronts of the Stalingrad direction were significantly weakened. Therefore, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command, when preparing the operation, paid special attention to their strengthening. The strategic reserves that arrived at these fronts made it possible to change the balance of forces and means in favor of the Soviet troops by the beginning of the counteroffensive. Soviet troops significantly outnumbered the enemy in artillery and especially in tanks. The greatest superiority in tanks was possessed by the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts, which were assigned a decisive role in the operation. The Soviet command also managed to achieve a slight advantage over the enemy in aircraft.

Proceeding from the general strategic concept of the counteroffensive, the direct preparation of which in the fronts began in the first half of October 1942, the front commanders decided to conduct front-line operations. Having begun the assault on Stalingrad on September 13, the enemy until September 26 directed his main efforts towards capturing its central and southern parts. The fighting was extremely fierce. Over the course of two nights, September 15 and 16, the 13th Guards Rifle Division of General A.I. Rodimtsev crossed to the right bank of the Volga, arriving to replenish the bloodless 62nd Army. On September 16, the troops of the 62nd Army, with the support of aviation, took by storm the Mamayev Kurgan. 16 and 17 September, especially intense battles were fought in the center of the city.

To the aid of the bleeding 62nd army arrived the 92nd naval rifle brigade formed from the sailors of the Baltic and Northern fleets, and the 137th tank brigade, which was armed with light tanks, the 64th army, which continued to hold the lines occupied by it, diverted part of the enemy's forces to itself. 21 and 22 September, the advance detachments of the enemy broke through to the Volga in the area of the central crossing. Germans took possession for the most part cities. Reinforcements continued to arrive to help the defenders of Stalingrad. On the night of September 23, the 284th Infantry Division under the command of Colonel N.F. Batyuka. Trying to isolate the Soviet troops from the rear, the enemy fired artillery and mortar fire along the crossings.

However, the connection between Stalingrad and the eastern coast was ensured engineering troops, river civilian fleet and ships of the Volga military flotilla. In the difficult situation of street fighting, the defenders of Stalingrad showed great courage and resilience. The officers and generals leading the struggle were directly in the battle zone. The struggle in Stalingrad was fought day and night with extreme ferocity. The defense of the 62nd Army was divided into three main centers of struggle: the Market area and Spartanovka, where the group of Colonel S.F. Gorokhova; Eastern plant "Barricades", which was held by the soldiers of the 138th division; then, after a gap of 400 - 600m, the main front of the 62nd Army marched - from "Red October" to the pier. The left flank in this sector was occupied by the 13th Guards Division, whose positions passed near the Volga bank. The southern part of the city continued to be defended by units of the 64th Army.

The German troops of Paulus' 6th Army were never able to capture the entire territory of Stalingrad. In early November, ice appeared on the Volga. Communication with the right bank was broken, the Soviet soldiers ran out of ammunition, food, medicine. However, the legendary city on the Volga remained undefeated. The idea of an offensive operation in the Stalingrad region was discussed at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command already in the first half of September, the counter-offensive plan, which received the code name "Uranus", was distinguished by its purposefulness and boldness of design. The offensive of the Southwestern, Don and Stalingrad fronts was to unfold over an area of 400 square meters. km. The troops making the main maneuver to encircle the enemy grouping had to overcome the distance up to 120-140 km from the north and up to 100 km from the south with battles. Provided for the creation of two fronts to encircle the enemy - internal and external.

In the first half of November, large forces of Soviet troops were pulled up to Stalingrad, and huge streams of military supplies were transferred. The concentration of formations and their regrouping within the fronts were carried out only at night and were carefully camouflaged. The Wehrmacht command did not expect the Red Army's counteroffensive at Stalingrad. This fallacy was supported by erroneous predictions from German intelligence. According to some signs, the Nazis nevertheless began to guess about the impending Soviet offensive in the south, but they did not know the main thing: the scale and time of the offensive, the composition of the strike forces and the direction of their strikes.

In the directions of the main attacks, the Soviet command created a double and triple superiority of forces. The decisive role was assigned to four tank and two mechanized corps.

November 19, 1942 The Red Army launched a counteroffensive at Stalingrad. On November 20, the Stalingrad Front went over to the offensive. His strike forces broke through the defenses of the 4th German Panzer Army and the 4th Romanian Army, and mobile formations - the 13th and 4th mechanized corps and the 4th cavalry corps - rushed into the resulting gaps.

At dawn on November 22, in the offensive zone of the Southwestern Front, the advance detachment of the 26th Panzer Corps, led by Lieutenant Colonel G.N. Filippov, unexpectedly seized the bridge across the Don in the Kalach region and held it until the main corps forces arrived, ensuring their unhindered passage to left bank of the river.

On November 23, mobile troops of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts closed the encirclement ring around the 6th and part of the forces of the 4th tank German armies. During the period from November 24 to mid-December, in the course of stubborn battles around the enemy grouping, a continuous internal encirclement front arose. Active hostilities were also fought on the huge external front, which was created during the offensive operation.

The main command of the Wehrmacht was preparing to release the troops encircled in the Stalingrad region. To solve this problem, the enemy created the Don Army Group. It included all the troops located south of the middle reaches of the Don to the Astrakhan steppes, and the encircled group of Paulus. The commander was appointed General Field Marshal Manstein. The enemy command issued an order to conduct Operation Winter Thunderstorm. railroad Tikhoretsk - Stalingrad. The Nazis, possessing a particularly great superiority in the number of tanks and aircraft, broke through the Soviet defenses and by the evening of the first day reached the southern bank of the Aksai River between the Aksai and Myshkov rivers, a fierce tank battle unfolded. Especially stubborn struggle walked behind the Verkhne-Kumsky farm. The enemy's Kotelnikovskaya grouping, having suffered huge losses, nevertheless broke through to the Myshkov River. Until the encircled group of Paulus was only 35-40 km. However, the plans of the enemy were never realized.

The German command was powerless to restore the front on the Volga. During the December operations on the middle Don and in the Kotelnikovo area, the enemy suffered huge losses. Manstein's troops, having suffered defeat, withdrew in a southern direction, beyond Manych. By the beginning of January 1943. The Stalingrad Front was transformed into the Southern Front. His troops and the Northern Group of Forces of the Transcaucasian Front conducted offensive operations against the German fascist group "A". The aggressive plans of the Hitlerite Reich failed on the entire southern wing of the Soviet-German front. By the end of December 1942. the outer front moved away from the grouping surrounded at Stalingrad by 200-250 km. The ring of Soviet troops directly encompassing the enemy constituted the inner front. The territory occupied by the enemy was 1400 sq. km. The High Command of the Wehrmacht, despite the futility of resistance from the encircled group, continued to demand a fight “to the last soldier.” The Soviet High Command decided that it was time for the final blow. For this purpose, a plan of operation was developed, which received the code name "Ring". Operation "Ring" was entrusted to the troops of the Don Front, commanded by KK Rokossovsky.

Soviet command January 8, 1943 presented the troops of Paulus with an ultimatum in which they were asked to surrender. The command of the encircled group, following Hitler's order, refused to accept the ultimatum on January 10 at 8 o'clock. 05 minutes a volley of thousands of guns tore through the stillness of the frosty morning. The troops of the Don Front began the final liquidation of the enemy. Troops of the 65th, 21st, 24th, 64th, 57th, 66th and 62nd armies dismembered and destroyed the encircled grouping in parts. After three days of fierce fighting, the enemy's “Marinovsky ledge” was cut off. On the morning of January 15, the attackers captured the Nursery airfield, where the 65th and 24th armies met. Paulus's headquarters moved from Gumrak even closer to Stalingrad. The total area of the surrounding area has been significantly preserved and now amounted to about 600 square meters. km. On January 30, the troops of the 64th and 57th armies, dismembering the enemy's southern grouping, came close to the center of the city. The 21st Army was advancing from the northwest. On January 31, the enemy was forced to lay down their arms. It was necessary to force the enemy's northern group of forces to lay down by force, since its commander, General Strecker, rejected the offer of surrender. On February 1, powerful artillery and aviation attacks were rained down on the enemy in the morning. White flags appeared in many areas occupied by the Nazis. February 2, 1943. the northern group of troops, surrounded in the factory area of Stalingrad, also capitulated. More than 40 thousand. German soldiers and officers led by General Strecker laid down their arms. The fighting on the banks of the Volga ceased. When the encircled grouping was liquidated from January 10 to February 2, 1943. the troops of the Don Front under the command of General K.K. Rokossovsky defeated 22 enemy divisions and over 160 reinforcement and service units. 91 thousand. the Nazis, including over 2,500 officers and 24 generals, were taken prisoner. In these battles, the enemy lost over 147 thousand. soldiers and officers.

The encirclement of the Nazi troops at Stalingrad. For two hundred days and nights, the fierce battles and battles of the Battle of Stalingrad did not subside on the vast territory between the Volga and Don rivers. This great battle in scope, intensity and impact was unmatched in history. It was the most important milestone on the path of the Soviet people to victory. In the course of a defensive battle, Soviet troops repulsed the onslaught of the enemy, exhausted and bled his shock groups, and then, in a counteroffensive, brilliant in design and execution, completely defeated the main one. The strategic offensive operation of the Soviet Armed Forces to encircle and defeat the fascist troops at Stalingrad lasted from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943. By the nature of the operational and strategic tasks, the operation can be conditionally divided into three major stages of breaking through the defense, routing enemy flank groupings and encirclement The 6th and part of the forces of the 4th tank German armies disrupted the enemy's attempts to unblock the encircled grouping and the development of the Soviet counteroffensive on the external front of the encirclement, the completion of the defeat of the encircled German-fascist troops.

By the beginning of the counteroffensive, the troops of the opposing sides in the Stalingrad direction occupied the following position.

The Southwestern Front was deployed in a 250-kilometer strip from Upper Mamon to Kletskaya. To the southeast, from Kletskaya to Erzovka, the Don Front operated in a 150-kilometer strip.

From the northern outskirts of Stalingrad to Astrakhan, the troops of the Stalingrad Front were stationed in a strip up to 450 km wide. Fascist German Army Group B, on whose right wing the main blow of the Soviet troops was to fall, defended a front about 1400 km long. Its left-flank 2nd German army, located northwest of Voronezh, covered the Kursk direction. The neighboring 2nd Hungarian Army operated on the right bank of the Don in the Kharkov direction.

Further along the Don, from Novaya Kalitva to Veshenskaya, on the Voroshilovgrad direction was located the 8th Italian army, east, from Veshenskaya to Kletskaya, the 3rd Romanian army took up defense. In the area immediately adjacent to Stalingrad, the unsuccessful offensive battles of the German 6th Army continued persistently, and the 4th German Tank Army to the south of the city to Krasnoarmeisk. From Krasnoarmeisk and further south, the troops of the 4th Romanian Army, which was under the operational control of the 4th German Tank Army, defended themselves.

On the far right wing of the Army Group up to the Manych River, where the dividing line between Army Groups B and A passed, the 16th Motorized Division of the 4th German Panzer Army fought on a wide front. In the same place. S. 43-44. The fascist German troops were supported by the aviation of the Don Air Force command and part of the forces of the 4th Air Fleet. In total, the enemy had more than 1200 aircraft in this direction. The main efforts of the enemy aviation were directed towards striking Soviet troops in Stalingrad and the crossings across the Volga and Don. In the reserve of Army Group B there were eight divisions, including three tank divisions, one of which was Romanian. The activity of Soviet troops in other sectors of the front did not allow the enemy to transfer forces and equipment to Stalingrad.

The strategic reserves that arrived at these fronts made it possible to change the balance of forces and means in favor of the Soviet troops by the beginning of the counteroffensive. Soviet troops significantly outnumbered the enemy in artillery and especially in tanks. The greatest superiority in tanks was possessed by the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts, which were assigned a decisive role in the operation. The Soviet command also managed to achieve a slight advantage over the enemy in aircraft. Proceeding from the general strategic concept of the counteroffensive, the direct preparation of which in the fronts began in the first half of October 1942, the front commanders decided to conduct frontal operations.

The strike group of the Southwestern Front, consisting of the 5th Tank Army of General P.L. Romanenko and the 21st Army of General I.M. Chistyakov, was to go on the offensive from bridgeheads in the Serafimovich and Kletskaya areas. She had to break through the enemy's defenses, crush the 3rd Romanian army and, developing a swift offensive in the general direction of Kalach, on the third day of the operation to join up with the troops of the Stalingrad Front.

At the same time, it was envisaged by the forces of the 1st Guards Army - commander General D. D. Lelyushenko - to strike in the southwestern direction, reach the border of the Krivaya and Chir rivers and create an active external encirclement front here. Air cover and support for the troops were assigned to the 17th Air Army under the command of General S. A. Krasovsky.

The formations of the 2nd Air Army were also involved - commander General K.N.Smirnov. By the decision of the front commander, the 64th, 57th and 51st armies, commanded by Generals M.S.Shumilov, F.I.Tolbukhin and N.I. Trufanov, delivered the main blow. The shock group of the front received the task of going over to the offensive from the Sarpinskie Lakes region, crushing the 6th Romanian Army Corps and, developing an offensive to the north-west, in the direction of Sovetskiy, Kalach, here to link up with the troops of the Southwestern Front.

Part of the front's forces was supposed to advance in the direction of Abganerovo, Kotelnikovsky and create an external encirclement front at this line. The efforts of the 8th Air Army of the front, commander General T. T. Khryukin, were to be concentrated on covering and supporting the front's strike grouping. History of the Second World War 1939-1945 T. 6.M 1976. S. 45. The Don Front struck from a bridgehead in the Kletskaya area with the 65th Army of General PI Batov and from the Kachalin area with the 24th Army of General IV Galanin.

Long-range aviation was planned to be used in the zone of the Southwestern Front. Covering the troops in Stalingrad was assigned to the 102nd Air Defense Fighter Air Division. The commanders of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts, in accordance with the plan of the Supreme Command Headquarters, provided for the creation of an encirclement simultaneously with the internal and external front, the total length of which could be 300-350 km. offensive.

The armies operating in the directions of the main attacks of the 5th Panzer, 21st and 51st fronts had the greatest depth of the operation. For them, a high rate of advance was planned for mobile formations, which were to play a decisive role in completing the encirclement of the enemy grouping. The 62nd and 64th armies carried out the immediate defense of the city. The 63rd, 4th Panzer, 1st Guards, 24th and 66th armies, operating north-west of Stalingrad, continued to play an important role during the battle, and the 57th and 51st armies south of the city. the enemy struck at the junction of the 62nd and 64th armies, captured the village of Kuporosnoye and went to the Volga. The flanks of both armies were corroded, but the enemy was unable to develop the success further.

Troops of the 64th Army took up defenses on the line of the southern outskirts of Kuporosnaya, Kuporosnaya Balka, Ivanovka. 62nd Army was transferred to the Southeastern Front on August 29. The troops of this army, which was commanded by Lieutenant General V.I. Chuikov, defended the central and northern parts of the city.

Isolated from the north from the troops of the Stalingrad Front, and from the south from the main forces of the Southeastern Front, the 62nd Army was significantly inferior to the opposing enemy, both in terms of personnel and weapons. Having begun the assault on Stalingrad on September 13, the enemy until September 26 directed his main efforts towards capturing its central and southern parts. The fighting was extremely fierce.

A particularly stubborn struggle was fought in the area of Mamayev Kurgan, on the banks of the Tsaritsa, in the area of the elevator, around the stations Stalingrad-1, Stalingrad-2, on the western outskirts of Elshanka. Over the course of two nights, September 15 and 16, the 13th Guards Rifle Division of General A.I. Rodimtsev crossed to the right bank of the Volga, arriving to replenish the bloodless 62nd Army. Guards units threw German troops back from the area of the central crossing over the Volga, cleared many streets and quarters of them, and drove Stalingrad-1 out of the station. On September 16, the troops of the 62nd Army, with the support of aviation, seized the Mamayev Kurgan by storm. On September 16 and 17, especially intense battles took place in the city center. The 92nd naval rifle brigade, formed from the sailors of the Baltic and Northern fleets, and the 137th tank brigade, armed with light tanks, arrived to the aid of the bleeding 62nd army. The 64th Army, which continued to hold the lines it occupied, diverted part of the enemy's forces to itself. On September 21 and 22, the enemy's forward detachments broke through to the Volga in the area of the central crossing.

The Germans captured most of the city.

Reinforcements continued to arrive to help the defenders of Stalingrad. On the night of September 23, the 284th Infantry Division under the command of Colonel N.F. Batyuka. In the city, in the streets and squares of which fierce battles unfolded, there were still some of the inhabitants. The operational groups of the city defense committee, which remained in the city, directed the activities of the surviving enterprises.

The workers repaired damaged tanks, made weapons, shells, anti-tank weapons. Many residents of the city fought the enemy with weapons in their hands. From the end of September, the main efforts of the enemy were directed towards the capture of the northern part of the city, where the largest industrial enterprises were located. A stubborn struggle also took place in the Mamayev Kurgan area and on the extreme right flank of the 62nd Army in the Orlovka area. Street fighting took place on the territory of the workers' settlements Krasny Oktyabr and Barrikady. The main forces of the Stalingrad front were cut off by the enemy from the city.

With this in mind, the Stavka at the end of September renamed the Stalingrad Front into the Don Front. Lieutenant General K.K. Rokossovsky was appointed commander of the Don Front. The southeastern front, whose troops fought for the city, was renamed the Stalingrad Front, commanded by Colonel-General A.I. Eremenko. Later, on the right wing of the Don Front, a new South-Western Front was created, commanded by Lieutenant General N.F. Vatutin. The command of the Stalingrad Front sought to weaken the onslaught of Hitler's troops directly on the city.

For this purpose, private operations were carried out south of Stalingrad. September 29 - October 4, troops of the 51st Army launched a counterattack in the Sadovoe area. Around the same time, a second counterattack was launched by the 57th and 51st armies in the area of lakes Sarpa, Tsatsa and Barmantsak. These counterattacks forced the German command to withdraw part of the forces from the main direction, which temporarily weakened the enemy's onslaught directly on the city.

In addition, as a result of these actions, Soviet troops took possession of advantageous bridgeheads for a subsequent counteroffensive. In early October, the 62nd Army defended itself on a front 25 km long and a depth of 200 m to 2.5 km. By this time, the enemy completely occupied the territory of the city south of the Tsaritsa River to Kuporosnoye and reached the top of the Mamayev Kurgan, which allowed him to view and shoot through the positions held by the 62nd Army, as well as the crossings across the Volga. The southern part of Stalingrad Kirovsky district was staunchly defended by the 64th Army under the command of General M.S. Shumilov.

In the northern part of Stalingrad, the enemy, at the cost of incredible efforts and huge losses, took possession of the Orlovka area, and went deep into the territory of the factory settlements. The Nazis owned the territory of the central and northern parts of the city of Yermansky, Dzerzhinsky, a significant part of the Krasnooktyabrsky, Barrikadny and Traktorozavodsky districts. From the first days of October, battles began for the factories Krasny Oktyabr, Barrikady and Tractor, located to the north of the Mamayev Kurgan.

Since the end of September, the entire vast territory of the tractor plant has been engulfed in fires. Hundreds of German aircraft rained down on him from the air. The enemy strove to break through to the tractor plant and take possession of it. The approaches to it were defended by the group of Colonel S.F. Gorokhov, as well as the 112th and 308th rifle divisions of Colonels I.E. Ermolkina and L.N. Gurtieva. On the night of October 4, they were joined by the 37th Guards Rifle Division of General V.G. Zheludeva.

Armed detachments of workers also fought for their factories. A stubborn struggle went on for the Red October and Barricades factories. October 14 was the most difficult day for the defenders of Stalingrad. After a powerful air and artillery preparation, the Nazis rushed to the tractor plant and the Barricades plant. Several German divisions were advancing in a sector of about 5 km. The troops of the 37th Guards, 95th, 308th and 112th Infantry Divisions, exhausted in fierce battles, fought for every house, floor, and staircase.

After a four-hour battle, the Germans broke through to the territory of the tractor plant, and then reached the Volga. The right flank of the 62nd Army was cut off from the main forces north of the Mokraya Mechetka River, the northern group of the 62nd Army under the command of Colonel S.F. Gorokhova, captured by the Nazis from three sides and pressed against the Volga, staunchly defended. On the territory of the tractor plant, fierce battles continued until October 18.

Most of the soldiers and officers of the 37th Guards Rifle Division, on which the brunt of the struggle fell, died heroically defending the plant. The remnants of the 37th Guards and 95th Infantry Divisions were withdrawn to the outskirts of the Barricades plant, where they continued to fight. The 138th Infantry Division of Colonel I.I. Lyudnikova joined the struggle for the village and the Barricades plant. The defenders of Stalingrad held the city relentlessly. In the hands of the enemy were the Mamayev Kurgan, exits to the Volga in the area of the tractor plant and the area of the estuary of the Tsaritsa.

The territory occupied by the 62nd Army was under fire by enemy artillery and mortars, and in some places by machine-gun and automatic fire. All city buildings that were held by Soviet soldiers were destroyed by German aircraft. Their remains perished in the fire. After the Nazis reached the Volga, Stalingrad retained railway communications only on the eastern bank of the river. The German aviation, with its raids on railway tracks and stations, disrupted military transport.

Therefore, cargoes and troops sent to Stalingrad from the rear of the country were unloaded from echelons 250-300 km from the front. Then they were transferred to the crossings across the Volga along unpaved roads. Trying to isolate the Soviet troops from the rear, the enemy fired artillery and mortar fire along the crossings. However, the connection between Stalingrad and the eastern coast was provided by the engineering troops, the river civilian fleet and the ships of the Volga military flotilla.

They transported troops, weapons, ammunition, food to the right bank, and wounded soldiers and civilians were evacuated from Stalingrad to the left bank. Interacting with the troops defending Stalingrad, the military flotilla supported them with artillery fire from their ships, and landed landing groups. In the difficult situation of street fighting, the defenders of Stalingrad showed great courage and resilience. The officers and generals leading the struggle were directly in the battle zone. This allowed, for example, the command of the 62nd Army - General V.I. Chuikov, a member of the military council of the army K.A. Gurov, Chief of Staff of the Army N.I. Krylov and their associates - to ensure the continuity of control and communication with the troops.

The command posts of the divisions of this army were located 200-300 meters from the front line. The struggle in Stalingrad was fought day and night with extreme ferocity. The defense of the 62nd Army was divided into three main centers of struggle, the Rynok and Spartanovka areas, where the group of Colonel S.F. Gorokhov, the eastern part of the Barricade plant, which was held by the soldiers of the 138th division, then, after a gap of 400 - 600m, the main front of the 62nd army marched from Red October to the pier.

The left flank in this sector was occupied by the 13th Guards Division, whose positions passed near the Volga bank. The southern part of the city continued to be defended by units of the 64th Army. The German troops of Paulus' 6th Army were never able to capture the entire territory of Stalingrad. A prime example the resilience of his defenders was heroic defense Pavlov's houses.

In early November, ice appeared on the Volga. Communication with the right bank was broken, the Soviet soldiers ran out of ammunition, food, medicine. However, the legendary city on the Volga remained undefeated. The idea of an offensive operation in the Stalingrad area was discussed at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command in the first half of September. At this time, writes Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky, we were finishing the formation and training of strategic reserves, largely consisting of tank and mechanized units and formations, armed for the most part with medium and heavy tanks, stocks of other military equipment and ammunition were created.

All this allowed the Headquarters in September 1942. to draw a conclusion about the possibility and advisability of inflicting a decisive blow on the enemy in the near future. When discussing these issues at Headquarters, in which General G.K. Zhukov and I, it was stipulated that the planned counteroffensive should include two main operational tasks, one to encircle and isolate the main group of German troops operating directly in the city's area, and the other to destroy this grouping.

The counter-offensive plan, code-named Uranus, was distinguished by its purposefulness and boldness of design. The offensive of the Southwestern, Don and Stalingrad fronts was to unfold over an area of 400 square meters. km. The troops making the main maneuver to encircle the enemy grouping had to overcome the distance up to 120-140 km from the north and up to 100 km from the south with battles. Provided for the creation of two fronts to encircle the enemy - internal and external.

When choosing decisive strikes, it was taken into account that the main enemy grouping was in the Stalingrad area, and its flanks on the middle reaches of the Don and south of Stalingrad were covered mainly by Romanian and Italian troops, which had relatively low equipment and combat capability. Many Italian, Romanian and Hungarian soldiers and officers at that time asked themselves the question why they are dying in the snows of Russia, far from their homeland? In the first half of November, large forces of Soviet troops were pulled up to Stalingrad, and huge streams of military supplies were transferred.

The concentration of formations and their regrouping within the fronts were carried out only at night and were carefully camouflaged. The Wehrmacht command did not expect the Red Army's counteroffensive at Stalingrad. This fallacy was supported by erroneous predictions from German intelligence.

According to some signs, the Nazis nevertheless began to guess about the impending Soviet offensive in the south, but most of them did not know the scale and time of the offensive, the composition of the strike groups and the direction of their strikes. In the directions of the main attacks, the Soviet command created a double and triple superiority of forces. The decisive role was assigned to four tank and two mechanized corps. November 19, 1942 The Red Army launched a counteroffensive at Stalingrad.

Troops of the Southwestern and Right Wing of the Don Fronts broke through the defenses of the 3rd Romanian Army in several sectors. Developing an offensive in the southeastern direction, mobile formations in the first two days advanced 35-40 km, repelling all enemy counterattacks. The rifle formations also solved the assigned tasks. On November 20, the Stalingrad Front went over to the offensive. His strike forces broke through the defenses of the 4th German Panzer Army and the 4th Romanian Army, and mobile connections - the 13th and 4th mechanized corps and the 4th cavalry corps - rushed into the resulting gaps.

The command post of the 6th German Army was under the threat of a blow from the advancing Soviet troops, and Pauls was forced to hastily transfer it from Glubinsky to Nizhne-Chirskaya. Panic swept over the enemy. At dawn on November 22, in the offensive zone of the Southwestern Front, the advance detachment of the 26th Panzer Corps, led by Lieutenant Colonel G.N. Filippov, unexpectedly seized the bridge across the Don in the Kalach region and held it until the main corps forces arrived, ensuring their unhindered passage to left bank of the river. On November 23, mobile troops of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts closed the encirclement ring around the 6th and part of the forces of the 4th tank German armies. 22 divisions of about 330 thousand. people were surrounded.

In addition, during the offensive, large forces of the Romanian troops were defeated. During the period from November 24 to mid-December, in the course of stubborn battles around the enemy grouping, a continuous internal encirclement front arose.

Active hostilities were also fought on the huge external front, which was created during the offensive operation. Attempts to liquidate the encircled grouping on the move did not bring the expected results. It turned out that there was a serious miscalculation in the assessment of her numerical strength... Initially, it was believed that 85-90 thousand were under the command of Paulus. people, but in fact there were over 300 thousand. Therefore, the elimination of the encircled enemy required careful preparation. The main command of the Wehrmacht was preparing to release the troops encircled in the Stalingrad region.

To solve this problem, the enemy created the Don Army Group. It included all the troops located south of the middle reaches of the Don to the Astrakhan steppes, and the encircled group of Paulus. The commander was appointed General Field Marshal Manstein. To strengthen the Don army group, troops were hastily transferred from the Caucasus, from near Voronezh, Orel, as well as from France, Poland and Germany.

In front of the troops of the Southwestern Front there were 17 divisions from Army Group Don, and 13 divisions under the command of General Goth opposed the troops of the 5th Shock and 51st Armies of the Stalingrad Front. The enemy command issued an order for Operation Winter Thunderstorm. On the morning of December 12, the German troops of the Goth group launched an offensive from the Kotelnikov area, striking the main blow along the Tikhoretsk-Stalingrad railway. the forces of the 51st Army of the Stalingrad Front opposing the enemy here had significantly less manpower and resources.

The Nazis, possessing a particularly great superiority in the number of tanks and aircraft, broke through the Soviet defenses and by the evening of the first day reached the southern bank of the river. Aksai. For several days, the formations of the 51st Army under the command of Major General N.I. Trufanov fought fierce battles, holding back the enemy's onslaught on the northern bank of the river. Aksai. Taking advantage of the superiority of forces, the Germans crossed this river and began to advance to the next line - the Myshkov River.

A fierce tank battle unfolded between the Aksai and Myshkov rivers. A particularly stubborn struggle went on for the Verkhne-Kumsky farm. The enemy's Kotelnikovskaya grouping, having suffered huge losses, nevertheless broke through to the Myshkov River. Until the encircled group of Paulus was only 35-40 km. However, the plans of the enemy were never realized. The connections of the 2nd Guards Army were already approaching the line of the Myshkov River, which delayed the further advance of the Kotelnikov grouping.

On the morning of December 24, the 2nd Guards and 51st armies went on the offensive. Breaking the enemy's resistance, the Soviet troops successfully advanced and on December 29 cleared the city and the Kotelnikovo railway station from the Nazi troops. The Goth army group was defeated. The German command was powerless to restore the front on the Volga. Moreover, during the December operations on the middle Don and in the Kotelnikovo area, the enemy suffered huge losses. Manstein's troops, having suffered defeat, withdrew in a southern direction, beyond Manych. By the beginning of January 1943. The Stalingrad Front was transformed into the Southern Front.

His troops and the Northern Group of Forces of the Transcaucasian Front conducted offensive operations against the German fascist group A. The aggressive plans of the Hitlerite Reich failed on the entire southern wing of the Soviet-German front. By the end of December 1942. the outer front moved away from the grouping surrounded at Stalingrad by 200-250 km. The ring of Soviet troops directly encompassing the enemy constituted the inner front.

The territory occupied by the enemy was 1400 sq. km. The enemy, relying on a strong and deep defense, stubbornly resisted. The presence of airfields in the area of the boiler allowed him to receive aircraft. However, the doom of the encircled grouping became more and more evident every day. The high command of the Wehrmacht, despite the futility of the resistance of the encircled group, continued to demand a fight to the last soldier. The Soviet High Command decided it was time for the final blow.

For this purpose, a plan of operation was developed, which received the code name Ring. Operation Ring was entrusted to the troops of the Don Front, commanded by K.K. Rokossovsky. Soviet command January 8, 1943 presented the troops of Paulus with an ultimatum in which they were asked to surrender. The command of the encircled group, following Hitler's order, refused to accept the ultimatum. January 10 at 8 o'clock 05 minutes a volley of thousands of guns tore through the stillness of the frosty morning. The troops of the Don Front began the final liquidation of the enemy.

Troops of the 65th, 21st, 24th, 64th, 57th, 66th and 62nd armies dismembered and destroyed the encircled grouping in parts. After three days of fierce fighting, the enemy's Marinovsky ledge was cut off. Troops of the 65th and 21st armies reached the western bank of Rossoshka and the Karpovka area. The 57th and 64th armies crossed the line of the Chervlenaya River. Discipline was falling in the enemy troops, and panic was more and more frequent in subunits and units.

On the morning of January 15, the attackers captured the Nursery airfield, where the 65th and 24th armies met. Paulus's headquarters moved from Gumrak even closer to Stalingrad. The total area of the surrounding area has been significantly preserved and now amounted to about 600 square meters. km. On January 22, the troops of the Don Front stormed the enemy along the entire front. Thousands of guns and mortars paved the way for the advancing. In four days, the Soviet armies advanced another 10-15 km. The 21st Army captured Gumrak, an important stronghold of the Nazis. The distance between the troops of the 21st and 65th armies was only 3.5 km. In the first half of the day on January 26, the armies united in the area of the village of Krasny Oktyabr and on the slopes of the Mamev Kurgan.

The encircled group was divided into two groups: the southern one, pinned down in the central part of the city, and the northern one, pinned down in the Barricade area. On January 30, the troops of the 64th and 57th armies, dismembering the enemy's southern grouping, approached the center of the city. The 21st Army was advancing from the northwest. On January 31, the enemy was forced to lay down their arms.

It was necessary to force the enemy's northern group of forces to lay down their arms by force, since its commander, General Strecker, rejected the offer of surrender. On February 1, powerful artillery and aviation attacks were rained down on the enemy in the morning. White flags appeared in many areas occupied by the Nazis. February 2, 1943 the northern group of troops, surrounded in the factory area of Stalingrad, also capitulated.

More than 40 thousand. German soldiers and officers led by General Strecker laid down their arms. The fighting on the banks of the Volga ceased. When the encircled grouping was liquidated from January 10 to February 2, 1943. the troops of the Don Front under the command of General K.K. Rokosovsky defeated 22 enemy divisions and over 160 reinforcement and service units. 91 thousand. the Nazis, including over 2,500 officers and 24 generals, were taken prisoner. In these battles, the enemy lost over 147 thousand. soldiers and officers.

End of work -

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A radical change in the Second World War 1942-1943

The military operations reached the greatest scope and tension on the Soviet-German front, where in the summer they took part in the armed struggle from both .. By the fall, the length of the Soviet-German front reached almost 6200 km - .. As a result of the heroic resistance of the Soviet troops, the enemy's offensive on the southern wing of the Soviet -German ..

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