Remembering Stalingrad 75 Years Later

National Review ^ | November 9, 2017 | Victor Davis Hanson

[C19fan]

It is now fashionable to demonize Russia, but most Americans have forgotten key aspects of 20th-century history, including the Russians’ fight to stop the march of Nazi Germany. Seventy-five years ago this month, the Soviet Red Army surrounded — and would soon destroy — a huge invading German army at Stalingrad on the Volga River. Nearly 300,000 of Germany’s best soldiers would never return home. The epic 1942–43 battle for the city saw the complete annihilation of the attacking German 6th Army. It marked the turning point of World War II.

[C19fan]

Perhaps but from what I understand Ivan luved Shermans. They were much more user friendly, comfortable, and more reliable than Soviet designs.

[Krosan]

Here is something interesting I have bookmarked for this topic. A navy officer talking about the counting based solely on killings.

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/57ibnm/til_that_27_million_soviet_citizens_died_in_wwii/d8siv9j/?st=j9sncgfv&sh=5ae170c4

[Jmouse007]

After the battle of Stalingrad ended over 90,000 captured German soldiers were marched into captivity. Of the over 90,000 German POW's, only approximately 5,000 were eventually released. Over 85,000 Germans died in captivity!

On the contrary, 24 of the 26 German Generals that were captured and inturned after the battle of Stalingrad survived and were released.

[NorseViking]

Many of them were half-dead upon capture after months of mulnutrition and exposure to weather during the battle. Although many more than 5000 survived and gone native never to come back to Germany. By 1955 when Khruschev amnestied them thousands had families in Russia.

[wbarmy]

First, Germans were consistently victorious before the U.S. invasion of North Africa forced Hitler to withdraw troops from Russia to bolster Rommel in Africa.

Victorious, but Pyrrhic victories which were draining them.

By 1944, fully one third of German forces were defending the western front, troops who could well have kept Hitler victorious in the East for years longer.

And we were still in Britain, threatening a second front, so those troops would have still been there, not used in the East.

Second and more important, without the US/UK second front, Stalin would certainly do what he seriously considered anyway: made a separate peace with Hitler, thus locking in Hitler's gains and freeing his forces (as in the First World War) to face any threats the West might pose.

Never happen. By that time the antipathy that the Russians and Germans had was at near psychopathic levels and the common soldier, and the people would have never accepted it. Plus, what the SS was doing to the "untermensch" was driving more people into Stalin's camp who had originally looked at the Germans as liberators.

Having lived in Russia, I can tell you the hatred they had for the Germans, and in many places, still do.

[wbarmy]

I was a close friend of a German survivor on the Eastern Front who spent a year in a Soviet Gulag. He was released from the camp and told to go home. He walked with some compatriots across Poland, back into Germany, finding out all along the way what the Nazis had been doing to the country.

Upon arriving in Stuttgart, found his wife, they both went north to Bremerhaven, got on the first boat to America they could, and then renounced their German citizenship.

Years later, I was stationed in Stuttgart, and asked if he wanted a round trip ticket to come there and spend some time with me. I wanted to hear old tales of the city. He refused and told me that as a Christian, he could never go back to that place of such evil memories.

I told my children that during their life, they would meet many people who claimed to be tough. None of them would ever be “cross the country you destroyed on foot and survive” tough.

[Bull Snipe]

9 of 10 German soldiers killed, during the war, died in the Soviet Union

[dfwgator]

Also interesting is how Germans treated the Russian POW’s.

Before using it on the Jews, the Nazis tested Zyklon-B on Russian POWs.

[dfwgator]

Having lived in Russia, I can tell you the hatred they had for the Germans, and in many places, still do.

In Poland, they hate both with equal fervor.

[dfwgator]

Operation Keelhaul was a national disgrace.

[Bull Snipe]

On my bucket list also. Near Mamayev Kurgan, is the grave of Marshal Chuikov. He is the only MSU who’s body is not interred in the Kremlin. His final request was to lie near the soldiers that served him at Stalingrad

[wbarmy]

I can only imagine, but I have to agree.

[Busko]

Was in Krakow and the hatred of both is true1 All the menus have many languages except German and Russian!

[wbarmy]

I totally agree. I met the author of a book on Operation Keelhaul, and he opened my eyes to an episode in American history I really wish I had not known about.

But the graves and the headstones are there in NJ.