Stalingrad, an Imperative of History
125
Stalingrad, an Imperative of History
Armen Oganesyan,
Editor-in-Chief of International Affairs
HIStorY doeS not KnoW the subjunctive mood, but the imperative
is well known to it. there are events, often compressed in a short period
of time, which, owing to their high spirit and purport, strongly bind
together the capabilities of the human mind and conscience for visionary
interpretations. Undoubtedly, one of those moments in history fits into the
word “Stalingrad.”
Yet, as academician alexander Chubaryan has related, a joint
russian-German history textbook offers different versions of coverage of
the gigantic battle. Well, it would be worse if these viewpoints were a
total and complete match.
the battle, while not a disgrace to the German arms, was and still is
a tragedy for Germany. I will voice a “seditious thought”: the three-day
mourning declared by Hitler after the 6th army’s destruction could have
remained as an annual national mourning since the death of so many sons
of the nation would be the best antidote to nazism, and not only in that
country.
for the Germans, this date will never be free from psychology, while
the russian point of view will always be distinguished by ontologism and
the tragic truth of winner. But each time, regardless of the assessments,
the imperative of history will rise above any private and national
approaches to the great battle on the Volga.
If there has ever been a battle in which the coming and mysterious
armageddon is reflected, that battle was the Battle of Stalingrad.
apparently, raising the curtain over the difference of views,
academician Chubaryan says that for him there is nothing new about the
controversy over whether the Battle of Stalingrad was a turning point in
the Second World War.
_______________________
this material is published as part of the rIa novosti project “from the author” //
www.rian.ru/anthois/20100204/207658418.html
126
InternatIonaL affaIrS
once the theme is set, let us listen to the imperative tread of History.
Let’s talk about the “turning-point” importance of the battle, which
“irrevocably turned” not only the tide of the war but also the tide of the
history of europe itself and humanity.
according to field Marshal Paulus, the first orders for the 1942 summer offensive came in to the 6th army as early as april of that year.
Before that, in Poltava, Hitler made a speech laying out his strategic
vision for the campaign: “My main idea: to take the Caucasus region by
defeating the russian forces as thoroughly as possible. If I do not get the
oil of Maikop and Grozny then I must end this war.”
thus, the outcome of the impending campaign on the Volga and in
southern russia was in Hitler’s belief to decide the fate of the war.
However, Hitler was quite sure that the preponderance of his forces and
the talent of his generals, as well as the German military’s fighting
prowess by far surpassed the ability of the red army. “the russian
forces were depleted in the winter and spring battles. In these circumstances, it is necessary and possible to bring the war in the east to a decisive conclusion within this year,” he said.
to understand the significance of the Stalingrad epic you need to
imagine what role it played in the context of the strategy of the third
reich and why its finale neither altered nor corrected, but brought down
and destroyed Hitler’s geopolitical goals that went far beyond the 19421943 campaign.
In a conversation with the Japanese ambassador oshima on January
3, 1942, Hitler said: “I do not intend to conduct any more offensive operations in the center of the front. My aim will be to attack on the Southern
front. I’m determined to take up again the offensive in the direction of
the Caucasus as soon as the weather is favorable. this direction is of most
vital importance. It’s necessary to get first to the oil there and then to Iran
and Iraq.”
In april, these grandiose plans were already formulated most definitely: the routing of the enemy west of the don “so as then to seize the
Caucasus oilfields and pass over the Caucasian ridge.”
the Wehrmacht generals developed operational plans to press home
the attack along the tbilisi-Kutaisi-Sukhumi line and thereby enter into
direct interaction with the turkish army. By that time, a striking force of
26 turkish divisions was waiting for the Germans to break through the
USSr border.
If that happened, turkey and Japan would be giving their consent to
Stalingrad, an Imperative of History
127
join the axis. one can say that Berlin was clearly dreaming of the Middle
east wealth they hoped soon to gain.
Let us stop here and ask ourselves: Which of the World War II battles,
in terms of their scope and impact, could turn to dust this kind of staggering ambitions of Hitler and his entourage?
for all the greatness of the
To understand the signifiBattle of Kursk, the answer of
course is negative. neither the
cance of the Stalingrad epic
Battle of Moscow, nor the
you need to imagine what
heroic defense of Leningrad
role it played in the context of
and Sevastopol, nor the openthe strategy of the Third
ing of a Second front, notReich and why its finale neiwithstanding their enormous
contribution to the victory,
ther altered nor corrected, but
could in and by themselves
brought down and destroyed
thwart such far reaching plans
Hitler’s geopolitical goals.
of the fuhrer. only the rock of
Stalingrad that fell on him
was able to crush by its weight his ambitious design for world rule.
Surprisingly, the strategic mistakes of Moscow and Berlin in the summer campaign of 1942, at the stage of their development, almost mirror
each other. Pushing the Japanese towards an alliance, Hitler in a conversation with the already mentioned Japanese ambassador tried to convince
him that the red army would be destroyed in the near summer.
“there is no salvation for them anymore… the Bolsheviks will be
thrown back so far that they will no longer tread on the cultivated soil of
europe” (there is a striking association with the words of napoleon on the
eve of crossing the russian border in 1812, when he talked about the need
to drive the russians into the wilds of the arctic, forever removing them
from european civilization).
the red army’s weakness was absolutely self-evident to Hitler.
Likewise, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the red army harbored
the same illusions in the evaluation of the enemy. By skillful misinformation Stalin, according to Zhukov, believed that the main blow would
be struck not in the south, but on the Central front, against Moscow. He
also underestimated the strength of the enemy, which led to an overall
underestimation of the situation on the Southern front.
Based on new archival records, academician Georgy Kumanyov
reveals a fatal “underestimation by the Supreme Commander of the
128
InternatIonaL affaIrS
strength and resources of the Wehrmacht and his overestimation of the
red army’s might.” the reason for these misconceptions lay in the questionable data on casualties that were provided to the General
Headquarters by russia’s foreign military intelligence, the GrU.
“according to these data,” writes the scholar, ”Germany’s armed
forces from June 22, 1941 to March 1, 1942 lost 6.5 million men, including 5.8 million in land forces, although actually the total enemy land
casualties during this time amounted to slightly more than 1 million.”
this underestimating the enemy cost the Soviet army dearly in the first
days and months of the Battle of Stalingrad.
a German correspondent wrote from the scene: “the russians who
earlier had fought hard for every kilometer kept retreating without a shot.
our advance was held up solely by destroyed bridges and by air raids.
When the russian rear guards could not avoid a fight, they would choose
a position that enabled them to hold out until dark ... it was very unusual
to go deeper into these wide steppes, seeing no sign of the enemy.”
of the early days of the defense of Stalingrad, Marshal Vasily
Chuikov wrote thus: “Units suffered heavy losses and retreated – this
does not mean that the people were withdrawing by order, in an organized
manner, from one line to another. this means that our soldiers (not even
units) were crawling out from under the German tanks, more often
wounded than not, to the next line, where they were received, combined
into units, provided for the most part with ammunition and again thrown
into battle.”
reading documents of that time, you involuntarily turn in thought to
tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace,” where history follows its course, irrespective of the will of the powerful leaders who concentrated in themselves an enormous, almost complete authority. neither of the sides
viewed a section of the front in the Volga steppes near Stalingrad as the
main and decisive one, able to hold down a huge number of all kinds of
weapons and troops.
at a meeting in Vinnitsa on September 12, 1942, Hitler cautioned
Paulus and the other generals: “the resistance near Stalingrad should
only be viewed as locally significant. they (russians) are no longer capable of undertaking broad strategic responses that could be dangerous for
us... We must take care to take the city in our hands as soon as possible,
and not let it turn into an all-devouring focus for a lengthy period of
time.”
However, despite this cautioning, Stalingrad became a “black hole,”
Stalingrad, an Imperative of History
129
drawing in one by one the finest divisions of the Wehrmacht.
Meanwhile, Stalin, while not excluding the possibility of a German
offensive on the southern front, more and more weakened it, being convinced that Hitler would fling the bulk of his forces against Moscow.
as a consequence, according to Western historians, the Germans had
almost three-fold superiority in men and artillery, and six-fold superiority in tanks, with the Luftwaffe dominating the skies. It was not until a
meeting on September 13 that Zhukov and Vasilevsky succeeded in convincing Stalin of the opportunity to mount a decisive counteroffensive
near Stalingrad, aimed at outflanking the Paulus grouping.
Stalin continued to doubt; and yet he gave permission to develop the
operation, forbidding any mention of it, even to members of the CC
Politburo and the State defense Committee.
these plans and concepts were to be brought to fruition through the
sweat, blood and death of hundreds of thousands of people during the
autumn-winter campaign, which lasted from november 19 to february 2.
on february 2, at 14:00, a lone German reconnaissance aircraft flew over
a hushed, totally destroyed Stalingrad. It sent a short radio message: “no
sign of fighting in Stalingrad.”
the irrevocability of the war’s subsequent course, for any sensible
person, let alone historians, lies, of course, not only in combat attrition
and damage.
Yet in no other battle did the Wehrmacht lose 1.5 million officers and
men, in other words, a quarter of the German troops involved on the
eastern front in its entire infinite extent. the number of German prisoners of war, according to Soviet data, exceeded 154,000; according to
German figures, 113,000.
Conferring the rank of field Marshal on Paulus, Hitler told General
Jodl: “never in military history has a German field marshal been taken
prisoner.” on the same day, January 31, Paulus was taken prisoner along
with his staff.
the list with this “never” as related to the Battle of Stalingrad could
go on. never, according to German generals, had an enemy victory
plunged the German people into such horror. to quote Lieutenant General
Siegfried Westphal: “never in all German history had there been a case
of such a terrible loss of so many troops.”
academician Kumanyov quotes General von Buttlar, who was clearly aware that the tide had turned irrevocably against Germany after
Stalingrad: “Germany not only lost the battle, but also lost a battle-tested
130
InternatIonaL affaIrS
army. It lost the glory that it had acquired at the beginning of the war and
which had already started to fade during the battles near Moscow in the
winter of 1941. It was a loss that very soon was to have an extremely negative impact on the entire course of the war...”
one Berlin diplomat testified that the crisis had engulfed all sectors
of German society, “not only the leadership and the ruling regime, but
also the whole of Germany. It is symbolized by one word – ‘Stalingrad.’”
Stalingrad shattered the dreams of Berlin to have Japan and turkey
enter into the war on its side, and soon Italy also broke alliance with the
third reich. finally, Stalingrad, by foiling all the geopolitical plans of
Hitler, prepared the ground for opening the Second front.
the allied landing in normandy was based on the premise that the
Germans at that time should not have more than 12 mobile divisions in
reserve and that they would not be able to transfer over 15 combat-ready
divisions from the eastern front. Stalingrad, having bled the Wehrmacht
white not only in numerical strength, but also in its quality, essentially
alleviated the fears of Washington and London.
But the most insightful and so different people as the great Jewish
actor Charlie Chaplin and ex-Wehrmacht general and ex-nazi Hans doerr
correctly sensed that the historical significance of Stalingrad extended
beyond the war itself.
the latter wrote: “at Poltava russia gained the right to be called a
great european power. Stalingrad commenced its rise to become one of
the two greatest world powers.” Chaplin, for his part, enthusiastically
remarked: “russia, you have won the admiration of the world. russia, the
future is yours.”
Let’s come down from the heights of the world historical significance
of the Battle of Stalingrad onto the sinful earth. People who went through
this test of fire also felt the “supra-mundaneness” and great meaning of
what was occurring.
“front-line veterans testify,” writes historian Kumanyov, “that there
are no atheists in the war trenches... the hearts of very many defenders on
the Volga were burning with appeal to God.”
from the films of previous years, we have often heard during the
attack: “for the Motherland! for Stalin!”, but as often it was “Save and
Protect!” and the first candle (in an intact church) was lighted by 62nd
army commander Vasily Chuikov, the “trench general,” as the soldiers of
this army affectionately called him.
according to testimonies by Marshal Zhukov’s daughter and
Stalingrad, an Imperative of History
131
archimandrite Ioann (Krestyankin), Georgy Zhukov “took with him a
Kazan Icon of the Mother of God on the battlefields, and Marshal Boris
Shaposhnikov carried a St. nicholas in a breast pocket throughout the
war.”
Kumanyov aptly quotes the philosopher Ivan Ilyin, “Patriotism can
and will live only in the soul for which there is something sacred on the
earth, which has had a living experience of the objectivity and absolute
dignity of this sacred thing – has gotten to know it in the shrines of its
own people.” this is not only the russian, but also the world historical
meaning of the epic of Stalingrad.
Key words: Stalingrad, German 6th army’s destruction, Georgy Zhukov, Vasily
Chuikov, Paulus, academician Georgy Kumanyov.