Stalingrad By Antony Beevor Summary

Stalingrad, by Antony Beevor, is a book on the fatal battle of Stalingrad in World War 2. The author stated in the book, “The idea behind this book is to show, within the framework of a conventional historical narrative, the experience of troops on both sides1, using a wide range of new material, especially from archives in Russia.” The author’s sources for the book included war diaries, chaplains’ reports, personal accounts, letters, NKVD2 interrogations of German and other prisoners, personal diaries, and interviews with participants. The preface ends with the author thanking all who had helped him in his research for the making of this book.

On June 21st, 1941, the Soviet Embassy received an urgent signal from Moscow demanding “an important
clarification” of huge German military preparations along the frontiers from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Officials from the Soviet Embassy called the German Foreign Office trying to arrange meetings but they were told that German officials were out of town and could not be reached by phone. As the day continued, more urgent messages from Moscow arrived demanding news on the situation. The deputy head of the NKVD had just reported that there were no fewer than “thirty-nine aircraft incursions over the border of Russia. The Soviet ambassador in Berlin dismissed the report of military divisions had deployed along the border. Officials at the Soviet Embassy tried calling the Wilhelmstrasse3 again. They were met with the same response of German officials were out of town. At midday, the Soviet Embassy tried calling another official, the head of the political department. The German Foreign Minister was actually in Berlin. The Foreign Minister was busy preparing instructions to the German Embassy in Moscow headed “Urgent! State Secret!”

The next morning, about two hours after the invasion began, the German ambassador was to convey to the Soviet government a list of grievances to serve as the pretext.
On Saturday evening, the messages from Moscow became more frantic. The Soviet Embassy rang the Willhelmstrasse every thirty minutes. In Moscow, the Soviet Foreign Minister summoned the German ambassador to the Kremlin4. The German ambassador, after overseeing the destruction of documents in the German Embassy in Russia went to the meeting at the Kremlin. He was challenged with the evidence of military preparations at the border of Russia. He did not admit that an Russian invasion from German forces was about to take place and refused to answer any more questions until he consulted with officials from Berlin. Many reports came in to Stalin, who opposed the idea that Germany would invade, hinting that Germany would start the invasion within the coming hours. Stalin could not come to terms that the situation was becoming out of his control. That night, after long discussions with senior commanders of the Red Army5, Stalin agreed to dispatch a signal to all military-district headquarters in the West. The message read, “In the course of 22nd to the 23rd of June 1941, sudden attacks by the Germans on the fronts of Leningrad, Baltic Special, Western Special, Kiev Special, and Odessa Military Districts are possible. The task of our forces is not to yield to any provocations likely to prompt major complications. At the
same time troops . . . are to be at full combat readiness, to meet a possible surprise blow by the Germans and their allies.” The navy and some senior officers in the Red Army had quietly ignored Stalin’s orders against mobilization. But for many units, the warning order, which did not go out until midnight, arrived too late.

In the Russian capital, the anti-aircraft defenses had been alerted after sensitive documents were burned in the Soviet Embassy, but most of the Russian people did not know what was happening. Confirmation was received from the commander of the Black Sea Fleet of a German bombing raid on the naval base of Sevastopol. Georgy Malenkov, one of Stalin’s closest associates, refused to believe the report of the German bombing raid. He called in private to the commander to make sure that it was not a trick by the senior officers to force Stalin to make a move against Germany. Two hours after the assault began on the western frontier, Russian officials received Nazi Germany’s declaration of war. After receiving the declaration, Russian officials rushed it to Stalin as quick as possible. When Stalin received it, he sank in chair and said nothing.

The news from the front of German bombing raids and German declaration of war was so catastrophic that Stalin summoned two of his highest officials to secretly discuss what they should do.
The Bulgarian ambassador was summoned to the Kremlin. There he was asked if he would act as intermediary6 where he refused. On June 22nd, after the Russian government being silent, the people finally heard of what was happening, though not from Stalin. Molotov7 made a speech over the radio, “Today at four o’clock in the morning, German troops attacked our country without making any claims on the Soviet Union and without any declaration of war.” Molotov’s statement gave little detail on the situation, his choice of words was uninspired, and his delivery of this statement was awkward. Although the message was poor, it created a powerful reaction throughout the Soviet Union. Reservists8 did not wait for mobilization orders from Stalin, they reported at
once.

Over three million German troops, with other armies supportive of the Axis Powers adding another million troops, left four million men waiting the invasion of the Soviet Union. “The world will hold its breath!” Hitler had declared months before during the planning of this invasion. The ultimate objective for the German Army was to establish a defensive line against Asiatic Russia9 from a line running from the Volga River10 to Archangel. The last industrial area left to Russia could then be destroyed by the Luftwaffe11.

Hitler, German officials, and the German people underestimated the power of the Soviet Union, for example, Captain von Rosenbach-Lepinski is said to have told his motorcycle reconnaissance battalion: “The war with Russia will last only four weeks.” With all the confidence Germany had, was understandable, even foreign governments’ intelligence expected the Red Army and the Soviet Union to collapse.

The Wehrmacht12 had assembled the largest invasion force ever seen at the time. The invasion consisted of over three thousand tanks, around seven thousand field guns, and over two thousand aircraft. Before the full invasion, regimental officers were told of certain “special orders” affecting the conflict ahead. They included “collective measures of force against villages.” Soviet political officers, Jews, and Partisans13 had to be handed over to the SS14 or the secret field police. Most staff officers and all intelligence officers, were told that Field Marshal von Brauchitsch’s order of April 28th, laying down the ground rules for relations between army commanders and the SS and the security police operating within the area. Many commanders of the German Army refused to even acknowledge the instructions. The commanders that did this were generally those who respected the traditional ethics of the army and disliked the Nazis and the Nazi party. Hitler’s idea of Rassenkampf, or “race war”, gave the Russian campaign its unprecedented charter.

Perhaps the cruelest weapon used by Germany was starvation. The directive of May 23rd called for the German armies in the east to expropriate15 whatever they needed, and also to send at least seven million tons of grain back to Germany every year. Nazi leaders, with their order for the armies to live off the land, did not see the consequences of taking the food away from Ukraine civilians. “Many tens of millions will starve,” predicted Martin Bormann. In spite of all the Nazi’s attempts to reshape the German Army, it was not as monolithic16 at regimental level in June 1941.

On June 22nd, the first artillery barrages began. Bridges going over river were seized by German forces before the NKVD border guards could react to what happened, and their families, which lived on the frontier near the border with them, died with them. At dawn, German infantry on the eastern horizon as point units were facing problems having to clamber into assault boats to make it over rivers. Many infantry regiments could hear the bomber planes behind them that were flying at a lower altitude in search of tank parks, headquarters, and communication centers.

The Luftwaffe’s main effort was directed against the Red Army’s aviation regiments. Pre-emptive sorties over the next nine hours destroyed over one thousand Soviet aircraft, the majority of them being parked on the ground. Many Soviet pilots were stunned to see hundreds of enemy aircraft overhead. Many tried to get off the ground to try to fight back the enemy aircraft. For the very few that did make it off the ground, they either never learned about aerial combat or knew they did not stand a chance against the superior force, leading most of the Soviet pilots trying to ram the German aircraft. A Luftwaffe general described the air battles against inexperienced pilots as infanticide17

The German panzer divisions received the order to advance as soon as German infantry had secured the bridges and crossings. The task of the panzer formations was to cut through and then encircle the majority of the Red Army. This was the Wehrmacht’s plan to destroy the Red Army’s strength to fight back, then to advance to their three main objectives, Leningrad, Moscow, and Ukraine, virtually unopposed. Army Group North under Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb was the one primary responsible for German’s advancement from East Prussia to the Baltic States to secure the ports, and then to Leningrad. Army Group Centre under Field Marshal Fedor von Bock was ordered to follow Napoleon’s route into Moscow once they had encircled the main concentrations of Red Army forces in the way of their path.

Hitler decided to weaken the central thrust in order to bolster18 what his generals saw as subsidiary19 operations. Hitler believed that once his armies could seize the agricultural wealth of the Ukraine and Caucasian oilfields, Germany’s invincibility was guaranteed. Army Group south under Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, soon supported on his right by a small Hungarian army and two Romanian armies, was entrusted with the task of seizing the agricultural wealth and the oilfields. The Romanian dictator, Marshal Ion Antonescu, was delighted when he received the message of this operation ten days prior to its execution. He said, ‘Of course I’ll be there from the start. When it’s a question of action against the Slavs, you can always count on Romania.”

On the anniversary of Napoleon’s proclamation from his imperial headquarters at Wilkowski, Hitler issued a long justification of the relations with the Soviet Union. Hitler lied claiming that Germany was threatened by “approximately 160 Russian divisions massed on our frontier.” Hitler then started the European crusade against Bolshevism with his shameless lie to the people of Germany.