Why Did The Battle Of Stalingrad What Was The Most Disadvantaged?

The German invasion of Stalingrad started on 22 June 1941 which was the start of summer in Russia. The Germans assumed it would be a quick victory. (Yoder, 2003) However, the battle dragged on into the severe Russian winter, weather that the Germans were not prepared for. The German 6th Army was only given summer uniforms due to the battle starting towards in the summer. This lack of preparation for the Russian winter proved disastrous to the Germans as the summer uniforms could do little to prevent the German soldiers from getting frostbite and freezing to death in the subzero temperatures. It is clear that the Russian winter had a disastrous effect on the German troops because as the battle ensued; the 6th Army took heavy losses as thousands
As the Germans had initial success in driving the Russians further back into Russian territory, Hitler had split his troops in half to attack Stalingrad and the oil fields at Caucasus (Cowley, 1996). What this means was that the 6th Army going into the Battle of Stalingrad was immediately disadvantaged because the previous German successes were owed to the use of the entire army and now the 6th Army was not large enough to overwhelm the Russians. The Germans had 3300 tanks, the Russians had 20 000. Furthermore, the Russians were in their home territory and could continually make more tanks when one was destroyed. However, the Germans were thousands of miles into Russia and had great difficulty getting supplies through, let alone more tanks (Alarcon, 1998). Hitler’s tactic of dividing the German army gave the Russians a greater chance of their counter offensive working as well as the Germans not being able to get reinforcements into the Battle of Stalingrad quickly enough to try salvage a victory. Therefore, it is evident that Hitler’s strategic error of underestimating the Russians had a great effect on the success of the Russian counter
However, this attitude brought them to Stalingrad unprepared for the onslaught that the Germans were to face. Due to having had victories all the way to Stalingrad, the Germans failed to realize how tenacious the 62nd Army would be. The 6th Army went into the Battle of Stalingrad with high expectations and underestimated of the enemy’s determination which cost them greatly (Overy, 2011). Therefore, it can be seen that it was the Germans idea that Stalingrad will be another victory for them that ended up losing the Germans the Battle of