[5], It was only the first half of Fliegerkorps VIII's attacks that day as the second great air offensive of 23 August was carried out against the city of Stalingrad itself. The Soviet Air Force in the immediate area lost 201 aircraft from 23–31 August, and despite meager reinforcements of some 100 aircraft in August, it had 192 serviceable aircraft, which included 57 fighters. On 14 October it launched 1,250 sorties against Soviet positions west and east of the Volga and Soviet traffic along the river. In the underground post office, the postmen wrote ‘to be looked for after the war’ on letters that could not be delivered to the streets of rubble on the surface. Change ). In July attacks on railways targets more than 100 kilometres from the front line intensified, taking up almost two-thirds of all raids. By spring 1942, the Germans had stabilized their front in a line running roughly … The report from the local air defence authorities for August simply records ‘Starting from mid-August the city experienced non-stop air bombing by large groups of enemy planes.’ The assessment of casualties for the six-day period of heavier raiding arrived at a figure of over 1,815 dead and 2,698 severely injured, many of the fatalities inflicted at the Volga River crossings. Hitler instructed the German army not to withdraw from Stalingrad. ( Log Out /  On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa). There is no record in the War Diary at Supreme Headquarters, where Hitler watched closely the course of the campaign, to indicate that a heavy bombing of the city was ordered that day, but air force records show that the bomber force flew 1,600 sorties against targets in Stalingrad, dropping around 1,000 tons of bombs, though it seems likely that this took place over a six-day period and not all on 23 August. The burden of the initial defense of the city fell on the 1077th Anti-Aircraft (AA) Regiment. The city was firebombed with 1,000 tons of high explosives and incendiaries in 1,600 sorties on 23 August. [2], During the Battle of Kalach, Fliegerkorps VIII provided the German XIV and XXIV Panzer Corps' with decisive air support as the Soviet 62nd Army was encircled and destroyed west of Kalach from 8–11 August through the application of superior German firepower from all sides and especially from above. [6]`, During 23 August Luftflotte 4 flew approximately 1,600 sorties and dropped 1,000 tons of bombs on the city effectively destroying it, while three aircraft were lost. Death statistics for October were again incomplete, but those recorded numbered 380. But the number of serviceable aircraft available to von Richthofen for the drive on the Volga and the Caucasus that developed from mid-July was only around 750, divided between the VIIIth and IVth air corps, the first for the drive across the Don steppe to Stalingrad, the second to support operations further south in the Caucasus. The Destruction of Army Group Center, 1944. Save. In the end the figure of 40,000, like the ‘20,000 dead’ in Rotterdam, has fitted a popular view of German atrociousness, but not the facts. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. [7], After 23 August, Stalingrad was bombed block-by-block for a further five days. When Churchill’s interpreter, Arthur Birse, was invited to tour Stalingrad later in 1943, he found it an incredible sight: ‘A collection of scattered and broken remains … The streets, as far as I could distinguish any, were mounds of rubble. Data was recorded as incomplete, which under the circumstances is unsurprising, but the recorded death toll was 1,500 for the whole month, not including those killed by the continuous artillery fire. The destruction was monumental and complete as the entire city was put on fire and Soviet families either died or fled to ravines north of the city to escape the holocaust descending on their homes. It should have met the Minimum Requirements, but it never did. Fliegerkorps VIII lost only three aircraft that day (against Soviet claims of 90), while destroying 91 Soviet aircraft in a single day and inflicting immeasurable damage on the Soviet soldiers and civilians on the ground. by Joel Hayward (University Press of Kansas, 1998 ed., 2001 ed.) Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Stalingrad was a modern city, with wide roads, parks, and a great many more stone and concrete buildings than less modern Russian cities. The commander of the German Fourth Air Fleet for the campaign against Stalingrad was Wolfram von Richthofen, the officer who had commanded the bombing of Guernica in 1937 and the bombing of Warsaw in 1939 and who had led the ferocious aerial assault on the Crimean city of Sebastopol in June 1942. Wooden houses were immediately incinerated, leaving only their chimneys on the surface. German land forces comprising the 6th Army had advanced to the suburbs of Stalingrad by August 1942. In May and June a majority of attacks were directed at the southern Ukraine, the area around Voronezh and the Krasnodar region on the Black Sea coast leading to the Caucasus, 59 per cent of all German sorties. From early August the Soviet reports indicate attacks on warehouses, quays and industrial installations. The Russian journalist Boris Voyetekhov found himself in one of the largest underground caverns, where machinery turned out a stream of grenades, newspapers were typeset and printed, the party officials worked on their reports and artists worked on posters encouraging greater effort. Those who chose to stay or were ordered to do so lived a subterranean existence in the hundreds of caves, tunnels and storerooms on the rocky peninsula which gave a natural protection. 50,000 prisoners were taken by the Germans, 1,100 Soviet tanks were destroyed or captured and the road to Stalingrad was laid bare. During the Stalingrad airlift (Nov. 24th, 1942 until Jan. 31st, 1943) (69 days) the Luftwaffe lost 488 planes : an average of 7.07 transport planes a day. In addition they suffered a tremendous attrition rate at the hands of the Russian air force. No one doubts that by mid-September, pounded by a circle of heavy guns and tanks, bombed and dive-bombed regularly to destroy military resistance, the city was heavily destroyed. LUFTWAFFE TACTICAL OPERATIONS AT STALINGRAD 19 NOVEMBER 1942-02 FEBRUARY 1943 MAJOR ROY W. LOWER 87-1595 "insights into tomorrow" AL AA. When they did not drop bombs, the aircraft carried scrap metal – old engines, ploughs, rail track – which they dropped on the defenders. It was fantasy to assume that enough aircraft could even be organized to attempt such a feat. He also ordered better procedures and greater efforts to maximize efficiency. ISBNs: 0-7006-0876-1; 0-7006-1146-0 Hours after Richthofen's sightseeing, Kampfgeschwader 76's Junkers Ju 88 medium bombers exterminated two surprised Soviet reserve divisions on open fields 150 kilometers east of Stalingrad. The original German goal was the destruction of the Red Armyis the border battles and rapid conquest of the European part of the Soviet Union to a line c… The changing strategic focus of Axis forces in the summer of 1942 for the southern assault towards the Volga and the Caucasus (‘Operation Blue’) was signalled by the sudden increase in air attacks on railway communications across the southern zone as a prelude to the new campaign. 2 reviews By the time Hitler declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941, he knew that his military machine was running out of fuel. With no supplies and mounting casualties, Field Marshal Paulos took a momentous decision to surrender and 93,000 German troops were taken POW The Germans used several airfields to attack the cities of Gumrak, Pitomnik, Morozovskiy, Karpovka, Tatsinsky, Rossoshka and some other auxiliary ones. Stavka, the Soviet supreme command, was shocked by the speed of Wietersheim's advance. A massive, sustained Luftwaffe carpet-bomb attack on August 23 set downtown Stalingrad aflame, reducing much of it to rubble and killing thousands of noncombatants. The panzers led the attack and were on the outskirts of Stalingrad on Aug. 23, which is generally regarded as the beginning of the battle. Badanov. Interview, Loytved-Hardegg. The Luftwaffe Bombing of Stalingrad Posted on June 11, 2020 The changing strategic focus of Axis forces in the summer of 1942 for the southern assault towards the Volga and the Caucasus (‘Operation Blue’) was signalled by the sudden increase in air attacks on railway communications across the southern zone as a prelude to the new campaign. THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION – FRANCE, Prokhorovka – the unknown clash of the Great Patriotic War. He later wrote that the city was completely destroyed without any worthwhile further targets. With the failure of the Luftwaffe to maintain the air bridge and also dominate the sky over Stalingrad the German army was fighting with one hand tied behind its back. [1], Fiebig's superior's, Generaloberst Wolfram von Richthofen’s Luftflotte 4 held a 1,600 kilometer eastern frontage in July and concentrated its efforts on Stalingrad, with the air support missions in the Caucasus under Kurt Pflugbeil's Fliegerkorps IV and at the Voronezh battle being given a lower priority. By the time Operation Blue started on 28 June the German Air Force had already inflicted substantial damage on rail centres and killed an estimated 1,400 people, including the two deadliest raids so far, when 415 mostly evacuees were burned to death at Kavkazskaia station and 466 killed at the rail centre at Kochetkova. Luftflotte 4 flew 1,000 sorties per day on average from 23 August to 22 November, the bulk of which were directed at Stalingrad. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. The inhabitants lived in dugouts and cellars.’ Yet the Soviet records of the damage to Stalingrad from the air (rather than the massive damage inflicted by artillery and tanks) present quite a different picture. The army (Heer) implemented its own initiatives to increase supply effectiveness, the insufficient perfection of which had undermined the speed of the German advance since the beginning of Case Blue in June. The Soviet Eighth Air Army commanded by General T. Khriukin had only 454 aircraft when the assault started, of which just 172 were fighters. The directive envisaged three army groups, each a million men strong, undertaking a simultaneous offensive from Germany-occupied Poland and German-allied Romania and Finland. [11], Over the course of the battle through to late 1942, the Germans flew 70,000 sorties dropping over a million bombs. What if Eisenhower Had Driven On to Berlin? Hoth's Panzer Divisions outflanked the Soviets on 29 August, who fell back on Stalingrad. The local authorities counted only 173 dead after the first days of bombing, though many more died from the powerful artillery barrage. Planes lost by the Luftwaffe during the Stalingrad airlift. In September the number of raids fell from 100 to 69, mostly on the city, burning down many of the buildings still standing. By Jim Newsom. Around 400 Ju88 and He111 bombers were available. The failure of the supply programme to keep the Sixth Army fighting contributed to the cooling of relations between Hitler and Göring, and marked a turning point in the offensive capabilities of the German Air Force. Much against his will, von Richthofen was moved from the Sebastopol campaign shortly before its conclusion to set up headquarters for the new operation in which he was to play a leading part. A massive, sustained Luftwaffe carpet-bomb attack on August 23 set downtown Stalingrad aflame, reducing much of it to rubble and killing thousands of noncombatants. Joel Hayward now chronicles Luftwaffe operations during that campaign, focusing on Hitler's use of the air force as a tactical rather than strategic weapon in close support of ground forces. The Soviets continued to pour aerial reinforcements into the Stalingrad area in late September, but continued to suffer appalling losses; the Luftwaffe had complete control of the skies. Richthofen, who was disgusted by the army's lack of aggressiveness, demanded an immediate, all-out attack to take the city. Because of poor anti-aircraft defence, bombers could fly at around 2,000–3,000 metres to drop their bombs. There were too few heavy anti-aircraft guns, since Stalingrad had not been expected to be a major target. In the evening, Soviet searchlights illuminated the sky as the city burned bright, spewing smoke and flames into the sky, a sight that Generalmajor Wolfgang Pickert, commander of the 9th Flak Division, described as "fantastic". Stalingrad was enveloped in dense, volcano-like black clouds of smoke that stretched 3,500 meters into the sky. Destruction of the central water supply system that day robbed the fire service of water at a critical juncture and allowed the fires to take hold, destroying or damaging around 95 per cent of the buildings in the central district. The destruction was monumental and complete, turning Stalingrad into a sea of fire and killing thousands of civilians and soldiers. In addition to being a disaster for the German Army, the battle of Stalingrad dealt a terrible blow to the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe carpet-bombed the city and swept aside the Soviet air force, the Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily (VVS). Over the course of the 72-day operation, the Luftwaffe lost 266 Ju-52s (around one third of all their transport aircraft), 165 He-111 bombers, and … Buy Stopped at Stalingrad: Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942-43 (Modern War Studies) New e. by Joel Hayward (ISBN: 0884345218791) from Amazon's Book Store. The main objectives were Leningrad, Minsk, Kiev, and Moscow. (‘How’s it going?’). James: How many Lady pilots flew with the Luftwaffe in World War II? There is little doubt that these figures understated the actual deaths from bombing, given poor communications and the emergency conditions, but no margin of error could turn this figure into 40,000. The 390 bombers and dive-bombers available to von Richthofen pounded the city into ruins, leaving at the end only 11 undamaged buildings. At the time the Luftwaffe received the first news of the mission, the daily in-commission rate for the transport fleet in the Stalingrad area was a mere 33 to 40 percent of available aircraft. "[4], Within two days of crossing the Don, Gustav Anton von Wietersheim's XIV Panzer Corps rolled forth to reach the Volga river at Spartanovka in the northern suburbs of Stalingrad at 1600 hours on 23 August. Richthofen was excited and delighted by the one-sided massacre and wrote in his diary: "Blood flowed! On that day von Richthofen was apparently ordered by Hitler’s headquarters to bring together as many of his scattered air units as possible to support a major bombing attack on the city. The Germans obtained daylight air superiority over the Stalingrad area and exploited their edge to devastating effect. -- Richard Muller, in C. Messenger, ed, Reader's Guide to Military History Stalingrad, with 500,000 inhabitants, was on the west bank of the Volga. In the first few hours of bombing, the headquarters of the city's air defenses were bombed. The shelters were filled with stale air, making it difficult to breathe, and were piled high with a jumble of goods and luggage. As air-raid shelters in the city were extremely inadequate for the population of the Soviet metropolis and large portions of the suburban buildings were made of easily flammable wood, the death toll and destruction from the bombing was comparable to the British bombing of Darmstadt on 11/12 September 1944, when 900 tons of bombs from 226 Avro Lancaster heavy bombers killed 12,300 German citizens of the city. And there were only 500 transport aircraft on the whole Russian Front. The Suomen Ilmavoimat (Finnish Air Force). There can be little doubt that this figure, like the exaggerated death toll at Rotterdam, will not stand up to scrutiny. There were 59 raids on the Stalingrad region, four on the city itself, doing little damage but killing 99 people. From 3:18 pm on 23 August 1942 and through the night into 24 August units of Generaloberst von Richthofen’s Luftflotte 4 constantly attacked the city. By November there were 1,400 Soviet aircraft on the Stalingrad front, with more in reserve, and thanks to reforms introduced by Novikov, following his promotion to air force commander-in-chief in April, the air units were centrally controlled, fitted with radio communication and more tactically adept. As Army Group B, under the command of General Friedrich Paulus, pushed its way rapidly across the steppe towards Stalingrad, the way was paved for a bombing assault on the city. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. ( Log Out /  According to official statistics the Soviet fighter defences of 8 VA and 102 IAD PVO claimed 90 German planes shot down, in addition to 30 by anti-aircraft defense. It was accomplished largely thanks to an overwhelming deluge of German airpower. The attacks were not simply directed at destroying the city, which would be of little help in trying to capture it a few days later, but were concentrated on key military, administrative and economic targets, including the large oil-storage depots on the bank of the Volga. Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History by Peter G. Tsouras. The burning oil produced a vast fog of black smoke that contributed more than anything else to the sense that the raids on that day had substantially destroyed the city, but it was the bombing of the city centre the following day, 24 August, that did the most damage. The attacks on 23 August produced extensive damage to the main industrial installations and the communications system. ( Log Out /  In the morning of December 24, 1942 Tatsinsky Airfield was attacked, and subsequently liberated by the 24th Panzer Corps commanded by Major-General V.M. The balance of air power lay for the moment with the German Air Force. All that stood in the way was Stalingrad.Most accounts of the Battle of Stalingrad have focused on the dismal fate of the German Army. In December, having suffered multiple defeats during the summer and autumn, Soviet forces counter-attacked during the Battle of Moscow and successfully drove the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) from the environs of Moscow. [7], Wietersheim's isolated Panzer Corps was subjected to heavy Soviet counterattacks, which threatened to destroy it. The German Air Force allocated more than half of all aircraft to the Eastern Front, 1,155 in total, for Operation Blue. He also provides the best available account of the disastrous Stalingrad airlift." On that day, the Luftw… Thus the Luftwaffe failed to keep the German army supplied in the Stalingrad salient and was one of the primary causes for the surrender of the German force in Stalingrad. The city was quickly turned to rubble, although some factories survived and continued production whilst workers militia joined in the fighting. ( Log Out /  Goering must take the full blame for this sorry performance of the German Air Force. Medium Bomber strength employed included elements of KG 27, KG 51, KG 55, KG 76, and I/KG 100. The situation at Stalingrad, both at the time and since, has encouraged a popular sense of historical extremes, and there is no disguising the mounting drama as German armies, the Sixth Army under Paulus, the Fourth Panzer Army under General Hoth, pushed back the embattled Stalingrad defenders of the Soviet 62nd and 64th Armies into a narrowing zone in front of the city and, by September, back into the city itself. [10], Luftflotte 4 defeated the VVS in the airspace above the city, restricting the Soviets to night operations. DISCLAIMER The views and conclusions expressed in this document are those of the author. Luftwaffe General Martin Fiebig's Fliegerkorps VIII was tasked in July 1942 with providing air support for the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army as they captured Stalingrad and secured the northern flank of the German advance to the Caucasus oilfields. By August the German Air Force devoted one-third of all raids on the Eastern Front to the Stalingrad area, 17 per cent to the Caucasus. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Buildings crumbled under the blast effects of high explosives, while the extensive use of incendiaries torched factories, schools and houses. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. On 21 August the German army crossed the Don River and pushed on towards the city; the bank of the Volga was reached on 23 August. In December 1942 the German army was surrounded by the Russian army at Stalingrad. My beautiful bomber fleet was used up in transporting munitions and supplies … I always was against the Russian campaign.’. The failure of the Luftwaffe to supply the beleaguered 6th Army is the subject of this article. [3], LI Army Corps penetrated across the Don north of Kalach on 21 August, forcing the surprised and helpless Red Army formations to the south to fall back on Stalingrad. On 18 December 1940, Adolf Hitler issued Directive 21, for the invasion of the Soviet Union, code-named Operation Barbarossa. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bombing_of_Stalingrad&oldid=1009611245, World War II aerial operations and battles of the Eastern Front, Articles needing additional references from September 2014, All articles needing additional references, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2007, Volgograd Oblast articles missing geocoordinate data, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 1 March 2021, at 12:28. Consequences of the Stalingrad airlift operation failure The German bomber force was anyway much smaller than the later Allied forces which could indeed obliterate half a city under the right circumstances. Fiebig's air corps shot down 139 Red aircraft in three days and inflicted massive damage on Soviet ground forces. It is generally estimated that more than 40,000 people, mostly civilians, have lost their lives during the attack. The following is an interview with Anna Kreisling – The White Wolf of the Luftwaffe- of what it was like to fly the Junkers Ju-52/3m trimotor in World War II. Richthofen requested additional Junkers Ju 52 transport groups from Oberkommando der Luftwaffe and transferred Pflugbeil's groups, as well as his road transport companies, to the administrative authority of a new, specially created, "Stalingrad transport region". One of the aircraft lost was a Heinkel He177, one of a first group of 20 sent to southern Russia for trials. When Paulus and his Army Group were finally cut off and encircled at Stalingrad, Göring promised to supply the pocket using all the transport and bomber aircraft that could be spared. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. As it was, the figures of over 1,800 in August and 1,500 in September were the highest death tolls recorded in the Soviet Union from bombing throughout the war. Thousands of civilians were evacuated across the Black Sea, attacked by aircraft as they went. On 26 August a detailed Soviet Urban Committee of Defence report gave the following casualty figures; 955 dead and 1,181 wounded. Trapped in Stalingrad, men of the German 6th Army began to … Talks about the time of early … As in other more modern cities it would have been difficult to generate a firestorm sufficient to consume 40,000 people.
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