Stalingrad :: essays research papers

The attack came as a complete surprise to the leader of the Soviet centre, Joseph Stalin. Despite repeated intelligence warnings, which included the precise day and minute of arc of Germanys incipient assault, Stalin remained convinced that Hitler would not risk an eastern war as long as the British Empire remained undefeated. It has been argued that Stalin in fact think a pre-emptive attack on Germany for the early summer of 1941, and was then thrown and twisted off-balance by the German invasion.For two years Soviet forces pushed the German host back into Germany ...The evidence makes clear the defensive posture of the Soviet Union in 1941. Stalin did not want to risk war, though he hoped to sugar from the German-British struggle if he could. In the event, the shock of attack almost insane the Soviet state, and by the autumn German forces had destroyed most of the vehement phalanx and the Russian air force, surrounded and besieged Leningrad - where over one and only(a) mi llion people died of starvation and cold - and were approaching the outskirts of Moscow.The Red regular army had sufficient reserves to stop the German army from completing the gang in December 1941, but the following summer German offensives launched farther to the south of Moscow, to seize the rich oilfields of the Caucasus and to cut the Volga shipping route, created further chaos.Hitler hoped that German forces would capture the oil and sweep on through the Middle east to meet up with Axis forces in Egypt. The Volga was to be blocked at Stalingrad, after which German forces could wheel northwards to outflank Moscow and the Soviet line.The southern attack failed at Stalingrad. After weeks of chaotic retreats and easy German victories, the Red Army solidified its defence and against all the odds clung on to the battered city. In November 1942 Operation Uranus was launched by the Soviets, and the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad was encircled.Some historians have seen this as the turning point of the war.