399. Stalin: Hitler’s Downfall At Stalingrad (Part 5)

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2:55William Dalrymple:Stalingrad, one of the most brutal battles of all time. By its close, over a million soldiers would lie dead in the rubble of a ruined city. But what was the real reason that Stalingrad was chosen to host this clash of military titans? And how does Putin use this battle to his advantage today? What's he counting on us not to talk about? To guide us through this monumental moment in history, we're joined by none other than the great Sir Anthony Beaver, author of Stalingrad, a book that has redefined the way we view the battle in the West. Anthony, a very warm welcome to Empire. Thank you very much.

3:34William Dalrymple:Now, last time in the last episode, we left Stalin, and he had his back to the Volga. The terror that he had unleashed on his people had gutted his own officer corps. Hitler's invasion had come within sight of the Kremlin towers and in the summer of 1942, he issues the order that become the iron law of everything else that comes next, not one step backwards. And the place where that order would be tested past the breaking point of most armies is Stalingrad. a long industrial city strung out for more than 20 miles along the west bank of the Volga, renamed from Tsaritsyn, which you'll remember from one of our previous episodes, was a place there Stalin made his name in the civil war, however you want to take that.

4:22William Dalrymple:But by the time this battle is over, more than a million people will be dead, an entire German army will have marched into captivity, and almost none of it will ever march out again. So historians argue a great deal about what happened and how it happened. But most of them agree, Stalingrad is the hinge on which the Second World War turns. Almost everything before that is Germany advancing, almost everything after it is Germany falling back.

4:52Anita Anand:And for our younger listeners who perhaps don't know Sir Anthony's name or his book, for my generation of historians Stalingrad not only changed the way that we looked at Stalingrad indeed we looked at the second world war and and how much of it was fought in Russia rather than the version we'd been fed as children where the kind of battle of Britain and D-Day were the key moments of of the of the war but it also changed the way that history was written and I should say just before we go any further that when i first started writing history books i went to sir anthony and learnt his famous system of card indexes which i still use to this day he doesn't use it but we use it if you give them up now well i don't anymore no will it very sweet of you to

5:42William Dalrymple:say so anthony there is there is one school of thought that that suggests that hitler becomes obsessed with stalingrad because it bears the name stalin i mean how much do you think that carries any water. Well, there is an element of truth, yes, indeed, because in a way it became an ersatz victory, a replacement for his failure to capture the oil fields in the Caucasus. And that is why Beria, Stalin's chief of secret police, started to refer to Stalingrad as a battle of rams, i.e. two rams crashing together, one Stalin, the other was Hitler. And it was very much the significance of the name of Stalingrad.

6:25Anita Anand:So to remind everyone where we've got to in the story, the Germans reach the Volga on the 23rd of August 1942. And the Battle of Stalingrad opens not with infantry in the streets, but with the sky full of aircraft. That afternoon, Luftflotte No. 4, one of the primary divisions of the German Luftwaffe, generally assigned as the cream of the East European Air Force, including the highest scoring fighter unit of all time, begins the heaviest bombing raid on the entire eastern front. wave after wave close to a thousand sorties in a single day oil tanks along the river a hit the burning oil spreads out along the surface of the volga itself so the river seems to catch fire and by the time the raids cease the figure most often given for civilian dead is around 40 000 if it holds it makes the 23rd of august the deadliest day of aerial bombing anywhere before Hiroshima.

7:26William Dalrymple:Anthony, one of the reasons that civilian casualty number is so horrendously high is that civilians were forbidden to leave Stalingrad. Can you tell us why they weren't allowed out? Well, tens of thousands had fled into the city from the west, from all over the area, the Dons, Shtep and so forth. And as a result, not only were there sort of too many to evacuate, But also, Stalin believed and passed the order to the NKVD who were manning the crossing sites and the ferries to prevent the civilians from crossing over to the East Bank. This was partly because he felt that the troops would fight better if there were civilians there and it would make them defend the city.

8:15Because at this stage, the Germans had not actually reached the city. They were still outside. But in fact, of course, it meant that far more were killed than would have been the case otherwise.

8:27William Dalrymple:Was there also the thought process, Anthony, that he wanted the factories running till the last possible minute, that actually he couldn't afford to let people run away? Well, the factories were important because, of course, one of them was actually producing tanks, T-34 tanks. I mean, some of them were being rolled out and even simply being manned by factory workers, not even by soldiers. and they were actually, they didn't have any gun sights and they were just looking down the barrel to fire at the enemy.

8:56Anita Anand:We should say, Anthony, that, which I don't think we have said, is that Stalingrad is a major centre of Soviet industry. One of the reasons, not just the name, that Hitler wants to capture it is it is so important for the war effort. Yes, but one has to remember, actually, it was not a prime objective. The whole idea was not to capture Stalingrad, but actually to use it as they advanced down into the Caucasus to seize the oil fields. The original plan was they were just going to bombard it or bomb it, no more than that. And it only actually then became a real target when it was obvious that they were going to fail in their objective of capturing the oil fields.

9:35And this is why it became, if you like, the ersatz replacement for victory in the Caucasus. It was going to be a symbolic victory, really, over Stalin himself because it bore Stalin's name.

9:48William Dalrymple:Yeah, and these are two men who are egotistical enough for this to matter more than anything. Anthony, one thing that the aerial bombardment does is it makes it almost impossible to capture the city because if you've left a braille landscape, a pockmarked landscape, it's not the best place to drive your tanks into if you're Hitler's forces. You're absolutely right. It's a mistake which in fact was made on numerous occasions in the Second World War, but this was one of the most outstanding examples. If you smash a city to pieces, the rubble itself not only blocks the street, but actually provides the best defensive positions imaginable.

10:28The Russians, the Soviets, then used the rubble to bury anti-tank guns, to conceal tanks, even within the rubble. And this made it a formidable position to attack for the Germans.

10:44Anita Anand:And what happens next has very few parallels. The tidy German method of armour, artillery and aircraft all working together with perfect synchronicity stops working and the fighting shrinks. It moves indoors. It goes from room to room, cellar to cellar, even down into the sewers. And the Germans give it a name that sticks, Ratenklieg, the War of Rats. Tell us about that. It was a vicious, terrible battle. As you say, fighting in the sewers, fighting in the rubble, fighting from room to room. The whole place, one has to remember, was literally a cloud of dust of smashed masonry. Each side, they were almost unrecognizable because all of their uniforms were impregnated with the same sort of dumb-colored dust.

11:36The fighting took place with really many vicious little battles. It was Treykov, the commander of the 62nd Army, called the Stalingrad Academy of Street Fighting. And they had these little groups of, say, eight men using sharpened spades, knives, flamethrowers. It was totally unlike any form of fighting. And the Germans were thrown. They were disorientated, partly because it was taking place on different dimensions, but also because it actually lost all of their advantages, whether it was in momentum of attack, in terms of mechanized attack. Their tanks couldn't operate in the same way. And as a result, it was almost like a return to the First World War.

12:28William Dalrymple:This is the thing that Putin often draws on. It's the enormous courage of a force that has so little. Actually, these are beleaguered men who had very, very little. Hugging the enemy, I think that's an absolutely fascinating tactic. Tell us a little bit about that, because that is part of the courage that Putin draws on in the mythology of his new Russia. Well, General Treykov, the commander in Stalingrad, realized that their real disadvantage was, of course, German air superiority. especially during the day. And so that's why he ordered his troops to dig their trenches within 50 meters of the German positions, knowing that they were making much more difficult for the Luftwaffe to attack Soviet positions.

13:18And because they would be much more likely, just as likely to hit German troops as a Soviet. So that was one aspect of it. But the real point was also to keep attacking at night as well, because that would exhaust the Germans. I mean, during the month of September alone, September 1942 alone, the Sixth Army at Stalingrad fired off 25 million shots of rounds of ammunition, purely because in many cases at night, they were terrified, thinking that Russians' troops were creeping up on them. and the Russians were very clever about making provocations, pretending to make attacks, and this set off firing all down the line.

14:03Anita Anand:A nightmare to fight in for both sides. Well, I mean, the whole conditions, the smell, I mean, the place, as people described it, one has to remember there was black smoke everywhere coming from the burning refineries and oil reserves. The smash rubble meant that there was this sort of brown, dun-colored dust everywhere, there was no water. I mean, to give an idea of the pitilessness of the battle, German infantrymen would bribe Russian orphans to go and fill their water bottles in the Volga because they could get no water otherwise by offering them a crust of bread or something like that. And as soon as the Soviet authorities realized that these children, Russian children, were helping the Germans in this particular way purely to stay alive, then they ordered their snipers to shoot the children.

14:58William Dalrymple:One of the most affecting parts of your extraordinary book is the deadly river crossings, because every round of ammunition, every loaf of bread, every reinforcement that kept the 62nd Army alive had to come across the Volga by boat. So, I mean, if that's the case, that is a weak point. And that is something that will be exploited by Hitler's forces, right? You're absolutely right. I mean, for the Germans, the objective really was to try to cut off the supply chain coming across the river. These were basically the Volga flotilla, which obviously was a military organization, but also the local boatmen who had all been press ganged basically into providing the crossing supplies.

15:48The losses were appalling. But one also has to remember that actually it was also just as vital to evacuate the wounded. And I mean, we interviewed some of the young women, old women when we saw them, of course. But I mean, they were the ones who literally had been dragging the wounded off the battlefield, but having to do it on their stomachs. They were under fire, pulling the wounded on, say, a cape, all the way down to the rubber bank where these poor wounded soldiers were basically then dumped on boats and brought back to the other side. And the bravery of the young women, Russian women, in this particular battle were astonishing, whether it was the anti-aircraft gunners who were actually taking on German tanks.

16:39I mean, these were 18-year-old girls, 17-year-old girls, sometimes students. they were the ones also who were trying to defend the river crossings with either the anti-aircraft guns or also on the boats themselves so one mustn't forget that aspect in fact of the

17:00Anita Anand:fighting by the start of november 1942 the germans hold something like nine tenths of the city and They still cannot finish it. Tchikov's 62nd Army is down to a thin ribbon of ground along the river, a few hundred yards deep in places, hanging onto the factory ruins and the landing stages. And in that ribbon, a sniper war grows. Hunter stalking Hunter through the rubble. One Soviet marksman, Vasily Zipsev, is credited with more than 200 kills and becomes a legend the propagandists cannot resist. To the Germans, freezing and exhausted, it looks as though one more shove will end it but that shove doesn't come tell us uh about what happens next anthony well the sniper uh duels and all of these uh great stories were very largely uh a question of propaganda yes there were certainly some star snipers and in fact they even talked about a doctrine of sniperism um but what i have to remember is also there were petty rivalries between divisions.

18:07The reason why Zaitsev was chosen as the star in the film Enemy at the Gates, played by Jude Law, Zaitsev was a real person. But the whole question of this sniper duel with the German sniper, played by Ed Harris, is total fantasy. But it was a very clever fantasy. It was partly because they were very resentful of the way that the 13th Guards Division, Guards Rifle Division, commanded by Rodimtsev, was getting so much propaganda coverage. Both Trikov and the Batyup, the commander of the Siberian Division, in which Zaitsev was very resentful about this. And this is why Zaitsev was actually sort of chosen as the star sniper.

18:51But it was an extraordinary battle. By the way, there weren't any women snipers at this particular time. They came later. They started really from the beginning. There was one in Leningrad and there'd been one in Sevastopol. But the women snipers didn't really start and they became very effective, though. But that was the following year.

19:14William Dalrymple:I want to ask you about the civilians. But just before that, it's just a thought that occurs to me. You know, with his terror and his purges and his putches, Stalin has removed a lot of very capable people from his armed forces. Is he sort of pulling strings or has he left it to whoever, Chekhov and whoever is left to come up with their own strategies? You're quite right. This actually is the turning point in a way, one of a number of turning points, where Stalin suddenly realizes that actually it is time to give the experts, the military experts, their head. And this is where General Zhukov, the commander in chief, the general staff, and Vasilevsky, come up with a plan on the great counterattack for Stalingrad.

20:00But also, it is the time when the NKVD, the secret police of Beria, who had been such a terrible influence, not only in the purges of the Red Army, but even during the early part of the war, when they had started arresting almost any general who retreated or who even asked questions. This had been the disaster, really, of 1941. And now by autumn of 1942, Stalin had really started to see that he must not interfere so much. And this makes a big difference. And the interesting thing is, we're seeing this is where Hitler goes in the opposite direction. He is interfering more and more, Stalin is interfering less and less, and they are on totally opposite courses, where Stalin is starting to become a very effective war leader, and Hitler is actually starting to become a complete disaster.

20:57Anita Anand:Nevertheless, Anthony, your book is full of horrific descriptions of Soviet soldiers being shot by their own sides if they move back even an inch from their lines. And many of the Soviet casualties are actually NKVD and own goals, so to speak. Indeed. I mean, the obsession which had come down from the commander-in-chief, from this whole idea of not one step back, Order 227, had an appalling effect. Inevitably, under such appalling conditions, such pressure, there were many soldiers trying to desert or even cross over to the other side. Not that necessarily they were pro-German, but for example, many Ukrainians whose families were cut off in the occupied territories, they didn't know whether their families had survived or not.

21:47So quite often they crossed over hoping that they would be able to go home and somehow find their own families. The execution squads quite often were given vodka to steady their nerves. In fact, this did not exactly improve their marksmanship. And so some of these victims who were executed weren't actually dead. One of them, I mean, I remember when we found in the Russian archives, you know, it was described how this guy had been shot, thrown into a show hole, earth chucked on top of him. He'd pulled himself out. He came back. And of course, the execution squad had to be called out again to shoot him once more.

22:28All together, certainly John Erickson was the first to come up with this particular figure. There were 13 ,500 executions during the course of the whole of the Battle of Stalingrad. Now, that's not just within the city. That's outside as well, the Stalingrad campaign. But it is a staggering figure because that is more than a whole division. No British army, no American army, no French army would ever have survived at Stalingrad. It was such a bitter, such an appalling battle that only the Russians, I think, after the way they had been through such horrors already in the past and famines and everything, would actually have held on there.

23:15And I think that's something that we have to recognise.

23:17William Dalrymple:We're going to take a break in just a second. But I really want to know about what, you know, we talked about the men in uniform and how hard it was for them. But what about the civilians? The women, children, wives, children, parents who weren't allowed to leave? There's no food coming in. You've done a lot of interviews for your book. What do they talk about? How did they eat? How did they get water? What was it like for them? Because I guess they're living underground most of the time, aren't they? Well, they are. I mean, in the end, they did actually allow some to leave really right at the last moment.

23:53But I mean, altogether, we don't know how many were actually trapped in the city. We know that when the battle finally came to an end, the following year in February, there were only 10 ,000 left alive. And of those, about 1000 were children. Now, the children survived either by basically working for the Germans or they were sometimes adopted by Russian units. The very young ones were sort of adopted almost like mascots and they were fed and cared for. Most of them were literally living a totally feral existence. They were having to live off crust, steal food even from soldiers on one side or the other.

24:37Some of them survived from eating roots or berries or whatever they could find in that particular way. To describe the state of these children at the end of the battle, most of them were unable to speak. I mean, they had become literally like animals, like little wild animals. But for the women, and it was usually the women who were the civilians trapped in the cities, they had to survive somehow. In some cases, they resorted to prostitution. There were even cases of one or two brothels being opened up in the ruins because there was no other way of obtaining food. But the vast majority had then been rounded up by the Germans and then sent back to Nazi Germany as slave labor.

25:26So this is why the figure was down to about, as I say, 10 ,000 civilians by the end of the battle. But I mean, you know, we don't know how many had been trapped there as far back as August 1942.

25:41William Dalrymple:Well, with that horrifying thought in mind, we're going to take a break. Join us after the break when we talk about this story, but from the German side.

26:03Anita Anand:potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com.