The Siege of Stalingrad

7/29/2019 The Siege of Stalingrad

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It . /SIECE OF

GRAD~ G E S OF PICTURES AND TEXT ,"6


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THIS IS THE EPIC STORY OF THE SIEGEOF

STALINGRADTOLD IN PHOTOGRAPHS, WORDS AND MAPS

FROMAUGUST 23,d, ]942, ' r o * F E BRUARY 3.d, ]943

The Communist Party of Great Britain dedicates this book to all menand women fighting Fascism. Let th e sto ry o f Stalingrad serve as aninspiration and a reminder of the sublime heights to which couragecan rise in defence of the things which humanity holds dear

T HE time is winter's end. 1943. The foodtrains arc headed south now, from Saratov.Tambov, and the regions of the Middle Volga.And they say that in their wake the birdsarc flying the birds that have not been seenon the Lower Volga since the Germans cameand stripped the forests and gutted the citiesand blasted the countryside with a hurricane ofsteel and fire.Now the Germans are gone from the LowerVolga. Now there is a smell of life about . anda smell of food in the starving villages. Eventhe ruins arc beginning to pulse with warmthagain. So the birds are returning, s trung out ina long cloud behind the trains. The trains racedown by Aleksikovo, through Kachalinsk, andnot until the line branches off at Gumrak do thepassengers see what the birds had seen frommiles back. As the train stops for a breatherat Kratenkaya, the army officers, the young

technicians, the press correspondents , crowd atthe windows and point arms, hands, fingers, eyes,field-glasses to the south-eas t. There, spread outbefore them. and straggling for miles up and downthe river, is the unforgettable city, the capital ofglory-Stalingrad.There it is, il l natura, undeniably. In that citywhich once housed half a million people, hardly ahouse stands in all the six miles between the Squareof the Heroes of the Revolution in the city's centre,to the famous Red October Works in the north.Around the central square tall buildings showtheir bones to the air, the skeletons ofbuildings that house the skeletons of men. Thetrees, the lovely squares, the roofs which the birdsquit ted last August are no longer there. Millionsof shell pocked bricks and mountains of twistedmetal are all that remain of the famous DzerzhinskyTractor Works, the factories of Red October andthe Red Barricade. Deep 1,000 lb. bomb craters,


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BEFORE THE FASCISTS CAME. STALINGRAD WAS A HAPPY. THRIVING CITYfilled with ice, pit the almos t trackless streets.And here and there a frozen corpse still staresup pale through the icc. All over the city hangsthe sick smell of rubble and death. Even thesparkling frost and the cheerful jets of steam fromthe locomotives and the lively fussy commentsof the birds cannot dissipate that shocking death-liness. And yet the city is coming back to life.Sledges pulled by sturdy Kalmuk ponies godashing across the snow. Men arc drawing waterthrough holes in the ice, and walking carefullyover the rubble with their buckets. A couple

of German Dfisoners are fussing around. helpingto build a temporary memorial to a group ofRed Army officers and men. They tr y to hammernails in with an iron bar, but the nails buckle.Without roughness, without politeness, a RedArmy man pushes them aside, as one who hasno feeling for dogs would push a dog aside.He knocks in the nails himself. Behind a sheJl-pitted wall shots are heard that echo sharplythrough the ruins. A Soviet guardsman is u n f r e e L ~ing his tommygun. A group of tiny figures trailacross the ice-women and children come out of


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THE PEOPLE OF STALINGRAD WERE PROUD OF THE HANDSOME CITY THEY HAD BUILT

THEY LOVED PEACE AND THEIR FAMILIES-THEY WERE THAT KIND OF PEOPLE4


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IN SPITE OF THE WAR, THE BIG ;>;EW RAILWAY STATIO;>; WAS GOI'iG FORWARDtheir holes in the ground and return to the city.You can hear the children even from this distance.when only a few weeks back a man shouting inhis comrade's ea r would be inaudible above thenoise of battle. ow sound carries in desolateStalingrad. The battlefield is dead. and it issordid nnd horrifying as only a dead battlefieldcan be. Round a fire a group of Red Armymen are melting snow in a bucket. One of theircomrades brings something to show them that hehas just caught among a pile of shallered brick andplaster. In the cold sunlight he stands grinning,s troking a mouse with the back of his finger.Slowly the train steams past this dC50lation.

The technicians from Moscow slart getting theirluggage together. The young men from theTramway Trust , from the Commissariat of LightInduslry and the Commissariat of Ri"er Transportget up from their seats. The doctors sent downfrom the Moscow Medical Institute oren theircarriage door as the train comes to a halt. Allare an\ious to get to work. And their work isnothing less than the restoration of the beautifulcilY of Stalingrad.Only a few months ago these twisted gianlskeletons of buildings \\-ere not so openly exposed.Then they wore a decent mask of concrete andcement. Then they \\ere skyscrapers, grain


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dt;\awl's. theatrcs and museums. StalingraiJ,with its \\- ide and himdsomc avcnues. its boulevards of sycamore and chestnut, its workers'flats in the flo\l,cring parks. was a prize city.Fe\\cr than 60.000 people lived in the woodenhuued town of Ts.uitsyn. on the Volga. Butmore than half a million li\cd in stntcly Stalingrad.Yct they MC the same city. separated by a quarterof a centur}.It \I,as to Tsaritsyn that Stalin came in June.1918. in the grim and hungry days of the Ci ... il\Var. He came ilS commissioner for food suppliesin all South Russia.The }oung SO\iet Republic \I,as hemmed inby a ring of firc from the battlefronts. Intenenlion and counter-rc\olution \\cre tr}ing to strangle50 \ iet po\\-cr. The 50 \ iet Republic was cut offfrom its supplies of ra\\- materials and grain.Moscow and Pctrograd \\ere staning. Hungerhad become thc second most dangerous enem)of the \\-orling-c1ass re\.olution.Tsarits}n \\-as the \\-cdge that di \ ided the counterre\oIutionary forces in the east and the south.HO\\ THE BREAK-THROt.:GH HAPPE:\ED

Only Tsaritsyn prc\cntcd them from linling upand dc.ding a great united blow at Moscow.Besides this. though the South was not fat, there\\-as grain. Stalin's job was I\\'ofold. To gatherfood for the star ... ing North: to prc\ent thecounter-revolution from taking Stalingrad. Tothose 1\'


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THEY S\\EEP L IKE WILDFIRE O\'ER THE DRY PLAI:\S TO STALI:-iGRAD

documents now. He \\e1ded together the forcesof the local Communist Party organisation. andwith their aid he restored order. The blackmarket wenl. The firth column went. Thev


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e ~ l s t e r n and southern fronts of the counter-rc\olulion \ \erc prc\cnled from uniting. The southernforces of the White Army \\-erc pre\ented fromad\ancing to the T"'Orlh. And by the defence ofTsarilsyn. in that t1crcc summer of 1918. Stalinand the Red Army sa\ed the SO\ iet Republicfrom stanation and COll'lpSC.That much the history books tell us. And thestory is taken up by the geography books, whichinform us that Tsaritsyn. now renamed Stalingrad.had a population of 445.000 in 1940. and thatpopulation was daily bcing swollen by workersfrom the occupied regions of the west. Welearn that Stalingrad is a 1110St imporlanl pOrlon the Volga. and that al this point the ri\er isjust O\-er a mile \... idc. An uninteresling fact?NOl to Ihe German Army Command. \"ho doubtless ringed this information in red. and \\fote inIhe margin:" New supplies to the RussianArmy must come by boat on the Volga. Allcmf[ can easily be cO\ered \,ilh gUlls by a forceon the \\-estern shore:' But "e anticipate. Letus go on "ilh the geography lesson. Exact

figures for rher transport cannot be rc\ealed.But e\en in 1937 the Volga system through Stalingrad carried mer 30 million tons of cargo. mainlytimber going south and oil going norlh. Sialingrad.then. is a considerable port. But it is not ,IS aport that it is 1110s1 famous.Tsarilsyn was a dreary little pro"incial to",nin a vast and dreary landscape. Stal ingrad was agiant city-the third largest industrial city in theUSSR. Stalingrad was the show city of the ri ....eYear Plan. What was but a blue-print on thewall of thc Gipromcz--the State Dcpartment forPlanning of Metallurgical Plants-became anactuality almost o ....ernight. There it was in thepicture, as flat as your hand, the project for a....ast industrial city. with spotless smoke stadsclear against a \\-ater-colour sky, and grecn treesthrowing out long lifeless shadm...s. And there it"as before you a year later. standing in real lifethe biggest tractor factory in the world . and roundit. coming up l ike mushrooms. vast blocks of flats.community centres, parks and gardens and pa\edsquares , theatres, monuments, museums, fi\c


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S E P T E ~ 1 B E R :"WE STANDAT THEGATES:STALl GRADIS AHOlJT TO

F ~ L L "

ing jumble of skyscrapers and elevators is one


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THE BOMBING OF STALINGRAD BEGINSuniversities, twenty-one technical colleges. Andall planned for the benefit of the ordinary citizenat the factory bench, without reference to landlords or contractors or the whims of privilegedgentry.All this much, the geography books will tcll you.Nowadays they might even include that last sentence. But there is more to a city than you willfind in a text book. Nothing of what you havejus t read above really explains why the Red Armyand the people of Stalingrad defended their l.:it)with such determination and ferocity; they werenot merely inspired by the riches of (he RedOctober Works and the Tractor Plant. nor werethey fired only by the knowledge that this sprawl-. .10

of the strategic keypoints of the present campaign,just as it was in 1918. A city is something morethan a do t on a map. It is something more thanan orderly arrangement of brick and cement andsteel and glass. A city is people, too, and whatpeople have put into it. Let us find out a littleabout the people who built Stalingrad, and perhapswe will understand better.In the office of the manager of the StalingradTractor Plant there hangs the picture of a b roadfaced man with a small moustache, a neat collarand tie, a pin-stripe suit. You can read on aplate on the frame that he is Vassily Ivanov, Chiefof Construction and First Manager of the Plant.Vassily Ivanov was indeed manager here. Butbefore he became manager of the StalingradTractor Plant he did not look like this; he worea sailor's hat with streamers and a bandol ier,

and he carried a gun with which he fought forhis comrades and for the Revolution. In 1917he was an electrician in the Navy. He taughtworkers how to make a bayonet charge in thefactory yards. In the worst years after theRevolution, big Vassily worked in the Cheka,tracking down the enemies of the Revolution and,with hiS sailor's commonsense, getting s traightto the truth in all their twisting evasions, .:is a henpecks a grain of wheat out of a heap of chaff.In May, 1920, during the bitter Polish offensive,he hunted down the Jew-baiting Ataman Maximovich in the Dikanka forests that Gogol lovedso much. That year Nestor Makhno was scavenging across the steppes of the Ukraine with hisbandit army, the Green Army, fighting againstReds and Whites alike, and looting and pillagingas he went. Ivanov and his men chased Makhnoeverywhere. They swept across the plains aft erhim, but he dodged them and refused them battle.He was the most brutal and most cunning fighterof them all-Makhno, the genius of the tachanka,the two-wheeled cart. On the tachanka, Makhnofounded a new strategy, new tactics. He dispensed with infantry , with cavalry , with art il lery ,and replaced them with hundreds of machine gunsscrewed down to light carts. Hay-ear ts trundl ingacross the sleepy steppe took towns by surprise.A beribboned wedding procession, approach ingthe headquarters of the local Soviet would open awithering fire. A man would jump down from avehide painted with garlands of flowers anddemand the surrender of the town, of its girls,its food, its wine. When the machine guns


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"HILE S ~ 1 0 K E DRIFTS O\'ER THE RUT:'\S, THE \\'O\IE:'\ A"D CHILDRE:'\ LEA\E THE CITY

THE O/,;LY CHILDREN WHO REMAINED: THE STOi'E DA/,;CERS OF THE CHILDRE/,;'S PARK


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TWO THOUSAND BOMBERS RAI:-I DOWN STEEL AND FLAME ON THE CITY

Ma"-hno could gel a fighting force togcther in :Inhour. He ('ould l..Iemobilise it in less.frunIe. the Red Arm)' leader. :.en I V"ls:-.ilyIvano\ inlo M,t"-.hno-; (',lInp to condude a deci:-.i\eIruce. It was a long shot. Nobody expcctedVassily to return. Ten Makhno gunmen mel

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him al a little railway siding :md drove him 10their ')ccrct headquarters in Starobelsk. In


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FOR MONTHS, THE SMOKE OF BLAZING STALINGRAD DRIFTS OVER THE VOLGA

out. For three months he reasoned and arguedand gradually WOIl over the Green Army com-mander... He returned .dive. and successful.E\erything Vassily turned his hand to "..assw.xc ...rul. By 1921 the big cheerful sai lo r wa"chief of the 801rd of M c t ~ l l l u r g i c a l Jndustries in

the Ukraine. Under control of the Board wereabout 800 planh. turning OUI s p 3 d e ~ . for"s,cigarcllc lighkrs. All over the Ukraine thef u r n a c e ~ '\-cre raked out. Vassily ..,el Iht" hea\)industry on its feel again. The SOviet Govern-ment mmed him south. and he built the first ore

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notation plant in Vladikavkaz. He was anorganising genius. In 1C)27 he was in OreLfamous in the Tsar's davs for ils fine racehorsesand its miserable hovels. He set up vast cooperative stud farms for the breeding of bloodhorses. And round the collcctives modern setllements grcw Up. with boulevards and libraries.Now the horses were bred for the profit of thepeople, not of the landowners merely.1929 was Ihe first year of the first Five-YearPlan, the gre:tt turn ing point in the history of IheSovict Union . In this ycar, on all fronts ofsocialist ccmstruction, the country at last cast offthe age-long Russian backwardness. Stal in said:We shall bccome a land of metals. a land ofautomobiles, a land of tractors.They made Vassily chicf of the constructionjob of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, the biggestproject of its kind in the \vorld. Beginnings wereslow. The open steppe lay littered with buildingmaterials . hut everything was in disordcr. Therewere no houses for the workers. The cor.structionlabourers lay around among the windswept, S l l n ~scorched busl'cs, waiting for somebody to getthings organised. Vassily did it. Tearing roundon his bicycle, wearing ,In o ld leather coat, hissocks slipping down over his boots, talking signlanguage to the American engineers and sailor's14

slang to tne construction teams, he got thingsunder way,Early in [C)30 he drO\e across America in a big,black, luxurious Cord. He went to New York,Pittsburgh, Cincinn3ti, Milwaukee, Chicago,Detroit. He drove himself. He says he usedto touch 100 miles an hour sometimes, along thestate highways. He was in a hurry. He hadbeen sent to visit the hundred factories makingequipment for the fabulous Stalingrad plant. Thedepression was on. Some of the factories he weillto were only kept going by the orders placed bythe SO\ iet Union. He saw Henry Ford andMcCormick, the boss of the vast McCormickDeering (racto r enterprises. then the higgesl inthe \\torld. Ford and McCormick thought Ivanovwould be easy. They, Ihe h3rdesl-headed businessmen in the world, thought it a funny thing if theycouldn't put something across Vassily, a simplesailor from a land notorious for its shiftlessness.its lack of organisation and business sense. Theydidn't think Stalingrad could ever be a success.But they didn't want to lake any chances. Atthe same time, with the world's greatest slumpon their hands. they could not afford 10 turn downthe SOviet orders. Vassily spent a long time inIhe offices of Henry Ford. li e spent a long timewith McCormick. And each time he came out


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AFTER A HU:\,DRED DAYS' B O M B A R D ~ I E " T THE CITY IS GROU:\'D TO RUBBLEWhat the German pilor sees. Fig. 1 strou's the ai/lauks. From Fi.f!.. :1 comes ,he /teariest flak. A13, ,herailway Iille;s cw. Al J. and 5 are 'he fIIgboOIS. The re.H is f IJi l / .

the winner. When he got back home he smiledabout it and said: .. They thought they could foolme. Me, who W;:IS with the Cheka in 1918. Me,who negotiated with Nestor Makhno. Me, \\hohad to organise the hea ...y industry of the Ukrainein '21. They thought rd be easy. But theylearned:'Vassily had much 10 do with the building ofStalingrad. It was on his orders that grass andtrees and beautiful flower garden plots were laidou t round the factories, and all the avenues leadingto the workshops were kept swept ;:tnd clean.16

In those ear ly days of Stalingrad only ten shortyears ago-many a truck driver. backing a lillIecarelessly up to a factory entrance, had his firstintroduction to Vassily Ivanov when a sixthstory window would be flung up. and a formidablesailor's \ oice would cry, " Where the hell do youthink you're going, comrade? Mind our shrubs,can't you 1"If we ha\e spent a long time consider ing thestory of Vassily Ivanov, it is only because hesymbolises so much of Stalingrad, i ts fantast ichistory, its technical impressiveness, its miraculous

organisation. its genial I:haracter ~ l l d . above all,


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the way in which it has been universally undervalued. American capitalism grossly under-estimated the spirit of Stalingrad when, embodiedin Yassily. it s tood before them in the offices ofFord. McCormick-Deering and General Motors.German National Socialism grossly under-estimated the spirit of Stalingrad when, in August,1942, the city lay (almost d e f e n ~ e l e s s , so theythought) In the path of von Bock s army. TheyIc.lrned. ho\\c\cr.The Americans under-estimated Yassily. Theyundcr-cstimated Sergei Krasa\in, too. the oldriggcr from R)azan, with his cap on the back ofhis head. The American engineers. looking overthe Stalingrad plant. called him Uncle Whiskers.Sergei used to work on the s team barges. Then

LIFE STILL GOES ON IN THE CAVES

cut the plateau 011 ll'hieh S / ( J I i , , ~ r a dThe.' show abore as a dark claw. flere- people Ih'e il l une.\".

he got a job in the old Dumeau metallurgical plantin Tsaritsyn. The Dumeau Works had changedits name to Red October, even before Tsaritsynbecame Stalingrad. Sergei joined the CommunistParty. They told him he should study. At theage of 40 Sergei learned to read and write. Hehad ideas of his own. When the new plants wentup in Stalingrad they made him the boss rigger.With the new American machinery came American engineers. They stood and watched theRussians fumbling with the unfamiliar gear.They shook their heads. Then Sergei came inwith his gang. They gav'c him 480 hours toinstal a 120-ton hammer. He had it rigged upin 180 hours. The second one he set up in60 hours. the third in 30. Old Sergei lived forStalingrad. He used to bring his pillow towork with him and sleep under the machines.One of the astonished Americans. a fat. fair-

(C"II/illul'd on PUrtl' 20)17


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HO\\ THEY KEPT ALJ\ E

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BELOW GROUND

II I eel/an. il l cares. il l drain-pipes, life J{oes 0" . Deep ill,l te city".\ u nd er gr ou nd b el ly ,womell \l'ork. Thel' makeUlllfol'1lu (JI / ( / equljJllle;/l. rhe)'fill shells allc! grenades.Be/ween bombillgs. lltey crall'lOul fo r water, for jirell"Oocl, for

food.


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THE BRAVEWOMEN OFSTALlt\GRAD

Builtli"gs fall liketrees. The air islu l /a jbul le f s .Calmly. lite 1/urses0/ Stahl/grad gotheir rounds fromhalter." 10 bOffery,from post to post.

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OCTOBER: HEAVY BOMBARDMENT HERALDS THE GREAT GERMAN THRUSTTO THE VOLGAhaired engineer named Rollo Ward. said: .. Oncethese guys get going there's no better mechanicsin the world." But old Sergei was not satisfied.He told his sons, "You've got to study. Lookat me. rye had the e,perience. rye got thescope. But rvc no theory. If I had, I'd be abencr man altogether."Early in 1929 there was a drive through all thelocal branches of the Young Communist League,from Leningrad to the Urals. They said theyneeded strong youngsters in the South for thebuilding of new plant. Those who were chosenwere given a hundred roubles and their railwayfare. Among those who arrived in Stalingradwith the Komsomollabour gangs was little Fallya20

Khloptunova. whom the American engineers called" Alice."Alice started work with the construction gangson February 30th in hard frost and biting wind.The issue of mittens had failed to arrive. WhenAlice pressed her hand against her check to warmit she left white patches where her fingers had been.Alice was a tough little girl from Saratov.Eight years before the great Volga famine hadkilled her father and her two brothers. Alicewas nine then. She remembered it very clearly.Some soldiers had found her and looked afterher. Now here she was in Stalingrad. Whenthe workshops were up she became a gearcuttcr.She learned and studied; she racked her young


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STOR'\I TROOPS DRIVE DEEP INTO THE SUBURBS OF THE STRAGGLING CITYbrain mer curious terms: rOOl circle, involute.tooth-cune, angle of action. She learned fastand helped her comrades, like young Terkulov,from Central Asia, who could not speak muchRussian. and who used to write his notes roundand round the page in a circle.Alice was in her clement among the big Gleasonmachines. Before she was nineteen she wasassistant foreman of the gear-cutting plant, andwhenever anything went wrong the operativeswould shout for her through the shop, goodnaturedly imitating the accent of the Americanengineers, "Al l Ill-us 1" Khloptunova was one ofthe leaders of the Stalingrad Young CommunistLeague. One sunny May Day morning a lot of

Young Communists stood on the flat roof of thetractor plant, looking out over the city. with itscoloured flower beds and red banners. and i ts tallwhite buildings shining in the sun. Alice, the littlewaif from the Volga. waved her arm over the landscape and said, "Look. kids. We made all this."One of the y o u n g ~ t e r s who arrived in Stalingradat the same time as Alice was Tolya Fandyushin.li e had lost his parents during the Civil War andtook up with a wandering mob of child bandits.sleeping under bridges or in crllars, thieving food.railway luggage. anything he could lay hands on.With his comrades he was rounded up and sent toschool, but he broke out , and to show what hethought of the world he caught a fox and went

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~ t r u t t i n g through the park and around the ~ t r c e t ~ .flicking the girls across the mouth with the vi\en's !lying out under it and hitting McCormick, theAmerican tractor king. on the head.


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brush. He 'Was founeen then. At fifteen he was afreight handler in the Ovsyanaya yards. At sixteenhe was \\-orking in the Lugansk steel mills. Whenhe heard they were recruiting youngsters forStalingmd he applied. There was s o m e t h i n ~ inthe idea that pleased his adventurous spirit .When he arrived. all he saw was dust and baresteppe. He lived under canvas. He \\-orkedhard. He sobered up. He studied in the eveningsat the factory school and, rolled up in his coarseblanket, he pUllled out problems in the dark.He was set on being a shock-brigader. When theplant got going, Tolya was put on to makingconnecling rods. In a shorl time he was turningout the "American quota" of 450 rods a shift.By the spring he was turning out 800. The Moscow papers had a cartoon: young Fandyushin",orking his steam hammer, the connecting rods

Of the people who built Stalingrad some hadpassed through the hard school of the class struggleunder capitalism. They had experienced civil warand famine and ruin. Others. in the words of aStalingrad foreman. \ \ere so young that theyhad nevcr set e)cs on a pair of handcuffs. There\\-ere not many. ho\\-cver. like "American" IvanPashchenl...o. who had migrated to the U.S.A.in 1906 and worked first for McCormick andthen for Ford. Pashchenko was a tall, thin,thoughtful man. Henry Ford used to come intothe llloulding shop where he was inspector andtalk 10 him. Now nnd then he would give him acigar. Pashchenko worked twenty years for Ford.and then he asked him for three monlhs' leavc,to see the new project in Stalingrad. rord raisedhell about it. and said he would have to forfeitthe pension he was due for the nc\t year. but

and he got the sack. When the mobilisation dri\c


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for Stalingrad started. off he went. with one suitof undcnvcar and all his belongings in a rushbas)..ct. It \\.IS the first time he was e"cr in atown. In Stalingrad his history follO\vcd thesnmc olltlines as most of his comrades. Construction ,vork. Factory school. P.lrty school.Grigori RCl1lilOV became a )oun Communist.He \\as taken into the plant as a smith. He madegood mene). With his first month"s \\ages hebought a suit. a shin. a doc!... a lool..ing-glass.three volumes of Lenin (at 2 roubles :W kopecks atime). :\ portrait of Lenin, a portrait of Stalin, and

BoeSE BY HOLSE THEY STRUGGLE 0 '\p ~ ( . h c n k o \\cm. And \vhat he saw i n t e r ~ s t e dhim so much that ne never returned to America.He "cnl to \\01'1.. in the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.and the people of the Soviet nion were very gladhe did. ocl.:ausc it turned out tha t Ivan Pashchenko(and Henry Ford h 'ld never di scovered this) wasone of (he world's greatest authorities on the useof carth in moulding metal. They say that Fordncarl\. had a fIt \vhen he heard about it, and hetried-his hardest to get Pashchenko to comc back.Pashchcnko wrote him an open letter. beginning:"Dcar Mr. Ford. I will not return 10 work for you.Do you remember how often you told me that theindi\ idual has no chance in the Soviet Union.Now I llnd this is nOI so . . ."A hero of Ihe defence of Stalingrad oneof th e organisers of th e opolchellie. the tough$0\ iet equivalenl of the Home Guard. is GrigoriRemi/ov. the die-forger. In 1915. when he waSonly hvo \cars old. his father was killed "in theGerman War." At seven. a barefooted boy. heherded callIe for Sukhov the kulak, who waS laterc\ccuted for conspiracy against the Soviet power.\Vhcn he \vas tweh-e he went to the village ofChcrnushkin. to school. That was the first t imehc ever "'l\V a train. He. a ragged twehe-year-old.s,lI in cla ...s \\ith IOfants of six. In 1929 he \\as...i"tccn. He iltlended tractor-driving courses. buthe muld not resist fiddling with the machinery, FACTORY BY FACTORY THEY CREEP FORWARD

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THEY THRUST DEEP 1:"1'0 THE FIGHTI:"G HEART OF STAU:"'S CITY

a reproduct ion of The Shooting of the BakuCommisS


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FROM EVERY WINDOW FRAME AND DOORWAY THE RUSSIANS FIGHT BACK

Grenades alld firebotrles raill(i"om roofs or through w i J l d o w ~ ' ."A tornado q{ machine-gullbullets flies from street fastreet. 01/11' GOO \'artls (romthe Vol.l!.a. jie,:('est barrIeill history hegins. the midOctober baIl Ie hetween 1!11'German (Jilt Amn' and rhemagl/ificellt fj:lm' " Army o f

Gen. Chuikol>.25


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BOTH SlOES SET A THOUSA'iD TRAPSbefore winter. Thai was the intention. Stalin-grad was much more than ,ll1other milestone inthe race for oil.On August ::!3rd the Fascists s truck their firstblow against Stalingrad. At fOUf o'clock on thesunny afternoon. a thousand planes came o ....er thecity and bombed and pounded it to pieces. Formiles along the Volga. the city was in flames.The Germans 100,," it for granted that Slalingradwould surrender. They counted on gaining thecity by August 25th. They dropped leaflets tothat effect. The leaflets \\ere in ashes before theyrcached the grollnd.Behind the bombers came \-on Bock's arm).the proud ~ c ' l s o n c d ,lrmy that had raced acro ....sthe dry plains of Poland in the first days of ''''ar.that had rushed through the Ukraine like .... ildfircthrough a rorc\ l. Ie,,\ ing o n l ~ ruin and desolation


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HERE AND THERE NAZI TROOPS MANAGE TO REACH THE VOLGAbehind. Now, with superiority in tanks, aircraft,artillery, mortars, they were going 10 take Stalingrad in their stride. On August 27th Hitlerissued an order of the day: "The fight forthe mighty Bolshevik bastion of Stalingrad hasbegun. Stalingrad will fall.' In Britain, inAmerica, the pessimists looked up glumly fromtheir evening papers. The holding of cities isnot what it was. Things looked black.For days, for weeks, von Bock's men raged atcity's approaches. They struck in a score ofplaces. Their bombers would blast a wedge inthe Soviet defences, and the Germans would pourin tanks, guns, infantry. After twelve hours ofsolid fighting they would find they had advancedperhaps 500 yards. Then suddenly the forceswould dwindle, the offensive would peter oul.The Germans would regroup at night, and in themorning they would try again. somewhere else.28

Repulsed once more they would try a fresh sector,or go back to the first one.Fire danced day and night over the grey smokingcity. Dust and ashes floated in the air. Ferryboats plied back and forth to the charred shore,carrying supplies to the embattled city, and deadand wounded to the east bank. The woundedwould go to hospital. The dead would be laidout for burial under the burnt-out wharves.Monitors-the Russians call them cannon-boats- o f the Volga flotilla raced up and down the river,shelling the German mortar positions. At nightSoviet marines would make commando raidsbehind the German lines, blowing up ammunitiondumps and grenading the tanks as they campedfor the night. Down by the landing stages logsdrifted about the foreshore. Logs '! No. Thebodies of women and children trapped in the ferrysteamers, when the first big blanket raids occurred.


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THIS IS STALl:\ 'GRAD AS THEY SEE IT THROUGH THEIR SCISSOR TELESCOPEAbo\c the foreshore rises the city. The moon",as aly.ays blotted out by the smoke screens

that blew back and forth over the river. Thestreets would be black, except when a bomblanded. Then, for a moment, the jagged outlineof the buildings would be silhouetted against thesky like a photo negative. A tall block of flatswould fall to its knees and sprawl across thestreet.Those flats would be empty. The women andchildren of Stalingrad had mostly left the city.In the deep ravines which cut the plateau on whichthe city stands. in the cliff-like banks that run downto the rher. they had dug their poor C3\es . Theyhad jammed old boards and twisted bits of corrugated iron across the entrances, they had stuffedup the cracks with newspaper and burlap, andhere. in holes in the ground, they prepared tospend their ~ i n t e r .

B e t ~ e e n the bombings the wives and childrenand grandparents \\-ould crawl out and rootaround for water, for firewood, for scraps offood. With their hands swathed in cloths, theywould search among the rubble for herbs. Theywould hear the roar of bombers in the air, thetanks rumbling along the cliff top above them,the clatter of lorries and troop carriers over thebridges across the ravines.In the Stalingrad Tractor Plant the workerscontinued at their benches. with intervals forfighting. Once, in mid-September. the Germansbroke through to the factory repair shop. Repairshop hands jumped straight into the tanks theyhad just finished work on and drove them outof the factory gates and into the battle. They\\ere followed by a battalion of opolchellu)',workers' infantry, commanded by the Dean of theMechanical Institute of Stalingrad's Technical

19


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O:-lE OF THE \1 \:-;Y WHO REFUSED TO LEA \ E THE CITY THEY LOVED30


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WHERE\ER THE FASCISTS COME THEY BRI:-iG RUIN, DESTRUCTlO:-l , DEATH

Uni\ersit). His name (are you listening. Henr}Ford?) is Professor Ivan Pashchcnko.The workers' detachments fought in overalls,with bandoliers s lung over the ir shoulders. justas their fathers did in the Re\-'olution. They metthe Germans on a stone bridge. the only wa)across a deep ravine. All day long the battle",-cnt on around the bridge and a long the valley.About the factory the streets were transformed.They used everything for barricadcs- boiler-plates.tank t u r r c t ~ . barrels. hrid.s. sandb'lgs. Wi\csbrought fresh supplies of ammunition to theirhusbands. Daughters h 'lndled rifles by theirlathers' sides. And when the reinforcements ofRed Guardsmen came up to take over the workers

marched back to the factory to get on \\ilh theirjob of making tanks.Running parallcl with the Volga. about a milc\'vest of the river, is the old Tartar burial ground.the all-important height of the Mamacv Kurgan.From the Kurgan you can see all the city. allthe factory area, all the river crossings. From theKurgan you could. with a battcry of 76-millimctreguns, rain death on your enemy wherevcr he mighttry to hide. The Mamaev Kurgan controllede\erything. And carly in September the Kurgan

\ \ ; , l ~ captured by the Gcrmans. Whcn it fell theBerlin radio announcers cried abO\e the bnl) oftrumpets. "St'llingrad is about to fall. Thisvictory overshadows all other victories. Jt is of31


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BUT THE RUSSIANS HAVE TWO ALLIES: DARKNESS ..By night, the monitors of the Volga flotilla race up and down the ril'er, shelling the German positions. Bynight, boats bring up food, ammunition, medical supplies,decisive importance to the war as a whole."Now the Germans threw 2,000 tanks, 2.000planes against the narrow ten-mile strip of cityalong the Volga. Six divisions, two of themarmoured, tried to thrust their way through to theriver. The at tack was concent rated against thenorthern factory belt. At the same time a SovietGuards division. with three rine regiments, artillery,transports. ambulances and auxiliaries, was sweeping south towards Stalingrad. The men travelledin lorries. The halts en route became shorterand shorter. The men had barely time to gulpdown a drink of water and ease their crampedlimbs before the long line of trucks moved offagain. General Rodimtsev was in a hurry.When he reached the Volga he split his troopsup. The heavy artillery remained on the eastern32

bank. Two regiments ran the gauntlet of a rivercrossing under fire from dive bombers, and landedin the factory district. One regiment crossed atthe lower reaches. The two sections could notmaintain a solid front line. German troops heldthe ground between them. The out look, on theface of it, was gloomy.General Rodimtsev's men, however, were notgloomy. This shock division is formed from theflower of the Moscow and Ukrainian militaryschools. They are all youngsters. And neverwas a division better disciplined or more cocky.To hear them talk no division ever took such careof its tanks, no division ever had cooks who bakesuch wonderful cakes or barbers who play theviolin so well. Its chief of staff is 29. He looksno more than 20. He wears an elegant uniform,


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.. A"\D THEIR BELOYED RIVER VOLGA11I.\teame,s uud 1l1gs, il l roll"ing boars and skiffs, they work their way across. They make commaudo raidsbl'hi"d the German/illes. They blolV lip ammu"it;oll dumps, destroy German tanks.

~ l m i l a r to the old Hussars' winter dress. MajorGeocr.11 Rodimtsev himself is a sl ight , fair-hairedm.m of 37, smnrt, elegant and precise, even inbattle.Rotlimtscv attacked with all his regiments.The regiment which had crossed the lower reachesstormed the enemy-occupied streets. They tookh u g ~ fortified buildings by SlQrm, they (ought their\\JY through brush\\ood and timber in the cityparks. they fought through narrow alleys hemmedin by tall buildings. they fought mer mountainsof rumed \\alls. They raced along shatteredcOrridors inside big faclOries, they stumbledo\er telephone wires and kitchen tables andwardrobes. Here and there in buildings where theGermans were st rongest ent renched, the Sovietsappers would bring up hundredweights of ex-

plosi\'e and blow the Fasc ists skyh igh \\ ith theheavy walls. Meanwhile the other 1\"0 regimentsfought the Germans back and forth over a fewhundred yards of blood-soaked earth, whichbefore the war were a beautiful t erraced gardenof acacia trees, in which Stalingraders walkedand rested after their day's work \\as done. Atlast the three regiments joined forces. Theirfront held. The great German drive on the Volgawas checked.Hitler could not believe it. Over a radio hookup that spread across all Europe. he cried: "Topush forward to the Don. along the Don, andfinally to the Volga-that is our army's objective.Stalingrad will be taken. You may be sure ofthat ," Jt was the last broadcast he was to makefor many a long month. But now, on October 14th,33


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HOW THE GERMANS ENCIRCLED STALINGRAD-AUGUST 24th TO END OF OCTOBER, 1942In lhis map. approximately September 7th, the Germans ha\'e formed a semi-circle round the city \\ilh thelIorthern tip north of Dubovka and the southern tip S.W. of Krasnoarmeisk. Black shows the Germanpositions. MoWed grey sho\\s the Russian positions. Dotted line is a key raih\ay.

began the 1110st savage batt le of all. Hitlerhad ordered the capture of Stalingrad at all costs.Stalin had ordered "Not a step back:' TheRussians were hard pressed. Betting was slill onthe F;:lscisIS.The Germans brought up five new divisions.two of them tank divisions. and hurled them inon a front only three miles wide. Black smokecovered the city. Pilots could not see to bomb.The Volga was in flames. The enemy \\ere fiJr in34

the ruined suburbs. But there theystuck. And nowset in the most frightful phase of the whole of thebattle for Stalingrad. the fight from house to house.from floor to floor. from room to room. Plans ofattack would be prepared for each single house.The plan would show the sub-machine gunner atthe thi rd window of the second floor. the sniperson the fourth floor. the mor tars in flats o. 21a,305. and 480. Every detail relating to each floor,each window. each entrance. even the front garden,


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Nov. 24, 1942.-Russians advancing on Kalach from t\\Opoints, attacking the Germans in the rear and threateningthem with complete encirclement.

\' . 30. J942.-Red Army begins battle of Lo\\er Jan., 19-t3.-Russians advancing on Rosto\!, and in the)n. Ring around von Hoths army of assault completely Caucasus. Von Paulus's forces surrounded and lost.closed. Russians continue ad\!ance north and south.

~ N D HOW THE RUSSIANS ENCIRCLED THE ENCIRCLER5-NOVEMBER, 1942, TO JANUARY, 194335


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FAR BEHI'\D THE BATTLE FRO'\T A :"EW ARMY HAS BEEN TRAI:"ED

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GUNS ARE BROUGHTSECRETLY ACROSS THERIVER

A" October 16th, Chuikol"sarmy halts the German all-oulat/ock. No .... the SOI'fets areready for the great counterattack. Now the rel iefarmiesof Gen. Zhukov sweep do ..'nlOt\"Qrds the city.


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A ~ AR:\1Y OF SHOCK TROOPS HAS B E E ~ PREPARED FOR THE GREAT ArrACKwould be shown. The newspaper reports readlike some fantastic fairy tate. .. Red Army troopshave occupied flats Nos. 5. 14 and 128 in theapa,tment house at No. 27. Ordzhonikidze Street.The Germans still hold two flats on the ground floorand one on the third:'In the buildings Nazi tommygunners sal atthe attic windows and under the slats of the titeless roofs. Every window on e\-'cry floor was aloophole for a mortar, a machine-gun, an automatic rifle. Soviet sappers would tunnel into thehouses from below. At night litt le groups wouldcut a lane through the barbed wire entanglementsprotecting the buildings. Perhaps one woulddrop his cutters. Then lights blazed. Alarms

shrilled. A curtain of lead would drop over thestreet, from houses on every side. Then nil wouldbe still again. Red Army men would hide inthe dusty bushes in the gardens. They wouldburrow down into heaps of air-raid rubble withtheir entrenching tools. When the fire had ceasedthey \\ould mo ...e forward again.Relief parties and reinforcements would maketheir way over roofs, through cellars. At thegiven moment grenades would fly at the walls.With a roar of fl


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ON NOVEMBER 19th THE GREAT SOVIET COU1\TER-OFFENSIVE BEGINS

38


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FASTER A'\D FASTER THE RELIEF ARMIES BITE . ' \TO THE :-;AZI POSITIO,\S

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when a radio commentator announced: "He whodares to look into our soldiers' faces can onlyshudder with horror."Meanwhile Zhukov's relief armies, pressingdown towards the city from the north-west, bit


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horrifying than the ambushes behind half-opendoors, the bayoneting in corridors choking withdust and smoke, the machine-gun fire throughholes in the floor-boards. The fight for the groundfloor of a block of flats might take a day, for thesecond floor thiny-six hours, for the third floorfarly-eight. For the Russians there was but oneway to victory-that way was to destroy the greatGerman 6th Army. And as the battle ragedfrom house to house throughout the bit ter monthsof October and November the defeat of the 6thArmy began. While the unna tural Indian summerlasted the Germans hurried to snatch their victory.While the sun shone and the mud was dry, andthe skies were dear, they attacked from dawn todusk. But as the sk.y clouded over, ~ l l 1 d the earlhfirst softened, then hardened bitterly, ::md thesteppe to the west became a wilderness of snmv,the Germans knew they were done for. OnNovember 15th German wives and mothers wept

40

deeper and deeper into the Fascist positions.They attacked from Serafimovich. They attackedfrom Kalach in the west. The encirclement ofthe encirclers had begun. And as Rokossovsky'sforces began to squeeze the Germans inwards, theunforgettable 62nd Army of General Chuikov,who had held the city all this time, began tosqueeze out . The great counter-offensive hadcommenced.Faster and faster the relief armies swept overtrenches, dug-outs, deep antitank ditches, massively fortified gun sites abandoned by the fleeing


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'lFROM STALINGRAD'S SKIES, SOVIET AIRCRAFT ARE TAKING THEIR TOLL

Germans. Dro\cs of lost horses wandered overthe plains, rooting in th e snow, to get at shortprickly gr"55. The s teppe was strewn with blackand green German helmets, with gas-masks, shellcases, bodies, bodies, bodies. The big RussianKV tanks cu t deep into the snow; they sweptwestward like a huge torrent, wiping ou t everything in their path. They clattered past thehorrifying" RavincofDeath,"which once had beenthe enemy's second defence line. They skirtedthe roads blOl.'kcd by s l l l a ~ h e d vehicles, the verges

I I t t c r ~ d with abandoned motor-eycles. m o r t a r ~ .dO\,;ument:-. and ~ l I n s . The) rushed through theliberated \l1lages, when: the l.:ountry people hadl.:ome out of their holes .md ".ere pottering aroundin the ruins of thei r homes, sweeping th e floor

of a cottage to which there was no roof,setting to rights a picture which still miraculously remaincd on the wall, though theother three walls had been blown away. Thetank commanders, looking ou t of the ir turrct sover the scene of devastation, threw downtheir half-smoked, bitter, makhorka cigarettes andhurried on.On Deccmber 10th thc German radio b road cast the story of an observer on the StalingradfronL He ...aid : ......or four days the enemy's

h ~ a v ) ' artillery has ~ e n pounding our position"".ith murderou'> lire. At four o'doc,," this morning shoUb ring through the trenches: . The Russians have broken through on our lef t: A fewmoments after they ar e in among us, hundreds of41

them. in e\er frmasseS. The airfull of the clatter


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.. HE WHO DARES LOOK I-;TO OUR SOLDIERS' FACES 42

machine-guns. Tha no th er sho ut r inthroughthctrenche"They have brokethrough to OUf righWe arc cut off. Tcommanding omcannot belie"e hcars. \-1achine-guare out of actioWe hope againhope. When will rinforccmcntscomc.Just once the 6tArmy \\-as nearlrescued. by the grGerman offensifrom KotelnikO\,",hich aimed abreakin(? througthe enc ir cling rinto relic\-c Paulus'beleaguered force iStalingrad. But aKotelni"'o\oGeneRodion Malinmskcarried ou t his brilliant counter-orrensivc, and the Gcrmans hastilyevacuated Kotelnikovoanwere rolled bacacross the step1\1alinO\sk)'s couter-offensi\e b c g ~ lon .Christmas DayThat day a showe

Sow the defeat 0lheproudfjlltGermuArmy Itus bet:ulITlte air is full (Isnoll' alld maclti/lgun bulleIs. TitJo/diers call only sefll 'e yards ahead Io.mwJ.e and steel.

f leaflets f l u t t e ~ c ddown on frccllngand f a m l s h e ~ Germans in S t a h n g r ~ t d :The leaflets s;lId.


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"The fuehrer h a . ~not f o r g o t ~ e n )Ol!.Noy,. inside Stalmgrad life b c L . ~ J m e fantastic. When the RedArmy man stcPflCdout of his dug-out hecould straightenhimself and \\alk upthe street c.llmlyy,.ithout haste. Onthe far bank men\\ould \\histlc in thesunlight as the). ':In-loaded ammunitionfrom the trucks.

F o r t ~ )ards f r o ~ theGerman positionsarmy cooks unconcernedh ca rriedgreat dixies of soup.not bothering aboutcmer. Half-groy,.ngirls c!1me out of theholesm the cliff faceto carry ",ater fromthe \ \aler holes.Children playedcheerfull:r among theruins. A whole family ",ould sit out inthe open watchingpancakes siule. as ifnothing unusual wasgoing on,

El'eryw!tl'Y(! the FasciSIS are surrounded.They are short o fammunitiol/. slllJrt ojfiwt!. They ji"t'e:t'.They .'talTt'. Tht'I'/..'1011' lh('.\' are t!0I/l'Jor.

. .. CA'I O'iLY SHUDDER WITH HORROR"-Berli" Radio43


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SOVIET T\,\;KS A:-OD ARMOURED CARS CLEAR THE WI:-'TRY STREETS OF STAUI'CRADAnd do\\n in the dra in-pipes and sewers and

water condui ts the star\ ing Germans \\ould becrouchedmd nothing short of a grenade \\ouldget them out . No\\ it is they \\ho \\ere l i" ing inholes. ne\er seeing the sun. ne"er breathing fresh air.Each of them was given 25 cartridges a day,with str ict instructions to fire only at attackingtroops. From their holes they watched theRus"iians sk)larking aboul. or eating (and all theyhad \\as four ounces of bread and horseflesh aday \"hen they got it). At night the Russians\ ...ould sing round the fires and how those Volgachoirs can sing! The freezing Germans wouldhuddle in the ir d ra in -pipes and close the ir ears.'0 doubt many longed to break up the Russians'party \... ith just onc burst of tomm)gun iirc butthey d"lre nct. For they knew it \\ould unlooseupon them such a storm of steel. they would haveno chance of survi\al. Sometimes at night. despera te for a ir. they would come ou t of the sewersand plead for fair pia). "Russ! Russ!" they44

\vould cry. "Fire at our legs. can't you? Whymust you always shoot to kill?" In sc\enty daysafter the iron tr ap \\a s sp rung on 'member 13rd.330.000 Fascist troops underthecomm.md ofGen-eral Paulus were reduced to a handful of typhusridden. frost-bitten. half-starved and hopeless men.On January 8th two Russian officers in a carflying a \\hite flag dro\e up to \\hat \\as left ofthe German lincs. They \\ere fired on . but theypersisted. They carried surrender terms. \\hichthe Germans refused. All through the night Sovietloudspeakers roared out appeals to the Germansto be sensible. 1O givc in and save their li\es.Then in the morning began another kind of roar.the roar of an artillery and morta r barrage. Thefinal chapter in the annihilation of Paulus's armyhad begun. On January 10th the Russiansstormed the last great stronghold of the Germans,thc heights of the Mami.lev Kurgan. They wentin with bayonets and grenades. not counting their10s')Cs. nder \\ithering machine-gun fire from


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OYER BLILDI:\G AFTER RECAPTURED BUILDI:"G THE RED BA:\'OER IS RU'O LPthe \\-utcr towers the Gcrm


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THEDELI' ERERSHAVE COME

Set, determimtriumphanf, Iadrallcingarmies raceFrom 0/1 sides, t/,tanks 0/1(1 earnclauer throughliberated rilla,lTighter Gild rig.the German arlare squeezed iI/iron ring.


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47

m a j o r ~ . the German commander of 6th Armyhad his headquarters. After fifteen minutes ' blitzshelling. just as the Russians prepared to stormthe building. an adjutant came out with a whiteflag. He asked for the senior Russian officer


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THE GERMANS ATTEMPTTO SUPPORT H IE 6th ARMYBY AIR ...

The senior Russian officer was a IHughing freckledpeasant boy, 21-year-old Lt. Fedor Yclchenko, ofCol. Burmakov's motorised sharpshooter brigade.Let Ye1chenko describe what happened in his OWnwords: "They asked me for a big boss to meettheir big boss. L said: Tm the handiest here.What do you want?' He said: 'Surrender: Is..,id: 'Righto.'"Yelchenko went in with fifteen men. Theyhad to push their way past hundreds of terrifiedGermans packing the basement corridors of thestore. When he reached Paulus's room Yelchenkoentered with two comrades. He was recei ....ed byGeneral \on Raske. With him Yelchenko discussed the terms of the ultimatum. Von Paulus\\as lying on a bed. Says Yelchenko : "1 didn'tha\e to talli. with him, but 1took a good look at him.He didn't look iII, but sort of unhappy. Raskeasked me 10 see that Paulus wasn' t manhandled ortreated like a tramp. We thought that was ratherfunny. As a matter of fact we got him a good carand a good guard to take him off to our H.Q."As the car bearing the captured generals bumpedover the littered and snow-eovered streets it metan astonishing procession. In dress uniform, with

German frlUlSport planes drop foodby parachute. But Ihe Red Armyhas recaplllred the Terri/ory.They el l l the sausage intended

for Paulus.

BUT THE SURRENDERCONTINUESThroughollt January, Ihe mopping-up goes 011 apace. Between Jan-uar)' 10th alld February 21/d, theRussians take 91.000 prisoners.

48


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GEC'lERAL VON DANIEL ON HIS WAY TO SURRENDER PASSES A DEAD GERMAN SOLDIERfur-Coed coats, came four German colonels.Behind them followed several lieutcnant-colonels,majors, captains. Then came a column, mileslong, of soldiers. A great grey-black river ofmen stretched through the snow-covered ruinsand out to the sparkling steppe beyond. Theirheads were wrapped in shawls, in sweaters, in",omen's skirts. Their frozen hands were stuffedpitifully into their trousers pockets. They shuffledalong on swollen frost-bitten feet. The Germangenerals who looked out of the window of the

R u s ~ i a n car must ha\c found it hard to recognise

in these men the Aryun Oower of German man-hood; the proud 8th Infantry Corps. \",ho brokeinto Grodno and plundered Minsk and Smolenskand Gzhatsk. the 16th Tank Division, part ofvol1Kleist's army which took Sokal , Dubno. Kirovograd, Dnepropelrovsk and Rostov, the proud 3rdMotorised Division. parl ofGuderian's tank army.all of them Berliners, who had fought al Moscow.near Tula, in Voronezh and \\ho had been the firstto hurl themsel ...es on Sta lingrad. Perhaps aloneof all the divisions of the 6th Army, the young-sters of the 3rd Motorised Division had an inkling

49


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of \\ hat might happen. For they had a ~ n g fromthe last ycar's campaigning against MoscO\\, a songIhat threw long shadows:Als wir vor Moskau lagenDa lagen wir im Schnee.Kaputt sind aile Wagen,Erfroren as' und Zeh.Und langsam dcckt LOr WinterruhDcr Schnee die letzten Reste zuDcr stolzen Mot. l. D.Der drit ten Mot. 1. D.(When \\c lay before Moscow there we layin the snow. All our vehicles are done for, our,0

nose and feet are frozen. Aod 510\\1) for theirwinter sleep the SoO\\ cO\ers the last remains ofIhe proud Motorised Infantry Di\ision, the ThirdM. I. D.)Now the great dark ri\cr of mcn flows slowlyon tOwards the prison camps of the east, O\erthe plains littered \\ith corpses, young, thin bodies.mutilated or stripped naked by blast, frozen intogrotesque attitudes. The swaggering hangmen ofthe occupied villages, the dashing violators ofyoung girls. the brave murderers of Soviet childrenstare dully at the horrible panorama through whichthey trudge. Among the scores of thousands of


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TillS IS ALL THE NAZIS SAW OF HIE RIVER VOLGApus


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to stick at the wheel for 24 hours at a stretch, in tem- have already arrived frolll Gorky.peratures more than 20 degrees below zero Fahren- Danger has withdrawn from Stalingrad. Butheit. The offensive would have been impossible the German Armies are not beaten yet. Cr ippled,had not General Chuikov's tough men and girls- they certainly are, by an army which fights as noSiberians for the most part-hung on to a narrow army ever fought before. But, given a breathingstrip of city near the Volga bank, taking punish- space, the German Armies will sweep back intoment for weeks on end without hope of relief or the attack again. And not only agains t Russia.even rest. The offensive would have failed had but against Britain, too. The crushing victory ofnot the workers ofStnlingrad stayed at their posts. Stalingrad has put into our hands a gloriousorganised by Chuyanov and his comrades of the opportunity for launching simultaneous blo\vsStalingrad Communist Party. keeping a steady flow with the Red Army, blows that can ensure theof arms and ammunit ion to the front line soldiers decisive defeat of the Nazi armies now. Re-and, at critical moments, themselves grabbing member the strategy of Stalingrad outflank 'em,weapons and turning ou t to drive the enemy back. surround ' em, destroy 'em! A Second Front inIn the last analysis that was what triumphed at Stal- Europe can repeat that strategy on a grand scale.ingrad-the Bolshevik will of the Soviet people. The Governments of Britain and the United StatesNow the birds are singing again in Stalingrad. agreed to open the Second Front jn Europe. TheThe technicians step out of the trains and hurry British people have shown they support thisthrough the ruins to temporary offices hastily strategy, and are prepared to do everything in theirrigged up. with canvas flapping in the Vvindows, tremendous power to make it a success. For victoryc:ind old planks for desks. Already Karo Alabyan, over Fascism, no price is too high to pay. Let usthe famous architect. has drawn rough sketches face whatever lies before us as cheerfully andof the noble buildings that are to rise on the banks proudly as the glorious people of Stalingrad.

THE END OF THE STORY OF STALINGRAD-THE LO:"G SLOW L1i\E OF PRISO:"ERS

Prin/cd /'Y Hu:dl, 1\ II/SOlI

The Siege of Stalingrad

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Transcript of The Siege of Stalingrad