Why Stalin S Soldiers Fought
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Why Stalin S Soldiers Fought
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Author : Roger R. Reese
language : en
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Release Date : 2011-04-28
Why Stalin S Soldiers Fought written by Roger R. Reese and has been published by University Press of Kansas this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-04-28 with History categories.
Inept leadership, inefficient campaigning, and enormous losses would seem to spell military disaster. Yet despite these factors, the Soviet Union won its war against Nazi Germany thanks to what Roger Reese calls its "military effectiveness": its ability to put troops in the field even after previous forces had been decimated. Reese probes the human dimension of the Red Army in World War II through a close analysis of soldiers' experiences and attitudes concerning mobilization, motivation, and morale. In doing so, he illuminates the Soviets' remarkable ability to recruit and retain soldiers, revealing why so many were willing to fight in the service of a repressive regime-and how that service was crucial to the army's military effectiveness. He examines the various forms of voluntarism and motivations to serve-including the influences of patriotism and Soviet ideology-and shows that many fought simply out of loyalty to the idea of historic Russia and hatred for the invading Germans. He also considers the role of political officers within the ranks, the importance of commanders who could inspire their troops, the bonds of allegiance forged within small units, and persistent fears of Stalin's secret police. Brimming with fresh insights, Reese's study shows how the Red Army's effectiveness in the Great Patriotic War was foreshadowed by its performance in the Winter War against Finland and offers the first direct comparison between the two, delving into specific issues such as casualties, tactics, leadership, morale, and surrender. Reese also presents a new analysis of Soviet troops captured during the early war years and how those captures tapped into Stalin's paranoia over his troops' loyalties. He provides a distinctive look at the motivations and experiences of Soviet women soldiers and their impact on the Red Army's ability to wage war. Ultimately, Reese puts a human face on the often anonymous Soviet soldiers to show that their patriotism was real, even if not a direct endorsement of the Stalinist system, and had much to do with the Red Army's ability to defeat the most powerful army the world had ever seen.
Stalin S Defectors
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Author : Mark Edele
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2017-06-23
Stalin S Defectors written by Mark Edele and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-06-23 with History categories.
Stalin's Defectors is the first systematic study of the phenomenon of frontline surrender to the Germans in the Soviet Union's 'Great Patriotic War' against the Nazis in 1941-1945. No other Allied army in the Second World War had such a large share of defectors among its prisoners of war. Based on a broad range of sources, this volume investigates the extent, the context, the scenarios, the reasons, the aftermath, and the historiography of frontline defection. It shows that the most widespread sentiments animating attempts to cross the frontline was a wish to survive this war. Disgruntlement with Stalin's 'socialism' was also prevalent among those who chose to give up and hand themselves over to the enemy. While politics thus played a prominent role in pushing people to commit treason, few desired to fight on the side of the enemy. Hence, while the phenomenon of frontline defection tells us much about the lack of popularity of Stalin's regime, it does not prove that the majority of the population was ready for resistance, let alone collaboration. Both sides of a long-standing debate between those who equate all Soviet captives with defectors, and those who attempt to downplay the phenomenon, then, over-stress their argument. Instead, more recent research on the moods of both the occupied and the unoccupied Soviet population shows that the majority understood its own interest in opposition to both Hitler's and Stalin's regime. The findings of Mark Edele in this study support such an interpretation.
The First Battle Of Kiev
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Author : Charles River Editors
language : en
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Release Date : 2016-08-10
The First Battle Of Kiev written by Charles River Editors and has been published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-08-10 with categories.
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the fighting *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down." - Adolf Hitler In the warm predawn darkness of June 22, 1941, 3 million men waited along a front hundreds of miles long, stretching from the Baltic coast of Poland to the Balkans. Ahead of them in the darkness lay the Soviet Union, its border guarded by millions of Red Army troops echeloned deep throughout the huge spaces of Russia. This massive gathering of Wehrmacht soldiers from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and his allied states - notably Hungary and Romania - stood poised to carry out Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's surprise attack against the country of his putative ally, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The Soviets were so caught by surprise at the start of the attack that the Germans were able to push several hundred miles into Russia across a front that stretched dozens of miles long, reaching the major cities of Leningrad and Sevastopol in just three months. The first major Russian city in their path was Minsk, which fell in only six days. In order to make clear his determination to win at all costs, Stalin had the three men in charge of the troops defending Minsk executed for their failure to hold their position. This move, along with unspeakable atrocities by the German soldiers against the people of Minsk, solidified the Soviet will. In the future, Russian soldiers would fight to the death rather than surrender, and in July, Stalin exhorted the nation, "It is time to finish retreating. Not one step back! Such should now be our main slogan. ... Henceforth the solid law of discipline for each commander, Red Army soldier, and commissar should be the requirement - not a single step back without order from higher command." Backed by extremely shrewd and professionally executed logistics arrangements based on rapidly-advanced railways, Army Group Center plunged forward through Minsk, then Smolensk, like an arrow aimed at Moscow, a crucial Soviet rail hub and manufacturing center. The Wehrmacht's leadership initially tasked Army Groups North and South with guarding the flanks of Army Group Center. They, too, smashed forward through Soviet defenses, but only as secondary operations supporting the main thrust. However, as the Germans began taking Smolensk, Hitler suddenly diverted significant forces to the northern and southern flanks. Heinz Guderian's Panzer Group 2 found itself sent to assist in the Ukraine rather than smashing directly through to Moscow. The diversion of this force increased the scope of the Kiev encirclement and the eventual haul of prisoners, but Guderian himself opposed it: "Hoth and myself - in contradiction to this - were anxious to continue the advance eastwards with our panzer forces according to the original, expressed intentions of the supreme command, and to capture the objective initially assigned to us." (Guderian, 1996, 166-167). Despite the logistical difficulties generated by the new emphasis on a rapid advance in the south, and the stubborn, courageous, but disastrously uncoordinated resistance of the Red Army, the Germans succeeded in winning the gigantic struggle for Kiev and the Ukraine. While the First Battle of Kiev represented an operational triumph for the Germans, resulting in an astounding number of Red Army prisoners and the complete collapse of the Ukraine's defenses, the victory came at a high price. Hitler's diversion of Heinz Guderian's Panzer Group II south from the Army Group Center Schwerpunkt increased the power and effectiveness of the Kiev encirclement, but cast away the near certainty of taking Moscow itself in August. Meanwhile, for their part, the Soviets tried hard to forget the disastrous battle ever occurred, going so far as to omit its mention in subsequent histories of the war.
The Greatest Battle
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Author : Andrew Nagorski
language : en
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date : 2007-09-18
The Greatest Battle written by Andrew Nagorski and has been published by Simon and Schuster this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2007-09-18 with History categories.
The battle for Moscow was the biggest battle of World War II -- the biggest battle of all time. And yet it is far less known than Stalingrad, which involved about half the number of troops. From the time Hitler launched his assault on Moscow on September 30, 1941, to April 20, 1942, seven million troops were engaged in this titanic struggle. The combined losses of both sides -- those killed, taken prisoner or severely wounded -- were 2.5 million, of which nearly 2 million were on the Soviet side. But the Soviet capital narrowly survived, and for the first time the German Blitzkrieg ended in failure. This shattered Hitler's dream of a swift victory over the Soviet Union and radically changed the course of the war. The full story of this epic battle has never been told because it undermines the sanitized Soviet accounts of the war, which portray Stalin as a military genius and his people as heroically united against the German invader. Stalin's blunders, incompetence and brutality made it possible for German troops to approach the outskirts of Moscow. This triggered panic in the city -- with looting, strikes and outbreaks of previously unimaginable violence. About half the city's population fled. But Hitler's blunders would soon loom even larger: sending his troops to attack the Soviet Union without winter uniforms, insisting on an immediate German reign of terror and refusing to heed his generals' pleas that he allow them to attack Moscow as quickly as possible. In the end, Hitler's mistakes trumped Stalin's mistakes. Drawing on recently declassified documents from Soviet archives, including files of the dreaded NKVD; on accounts of survivors and of children of top Soviet military and government officials; and on reports of Western diplomats and correspondents, The Greatest Battle finally illuminates the full story of a clash between two systems based on sheer terror and relentless slaughter. Even as Moscow's fate hung in the balance, the United States and Britain were discovering how wily a partner Stalin would turn out to be in the fight against Hitler -- and how eager he was to push his demands for a postwar empire in Eastern Europe. In addition to chronicling the bloodshed, Andrew Nagorski takes the reader behind the scenes of the early negotiations between Hitler and Stalin, and then between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. This is a remarkable addition to the history of World War II.
The 64th Army At Stalingrad 1942 43
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Author : Dann Falk
language : en
Publisher: Falken Books
Release Date : 2019-05-31
The 64th Army At Stalingrad 1942 43 written by Dann Falk and has been published by Falken Books this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019-05-31 with History categories.
This second edition covers the Soviet/Russian 64th Combined Arms Infantry Army during the Battle of Stalingrad from July 1942 to February 1943. This is a day-by-day account of the 64th Army at an Operational Level. There has been little study in English language about the day-by-day operation of Soviet Armies during the Soviet-German War. The only comparable titles are David Glantz "Colossus Reborn" and Roger Reese "Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought." This book aims to advance the study of the Soviet Red Army during WW2 by detailing the operations of a single Combined Arms Army, including Combat Actions, Logistics, Command and Control, Medical and the overall day-to-day experience of a typical Soviet infantryman. Most books and articles covering the war on Eastern Front focus on either the big picture or the story of individual combatants. My approach is to stay between these two extremes and concentrate upon the actions of a single Russian army. In doing so, illustrating the many problems encountered during the war, in essence, how a typical Russian infantry army was able to move about, fight, be supplied, care for its wounded and defeat the enemy. By making extensive use of newly released historical documents from the Russian Ministry of Defense's TsAMO Archive, my work provides a refreshing other side of the hill point of view. This approach complements existing research and publications, thus more fully completing the historical narrative. Additionally, 32 original maps, and 2 figures clearly illustrate the ebb and flow of this great battle. Also, an assortment of 21 photos, some never before published, only adds to the unique look and feel of this book.
Stalin S War Of Extermination 1941 1945 Planning Realization And Documentation
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Author : Joachim Hoffmann
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2015
Stalin S War Of Extermination 1941 1945 Planning Realization And Documentation written by Joachim Hoffmann and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015 with History categories.
The breakthrough bestseller by a German academic (and longtime researcher with the German military archives) that documented Stalin's murderous war against the German army and the German people to today's German public. Based on the late Joachim Hoffmann's lifelong study of German and Russian military records, Stalin's War of Extermination not only reveals--as never before--the Red Army's grisly record of atrocities against soldiers and civilians, but establishes beyond cavil that torture, murder, and rape of the captive and the helpless was official Soviet policy, as ordered by Comrade J.V. Stalin. In detail: Since the 1920s, Stalin planned to invade Western Europe in order to initiate the "World Revolution." The outbreak of war between Germany and the Western Allies in 1939 gave Stalin the opportunity to prepare an attack against Europe which was unparalleled in history both in terms of Stalin's far-reaching goals as well as in terms of the amount of troops and armaments amassed at the Soviet border. Of course, Stalin's aggressive intentions did not escape Germany's notice who in turn planned a preventive strike against the Red Army. However, the Germans obviously underestimated both the strength of the Red Army and the determination of its leaders. What unfolded in June 1941 was undoubtedly the most-cruel war in history. Dr. Hoffmann's book shows in detail how Stalin and his Bolshevik henchman used unimaginable violence and atrocities to break any resistance in the Red Army and to force their unwilling soldiers to fight against the Germans who were anticipated as liberators from Stalinist oppression by most Russians. Stalin ordered not only to kill all German POWs, but also to kill Soviet soldiers who fell into German hands alive, because they failed to fight to their death. Dr. Hoffmann also explains how Soviet propagandists incited their soldiers to unlimited hatred against everything German, and he gives the reader a short but extremely unpleasant glimpse into what happened when these Soviet soldiers, dehumanized by Soviet propaganda and brutality, finally reached German soil in 1945: A gigantic wave of looting, arson, rape, torture, and mass murder befell East Germany. After reading this book, the world should thank the German Army that they prevented Stalin from succeeding with his plans of World Revolution, despite all the wrongdoings the Germans committed themselves. An indispensable book for all students of World War II as it actually happened, as well as a revisionist classic that has shaken anti-German propagandists to the marrow.
Prelude To Stalingrad
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Author : Igor Sdvizhkov
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2019
Prelude To Stalingrad written by Igor Sdvizhkov and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019 with Generals categories.
In the summer of 1942, the Germans launched Case Blue, a strategic offensive into the Caucasus, a region rich in oil, birthplace of Stalin, and gateway to Iran and the Middle East, where the Germans could obtain more oil, cut off a vital corridor for Lend-Lease supplies to the Soviets, threaten the British Empire, and even perhaps link up with the Japanese (then advancing in Burma toward India). It was a pivotal moment of World War II, which history remembers primarily for the titanic clash at Stalingrad during the fall and early winter of 1942-43, but less well understood is the series of summer operations that led to and shaped that turning-point battle. In Prelude to Stalingrad, Igor Sdvizhkov reconstructs the fighting in the northern sector of the Case Blue offensive, near the city of Voronezh. Using German documents as well as previously classified Soviet sources, Sdvizhkov zooms in on the nine days of see-saw fighting-involving tens of thousands of men and hundreds of tanks and guns on both sides-that threatened to derail the German offensive north of Stalingrad. In response to the withdrawals and mass surrenders on the Eastern Front during the war's early months a year before, Stalin ordered that no ground be given up, that his armies fight instead of pulling back, ensuring that the fighting would be brutal. Ultimately unsuccessful in denying the Germans a bridgehead on the Don River, the Red Army inflicted heavy losses, eroding the Wehrmacht's fighting power before it even reached Stalingrad.
The Greatest Battles In History
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Author : Charles River Charles River Editors
language : en
Publisher: CreateSpace
Release Date : 2014-04-06
The Greatest Battles In History written by Charles River Charles River Editors and has been published by CreateSpace this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014-04-06 with History categories.
*Includes pictures. *Includes accounts of the fighting by soldiers and important generals. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. “Approaching this place, soldiers used to say: 'We are entering hell.' And after spending one or two days here, they say: 'No, this isn't hell, this is ten times worse than hell.'” – Soviet general Vasily Chuikov World War II was fought on a scale unlike anything before or since in human history, and the unfathomable casualty counts are attributable in large measure to the carnage inflicted between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during Hitler's invasion of Russia and Stalin's desperate defense. The invasion came in 1941 following a nonaggression pact signed between the two in 1939, which allowed Hitler to focus his attention on the west without having to worry about an attack from the eastern front. While Germany was focusing on the west, the Soviet Union sent large contingents of troops to the border region between the two countries, and Stalin's plan to take territory in Poland and the Baltic States angered Hitler. By 1940, Hitler viewed Stalin as a major threat and had made the decision to invade Russia: “In the course of this contest, Russia must be disposed of...Spring 1941. The quicker we smash Russia the better.” (Hoyt, p. 17) The surprise achieved by the German invasion in 1941 allowed their armies to advance rapidly across an incredibly wide front, but once winter set in, the two sides had to dig in and brace for German sieges of Russian cities. In the spring of 1942, Germany once more made inroads toward Stalingrad, Stalin's own pet city. Not surprisingly, he ordered that it be held no matter what. There was more than vanity at stake though. Stalingrad was all that stood between Hitler and Moscow. It also was the last major obstacle to the Russian oil fields in the Caucuses which Stalin needed and Hitler coveted. If the city fell, so would the rest of the country, and Hitler would have an invaluable resource to fuel his armies. Stalin chose his best general, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, to lead the more than one million soldiers who would stand between Germany and the precious city. Stalin made sure that they were continually supplied with every sort of military paraphernalia available, from tanks and aircraft to guns and ammunition. Zhukov, who had never been defeated, held the line until November 19, when Stalin ordered him to attack the now weary Germans. In a carefully planned pincer maneuver, the Soviet armies attacked from both the north and the south, carefully encircling the German troops until the German general, Friedrich Paulus, begged Hitler to allow him to withdraw. But by then the Fuhrer was obsessed with capturing the city that he refused his general's pleas, so the Germans attempted to hold on, losing thousands of additional men without taking the city. When the remains of the German 6th Army finally surrendered in February 1943, they had lost about 1.5 million men and over 6,000 tanks and aircraft in a little more than 5 months of fighting. The Soviets lost a staggering number as well, with estimates of over 1 million casualties. Altogether, the Battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest battle in the history of warfare, and the Soviets' decisive victory there is considered one of the biggest turning points in the entire war, and certainly in the European theater. Over the next two years, the German gains in Russia were steadily reversed, and the Red Army eventually began pushing west towards Berlin. Fittingly, the importance of Stalingrad was commemorated in several ways, from Churchill presenting Stalin with a “Sword of Stalingrad” to the Russians' decision not to rebuild parts of the battle scarred city as a reminder of what happened there.
Stalin S War On Japan
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Author : Charles Stephenson
language : en
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
Release Date : 2021-06-09
Stalin S War On Japan written by Charles Stephenson and has been published by Pen and Sword Military this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2021-06-09 with History categories.
This WWII military study examines the critical yet overlooked Soviet offensive on Japan’s puppet state and its influence on winning the Pacific War. Did Japan surrender in 1945 because the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or because of the crushing defeat inflicted by the Soviet Union in Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in north-east China? In Stalin’s War on Japan, Charles Stephenson describes the Soviet offensive from the top-level decision-making and early planning stages to its decisive outcome on the ground. He also considers to what extent Japan’s capitulation is attributable to the atomic bomb or the stunningly successful entry of the Soviet Union into the conflict. Stephenson combines a vividly detailed narrative of the invasion itself with an absorbing account of the political and diplomatic process that gave rise to the offensive—with particular focus on the Yalta conference. There, Stalin allowed the Americans to persuade him to join the war in the east; a conflict he was determined on entering anyway. Stalin’s War on Japan sheds new light on the last act of the Second World War.
The Battle Of Kursk
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Author : Charles River Charles River Editors
language : en
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Release Date : 2016-01-13
The Battle Of Kursk written by Charles River Charles River Editors and has been published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-01-13 with categories.
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the battle by generals and soldiers on both sides *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "The Russians have learnt a lot since 1941. They are no longer peasants with simple minds. They have learnt the art of war from us." - Wehrmacht Generaloberst Hermann "Papa" Hoth at Kursk (Healy, 1992, 90) "On the German side, the reserves which will become so desperately necessary as the war situation develops [...] will be tied down and thrown away uselessly. I consider the operation that has been planned a particularly grave error, for which we shall suffer later." - Colonel Reinhard Gehlen, Wehrmacht intelligence analyst, writing about Operation Citadel (Fowler, 2005, 66). The vast expanses of southern Russia and the Ukraine provided the Eastern Front arena where the armies of Third Reich dictator Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin wrestled lethally for supremacy in 1943. Endless rolling plains - ideal "tank country" - vast forests, sprawling cities, and enormous tracts of agricultural land formed the environment over which millions of men and thousands of the era's most formidable military vehicles fought for their respective overlords and ideologies. The winner could expect to reap very high stakes indeed. If Hitler's Wehrmacht smashed the Red Army, he could no longer hope for a lightning conquest, but the Fuhrer could expect the Soviet strongman to sue for peace on terms advantageous to Germany. If, conversely, the Red Army triumphed, Stalin could continue rallying the Soviet Union and move closer to expelling the loathed "Nemets" invaders from Russian soil - and perhaps carve out a Soviet empire in Central Europe. Asserting that changes in the military leadership style of the two contending dictators explains the outcome of Kursk oversimplifies the actual situation. Logistics, the emergence of a body of experienced junior officers in the Red Army, American Lend-Lease shipments, German production problems, and other issues all contributed to the observed result. However, the overarching factor tying everything together remained the changing approach of each leader to their army. At the start of the war, Hitler gave his commanders considerable initiative while Stalin fatally micromanaged his, and the Germans ripped vast hordes of Soviets to shreds with comparative ease. In late 1942 and moving into 1943, Hitler commenced micromanaging the Wehrmacht, and Stalin adopted a more "hands-off" approach permitting his commanders considerable initiative: "At the heart of the Red Army's lopsided tank losses was an amateurish and self-destructive style of decision imposed by Stalin [...] In November 1942 there was a subtle shift in the Red Army, as months of military disasters finally caused Stalin to reduce some of his interference [...] and allow quiet professionals such as Vasilevsky, Vatutin and Rokossovsky to prepare proper offensives." (Forczyk, 2013, 257). Though the Wehrmacht remained too formidable and professional to collapse as readily as the appallingly low-quality Red Army had in 1941 and early 1942, the Red Army slowly got the upper hand and achieved strategic offensive momentum. That the shift occurred at the moment when Hitler hamstrung his generals with his melodramatic obstructionism while Stalin gave his some operational breathing room probably represents no accident. Kursk represented the transitional battle during which the Red Army first demonstrated its new capabilities. The Soviets possessed better commanders than at the start of the war, a numerous soldiery, good-quality equipment (in particular, the T-34 tank), and the beginnings of a professional officer corps. Nevertheless, it required personal, ham-handed intervention by Adolf Hitler to transform Kursk from a probable hard-won Wehrmacht victory into a marginal but highly significant defeat.