Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Well Equipped Enemy
A Soviet partisan is captured by German soldiers in mid-Winter 1944. Because of glare or something, I can't see what weapon the soldier immediately behind the Soviet is carrying, but I can see the next soldier's rifle, an SVT-40, a Russian rifle which, as I've said often here, the Germans picked up and used whenever they could. You can still buy one today for about $800.
Labels: WWII history; European theater; Eastern Front
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
This Day in the History of Turnings of the Tide
On this day in 1942, Soviet forces initiated Operation Uranus and took the offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad. They attacked the largely non-German troops on the flanks (Romanian, Italian and Croatian) and within a few weeks trapped the German 6th Army in the city. German forces had been surrounded by Soviet forces in late Autumn earlier in the war and had survived the Winter, supplied by air, until Spring came and a break-out was successfully mounted. It was not to be for the ill-fated 6th. Of the quarter million Germans who went into Stalingrad in Summer 1942, perhaps 10,000 returned to Germany many years after the war ended.
Labels: WWII history; European theater; Eastern Front
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
This Day in the History of Tactical Misteps for Political Ends
On this day in 1942, the German Sixth Army under General Paulus, which was already across the Don river, was ordered to capture Stalingrad. They nearly did; at least 90% of the city was in German hands when things went badly on the flanks. It probably would have been better to push on to the Caucuses as the German mechanized forces were constantly facing fuel shortages. The Germans never reached Soviet oil fields there, because they had to come back and try and rescue the Sixth. It all ended in tears early the next year in Stalingrad, then the real suffering for the captured Germans started.
Labels: WWII history; European theater; Eastern Front
Friday, April 25, 2008
This Day in the Brief History of Good Relations Between the Soviet Union and America
On this day in 1945, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on a half destroyed bridge over the Elbe River deep in Germany. It was the 69th Division, but I don't know who the Russians were with.
Labels: Western Front, WWII history; European theater; Eastern Front
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
This Day in the History of Final Days
On this day in 1945, the Red Army began the Battle of Berlin. The photo shows how it ended.
There is a museum on the top of the Reichstag now with another photo of its capture. In it all of the Soviet soldiers carry full auto weapons, PPS-43s and PPSh-41s, but they all also carry German handguns. Not a ringing endorsement of the Tokarov TT-30 in my book.
Labels: Battle of Berlin, WWII history; European theater; Eastern Front
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Wehrmacht soldiers fight in Poland at the beginning of WWII. Usually they crop out the lug on the left and just have a very dramatic, balanced, diagonal composition--a young soldier, sleeves rolled up, in action with his eyes in the shade of the distinctive helmet and a look of steely determination in the rest of his face. This was for years my favorite photo of the war.
The Model 24 Stielhandgranate "stick grenade" he is throwing was a decent weapon, but, later in the war, they developed the oval shaped grenades like the ones we used, so maybe it was not ideal. There was an anti-personnel metal sleeve (Splitterring) you could slide over the working end that would send out a spray of steel splinters when it exploded. Nasty addition that.
Labels: WWII history; European theater; Eastern Front
Friday, February 08, 2008
This Day in the History of Real Nazi Decimation
On this day in 1940, Nazis shot every tenth person in two Polish villages near Warsaw in reprisal for the deaths of two German soldiers. We all recoil in horror at the brutality of the Nazis, for whom this was merely a light warm-up, but I want to know if the executions were effective in stopping the Poles from killing German soldiers. I guess I'm just built differently.
Labels: WWII history; European theater; Eastern Front
Monday, November 19, 2007
This Day in the History of Bad News for the Nazis
On this day in 1942, Soviet forces took the offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad. The German 6th Army under Paulus had taken 95% of the city but had to leave its flanks outside Stalingrad manned by Romanian forces (with some Italian and Hungarian forces), who did not stand up to determined Soviet attacks.Labels: WWII history; European theater; Eastern Front
