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The
Battle for Stalingrad - The Battle for the Factories
 Still, many years
after World War II, both historians and enthusiasts show a great
interest in the battle for Stalingrad. At the time it bore Stalin’s
name and was an important industrial centre: Hitler’s obsession. No
other episode of World War II generated more books, publications and
other print materials than Stalingrad. The bloody, disastrous battle
for every yard of ground, the suffering on both German and Russian
sides still fire the imaginations of many. Marked by many as the
turning point in the war the battle for Stalingrad still is an
important part of the description of this war in all its facets, even
the inhuman ones.
The articles published about Stalingrad are manifold. Nearly all
publications describe the advance of the German Army in this sector of
advance for the 6th Army and the ensuing operations of the Soviet
Armies; only few publications offer a succinct description of the
battle in the city itself. This book gives a description of the
fighting in a specific part of the city: the fight for the Stalingrad
factory areas. This was perdition for many German and Russian soldiers:
every yard of ground was contested, and finally this dearly bought soil
was covered with dead and wounded. And at what price? Many historians
indicate that the fight for the factories weakened countless German
units and fixed them in place, preventing them from being used
elsewhere to either prevent Operation “Uranus”, the Soviet encirclement
of the German Army, or to break out.
This book does not address this issue. It only allows the soldiers who
fought in these sectors to speak. Former German soldier Joachim
Stempel, who fought in Stalingrad (his father, General Richard Stempel,
was killed in Stalingrad) wrote down his memories about these battles.
The editor of these reports, Hans J. Wijers, compiled this
correspondence with the stories and memories of other survivors of the
battle and this book in the result. This book consists only of the
memories, eyewitness accounts and reports of soldiers who experienced
the terrible battles first hand. Descriptions of the suffering, the
losses, the hope for a speedy breakthrough, and the disappointment with
retreat: the individual soldier speaks.
The industrial areas and the accompanying factories in Stalingrad were
humongous complexes. The operations in these areas described in the
book focus on (from north to south): the "Dzershinzky” tractor works,
the “Red Barricade” factory and the “Red October” factory. These giant
factories were criss-crossed by railways for the transport of material,
raw materials and finished products. The factories contained smelting
ovens (so-called “Martin ovens”), rolling mills, forges etc. It is not
hard to imagine that these factories, which consisted of multiple halls
that had been reduced to rubble by the constant shelling, offered good
shelter to the Soviet defenders. By establishing resistance nests in
the rubble and remains of destroyed machines, shelled and bombed walls,
furnaces, etc., and using it in all other ways imaginable, the German
advance was slowed. Resistance was so determined that the Germans in
fact had to abandon their attempts to reach the Volga. The Russian
counteroffensive (Operation “Uranus”) dealt the deathblow to the
exhausted, minimized German units.
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