“None of us will return to Germany unless a miracle happens. Time has passed to the side of the Russians. " (An entry from the "Stalingrad" diary of a German officer).
The miracle didn't happen. For not only time has gone over to the side of the Russians.
Armageddon
In Stalingrad, both the Red Army and the Wehrmacht, for some unknown reason, changed their methods of warfare. From the very beginning of the war, the Red Army used flexible defense tactics with rejects in critical situations. The Wehrmacht command, in turn, avoided large, bloody battles, preferring to bypass large fortified areas. In the Battle of Stalingrad, both sides forget about their principles and embark on a bloody wheelhouse. The beginning was laid on August 23, 1942, when German aviation carried out a massive bombing of the city. 40,000 people died. This exceeds the official figures for the Allied air raid on Dresden in February 1945 (25,000 casualties).
Get to the bottom of hell
Promotional video:
Under the city itself there was a large system of underground communications. During the hostilities, the underground galleries were actively used by both Soviet troops and the Germans. And even local battles took place in the tunnels. Interestingly, from the beginning of their penetration into the city, German troops began to build a system of their own underground structures. Work continued almost until the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, and only at the end of January 1943, when the German command realized that the battle was lost, the underground galleries were blown up. It remained a mystery to us what the Germans built. One of the German soldiers later ironically wrote in his diary that he had the impression that the command wanted to get to hell and call on the demons for help.
Mars vs Uranus
A number of esotericists claim that a number of strategic decisions of the Soviet command in the Battle of Stalingrad were influenced by practicing astrologers. For example, the Soviet counteroffensive, Operation Uranus, began on November 19, 1942 at 7.30 am At that moment, the so-called ascendant (the point of the ecliptic rising above the horizon) was located in the planet Mars (the Roman god of war), while the setting point of the ecliptic was the planet Uranus. According to astrologers, it was this planet that ruled the German army. Interestingly, in parallel, the Soviet command was developing another major offensive operation on the Southwestern Front - "Saturn". At the last moment, it was abandoned and conducted Operation Little Saturn. Interestingly, in ancient mythology, it was Saturn (in Greek mythology Kronos) who castrated Uranus.
Alexander Nevsky against Bismarck
Military operations were accompanied by a large number of signs and signs. So, in the 51st Army, a detachment of submachine gunners under the command of Senior Lieutenant Alexander Nevsky fought. The then propagandists of the Stalingrad Front launched a rumor that the Soviet officer was a direct descendant of the prince who defeated the Germans on Lake Peipsi. Alexander Nevsky was even nominated for the Order of the Red Banner. And on the German side, Bismarck's great-grandson, who, as you know, warned never to fight with Russia, took over in the battle. A descendant of the German Chancellor, by the way, was captured.
Timer and tango
During the battle, the Soviet side applied revolutionary innovations to psychological pressure on the enemy. So, from the loudspeakers installed at the front line, favorite hits of German music were heard, which were interrupted by messages about the victories of the Red Army in the sectors of the Stalingrad front. But the most effective means was the monotonous beat of the metronome, which was interrupted after 7 beats with a comment in German: "Every 7 seconds, one German soldier dies at the front." At the end of a series of 10-20 "timer reports", tango was heard from the loudspeakers.
Mink coats
Many German soldiers and officers, who had many battles behind them, recalled that in Stalingrad at times they had the impression that they were in some kind of parallel world, an atmosphere of absurdity, where traditional German pedantry and rationality evaporated. So, the German command often gave absolutely meaningless orders: for example, in street battles for some secondary sector, German generals could put a couple of thousand of their own soldiers.
One of the most absurd moments was the episode when the German aviators, “supplies”, dropped from the air the fighters closed in the “bloody cauldron” instead of food and uniforms, women's mink coats.
Revival of Stalingrad
In early February, after the end of the battle, the question was raised in the Soviet government about the inexpediency of restoring the city, which would have cost more than building a new city. However, Stalin insisted on the restoration of Stalingrad in the literal sense of the word from the ashes. So, so many shells were dropped on Mamayev Kurgan that after the liberation for 2 years no grass grew on it.