[8.2] CHURCHILL VISITS MOSCOW
[8.3] THE GERMANS ENTER STALINGRAD
[8.4] THE STRUGGLE IN THE RUINS: SEPTEMBER 1942
[8.5] THE STRUGGLE IN THE RUINS: OCTOBER 1942
[8.6] THE STRUGGLE IN THE RUINS: NOVEMBER 1942
[8.1] STALINGRAD BRACES FOR THE DEFENSE
* While the German Army Group B was flooding across the Don, reaching for Stalingrad only some 58 kilometers (36 miles) away, Army Group A was deep in the Caucasus region, having reached the foothills of the mountains on 9 August. Although BLUE had been mismanaged and was well behind schedule, things seemed to still be going well for the Germans, and many of the troops thought that success was within reach.
However, as far as Stalin was concerned, if Hitler wanted Stalingrad he was going to pay for it. The Red Army was not going to fight a delaying action at the city -- it was going to hold it or die trying. If anyone in the ranks had any different ideas, he was likely to die anyway. In late July, Stalin had signed "Secret Order 227", nicknamed "Not One Step Backwards", making unauthorized retreats punishable by death.
This principle was applied on a broad scale. The NKVD of course operated in the Red Army to root out spies and traitors, with the definition of "traitor" being dangerously broad, through what were then called the "Special Departments". The Special Departments created "blocking units" equipped with machine guns to mow down soldiers who thought to flee a battle without being ordered to do so. Blocking units were an ancient practice, not unique to the Russians, and had been used with particular
enthusiasm by Trotsky during the civil war. Stalin liked the idea as well. Many of the people in the blocking units were hardened criminals who would kill anyone without much hesitation. There are perfectly believable stories that on occasions there were stand-up battles between front-line troops and blocking units.
Order 227 also formally introduced "shtraftbaty (penal battalions)", which were made up of soldiers who broken the rules in some way. The penal battalions were suicide units, used as the leading edge of attacks. There were even penal squadrons in the air arm. The term of service in a penal battalion was three months, but the likelihood of surviving the term was small. Surprisingly, many penal battalions would fight with spirit and determination. Possibly it was a point of pride to die well, or possibly it was the realization that the only slim chance for survival under such circumstances was to outfight the enemy. A serious enough wound was enough to obtain release from a penal battalion, but security officers were careful to check to see that the wound wasn't self-inflicted, or inflicted by blocking units. If they passed, the comment ATONED WITH OWN BLOOD was added to their official records. The same consolation, for whatever it was worth, was also added to the records of the slain. However, the combat distinctions of penal battalions were ignored in official Red Army records, which many veterans felt was an insult to the heroism often displayed.
Despite the brutality of Order 227, the blocking units, and the penal battalions, even some war veterans who served in the ranks defended these decisions as necessary. An army that has often been defeated acquires a tradition of defeat; breaking that mindset requires extraordinary measures. Stalin was the sort of person who took whatever measures he thought necessary, no matter how brutal. * Stalingrad was a modern Soviet city with a peacetime population of a half million, an industrial center and a major manufacturing site for tanks and other military vehicles. It sat on the west bank of the Volga, which flowed to the southwest at that place. The city was built up along the river, with a number of important -- or soon to become important -- sites arranged as follows from north to south, linked by rail lines paralleling the river:
• The "Tractor Factory", a huge industrial complex that was now producing tanks.
• The "Barricades Plant", another big industrial complex that manufactured small arms and ammunition.
• The "Red October Steelworks", a third big industrial complex that also turned out small arms and ammunition.
• The "Lazur Chemical Plant", a smaller industrial complex.
• "Mamayev Hill", which provided a central view over the area and was of obvious military importance as "higher ground" to anybody who set eyes on it.
• "Red Square", the center of the city, which was surrounded by government buildings. This section of the town featured deep ravines. The main ferry landing was on the bank of the Volga to the east of Red Square, while the main railroad station -- of course named "Railroad Station #1"
• was just to the west of Red Square.
• While the part of the city to the south of Red Square was mostly residential, a warren of small cottages dotted with a few Russian Orthodox churches, there was a second railroad station there, of course named "Railroad Station #2".
•
The southern end of the city was marked by a prominent grain elevator. It must have
had an official name, but nobody paid it much mind; it would simply become known
as the "Grain Elevator". As with any other common landmark whose name would
acquire a special significance in a battle -- the Sunken Road, the Stone Wall, the
Peach Orchard, the Angle -- the name would become capitalized in blood.
On 2 August 1942 Stalin assigned the defense of Stalingrad to Lieutenant General Andrey Ivanovich Yeremenko. Yeremenko, a big Russian bear of a man, had been brought from Siberia in late 1941 and had been wounded in the leg in the fighting with the Germans that followed. His wound was still bothering him, but he told Stalin that he felt fit to go into combat. When someone observed that
Yeremenko was still limping, Stalin simply commented: "We will consider that Comrade Yeremenko has fully recovered."
Yeremenko arrived at Stalingrad on 4 August, where he met with his political commissar, Nikita Kruschev. Although political commissars could be a nuisance, Kruschev was bright and energetic, if sometimes erratic, and they made a good team. They set shop in a concealed bunker in Tsaritsa Gorge in the vicinity of Red Square, and worked hard to prepare the defense of the city.