Made for the home market in Germany during WWII by Degeto, this silent newsreel shows the start of the Battle of Stalingrad in the summer of 1942. At :38 a tactical map shows the German army’s advance from Rostov and the Caucuses towards the Don River and Stalingrad and Kalach. At :42, German artillery bombards Soviet positions. At 1:40 German officers use binoculars to spot the effect of the barrage. At 1:57 Soviet tanks are shown on fire on the outskirts of the city. At 2:15 a German armored car advances followed by a Panzer tank. At 2:38 anti-aircraft artillery moves along a road as German armor heads into the city. At 2:53 a large series of grain silos are seen at an industrial complex, and German troops are shown fighting in the streets, firing mortars and working their way through rubble. At 3:46 machine gun crews fire for effect, while at 4:00 tanks move across shattered bricks. At 4:40 German troops fire from behind a shattered wall. At 5:17 shattered and burned out buildings are seen, and German troops pick their way into the maze. Victory seems far from certain. . .
The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 1942 – 2 February 1943) was the largest confrontation of World War II, in which Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in Southern Russia.
Marked by fierce close quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in air raids, it was the largest (nearly 2.2 million personnel) and bloodiest (1.8–2 million killed, wounded or captured) battle in the history of warfare.[21] After their defeat at Stalingrad, the German High Command had to withdraw vast military forces from the Western Front to replace their losses.
The German offensive to capture Stalingrad began in August 1942, using the 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intensive Luftwaffe bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble. The fighting degenerated into house-to-house fighting; both sides poured reinforcements into the city. By mid-November 1942, the Germans had pushed the Soviet defenders back at great cost into narrow zones along the west bank of the Volga River.
On 19 November 1942, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, a two-pronged attack targeting the weaker Romanian and Hungarian armies protecting the German 6th Army’s flanks. The Axis forces on the flanks were overrun and the 6th Army was cut off and surrounded in the Stalingrad area. Adolf Hitler ordered that the army stay in Stalingrad and make no attempt to break out; instead, attempts were made to supply the army by air and to break the encirclement from the outside. Heavy fighting continued for another two months. By the beginning of February 1943, the Axis forces in Stalingrad had exhausted their ammunition and food. The remaining units of the 6th Army surrendered.The battle lasted five months, one week and three days.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
