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To begin with, it was a decisive battle but in isolation it probably wasn't by itself as big a turning point as is popularly believed. It was the beginning of the reversal of fortunes on the Eastern Front but after Stalingrad Germany were still very much in it, although they had lost the chance to decisively beat the USSR. Stalingrad AND Kursk together marked the true turning point of WW2. Secondly, much has been made of the foolishness of Hitler in allowing 6th Army to march into the centre of Stalingrad and insist that there was no retreat. Whilst Hitler's reasons for ordering a 'no retreat' policy were flawed and for selfish personal reasons, the net result was probably the correct military decision once the German flanks had been smashed by the Red Army. There were 3 good reasons why 6th Army should not have retreated from Stalingrad once it had been encircled. 1. The units in 6th Army were battered, exhausted, demoralized and very low on supplies. If they had attempted a break-out in harsh winter conditions these units would have been cut to pieces. Although not one of the better German commanders, Paulus was not an idiot and must have been well aware of this. 2. 6th Army tied up an immense amount of Soviet formations, 61 to be precise. This allowed the rest of the German southern line the chance to stabilize and to retreat in an orderly manner. If 6th Army hadn't been tieing up all these Soviet formations, then they would have been free to unleash themselves against the fragile German line, likely causing even more German casualties than was historically recorded. 3. 4th Panzer Army, which was the principal German armored force in the area, did not have enough fuel supplies and was in the wrong position to assist in any break-out. Sometimes, there were occasions where Hitler did the right thing but for the wrong reasons. This happened to be one of those occasions. |
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However, the Eastern Front was fiercest judging from the boiling hatred between two opposing sides, property damage, unspeakable Civilian death toll, toils, endurance, staggering casualty rates, and the brutality of nature. The Eastern Front was definetly fiercest in terms of size and numbers. |
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Topic: Re: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmQuote:
what about the british 1st Airborn Div @ Arnhem during operation market garder. while the casualties weren't high compared to some fights, taken from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...borne_Division Quote:
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I still say the New Guinea campaign by Australia. We suffered the same casualty rate as the German army in the "Kessel" of Stalingrad, and this is often recognised as the worst casualty percentage in the European campaign. To put it into perspective in the Pacific campaign, we lost double what the US lost in Guadalcanal.
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