“Verdun on the Volga” – The Battle of Stalingrad From a German Perspective
“Verdun on the Volga” – The Battle of Stalingrad From a German Perspective

Summary/Abstract: Apart from million fold death and suffering, the battle of Stalingrad is also a testament to the failure of the military elite who did not oppose the criminal Nazi regime even when its unscrupulous actions were directed against subordinate soldiers and their own person. This happened upon the Volga not for the first and by far not the last time. On the contrary, Stalingrad was to become the writing on the wall for a German warfare that increasingly lacked military sensibility and ideological alternatives. In this respect, it is not completely without justification that today the historical place is generally regarded as a code for the turn of World War II in the European theatre The efficacy of the Battle of Stalingrad in the German culture of remembrance has various causes. The course of military events was just one of them. In particular, because the German military planning and conduct of operations needs to be viewed with scepticism, the staging of the collapse of the 6th Army became all the more important. From the very beginning, “Stalingrad” was more of a “felt” turn of the war than an actual one. This was another reason why the perishing of an entire German army put the Nazi regime under pressure for an explanation which they wanted to solve primarily with pathos. The heroisation of “fighting to the last” worked surprisingly well until 1945 and was reflected in the Germans persevering until the end of the war despite the increasingly obvious defeat.

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