Battle of Stalingrad

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 24, 1942)

Russians break through German lines in counterdrive outside Stalingrad

Reds repulse 12 attacks by 200 Nazi tanks in Volga city; stiff resistance upsets Axis plans in Caucasus Mountains
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Russian picture brightens despite intensified German assaults on many parts of Stalingrad as the Red Army pushes its drive 110 miles from Moscow by bypassing Rzhev (1) and the Russians break through German lines northwest of Stalingrad (2). Moscow reported that the Axis drive in the Caucasus was delayed and may be halted completely.

Moscow, USSR –
The Red Army, rolling forward in a powerful counteroffensive northwest of Stalingrad, broke through the first German defense line today, according to front dispatches.

While Stalingrad suffered unprecedented devastation, Russian forces “somewhere to the northwest” were flinging the enemy back with infantry, artillery and aircraft. The latest Soviet communiqué said the Russians had driven the Germans from an occupied locality.

A dispatch from the North Caucasus Front meanwhile asserted that the Germans had been compelled by Red Army pressure to discontinue their offensive in mountain regions and to abandon several occupied positions, and that their plans to achieve a decision there before winter had been frustrated.

It was revealed today that a supreme bid by 200 German tanks to smash into the center of Stalingrad had been broken. The Germans lost 42 tanks in 12 consecutive attacks.

Bury tanks in streets

The tanks rumbled forward until special Russian detachments hurling hand grenades and benzine bottles and shooting anti-tank guns, halted them, and thrust back the 11 assaults that followed.

Then the Germans sent Tommy-gunners around the Russian flanks. The Germans seized part of a big building, and the Russians, unable to drive them out, sent five men forward, each carrying 55 pounds of high explosive.

They placed it at the walls. When it was exploded, the building collapsed then buried the Germans. They tried to advance in another part of the city, but lost two battalions (about 1,000 men), after which they buried their tanks and mine-throwers in the streets and used them as fixed artillery.

Volga fleet shells Nazis

Nevertheless, the Russians reported no new German advance in the Stalingrad area.

Soviet warships on the Volga River hurled shells into enemy possessions and concentrations, killing 1,000 Axis troops, and front dispatches said reinforcements and munitions were being rushed across by ferry and other craft.

Dispatches said the few women and children who remained in Stalingrad were living in cellars or in caves dug into the sides of ravines high on the Volga banks.

Bombs were raining on the river banks, it was said, raising great geysers of water and patting the shores.

Charred bodies of women and children killed when German planes smashed a ferry boat on the Stalingrad bank could be seen floating down river, it was said, among the bodies of dead soldiers.

Dispatches described a double battle in which the Red Army stabbed through the German first defense line northwest of the city and continued an advance in several sectors behind an airplane and artillery bombardment, with tanks and infantry following close behind the barrage.

Red Star described the German counterattacks toward the center of Stalingrad as the most powerful in a week.

A correspondent of Red Star, the Soviet Army organ, said that despite a ferocious and continuous air assault, the Russians were bringing up supplies and reinforcements and taking the wounded back across the Volga.

The correspondent wrote that Stalingrad’s horizon was covered with a great glare, the city was burning… “Tongues of flame are dancing and ashes flying.” Several streets had already disappeared, he wrote, and the debris of shattered German bombers littered those streets that remained.

The communiqué said the Germans had lost so heavily they were forced to rush up more reinforcements by air. It was the 31st day of the battle.

The frontlines were so close that all enemy movements could be seen from observation posts within the city without binoculars, dispatches said.

White chalk powder from the crumbling walls covered the faces of officers reporting to Russian headquarters in a deep cellar. The jagged walls of blasted buildings resembled medieval fortresses when shells and bombs burst, illuminating the landscape after nightfall.

Russian reports said that the Germans had lost more than 5,000 men, 109 tanks and 31 cannon in the past three days. The devastating character of close-quarter fighting was reflected in reports that the Germans had lost 118 machine-gun nests destroyed or captured in the same time.

Fighting was fierce and stubborn in the counteroffensive and the Russians faced the handicap of German air superiority. Artillery, firing point blank at a tactically important hill, however, had enabled the Russians to advance at one point.

Soviet Marines attack

Then outnumbered Soviet fighter pilots kept the German bombers at bay, while the Russians consolidated their new positions.

Four hundred Soviet Marines northwest of Stalingrad routed 1,000 Romanians and killed 900 of them.

The communiqué said the Germans concentrated their forces southeast of Novorossiysk, the Black Sea naval base they won 10 days ago, and attacked, but were repulsed.

In the Sinyavino area, where the Russians were engaged in a counteroffensive to secure a land passage to Leningrad, the Germans counterattacked. Every counterattack was repulsed.

There were really two battles going on “northwest of Stalingrad.” One against the main German force in the outskirts and another with Germans who had broken through into Stalingrad itself, dispatches indicated. The Russian counteroffensive appeared to be against the main force.

[NormanStewart]

Enemy broadcast –
Italians describe Russian ‘tricks’

By the United Press

Dispatches from enemy countries are based on broadcasts over controlled radio stations and frequently contain false information for propaganda purposes.

Rome, Italy – (Italian broadcast recorded in New York)
Giornale d’Italia described today some of the tricks of Soviet fighting the Italians have learned on the Don River.

Giornale d’Italia said:

The first trick was that the Soviets built several dozens of bridges over that river, which were, however, completely invisible to Italian ground troops and to the Air Force because they were built about a foot-and-a-half below the water’s surface.

During the dark hours of the night, the Soviets crossed the river on these bridges and meant to surprise the Italians. The existence of dozens of such bridges was discovered by Italian infantrymen.

Still another trick consisted of making use of camouflage straw suits by the Soviets, which made them appear like sheaves of grain in the darkness. Soviet soldiers thus moved over fields at night which they could not storm in daylight.

Italian soldiers in this sector were rather young and not yet acquainted with the Soviet tricks. But some Italian outposts recognized that the entire field of grain sheaves had suddenly begun to move toward the Italians at night. This looked as if the entire field of grain sheaves had begun to spun around.

Italian soldiers now realized that this was the latest trick of the Soviets and they opened fire. In looking over the dead, it was discovered that these straw suits had been manufactured by the British firm of Eltony & Co., in Manchester.

[NormanStewart]

Enemy broadcast –
Stalingrad’s defenders counterattack, Nazis say

By the United Press

Dispatches from enemy countries are based on broadcasts over controlled radio stations and frequently contain false information for propaganda purposes.

Berlin, Germany – (German broadcast recorded at New York)
The High Command reported today that the Russians are making strong counterattacks at Stalingrad.

A German High Command communiqué heard by The Exchange Telegraph in London was quoted as admitting for the first time that Russian forces had bypassed Rzhev, key city on the Central Front 110 miles northwest of Moscow, and that fierce fighting was in progress in a forest west of the city.

A Nazi communiqué said:

Street fighting in Stalingrad is continuing with undiminished embitterment. During the course of strong Soviet counterattacks from the northern direction, 34 Soviet tanks were destroyed.

In the central sector of the front, German attacks were successful, and Soviet counterattacks at Rzhev were repulsed.

German forces in the Northwest Caucasus stormed dominating heights after overcoming stubborn enemy resistance, the communiqué reported. The town of Prishibskaya on the Terek River was reported taken after hard fighting.

In the northern sector, the High Command announced, German forces gained further ground south of Lake Ladoga despite strong resistance and counterattacks.

British aircraft, it was announced, dropped high explosive and incendiary bombs on several places in North German and Danish coastal districts causing losses to the population.

[NormanStewart]

Reds ‘do or die’ at Stalingrad

Russians cling to every inch despite pressure
By Leland Stowe

Moscow, USSR –
Under the conditions of modern warfare, it is doubtful if any city of more than 400,000 population has even become a battlefield on the scale that Stalingrad has or with the same intensity of destruction.

The Russians absolutely refuse to accept any street as lost, or any position as permanent. The battle continues to be a house-to-house affair and every building that survives the shells and bombs, especially stone structures, becomes a fortified center of resistance.

The Germans bring up tanks and mortars into the streets where they have captured positions. Then the Russians rally and wipe out the enemy gunnery posts.

Nazi Tommy-gunners, for example, seized control of the ground floor of one stone building but Russian soldiers barricaded themselves on the second and third floors and set up two machine guns on the roof. Firing from these positions, they cut off the Tommy-gunners below from reinforcements and then other Soviet troops cleared out the Germans from the neighboring district.

The district changed hands twice but the Russians held the stone house until the whole neighborhood was definitely in Soviet hands again.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (September 25, 1942)

Wichtige Höhenstellungen im Kaukasus gestürmt –
Prischibskaja am Terek genommen

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 24. September –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Im Nordwestteil des Kaukasus stürmte Infanterie, von Artillerie und Luftwaffe wirksam unterstützt, nach Überwinden zähen feindlichen Widerstandes mehrere beherrschende Bergrücken. Die Luftwaffe führte außerdem heftige Bombenangriffe gegen den Hafen von Tuapse. Hiebei wurde ein größeres Frachtschiff in Brand geworfen und in den Küstengewässern ein weiteres Handelsschiff sowie ein Bewacher beschädigt. Am Terek wurde in hartem Kampf die Stadt Prischibskaja genommen.

In Stalingrad dauern die erbitterten Häuserkämpfe an. Bei der Abwehr starker Entlastungsangriffe von Norden wurden 34 Sowjetpanzer abgeschossen. Der Nachschub des Feindes auf den Bahnlinien ostwärts und westlich der unteren Wolga sowie Betriebsstofflager bei Saratow wurden von der Luftwaffe erneut schwer bombardiert.

Nordwestlich Woronesch scheiterten Weitere feindliche Angriffe. Im mittleren Frontabschnitt verliefen eigene Angriffsunternehmen erfolgreich. Gegenangriffe des Feindes bei Rschew wurden abgewiesen.

Im Nordabschnitt der Front gewann ein eigener Angriff südlich des Ladogasees trotz hartnäckigen feindlichen Widerstandes und vergeblicher Gegenangriffe weiter Boden.

An der Ostfront wurden gestern 62 feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen. Zwei eigene Flugzeuge werden vermißt.

Britische Flugzeuge warfen in der vergangenen Nacht Spreng- und Brandbomben auf einige Orte im norddeutschen und dänischen Küstengebiet. Die Bevölkerung hatte Verluste. Zehn der britischen Bomber wurden abgeschossen. Deutsche Kampfflugzeuge bombardierten in der Nacht zum 24. September kriegswichtige Ziele der Grafschaft York in Mittelengland.

Wie durch Sondermeldung bekanntgegeben, griffen deutsche Unterseebdote zwischen Spitzbergen und Island einen Geleitzug an, der von sowjetischen Häfen nach britischen und amerikanischen Häfen zurückkehrte und aus mehr Sicherungsfahrzeugen als Transportschiffen bestand. In harten, tagelangen Kämpfen gegen die besonders starke Strömung versenkten unsere Unterseeboote drei Zerstörer sowie einen Hilfskreuzer und fünf Transporter von zusammen 50.000 BRT. Weitere zwei Schiffe wurden durch Torpedotreffer schwer beschädigt.

Im Atlantik, vor Afrika und in der Karibischen See versenkten andere Unterseeboote aus Geleitzügen und in Einzeljagd 13 feindliche Handelsschiffe mit zusammen 75.000 BRT. sowie eine Korvette und beschädigten ein weiteres Schiff durch Torpedotreffer.

Damit hat die feindliche Schiffahrt in den letzten vier Tagen wiederum 19 Schiffe mit 125.000 BRT., dazu drei Zerstörer und eine Korvette verloren.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 25, 1942)

Reds continue to gain at Stalingrad

Russians seize two vital hills northwest of Volga city where Germans pull forces out of main assault to protect flank
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
Front dispatches reported today that the Red Army has driven deeper wedges into German lines northwest of Stalingrad and beaten off a terrific attack in the city itself, prompting a Soviet military commentator to report that the initiative is slowly passing to the Russians.

Soviet sources estimated German casualties are piling up at a rate equal to or exceeding the frightful rates of the Battle of Verdun. Front reports indicated the Nazi attack was gradually losing momentum in the face of the fierce defense within Stalingrad’s shattered walls.

The English-language Moscow News reported a sharp reduction in the ferocity of Nazi air attacks, estimating that the Luftwaffe is now operating at a level only 30-40% of the peak set two weeks ago.

Reds take two key hills

Maj. Gen. Zhuravlev, writing in the Moscow News, said the battle had reached a stalemate with the initiative passing over toward the Russians. He urged that the Allies open a “second front” now.

In the gaining attack northwest of Stalingrad, the Russians reported they had captured two more important hills, dominating a wide area, and a strategic village.

The TASS News Agency quoted Col. Surgueyev as saying that 25,000 Germans had been killed in the Battle of Stalingrad last week, and that 3,000 had been killed northwest of the city in two days.

If German casualties followed the usual ratio of three wounded to one killed, their total casualties at Stalingrad were 100,000 men last week.

The Germans had hastily withdrawn large tank and infantry forces from their main assault on Stalingrad and frantically attacked in an effort to stop the threat to their left flank. All attacks failed, with heavy losses.

Worse than Verdun battle

Soviet tanks broke into German trenches. Infantry followed, consolidated the positions and hurled back furious German tank and aerial counterattacks.

Col. Surgeyev, in putting German dead at Stalingrad at 25,000 last week, said the battle eclipsed the Battle of Verdun, which lasted from February to June 1916. German casualties in that battle were 334,000, of which 57,000 were killed.

The battle inside Stalingrad went on with a mounting fury, behind crumbling walls, sandbags and inside gutted houses.

Girls rescue wounded

Braving a ceaseless rain of bombs, the Volga River fleet rushed up a steady flow of guns, shells and mines, which volunteer workmen transported to barricades.

Every worker in a giant tractor factory refused to be evacuated. They were organized into army battalions and worked day and night, repairing tanks, building barricades and extinguished fires. Thousands of girls joined sanitary units, and rescued the wounded from battlefields under enemy fire and from burning houses.

It was the 32nd day of the Battle of Stalingrad, which had become a meat grinder for Adolf Hitler’s legions, his tanks and his planes.

Even run kindergarten

The battle inside Stalingrad was so close that the loss of several houses created a tactical reverse. The latest Soviet communiqué reported that the Germans occupied several houses and threatened the flank of a unit. But the Russians counterattacked and restored the situation.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians left Stalingrad some time ago, it was revealed, crossing to the east bank of the Volga.

Factory workers and young communists, however, refused to be evacuated. Girls who belong to the Communist Party, besides nursing duties, gathered children whose parents were killed by bombs and shells and conducted for them a big kindergarten.

A correspondent, writing for Komsomolskaya Pravda, organ of the Communist Youth Party, said that young girls in a two-day battle in the suburbs ran a gantlet of fire to take wounded from the battlefield. When they returned, they lugged away cases of ammunition.

The correspondent reported that the soldiers were so inspired by the girls’ heroism that they drove the enemy back and recaptured a factory and an airfield.

Dry wind whips across city

Stalingrad city officials and anti-aircraft officers, with headquarters in a cave, directed thousands of men and women civilians in the herculean task of trying to maintain order in the city.

Those remaining in h city were reported living in bomb shelters, dugouts, cellars, or caves high on the bank of the Volga.

One dispatch, describing the ferocity of the fighting, said that sometimes 100 or 200 tanks battled for a single street. Nazi dive bombers frequently fell into the city squares or smashed through rooftops.

Dry winds whipped dust across Stalingrad, filling the craters which pocked every street and covering rifles with a white coat. Soviet troops wet their handkerchiefs and stuffed them in their mouths.

Dispatches also reported that Soviet troops were advancing steadily on the Central Front (presumably around Rzhev, 110 miles northwest of Moscow), and had taken three inhabited communities, killed more than 2,000 Germans and destroyed 20 of their tanks in the past 10 days.

Repulse foe in Caucasus

A communiqué said strong enemy forces of tanks and Tommy-gunners had tried to drive a wedge into Soviet positions near Mozdok, in the Eastern Caucasus, and failed. The Germans have been trying for weeks to drive from the Mozdok area to the nearby Grozny oil fields.

A small German force was wiped out southeast of Novorossiysk. The Germans have held Novorossiysk, the Black Sea naval base for almost two weeks, but evidently have not been able to get beyond it.

The scope of Russian operations northwest of ruined Stalingrad was not revealed.

But it was clear that the Soviet High Command was endeavoring to break the German ring about Stalingrad, bend back the left flank and make the Nazis relax their grip.

German general killed

Front dispatches revealed that they had broken the first German defense line, and a communiqué said that seven great German counterattacks had been smashed and 45 German tanks and 500 men had been destroyed. Repeated German attempts to retake a strategic hill were beaten off.

German prisoners were quoted as saying that Maj. Gen. Geissner, commanding the German 29th Infantry Division, was killed recently.

A Transocean Agency dispatch, broadcast by Radio Berlin, giving the newest Nazi alibi for not taking Stalingrad, quoted German military quarters as saying that the attackers were being cautious to avoid undue casualties and “the fall of the city thus may be delayed for some time.”

[NormanStewart]

Trend at Stalingrad heartens London experts

By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer

London, England –
A month after the start of the battle for Stalingrad, military experts said today the German assault army was evidently no closer to taking the city than it was 10 days ago, and might actually be in a worse position.

Observers believed that with the Soviet defenders of Stalingrad winning back some ground and a Red Army striking down from the north in an attempt to relieve the city, the extended German position might be threatened seriously.

Some even went so far as to say that the German Army faced the possibility that a majority of its hard-won summer gains would have to be abandoned and the whole invasion force in South Russia pulled back to a winter line which could be defended with a minimum of seasoned men.

Analysts said the captured of Stalingrad – apparently scheduled for mid-August on Adolf Hitler’s original timetable – was doubtless expected to split the Russian armies, annihilate Marshal Semyon Timoshenko’s main force, and leave the Germans time enough to consolidate everything down to the mouth of the Volga while other forces crossed the Caucasus passes to Baku.

But Russian resistance forced the withdrawal of some forces originally allotted to the Caucasus drive. And it turned the occupation of Stalingrad from a relatively simple converging movement into an inch-by-inch struggle which still gave no real prospect of early success.

Military quarters agreed that if the German campaign had succeeded in shattering Timoshenko’s army, the Nazis might have been able to disengage themselves and deploy against the threat from the west next year.

The best available information here indicated that Russia had sustained severe blows which cut down her offensive strength but failed in any sense to smash the Red Army.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (September 26, 1942)

Sowjetische Entlastungsangriffe bei Stalingrad abgewehrt –
Weiterer Raumgewinn im Kaukasusgebiet

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 25. September –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Im Kaukasusgebiet gewannen deutsche und verbündete Truppen im Angriff gegen hartnäckig verteidigte Stellungen weiter Raum und wiesen mehrere Gegenangriffe ab. Bei der Bekämpfung von Schiffszielen vor der Kaukasusküste wurden zwei Frachtschiffe durch Bombentreffer schwer beschädigt. Im Stadtgebiet von Stalingrad nahmen die Angriffstruppen in zähem Häuserkampf weitere befestigte Stützpunkte. Entlastungsangriffe gegen die nördliche Abriegelungsfront wurden in harten Kämpfen abgewehrt und bei 36 Panzer abgeschossen. Flugplätze ostwärts Stalingrad wurden bei Tag und Nacht bombardiert.

Nächtliche Bombenangriffe setzten abermals Olbehälter bei Saratow in Brand. Im Mündungsgebiet der Wolga und ostwärts des Stromes wurden zwei Tanker versenkt, zwei Lastkähne beschädigt und ein Munitionszug zur Explosion gebracht.

An der Donfront schlugen italienische Truppen einen Übersetzungsversuch der Bolschewisten über den Fluß ab. Bei Woronesch wiederholte der Feind seine vergeblichen Angriffe. Im mittleren und nördlichen Frontabschnitt wurden die eigenen Angriffsunternehmungen fortgesetzt. Feindliche Gegenangriffe und örtliche Angriffe der Sowjets südostwärts des Ilmensees brachen im Abwehrfeuer zusammen.

Im östlichen Mittelmeer versenkte ein deutsches Unterseeboot einen Transportsegler.

Britische Bomber führten in der vergangenen Nacht Störflüge über der Ost- und Nordsee durch. Nachtjäger schossen ein Flugzeug, Marineflak und Vorpostenboote fünf britische Flugzeuge ab.

Nach wirksamen Tiefangriffen leichter deutscher Kampfflugzeuge bei Tage gegen militärische Ziele an der englischen Südküste wurde in der vergangenen Nacht ein Verkehrsknotenpunkt im Südwesten der Insel mit Bomben belegt.

Bei der erfolgreichen Abwehr starker feindlicher Entlastungsangriffe im Raum von Stalingrad zeichnete sich die brandenburgische 76. Infanteriedivision besonders aus.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 26, 1942)

Germans forced to divert troops from Stalingrad

Defenders regain more ground inside city; foe suffers casualties of 70%
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
Front dispatches today reported fresh Soviet tank reserves are knifing deeper into vital Nazi positions on a range of hills northwest of Stalingrad while inside the city Nazis were being driven back with casualties ranging as high as 70% for some units.

The Russian tank forces, dispatches said, were thrown into the growing counterattack which seeks to win control of a range of hills and unhinge the Nazi lines north and northwest of Stalingrad.

Inside Stalingrad, the Germans were reported stalled or falling back with terrific losses at most points. Their losses were estimated at 1,500 men, 20 tanks and 12 cannon in the past 12 hours.

Reds warn of new threats

German prisoners were quoted as reporting that casualties were terrific in the hand-to-hand street fighting running up as high as 70% in some regiments.

The Red Army organ, Red Star, warned that Russia would face new and possibly more dangerous threats if the Nazis captured Stalingrad.

It said that the Germans planned to attack in the north, presumably on the Moscow Front, when their armies were released at Stalingrad.

Cites German plan

The Nazi plan, Red Star said, was to employ the Stalingrad force for a northern offensive and to reinforce the German troops in the Caucasus.

Dispatches from Stockholm said it was “now clear that Swedish correspondents in Germany do not believe Stalingrad will fall.

An unconfirmed dispatch from Stockholm said Timoshenko had already cut the main north-south road and railroad immediately northwest of Stalingrad, over which German supplies were brought.

Pushed back in Stalingrad

The Germans, squeezed between Timoshenko’s growing counteroffensive and the stiffening resistance inside Stalingrad, were withdrawing men and tanks from their futile attempts to take the city and trying to stop the counteroffensive. The only results so far have been the loss of scores of tanks and thousands of men.

It was the 33rd day of the Battle of Stalingrad, and front dispatches said the Russians, in bitter hand-to-hand battle, had driven the Germans from a number of blocks inside the city.

Moreover, the Germans failed to advance in frenzied efforts to take vital intersections. Soviet anti-tank weapons, firing from behind barricades, were proving superior to German armor, knocking out every tank directly hit.

Roasted inside tanks

The Russians also used hand grenades and benzine bottle throwers, and many Germans were roasted inside their tanks.

German planes pounded Volga River crossings in an effort to prevent reinforcements from reaching the counteroffensive, and to keep supplies out of Stalingrad.

Soviet soldiers, marines and sailors, it was said, have been showing increasingly greater strength inside Stalingrad in the past 48 hours.

There was no minimizing German strength northwest of Stalingrad. Their positions were studded with large numbers of anti-tank guns and big artillery, and they were doing their utmost to stop the counteroffensive.

Use ‘checkerboard’ defense

The Soviet Army organ, Red Star reported a “checkerboard” defense system was proving unusually successful inside Stalingrad. Cannon are set up to cover every approach, and when tanks try to advance, Red Star said, they are met by a concentrated stream of fire from every angle that brings them to a standstill.

New armored naval units, principally high-speed motorboats, joined the Battle of Stalingrad. Coursing up and down the Volga, they attacked German artillery and tanks at short range and helped monitors to protect crossings against dive bombers.

Dispatches reported Soviet successes at other points along the battlefront. Russian forces advanced on a sector near Voronezh, 350 miles northwest of Stalingrad, and killed 800 of the enemy. South of Voronezh, the Germans attacked several times, but were beaten off with heavy losses.

Gain on Moscow Front

On the Central Front, presumably in the Rzhev area northwest of Moscow, Soviet troops supported by heavy tanks and artillery drive the Germans from an inhabited locality and broke their second line of defense.

Of the drive northwest of Stalingrad, the Soviet communiqué said:

One of our units wiped out 300 Hitlerites and captured 200,000 rounds of ammunition.

The capture of 200,000 rounds of ammunition suggested that the unit had driven into enemy positions and taken a munition dump.

Repel Nazis in Caucasus

The latest communiqué said the Russians were beating off enemy attacks in the Mozdok area in the Caucasus, where the Germans had tried with little success to drive to the nearby Grozny oil fields.

Southeast of Novorossiysk, the Black Sea naval base the Russians relinquished two weeks ago, Soviet marines wiped out a battalion of Romanian infantry (500 men).

Southeast of Novorossiysk, the Russians have killed 3,000 Germans, including two colonels, in three days.

Meanwhile, a communiqué admitted that the Germans had driven a wedge into the positions of a Soviet unit in the Sinyavino sector of the Volkhov Front. The wedge, however, was stopped, and the Russians were reported mopping it up.

The Russians had opened an offensive in the Sinyavino sector, south of Leningrad, to widen the land passage to that besieged city.

[NormanStewart]

Attacks by Russians blocked, Nazis say

By the United Press

Dispatches from enemy countries are based on broadcasts over controlled radio stations and frequently contain false information for propaganda purposes.

Berlin, Germany (UP) – (German broadcast recorded in New York)
The High Command said today that Russian attacks north of Stalingrad were repulsed and that in Stalingrad buildings of the Communist Party were captured in bitter fighting.

It was the third day the Germans had admitted Russian attacks.

The German official news agency said the Germans “are fighting for time at Stalingrad” and the battle would “end in the inescapable exhaustion of Bolshevism.”

The agency said:

The German war leadership is certain that German reserves may be filled up without difficulty, while the Russian reserves, cut off from the south and particularly from their Caucasus oil wells, are facing exhaustion.

The German Transocean Agency advanced again the German thesis that:

…since Stalingrad is doomed in any case, no unnecessary losses will be risked to hasten the fall of the city.

…and:

German barrage positions around Stalingrad are so strong that the Soviets cannot break through these positions.

A Transocean dispatch said:

At every house, behind every wall, at all points where Soviet tanks are entrenched, the enemy is offering stiff resistance.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (September 27, 1942)

Parteigebäude Stalingrads dem Feinde entrissen –
Sowjetstellungen im Kaukasus durchbrochen

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 26. September –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Im Nordwestteil des Kaukasus und am Terek durchbrachen deutsche und verbündete Truppen mit wirksamer Unterstützung der Luftwaffe mehrere stark ausgebaute feindliche Stellungen. Vor der Kaukasusküste des Schwarzen Meeres versenkten deutsche Schnellboote einen Sowjettanker von 2000 Tonnen und einen Dampfer von 1500 BRT. Ein Transportschiff und ein großer Schleppkahn erhielten Bombentreffer.

Im Kampf um Stalingrad wurden dem Feind die in der Nähe der Wolga liegenden Parteigebäude in schweren Kämpfen entrissen und Entlastungsangriffe an der nördlichen Riegelstellung unter Vernichtung von 31 Panzern abgewiesen. Kampfflugzeuge warfen bei Nachtangriffen Bahnhofsanlagen und Öllager der Stadt Astrachan in Brand.

Die Kämpfe bei Woronesch dauern an. Im mittleren Frontabschnitt nahmen Verbände des Heeres und der Waffen-SS gegen zähen feindlichen Widerstand mehrere Ortschaften. Örtliche Angriffe des Feindes südostwärts des Ilmensees scheiterten.

Bei einem militärisch wirkungslosen Tagesangriff auf das Stadtgebiet von Oslo schossen deutsche Jäger drei von vier britischen Bombern ab.

Die Luftwaffe bekämpfte in der vergangenen Nacht eine Hafenstadt in Südwestengland mit Spreng- und Brandbomben.

Erfolge trotz harter Abwehr

dnb. Berlin, 26. September –
Im Raum von Noworossijsk erstürmte deutsche Infanterie einen Stützpunkt der Bolschewisten und eine das Kampfgebiet beherrschende Höhe. Rumänische Truppen vernichteten in schwierigem, bergigem Gelände eine hartnäckig verteidigte feindliche Bunkerlinie, nahmen einen Bahnhol und besetzten ein für die Fortführung des Angriffs wichtiges Höhengelände. Der Schwerpunkt der deutschen Luftangriffe lag auf den Feuerstellungen der bolschewistischen Artillerie. Mehrere Geschütze und schwere Granatwerfer wurden durch Volltreffer vernichtet.

In einem anderen Abschnitt der Kaukasusfront überwand deutsche Infanterie, teilweise in kilometerlangen Talengen kämpfend, bolschewistische Feldstellungen und nahm im Sturm einige für den weiteren Angriff wichtige Gehöfte. Gegenangriffe des Feindes wurden von slowakischen Truppen blutig abgewiesen.

Am Terek drangen die deutschen Truppen weiter vor. und eroberten eine Ortschaft. Überraschend vorstoßende deutsche Panzerkampfwagen brachen in die Feuerstellungen der feindlichen Artillerie ein‚ vernichteten neun Geschütze und machten zahlreiche Gefangene. In erbitterten nächtlichen Abwehrkämpfen wies motorisierte Infanterie in einem anderen Frontabschnitt heftige Gegenangriffe des Feindes ab und warf ihn in seine Ausgangsstellung zurück.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 27, 1942)

Reds threaten Nazi flank

Enemy tank attack hurled back in Stalingrad with heavy casualties
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
Fresh Soviet tank columns knifed into the hills northwest of Stalingrad tonight, driving forward in an effort to flank the main German attackers of the Volga city and force them to pull back troops on the city’s north and northwest outskirts.

Front dispatches reported the big Russian counterattack was pressing forward steadily and that in Stalingrad itself huge Nazi tank thrusts had been repelled with Nazi casualties running up to 70% in some combat regiments.

Aided by a “surprise” artillery attack, the Russians killed hundreds of German assault troops in the suburbs of Stalingrad, the Soviet midnight communiqué said.

Activity on three sides

The communiqué said operations were underway south of the city, as well as to the north and northwest, where a Soviet unit annihilated a force “of several hundreds of German officers and men.”

It implied that Soviet artillery was playing a more important role in the valiant defense of Stalingrad. Placing the scene of action only as “in the suburbs of Stalingrad,” the communiqué said an artillery unit of the Red Guards, who rank among the foremost of Russia’s fighting men, had carried out a surprise attack and destroyed an entire enemy battalion.

Nevertheless, the Red Army organ, Red Star, warned that the situation was of utmost gravity and suggested that Adolf Hitler was prepared to wheel north for a new attack on Moscow if he is given a moment’s respite on the Southern Front.

Russians gaining gradually

Marshal Semyon Timoshenko appeared to be gaining gradually in the defense of the Volga key city where German siege forces again failed to advance. In 12 hours up to Saturday noon, the enemy had lost 1,500 men, 20 tanks and 12 cannon in the block-by-block and house-by-house fighting within the city.

There was no doubt that the German casualties were heavy. A German prisoner said his regiment had lost 70% of its effectives in four days’ fighting.

Timoshenko, using newly-arrived tanks, knifed into gun-studded enemy positions in the northwest hills, and the Saturday noon communiqué said the Soviets had advanced to “more favorable positions.”

Reds hold two hills

The Germans concentrated masses of anti-tank artillery in the range of hills to cope with the Soviet tanks, but the Russians controlled advantageous positions on at least two hills.

Thirty-one enemy tanks were destroyed in bitter fighting for the hills and upwards of a full regiment (about 3,000 men) were killed by the Russians. In the attack on the first hill, the Germans lost 17 tanks and many more were seriously damaged as the Russians retained the position.

Diverting more and more of their strength to bolster their threatened left flank, the collapse of which would peril their siege of Stalingrad, the enemy attacked the other Soviet hill position five times, losing 14 tanks and most of a regiment.

Speedboats aid defense

New Russian armored forces, mainly high-speed motorboats, joined in the Battle of Stalingrad. They sped along the Volga, engaging German tanks and artillery at short range and aiding their shore batteries protecting the river crossings.

The German Air Force pounded the river crossings without mercy hoping to disrupt the flow of Russian reinforcements, but the defenders were showing signs of greater strength.

Inside the city, the fierce fighting defenders drove the Germans from several streets and many houses, with fighting often at point-blank range. Artillery, anti-tank, and rifle fire, supported by barrages of hand grenades and benzine bottles, met the enemy at every turn.

Red Star said the Soviets were using a checkerboard street defense with cannon covering almost every corner. German tanks, advancing into the narrow streets, were being met with fire from Soviet anti-tank guns, front dispatches said.

The dispatches said that the Russians had recaptured a number of blocks of houses in some sectors of Stalingrad after hand-to-hand fighting.

The Saturday noon communiqué said:

In fierce battles, a guards unit destroyed 10 German tanks and killed 285 Germans. In another sector, Soviet troops repulsed an attack and killed up to a company of infantry and captured six machine guns and six mortars.

German tanks retreat

The newspaper Izvestia reported that three attacks by 60 tanks were repulsed Friday. Fifteen machines were wrecked by Soviet guns and the remainder retreated “up the street.” The Russians cleared several big buildings of enemy troops and blew up two large houses, annihilating an entire German unit, it said.

Fighting continued at a high pitch in the Northern Caucasus. The Russians held a ridge at the far end of the Mozdok Valley, in the Terek River sector, defending the road to Grozny and its oil fields. An attack by 30 German tanks was repulsed and 25 of the machines were wrecked, dispatches said.

Reports reaching London said Nazi sources had acknowledged a “regrettable incident” concerning clashes between Hungarian and Romanian troops in the Mozdok area. The Romanians, holding a flank in that sector, opened fire on Hungarian reinforcements sent to aid them, the report said. The Hungarians returned fire and there were casualties on both sides.

Moscow attack soon

Dispatches said Soviet troops had advanced on one sector of the Voronezh Front, 350 miles north of Stalingrad, and killed 800 enemy troops. Enemy counterattacks were repulsed on the western bank of the Don River, south of Voronezh.

Red Star warned, meanwhile, that Adolf Hitler planned to attack “in the north” – presumably on the Moscow Front – as soon as his armies are released from Stalingrad. If the city falls, the newspaper said, the enemy will use it as a base to drive north against the Central Front and south into the North Caucasus with increased strength.

Hitler’s aims described

It decried talk of Russia’s great expenses and inexhaustible resources as war aids, and, stressing the seriousness of the great territorial losses suffered, described Hitler’s aims as follows:

1. Capture of the Caucasus oil fields.
2. Division of north and south Russia.
3. Destruction of cooperation between Russian armies.
4. Severance of the Volga supply lines.
5. Protection of the German North Caucasus flanks.
6. The freeing of large forces tied up at Stalingrad for offensives to the north and south.

Although the Germans’ advance has been slowed, Red Star said:

Only stupid people can feel assured and forget for a minute that the menace to the Soviet Union has become greater – not diminished.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (September 28, 1942)

Im Stadtkern von Stalingrad mehrere Häuserblocks erstürmt –
An weiteren Stellen zur Wolga vorgestoßen

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 27. September –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Im Nordwestteil des Kaukasus und am Terek wurde der Feind trotz zähen Widerstandes aus tiefgegliederten Stellungen geworfen. Bei der Abwehr eines Gegenangriffes vernichteten deutsche Truppen am Terek zwei feindliche Bataillone und brachten mehrere hundert Gefangene ein. Die Luftwaffe bombardierte die Häfen Tuapse und Chosta und beschädigte ein Frachtschiff durch Bombentreffer.

Im Stadtkern von Stalingrad stürmte Infanterie mehrere Bunkeranlagen und Häuserblocks und stieß, von Sturzkampfflugzeugen unterstützt‚ an weiteren Stellen bis zur Wolga vor. Entlastungsangriffe gegen die nördliche Abriegelungsfront wurden abgewiesen. Eine Panzerdivision vernichtete dabei 24 zum größten Teil schwere Panzer. Zusammengefaßte Luftangriffe fügten den Sowjets hohe Verluste zu. Deutsche und rumänische Kampffliegerverbände setzten die Zerschlagung des feindlichen Nachschubs auf den Bahnstrecken der unteren Wolga fort.

An der Donfront örtliche Kampftätigkeit. Nordwestlich Woronesch scheiterten wiedermehren feindliche Angriffe.

Bei Rschew griff der Feind einen Teilabschnitt der Front mit starken, von Panzern und Fliegern unterstützten Kräften erneut an. Die harten Kämpfe sind noch im Gange.

Südlich des Ladogasees wurden mehrere feindliche Angriffe unter hohen blutigen Verlusten des Feindes abgewiesen und weitere Bereitstellungen durch zusammengefaßtes Feuer aller Waffen und den Einsatz der Luftwaffe zerschlagen. Bei einem auf breiter Front unternommenen Übersetzversuch des Feindes über die Newa wurden über 260 Boote vernichtet und eine Anzahl Gefangener eingebracht.

Die Sowjets verloren am gestrigen Tage 50 Flugzeuge; drei eigene Flugzeuge werden vermißt.

In Nordafrika führten deutsche Kampfflugzeuge am 25. September einen überraschenden Angriff gegen den britischen Stützpunkt in der Oase Kufra. Bombentreffer und Bordwaffenbeschuß riefen Zerstörungen und Brände in den Befestigungs- und Flugplatzanlagen sowie in Truppenunterkünften hervor. Deutsche Jäger schossen am 26. September bei Begleitschutz und freier Jagd ohne eigene Verluste acht britische Jagdflugzeuge ab. Der Flugplatz Heliopolis bei Kairo wurde in der vergangenen Nacht mit Bomben belegt.

An der Kanalküste und bei nächtlichen Störflügen im Gebiet der Nord- und Ostsee wurden vier britische Flugzeuge abgeschossen.

Hauptmann Graf, Staffelkapitän in einem Jagdgeschwader, errang am 26. September seinen 200. bis 202. Luftsieg.

[1nt17cs152.ritvik]

Fresh Soviet tank columns knifed into the hills northwest of Stalingrad

no wonder the (Warning : Massive spoilers ahead) soviets won. They had tanks with knives. Truly way ahead of time.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 28, 1942)

Russians describes huge German losses in battle for Stalingrad

Bitter fighting rages in city’s mills, shipyards; Reds hurl more reserves
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
Front dispatches today reported a stream of Red Army reinforcements is arriving at Stalingrad and plunging into immediate action against plane-borne Nazi divisions which are attempting to slice across the crescent-shaped city to the Volga banks.

The Communist Party newspaper Pravda, reported that despite the steady arrival of fresh Russian troops the Nazis still have numerical superiority and are equally active in rushing up rested divisions by aerial transports.

One front report said that Russian forces had captured a small hill in one district, considerably improving their positions.

The most bitter fighting was reported in several of Stalingrad’s huge manufacturing plants and shipyards which sprawl for miles along the Volga.

Try to cut off Reds

It was pointed out here that Stalingrad is much longer than it is wide and that the Nazis are attempting to knife through the city at several points to cut off and isolate Soviet defense forces.

The Nazis have reported that they have reached the Volga several times and that wedges have been driven between the Russian forces in various parts of the city.

Some of the most furious air battles of the air were reported raging over Stalingrad as the Nazis continued without relaxation their campaign to pulverize the city, block by block. Russian fighter squadrons were attacking the Nazi bomber formations constantly but were heavily handicapped by German domination of the air.

It was reported here that two Stalingrad streets had been recaptured in fierce hand-to-hand battles. However, in other sectors, the Germans were said to have improved their positions.

The Germans were trying to cut the city into sections and thus disorganize the defenders.

4,500 die in 24 hours

The German task was urgent, because Marshal Semyon Timoshenko was driving down from the northwest in a counteroffensive. The Soviet communiqué reported that 2,000 more Germans had been killed northwest of Stalingrad, a total of 4,500 officially reported killed in that area in the past 24 hours.

It was the 35th day of the battle in which one million Germans and thousands of tanks and planes were engaged. An analysis of Soviet communiqués showed that a total of 84,000 Germans and their vassals were killed in Stalingrad the first 26 days of September, and that the enemy lost 1,250 tanks.

Soviet communiqués last midnight and early today reported the killing of at least 6,200 more Germans in Stalingrad and adjacent area.

Slight gains in Caucasus

Streets, quivering with the explosion of shells and bombs, were covered with a fog of smoke and dust. Fires blazed high in the outskirts. Scores of German dive bombers shot through the smoke, dropping bombs and opening up sirens in an effort to demoralize the defenders.

Soviet Monitors and armored boats on the Volga braved a hurricane bombardment to maintain a line of supply and move the wounded out.

A slight Soviet gain was reported in the Mozdok area of the Eastern Caucasus, where the Germans were trying to drive toward the Grozny oil fields. Earlier, a German advance was reported in that area.

Soviet snipers killed 300 Germans and anti-aircraft gunners shot down four German planes on the Leningrad Front.

The BBC quoted its Russian correspondent as saying:

It may be presumed that advance units of a Russian force have reached their comrades between the Don and Volga and that the actual battle to free Stalingrad from the enemy has started.

On all Russian fronts, the Germans lost a total of 190,000 men and 2,448 tanks in the first 26 days of September. Since May 1, at least 1,200,000 Germans have been killed on all Russian fronts, official Soviet figures showed.

In Berlin, Nazi Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop claimed that Soviet casualties in the war total 14 million. Wendell Willkie said in Moscow recently that Soviet casualties total five million.

Last midnight’s Soviet communiqué said the enemy had advanced somewhat on one sector inside Stalingrad, and had been stopped.

Pessimism over the situation in Stalingrad deepened in London. Military observers said the Germans, having driven a wedge into the heart of Stalingrad, were tightening their grip on the city, and that Timoshenko’s counteroffensive had not yet changed the situation to a great extent.

A dispatch from Switzerland quoted the National Zeitung’s Berlin correspondent as saying that the Russians were constantly throwing reinforcements into the Battle of Stalingrad. The correspondent said German military circles believed the time for “a general settlement with Britain was nearer than suspected.” This assumption was based on the German belief that the Russian war potential was sufficiently weakened for a concentration of German forces in the west, he said.

Gain near Black Sea port

Soviet gains were officially reported southeast of Novorossiysk, the Black Sea naval base the Russians abandoned two weeks ago.

In the Sinyavino sector of the Volkhov Front, the Russians finished mopping up German forces which had penetrated their defenses. The Russians opened a counteroffensive on the Sinyavino sector several weeks ago to widen the land passage to Leningrad.

North of Voronezh, which is 350 miles northwest of Stalingrad, the Russians cleared the Germans from a stubbornly-contested grove.

A communiqué said that from Sept. 20 to 27, Russian airmen and anti-aircraft guns destroyed 206 German planes. The Russians lost 156 in the same period. The communiqué also revealed that Soviet warships had sunk a 2,000-ton enemy transport in the Black Sea.

[NormanStewart]

Enemy broadcast –
Nazis claim advance at Stalingrad

By the United Press

Dispatches from enemy countries are based on broadcasts over controlled radio stations and frequently contain false information for propaganda purposes.

Berlin, Germany – (German broadcast recorded in New York)
German troops have advanced toward the northern part of Stalingrad, it was announced officially today.

A communiqué issued from Adolf Hitler’s headquarters said:

In the battle for Stalingrad, German troops have now also penetrated into the northern parts of the city. The territory had been absolutely cleared of the enemy.

Russian relief attacks north and south of the Volga city were frustrated the communiqué said.

In the Northwestern Caucasus, it was announced German and Slovak troops captured several Soviet heights positions after hard fighting.

Russian attacks were said to have been turned back on the Central Front, particularly at Rzhev and “a local German attack was successfully continued.”

The communiqué said a Russian attempt to break through the German encirclement at Leningrad was thrown back.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 29, 1942)

Soviet drive gains above Stalingrad

Germans make serious thrust into city with 150 tanks
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
Marshal Semyon Timoshenko’s counteroffensive, backed by swarms of planes and tanks, was blasting the Germans along a 50-mile front between the Don and Volga Rivers above Stalingrad today, steadily driving them back.

Front dispatches said the Russians were also on the west bank of the Don, trying to drive a wedge into German positions there and disrupt reinforcements and supply lines of the Nazis inside Stalingrad.

The government organ, Izvestia, said Soviet batteries had destroyed pontoon bridges and sunk numerous troop-laden boats trying to cross a river.

This was probably the Don River, which German reinforcements for Stalingrad must cross.

In Stalingrad itself, the Russians admitted, the Germans had made a serious penetration by hurling 150 tanks and two divisions of infantry (at least 20,000 men) into the northern part of the city.

Get first light frost

Red Star, the Soviet Army newspaper, reported that it had not rained in three months, but Stalingrad had its first light frost yesterday.

The ground was baked as hard as stone and a thick white film of dust covered the earth.

Soviet progress above Stalingrad, while steady, was necessarily slow. The enemy held numerous strongly-fortified positions, and it took devastating artillery fire to soften them up so enemy depth defenses could be penetrated.

In a two-day battle, the Russians destroyed 42 bunkers and 2,200 Germans on one sector. The Germans fiercely counterattacked, but could not dislodge the Russians from their new positions.

Tanks push into city

The Russians were holding the bulk of two German divisions which yesterday took the offensive on the northwestern outskirts of Stalingrad, below Timoshenko’s counteroffensive. But part of 150 tanks which had penetrated a workers’ settlement had received reinforcements and was driving ahead.

The Germans, entrenched in several favorable points, began systemically firing at crossings of the Volga River.

The Germans, however, had counterattacked Timoshenko’s forces along a wide front with powerful forces. At one point, they seized a vital height and threatened to encircle several Russian units. Later, the Russians wedged into several German positions and prevented German consolidation of the height.

Caucasus situation is better

Soviet successes were reported on both Caucasus fronts. Southeast of Novorossiysk, the Black Sea naval base abandoned to the Germans. Russian forces have not only checked the Germans; in a series of counterattacks, they have wedged into the German positions and continued to develop their thrusts

In the Mozdok area, a powerful new German offensive aimed at the nearby Grozny oil fields was reported meeting stonewall resistance. The Germans were said to have been long pinned to the same spot and unable to make headway, despite mounting losses. Two hundred German tanks attacked in one area near Mozdok. They were cut off from the supporting infantry, battered and beaten back.

Red Star reported that the Russians inside Stalingrad were fighting like lions and that some streets had changed hands four times in a day.

Use camels and oxen

After a bloody battle, the Germans advanced 25 yards up one little street. The Russians counterattacked at night, drove them back, killed 400 Germans and crippled 18 tanks.

Camels and oxen were being increasingly used for transport by the Russians.

Adopting medieval tactics to modern warfare, the Germans dropped bottles filled with an incendiary liquid among the brush on patched steppes. Huge fires, whipped by a strong wind from the Volga roared across Russian positions. All the Russians could do was dig quickly into the ground and let the fire burn over them.

The steppes on Stalingrad’s outskirts were baked as hard as iron. The only water was salty, and from rare wells.

Strong winds whipped up a blinding dust from the steppes. It mixed with smoke, and was so thick that Russian units frequently couldn’t see each other yards away at high noon.

‘Destroy them like dogs’

The Russians acknowledged that the Germans were numerically superior in the Stalingrad area, and Radio Moscow called on the defenders to seek them out in every house, every window and every cellar and “destroy them like mad dogs.”

Radio Moscow said:

Remember, every Fritz killed, every enemy tank or gun damaged brings the day of our victory nearer.

The communiqué described developments in the Battle of Stalingrad as follows:

After hard-fought engagements, a number of enemy tanks succeeded in penetrating a factory settlement where fighting is now in progress. About two regiments of German infantry were wiped out an about 50 enemy tanks destroyed in the course of the day.

Northwest of Stalingrad, more than 1,000 German officers and men were wiped out in the past 24 hours.

The Soviet news agency, TASS, reported that on one sector, two German units mistook each other for Soviet guerrilla detachments. They fought for three hours before they discovered the error. By that time, 700 Germans had been killed.

Lt. Gen. Dietmar, spokesman for the German High Command, apologized again on the Berlin radio last night for the stand of Stalingrad.

He repeated most of the excuses the Germans had been outing forth for the past two weeks, and elaborated as follows:

Stalingrad is not defended by a numerically restricted fortress garrison, but by a regular field army which can constantly receive reinforcements and supplies from the north and east.

On our side, our armies already have had to carry the burden of a stormy advance many hundreds of kilometers and weeks of heavy fighting…

For the first time in the history of wars in recent years, the attackers must actually fight for a large, methodically defended town. Only the fighting in Madrid can be compared to the present Stalingrad fighting…

On the Moscow Front, northwest of Rzhev, Soviet troops broke through enemy positions and captured 25 inhabited localities, making a total of 300 or more places taken in the Russian offensive against the Rzhev-Gzhatsk-Vyazma salient.

Front dispatches revealed that the Russians opened a heavy artillery bombardment of German positions northwest of Rzhev at 10 a.m. Sunday. Soviet infantry attacked. The “pitiful” remnants of German units threw down their arms and fled, after more than 2,000 had been killed.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (September 30, 1942)

Erfolge im Kaukasus und am Terek –
Auch in das nördliche Stalingrad eingedrungen

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 29. September –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Im Kaukasus und südlich des Terek nahmen deutsche Truppen in schwer gangbarem, bewaldetem Berggelände stark ausgebaute und zäh verteidigte feindliche Stellungen. Die Luftwaffe bombardierte das Hafengebiet von Tuapse und beschädigte im schwarzen Meer zwei Schiffe mittlerer Größe. Im Kampf um Stalingrad führte am gestrigen Tage der Angriff in erbitterten Kämpfen nunmehr auch zum Einbruch in das nördliche Stadtgebiet. Vergeblich setzte der Feind seine Entlastungsangriffe von Norden fort.

An der Donfront führten ungarische Truppen ein örtliches Angriffsunternehmen erfolgreich durch. Schwächere feindliche Angriffe im mittleren Frontabschnitt wurden abgewiesen. Im nördlichen Frontabschnitt wurden bei einem eigenen Angriff von Truppen des Heeres und der Luftwaffe zahlreiche sowjetische Kampfstände vernichtet und dem Feind hohe blutige Verluste zugefügt. Örtliche Angriffe des Feindes scheiterten.

Das Stadt- und Hafengebiet von Archangelsk wurde in der vergangenen Nacht mit Bomben angegriffen. Es entstanden ausgedehnte Brände. Deutsche Kampfflugzeuge erzielten bei Tagesangriffen im Tiefflug Bombentreffer in kriegswichtigen Anlagen mehrerer Orte Südostenglands. Ostwärts Great Yarmouth wurde ein Frachtschiff durch Bombenwurf schwer beschädigt.

---

Sowjetangriffe bei Rschew zerschlagen

dnb. Berlin, 29. September –
Die Angriffs- und Abwehrkämpfe der deutschen Truppen im mittleren und nördlichen Abschnitt der Ostfront führten am 27. September zu örtlichen Erfolgen. Der Schwerpunkt der Kämpfe im mittleren Frontabschnitt lag nach den beim Oberkommando der Wehrmacht vorliegenden Meldungen bei Rschew‚ wo Verbände des Heeres und der Waffen-SS gegen zähen Widerstand der Bolschewisten mehrere feindliche Stützpunkte und ausgebaute Stellungen nahmen. Im Nachstoß gegen die zurückweichenden Bolschewisten vernichteten die vordringenden deutschen Infanteristen einige Langrohrgeschütze mit ihren Zugmaschinen. An anderer Stelle des Frontabschnitts von Rschew brachen Angriffe des Feindes in harten Kämpfen zusammen. Erneute Angriffsvorbereitungen wurden rechtzeitig erkannt und durch Artilleriefeuer und Bomben deutscher Kampfflugzeuge zersprengt. Durch Bombentreffer wurden fünf bolschewistische Panzerkampfwagen vernichtet und elf weitere schwer beschädigt.

Südostwärts Orel drang ein deutscher Stoßtrupp in die feindlichen Stellungen ein und zerstörie mehrere Kampfanlagen und Minenstollen. Nach Erfüllung seines Auftrages kehrte der Kampftrupp mit zahlreichen Gefangenen in seine Ausgangsstellungen zurück. Ein weiteres Stoßtruppunternehmen glückte nordwestlich Medyn mecklenburgisch-pommerschen Infanteristen. Im Schutz der Nacht stießen sie überraschend durch die feindlichen Sicherungsstellungen hindurch und drangen in einen von starken bolschewistischen Kräften besetzten Stützpunkt ein. Im Nahkampf vernichteten sie siebzehn starke Bunker mit ihren Besatzungen.

Zu dem Nachtangriff deutscher Kampfflugzeuge gegen den bolschewistischen Eismeerhafen Archangelsk teilt das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht mit: In mehreren Wellen durchbrachen die Kampfflugzeuge in der Nacht zum 29. September den Sperrgürtel der feindlichen Flakartillerie, die mit zahlreichen Batterien heftiges Abwehrfeuer gegen die angreifenden deutschen Kampfflieger eröffnete. Bomben schweren und schwersten Kalibers wurden auf die Hafenanlagen und Versorgungseinrichtungen von Archangelsk abgeworfen und richteten schwere Zerstörungen an. Zahlreiche Brände konnten noch beim Abflug aus weiter Entfernung festgestellt werden.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 30, 1942)

Reds’ counterdrive rolls on, but Nazis gain in Stalingrad

Axis troops storm hill at city; German fliers set land afire
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Rolling toward the Don in sea of flames, the Soviet counterdrive above Stalingrad was striking of the Nazi lines with two prongs as shown on the map. German fliers had set fire to the tinder-like land in the path of the advancing Russians. Inside Stalingrad, the Russians admitted their situation was more serious.

Moscow, USSR –
Front dispatches characterized the Stalingrad situation as “unabatingly grave” today but revealed that Soviet attacks on the east bank of the Don, northwest of the city, are penning large Nazi forces within the Don loop, while the Caucasus front situation was said to show “significant improvement.”

The persistent Russian attacks along the Don River’s eastern bank were aimed at cutting off and encircling the Nazi forces in the immediate Stalingrad battle zone.

Soviet dispatches said that this northwestern diversionary offensive was making progress and that several strong Nazi positions had been captured.

Nazis assault hill

Within Stalingrad proper, however, the situation was described as less favorable due to powerful Nazi attacks aimed at the capture of an important hill in the northwestern outskirts.

In the West and East Caucasus front, Russian dispatches said, “significant improvement” had occurred. Soviet troops were said to have checked German advances toward Batum and Grozny. The weather was said to be deteriorating rapidly and the Germans were believed to be in danger of bogging down.

The hill which the Nazis were attacking in Stalingrad was described as a highly strategic objective.

The hill dominates an industrial section of Stalingrad, and the Germans were recklessly trying to seize it, over a carpet of their own dead.

Set fire to steppes

The steppes from the Don to the Volga above Stalingrad, where the Russian counteroffensive was rolling toward the bend of the Don, were a sea of flames. The Germans had set the tinder-like steppe grasses afire, hoping to stop the Russians.

Heavy autumn weather besieged the Western Caucasus and the snow line rapidly crept down the sides of the mountains. The battle mounted ever more fierce, as German crack Alpine troops, veterans of the Greek and Yugoslav campaigns desperately tried to take the mountain passes before violent blizzards begin.

Soviet airmen, swooping dangerously low, pinned the invaders to the mountains.

Red commandos raid base

Black Sea marines, in a daring commando raid, penetrated to the center of Novorossiysk – the Black Sea naval base now held by the Germans – wrecked artillery batteries and sowed a general panic.

The Russians destroyed 10 artillery batteries last night in their counteroffensive above Stalingrad.

The Communist Party organ, Pravda, said the Germans were making more than 1,500 air sorties a day.

Radio Vichy, usually inaccurate, said the greater part of Stalingrad was in German hands.

The Russians were chopping up two German infantry divisions and 150 tanks which had started a drive on the northwestern outskirts of Stalingrad several days ago. Part of this force had penetrated into a workers settlement, but Russian communiqués had told of the destruction of 79 of the tanks and at least 7,500 men from enemy forces that originally totaled 20,000 and 30,000.

Reds drive in wedge

Bitter fighting raged in the 50-mile area between the Volga and Don Rivers, where Marshal Semyon Timoshenko was holding the initiative and slowly and persistently driving ahead in a powerful counteroffensive to life the siege of Stalingrad, now in its 37th day.

He had driven a wedge into the enemy flank along the Don bank and was shelling and attacking mercilessly, in a determined effort to enlarge it.

The Germans fiercely counterattacked, but were apparently doing no more than slowing the Russian advance. Trying to destroy the Russian wedge, a tank division and a motorized division attacked. They were broken up and hastily retreated.

The Soviet Volga Rover flotilla was in action, shelling German troop concentrations. Yesterday, it dispersed and partially destroyed at least two enemy battalions (500 men).

A German Transocean Agency dispatch broadcast by Radio Berlin last night said:

On Monday and Tuesday, further blocks of buildings and industrial plants were occupied by German troops.

The Axis claimed that 964 Russian planes were destroyed between Sept. 15 and 28. The Germans lost 77 planes in the same period, it was claimed.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (October 1, 1942)

Wieder fast 1000 Sowjetflugzeuge in vierzehn Tagen vernichtet
Neue Abschnitte in Stalingrad erstürmt

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 30. September –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Im Nordwestteil des Kaukasus und südlich des Terek drangen deutsche und verbündete Truppen in harten Angriffskämpfen weiter vor. In Stalingrad wurden neue Abschnitte des nördlichen Stadtgebietes gestürmt. Bei vergeblichen Entlastungsangriffen verlor der Feind 34 Panzer. An der Donfront wiesen deutsche und italienische Truppen mehrere Übersetzversuche der Sowjets ab. Ungarische Truppen warfen eine feindliche Kräftegruppe im Gegenangriff zurück.

Im Nordabschnitt führten eigene Angriffsunternehmungen trotz zähen feindlichen Widerstandes zu Erfolgen. Starke Verbände der deutschen Luftwaffe und kroatische Kampfflieger fügten hiebel den Sowjets hohe Verluste zu.

Archangelsk wurde in der vergangenen Nacht erneut bombardiert. Ausgebreitete Brände ließen die gute Wirkung dieses Angriffs erkennen.

In der Zeit vom 15. bis 28. September wurden 816 Sowjetflugzeuge in Luftkämpfen, 131 durch FIakartillerie der Luftwaffe und 22 durch Verbände des Heeres abgeschossen, 4 erbeutet, 17 weitere auf dem Boden zerstört‚ so daß die Gesamtverluste 990 Flugzeuge betrugen. In der gleichen Zeit gingen an der Ostfront 77 eigene Flugzeuge verloren.

In der letzten Nacht flogen britische Bomber in geringer Zahl in das Gebiet der Ostsee ein. Zwei Flugzeuge wurden abgeschossen.

Deutsche Kampfflugzeuge führten bei Tage Tiefangriffe gegen militärische Ziele an verschiedenen Orten Süd- und Südostenglands mit Erfolg durch.

Über 1000 sowjetische Gefallene an der Newa

dnb. Berlin‚ 30. September –
Im mittleren und nördlichen Abschnitt der Ostfront entwickelten sich am 28. September nur örtliche Kämpfe. Bei Rschew‚ wo die Bolschewisten noch in den letzten Tagen rücksichtslos ihre Angriffe vortrugen, blieb die Kampftätigkeit gering. Diese Pause zwischen den Schlachten, die vor allem in den schweren Verlusten des Feindes während der vergangenen Wochen begründet ist‚ wurde nach Meldungen des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht zu zahlreichen Späh- und Stoßtruppunternehmen ausgenützt. Südlich und südostwärts des Ilmensees führten vereinzelte feindliche Angriffe zu harten Nahkämpfen.

Auch im Frontabschnitt von Leningrad ist‚seit dern gemeldeten Abwehrkampf an der Newa, wo die Bolschewisten am 26. September einen Versuch zur Überquerung dieses Flusses untemahmen, eine Kampfpause eingetreten. Dieses Unternehmen, Leningrad zu entsetzen, führte trotz Einsatz von Hunderten von Landungsbooten‚ die durch das Feuer von über 80 Batterien gesichert wurden, zu einem völligen Mißerfolg für die Bolschewisten, die über 800 Gefangene, über 1000 Gefallene, 400 Landungsboote und zahlreiche Schwimmpanzer verloren. Um erneute Übersetzversuche zu unterbinden, belegte die Luftwaffe am 28. September den feindlichen Truppen- und Bootsverkehr im Newaabschnitt erneut mit Bomben. Auch kroatische Kampfflugzeuge beteiligten sich an diesen erfolgreichen Luftangriffen.

Nachtangriff auf Archangelsk

In der Nacht zum 30. September war das Stadt- und Hafengebiet von Archangelsk erneut schweren Angriffen deutscher Kampfflugzeuge ausgesetzt, wobei die Kampfflieger Bomben schweren und schwersten Kalibers auf Hafenanlagen und Bahnhof warfen. Der über eine Stunde dauernde Luftangriff verursachte ausgedehnte Brände, die noch aus weiter Entfernung beobachtet werden konnten. Zur gleichen Zeit bekämpften die Kampfflugzeuge einen Flugplatz in der Nähe von Archangelsk, wo BombenvoIltreffer ebenfalls große Brände verursachten.