Battle of Stalingrad

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Enemy broadcast –
Nazis ignore action in Stalingrad

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)
The German High Command in its regular war communiqué today, for the first time since the Battle of Stalingrad began, ignored action in the entire sector.

The High Command Wednesday omitted reference to fighting within the city, but reported on action northwest of Stalingrad. Today’s failure to mention operations either in or around the Volga capital was consistent with German radio and news agency reports yesterday asserting:

It is no longer necessary to capture the rest of Stalingrad.

The communiqué said:

German troops advancing in the Caucasus area successfully stormed several more hills after bitter forest fighting.

Romanian and Italian troops operating on the Don [River] repulsed enemy attacks.

In the Leningrad sector, the communiqué said, German infantry supported y planes, gained important terrain after several days’ stubborn fighting.

The High Command said:

Since Sept. 27, 3,288 prisoners were taken.

The communiqué said “three times as many dead” Russians were counted as were taken prisoner in this action.

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He totally looks like the final Boss in a video game

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The Pittsburgh Press (October 10, 1942)

NAZI DRIVE IN STALINGRAD LAGS
Soviet relief column gains north of city

German infantry push slackens first time in 47 days
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
Front dispatches said today that Nazi pressure toward the Volga River was being maintained in northwest Stalingrad, but a slackening of German infantry attacks was reported from the battered city.

Edging ever closer to Stalingrad from the north were the relief forces of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko which captured several German strongholds.

The London Evening Standard reported from Stockholm that “violent Russian mass attacks” were in progress on the Karelian Isthmus sector of the Finnish front.

The latest Soviet communiqué reported the repulse of “small infantry attacks” on the Stalingrad front but other reports emphasized that Nazi pressure shows little sign of diminishing.

Try to reach Volga

The Germans were said to be hammering at the northwest industrial section in an effort to reach the Volga. Fresh infantry and armored forces which have been at the front only five days were spearheading the Nazi effort.

The Red Army newspaper, Red Star, reported that the Germans had failed to achieve their objective of breaking the Soviet lines inside Stalingrad and cutting through to the Volga to split the city’s defense forces.

The Vichy radio reported that the Germans had brought up the heaviest types of siege guns and had started to batter Stalingrad as they did Sevastopol.

To the northwest of Stalingrad, the Red Army push to the south moved ahead slowly and several Nazi strongholds were captured. Five strong counterattacks were beaten off.

Pravda, organ of the Communist Party, reported the Germans were employing masses of planes against Soviet positions. The newspaper reported that Russian troops had shot down many Nazi planes with their anti-tank rifles.

Retake building in city

Inside Stalingrad, the Russians were said to have recaptured a large building dominating several surrounding blocks. The buildings had changed hands three times previously. Two hundred Nazis inside the building were exterminated.

Izvestia reported that many German divisions brought up to the front in the past few days have been mauled in their first operations.

Thursday the Germans announced that they would abandon frontal attacks on Stalingrad, where at least 200,000 of them had died, and try to reduce what was left of it by concentrated artillery fire.

Radio Berlin broadcast that fighting was underway for an armaments works outside Stalingrad proper. The broadcast said German military quarters and “emphasized” from the outset that the battle for fortified railway stations, warehouses and administrative buildings inside Stalingrad would be long, but, nevertheless, the greatest part of the city was captured in 26 days.

Check drive on oil fields

The Soviet communiqué also reported that attacks on the Mozdok area of the Eastern Caucasus, where the Germans were trying to drive to the Grozny oil fields, had been hurled back.

One Russian setback was admitted, southeast of Novorossiysk, the Black Sea naval base the Germans occupied three weeks ago.

The Germans attacked an inhabited locality southeast of Novorossiysk for five days and lost a battalion (500 men), the communiqué said. Finally, after bringing up tank reinforcements, the Germans penetrated the outskirts of the locality where fighting is now raging.

Soviet patrols, and trench mortars killed 200 Germans and knocked out four guns and two trench mortar batteries on the Leningrad Front. Anti-aircraft guns downed six German bombers on the approaches to Leningrad.

The most desperate efforts of the Germans in Stalingrad had been in an industrial section in the northwestern part of the city, where they had tried in vain to crash through Soviet defenses to the Volga River and split the forces of the defenders.

Soviet forces who had been encircled for several days near the industrial section broke out yesterday and were now fighting from new defense lines.

The latest Soviet communiqué did not mention a German penetration of the Kalmyk Steppes, 100 miles southeast of Stalingrad, which was reported in front dispatches yesterday. The penetration, if extensive, could threaten the Russian left flank in the Stalingrad area, and the lower reaches of the Volga lifeline.

Deny German claims

Now at Stalingrad hard frost covered the steppes every night. Piercing winds swept across the Volga and fanned the flames rising from Stalingrad’s ruined buildings.

The Soviet Bureau of Information denounced as an “outright lie” German claims to have destroyed seven Russian divisions south of Lake Ladoga on the Leningrad Front.

The truth was, the Bureau said, that 60,000 Germans had been killed or wounded recently in the Russian offensive in the Sinyavino area, 20 miles southeast of Leningrad.

In this connection, a Soviet communiqué reported that German infantry, supported by 30 tanks, had attacked on the Northwestern Front (probably around Leningrad) and had occupied two inhabited localities. In the battle that followed and in subsequent counterattacks, 10 German tanks were disabled and the enemy suffered heavy troop losses.

South of Voronezh, which is on the Don 350 miles northwest of Stalingrad, Soviet trench mortarmen and machine-gunners killed 80 men of a Hungarian infantry company trying to cross the river and took 10, including an officer, prisoner.

Guerrillas operating behind the Germans and Romanians raided a Romanian divisional headquarters, killing 100 enemy divisions.

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Völkischer Beobachter (October 11, 1942)

54 Briten in Nordafrika abgeschossen –
Feindgruppe vor Tuapse eingeschlossen

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 10. Oktober –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Im Kaukasusgebiet wurde ander Paßstraße nach Tuapse eine stärkere Kampfgruppe des Feindes eingeschlossen und dabei 47 Kampfanlagen genommen. Im Kampf um Stalingrad versenkte Artillerie des Heeres zwei feindliche Kanonenboote auf der Wolga und beschädigte ein weiteres schwer. Stoßtrupps sprengten im Stadtgebiet ein Hochhaus. Sturzkampfverbände setzten die Zermürbungsangriffe auf feindliche Widerstandsnester und befestigte Häuserblocks, Kampffliegerkräfte die Zerschlagung der Nachschubstrecken und Hafenanlagen im Bereich der unteren Wolga fort. Entlastungsangriffe der Sowjets gegen die nördliche Abriegelungsfront blieben erfolglos.

Im mittleren und nördlichen Frontabschnitt wurden erfolgreiche eigene Stoßtruppunternehmungen durchgeführt. Im hohen Norden bekämpften deutsche Kampfflugzeuge in der vergangenen Nacht feindliche Flugplätze an der Kolabucht.

In Nordafrika griff die Luftwaffe motorisierte Verbände‚ Batteriestellungen und Zeltlager an der mittleren Alamein-Front sowie die Hafen- und Dockanlagen von Alexandria mit guter Trefferwirkung an. Zum Begleitschutz eingesetzte deutsche Jäger schossen in Luftkämpfen sechs britlsche Flugzeuge ohne eigene Verluste ab. Bei Angriffen eines starken gemischten Fliegerverbandes auf eigene Feldflugplätze verloren die Briten durch die zusammengefaßte Abwehr deutscher und italienischer Jäger sowie durch Flakartillerie 48 Bomben- und Jagdflugzeuge. ln diesen Luftkämpfen ging nur ein eigenes Jagdflugzeug verloren, wobei sich der Jagdflieger durch Fallschirmabsprung retten konnte.

Bei Tagesangriffen gemischter feindlicher Fliegerverbände auf nordfranzösisches und belgisches Gebiet entwickelten sich heftige Luftkämpfe, in deren Verlauf eine größere Anzahl mehrmotoriger Bomber, darunter solche amerikanischer Herkunft, bei nur einem eigenen Verlust abgeschossen wurden. Die französische Zivilbevölkerung erlitt Verluste an Toten und Verletzten. Die durch Sprengbomben hervorgerufenen Sachschäden waren gering.

An der Südküste Englands versenkten leichte deutsche Kampfflugzeuge bei Tagesangriffen sechs britische Landungsboote und beschädigten zwei weitere schwer.

Wie durch Sondermeldung bekanntgegeben, haben deutsche Unterseeboote den britisch-amerikanischen Schiffsverkehr vor Südafrika schwer getroffen. Sie versenkten unmittelbar vor dem Hafen von Kapstadt in schlagartigen Überraschungsangriffen zwölf Handelsschiffe mit zusammen 74.000 BRT. Andere Unterseeboote versenkten an der Westküste vor dem britisch-amerikanischen Flottenstützpunkt Freetown, vor der südamerikanischen Küste, im St.-Lorenz-Golf und bei schwerem Sturm im Nordatlantik zehn Schiffe mit 67.000 BRT. Darunter befand sich das 15.000 BRT. große britische Kühlschiff Andalucia Star, das mit einer Ladung von hochwertigen Lebensmitteln, vor allem Gefrierfleisch, nach England bestimmt war. Damit haben unsere Unterseeboote abermals auf weitverzweigten Kriegsschauplätzen 22 Schiffe mit 141.000 BRT. versenkt.

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The Pittsburgh Press (October 11, 1942)

Reds report advances, situation still tense

Nazis intensify air attack on Stalingrad
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
Russian defenders are consolidating newly-won positions in Stalingrad while Marshal Semyon Timoshenko’s relief offensive, driving south toward the steel city from the big bend of the Don River has pushed to improved positions, a Soviet communiqué said today.

The situation was still tense at the Volga city, where front dispatches reported violent and bloody street fighting still in progress, but the midnight communiqué intimated that the intensity of the German assaults might have slackened.

It said:

In the area of Stalingrad, our forces consolidated previously gained positions and engaged in reconnaissance.

Deadly German fire

Sixty to 70 miles northwest of the city where Timoshenko’s forces drove steadily against the Axis left flank, fighting largely of a local character cost the enemy 300 men, the communiqué said.

The Germans sent a formation of infantry against a Russian unit in “Sector X” of that northwestern front, it said, but deadly fire from Soviet tanks and machine guns drove them back. Several German strongholds were captured.

On another sector of the Don front, a battalion of German infantry succeeded in pushing across to the Russian-held left bank.

Strong Russian units were waiting for them. The battle raged most of the day and the Germans suffered serious losses, the communiqué added.

Battle near Mozdok

The battle continued at a high pitch south of Stalingrad, in the Mozdok area. Although the communiqué admitted that the Russians were on the defensive, it said four infantry and tank attacks had been repulsed on one sector Saturday.

In another sector of that Northern Caucasus front, a concentration of enemy tanks and trucks, together with troops, was completely dispersed.

Fighting continued for the sixth day on a front southeast of the abandoned Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, where upwards of 1,500 enemy officers and men have been killed in the battle. There was no tangible result for either side to date.

Soviet line holding

The battle had not slackened in the important industrial section of northwestern Stalingrad where the Germans were driving relentlessly to reach the Volga. The army newspaper, Red Star, reported, however, that the enemy had failed to break the Soviet line barring the way to the river, and that his plan to split the Russian forces and drive into the heart of Stalingrad had been frustrated.

Germany increased its terrific aerial assaults on the city, sending waves of 50-75 planes over the Volga metropolis almost daily, Red Star reported. More than 2,000 raids have been made on the city with strong fighter formations escorting the bombers.

The raiders attack individual objectives, dropping exceptionally high caliber bombs and scrap metal.

Continue raids at night

Junkers-87s and Heinkel 111s constitute the main force of the daylight raiders, Red Star said, with Dornier-17s and 215s taking upon the aerial assault at night.

Although the Saturday Soviet communiqué said only that Russian troops had repulsed “small infantry attacks” and turned back a German infantry company that attempted to take a Russian stronghold, front dispatches said the fighting was still at a violent pitch in Stalingrad.

Radio Berlin reported that fighting was underway for an armament works outside Stalingrad proper. It emphasized, however, that the battle for Stalingrad’s system of fortified railroad stations, warehouses and administrative buildings would be lengthy. Nevertheless, it said, the greater part of the city has been captured in 26 days of the offensive, now in its 47th day. It said a Stalingrad “skyscraper” had been blown up and that German artillery sank 146 Russian gunboats on the Volga and damaged a third.

Radio Vichy, supporting German propaganda that the High Command had decided to level the city with artillery, reported that German big guns, like those that pulverized Sevastopol, were now in action at Stalingrad.

The latest phase of the Stalingrad fighting began five days ago with the arrival of fresh German infantry and tank divisions, intended to deliver the final blow, front dispatches said.

Cite high German losses

In the past few days, it was reported the Germans launched more than 80 attacks in various directions. Most were repulsed wit heavy enemy losses and in only a few sectors, did the enemy succeed in gaining a few dozen yards.

Street fighting continued at a violent pitch and the bloody engagements were fought with alternating success, the official Soviet TASS News Agency said. Some buildings changed hands several times.

The newspaper Izvestia said several newly-arrived enemy divisions had been seriously mauled but the Germans continued their attacks, throwing in still more forces and increasing their pressure.

Prisoners taken from the German 376th Division said their outfit had lost more than half its effectives in three days’ fighting. Similar casualties were reported by prisoners from other German units.

Fliers hover over Reds

The newspaper Pravda said the Germans were using masses of aircraft to pound the Soviet possessions incessantly. The enemy aircraft was also attempting to “pin” the Russian infantry.

The German planes, it said, were resorting to the “psychological device” of hovering over the Soviet troops long after they had dropped their bombs. The Russians, counteracting this, have begun attacking German forward ground positions as soon as the enemy planes appear.

Pravda said Russian rifles and anti-tank “armor-buster” guns had been adapted to combat the planes, and were giving “satisfactory results.”

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Völkischer Beobachter (October 12, 1942)

459 Sowjet- und 127 Britenflugzeuge in 10 Tagen abgeschossen –
Erdölstadt Groszny in Flammen

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 11. Oktober –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Im Nordwestteil des Kaukasus warfen deutsche Gebirgstruppen, unterstützt durch Verbände der Luftwaffe, den Feind aus weiteren Höhenstellungen. Die als eingeschlossen gemeldete feindliche Kräftegruppe wurde nach vergeblichen Ausbruchsversuchen auf engstem Raum zusammengedrängt. Ihre Vernichtung steht bevor. Am Terek wurden starke feindliche Gegenangriffe abgewiesen. Zusammengefaßte und in der Nacht fortgesetzte Angriffe starker Luftwaffenkräfte gegen das für die sowjetische Erdölgewinnung und verarbeitung bedeutsame Groszny rlefen schwerste Zerstörungen und gewaltige Brände hervor.

In Stalingrad wurden bei fortdauernder Kampftätigkeit Bereitstellungen des Feindes durch wirksames Artilleriefeuer zerschlagen. Entlastungsangriffe der Sowjets nördlich der Stadt scheiterten. An der Donfront wurden bei einem örtlichen Unternehmen zahlreiche feindliche Kampfslände zerstört, Gefangene und Waffen als Beute eingebracht.

In der Zeit vom 29. September bis 9. Oktober wurden 356 Sowjetflugzeuge in Luftkämpfen, 66 durch Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe‚ 19 durch Verbände des Heeres abgeschossen, 18 weitere am Boden zerstört, so daß die Gesamtverluste 459 Flugzeuge betragen. In der gIeichen Zeit gingen an der Ostfront 36 eigene Flugzeuge verloren.

In Südostengland wurden bei Tage militärische Anlagen und Versorgungsbetriebe mit Bomben schweren Kalibers angegriffen. Die britische Luftwaffe verlor in der Zeit vom 1. bis 10. Oktober 127 Flugzeuge, davon 54 über dem Mittelmeer und in Nordafrika. Während der gleichen Zeit gingen im Kampf gegen Großbritannien 23 eigene Flugzeuge verloren.

Im Brückenkopf Woronesch hat sich bei den erfolgreichen Abwehrkämpfen der letzten Woche das II. Bataillon eines mecklenburgischen Infanterleregiments besonders ausgezeichnet.

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The Pittsburgh Press (October 12, 1942)

Reds advance to northwest of Stalingrad

German losses in 49 days put at 250,000 dead by Moscow
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
The Red Army drove back a Nazi horde in the Mozdok area of the Eastern Caucasus today, where Adolf Hitler had thrown great forces after losing 250,000 men in dead alone in 49 days of battle of futile efforts to take Stalingrad.

Above Stalingrad, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko’s counteroffensive rolled forward. The latest Soviet communiqué reported that his forces had captured “advantageous positions” and that Soviet patrols had penetrated the German lines.

Russian and German big guns and mortars battled at Stalingrad, where big-scale Nazi frontal assaults – once mounted with the fury of one million men, 2,000 planes and 1,000 tanks – had ceased, if only temporarily.

Spurs Caucasus drive

The Soviet communiqué reported the briskest fighting in the Stalingrad area in three days, but it made it plain that it was on a comparatively small scale.

On the outskirts of a factory settlement in northwest Stalingrad, two battalions (1,000 men) attacked Soviet positions. They were beaten back, and lost two companies (600 men).

Hitler, hoping to salvage more of his 1942 campaign before onrushing winter freezes his army, had thrown reinforcements of infantry, tanks and planes into the Mozdok area, where he has been trying to cross the Terek Rover for two months and capture the Grozny oil fields, 40 or 50 miles away.

The BBC said Radio Berlin called the Terek:

…the accursed stream where so much German blood has already been shed.

The Soviet communiqué described Hitler’s success in the Mozdok region as follows:

Soviet troops, after stubborn fighting, advanced somewhat and recaptured lost defensive positions.

Down 26 of 78 bombers

Seventy-eight German bombers, accompanied by fighters, tried to raid Russian positions in the Mozdok area yesterday. Twenty-six of them were shot down.

Front reports said that Soviet attacks had killed 2,000 men of a Romanian division southeast of Novorossiysk, and the remnants fled in panic.

The Germans, to increase the bravery of their comrades in arms, sent in a Nazi regiment to take up positions behind the Romanians. The Nazis erected machine-gun nests, and their officers ordered them to shoot all Romanians, regardless of rank, who tried to retreat.

The Romanians began a tentative retreat, these dispatches said, and the Germans promptly killed scores. Then the Romanians went forward, and the Russians mowed them down. Finally, Romanians and Germans drove a small wedge into Soviet lines, but they were not able to exploit it.

Important hill taken

Dispatches also reported that the Russians had captured an important hill in the Sinyavino area, some 20 miles southeast of besieged Leningrad. The Germans were trying to recover the hill, and had already lost 1,200 men killed in vain attempts.

Soviet observers believed Hitler’s summer campaign, perhaps the greatest he will ever be able to undertake, had suffered a great moral and military defeat in Stalingrad. Front reports, however, cautiously emphasized the enemy was probably regrouping for a renewed offensive against the Volga River city.

The latest Soviet communiqué said:

In the Stalingrad area, our troops are exchanging fire with the enemy. Enemy tanks and infantry, which had suffered huge losses lately, showed no activity.

The communiqué reported that Red artillerymen yesterday destroyed eight blockhouses, three guns and five machine guns and blew up an ammunition dump in Stalingrad. Two Soviet machine-gunners killed 80 Germans.

The Germans achieved the negative objective of practically pulverizing Stalingrad, one of the Soviet’s greatest industrial centers, but so long as the Russians hold the ruins, Moscow and Baku, Russia’s greatest oil-producing center, do not face an immediate threat.

Faces winter problem

Great numbers of German troops and heavy forces of planes and tanks will be pinned down before an objective they cannot take. The proximity of the enemy to the Volga River reduces its value as a supply line, but it was pointed out that winter will close the Volga anyway within a month.

As Soviet experts saw it, Hitler now had the alternative of bringing up reinforcements over extended supply lines or retreating to the loop of the Don River and establishing a winter defense line there.

In the first instance, Hitler faced the loss of everything with winter fast closing in. If he retreats to the Don loop, he can release great strength for other fronts, including the Western Front, where Hitler fears an Allied invasion.

The German Transocean Agency broadcast a dispatch by one of its correspondents, describing “frightful carnage… almost defying description” in Stalingrad:

Everywhere between the wreckage of innumerable British, American and Soviet tanks of all sizes are the dead bodies of Soviet soldiers heaped in huge piles.

He said nothing was left of Stalingrad but ruins, and concluded his dispatch:

The defenders are not to be seen but their bullets are whistling about everywhere.

A Russian communiqué reported that Soviet warships had sunk five German transports (totaling 16,000 tons) in the Baltic Sea. Between Oct. 4 and 11, it said, 123 German planes were destroyed in Russia. The Russians lost 78 planes in the same period.

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Völkischer Beobachter (October 13, 1942)

Gegenangriffe am Terek gescheitert –
Feindgruppe in Stalingrad aufgerieben

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 12. Oktober –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Die an der Straße nach Tuapse eingeschlossene feindliche Kräftegruppe wurde vernichtet. In harten Gebirgskämpfen sind damit die Masse einer sowjetischen Gardedivision sowie Teile einer Gebirgsschützendivision zerschlagen, über vierhundert Kampfanlagen genommen und zahlreiche Gefangene und Waffen als Beute eingebracht worden. Die Säuberung des urwaldartigen Geländes von letzten Widerstandsnestern ist noch im Gange. Südlich des Terek scheiterten Gegenangriffe des Feindes unter hohen Verlusten.

In Stalingrad wurde eine feindliche Gruppe aufgerieben. Artillerie des Heeres versenkte ein größeres Wolgaschiff. Kampffliegerkräfte setzten die Zerstörungen wichtiger Bahnstrecken ostwärts der Wolga fort. An der Donfront wiesen die verbündeten Truppen mehrere örtliche Angriffe und Ubersetzversuche der Sowjets ab.

Im mittleren und nördlichen Frontabschnitt wurden bei erfolgreichen Späh- und Stoßtruppunternehrnen zahlreiche Kampfanlagen des Feindes mit ihren Besetzungen vernichtet. Östlich von Leningrad wurden die letzten Reste der über die Newa vorgedrungenen Sowjetkräfte über den Fluß zurückgeworfen.

Deutsche Kampffliegerverbände setzten am gestrigen Tage die Bombardierung der britischen Flugstützpunkte auf der Inselfestung Malta fort. Ausgedehnte Brände in Abstellplätzen und Flugzeugboxen wurden beobachtet. In Luftktimpfen über der Inselobrachten deutsche Jäger drei britische Jagdflugzeuge zum Absturz, zwei weitere wurden durch Besetzungen von Kampfflugzeugen abgeschossen.

Aus britischen Flugzeugverbänden, die gestern bei Tage in großen Höhen gegen die nordfranzösische und holländische Küste vorstießen, schossen deutsche Jäger ohne eigene Verluste fünf feindliche Flugzeuge heraus.

Bei Tagesstörfliigen einzelner britischer Flugzeuge über nord- und nordwestdeutschem Gebiet hatte die Bevölkerung geringe Verluste. Über der Nord- und Ostsee wurden drei britische Flugzeuge bei Nacht abgeschossen.

Deutsche Kampfflugzeuge griffen in der letzten Nacht eine bedeutende Hafenstadt in Nordostengland mit guter Wirkung an.

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The Pittsburgh Press (October 13, 1942)

Armored train blasts Nazis

Winter grips Caucasus zone as battle rages
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
Bitter winter weather gripped the Mozdok area of the Eastern Caucasus today as armored trains blasted out a path for the advancing Red Army.

The defenders of Stalingrad beat off German attacks and set themselves for a renewed grand scale assault against the ruins they now had held for 50 days.

Pravda , the Communist Part organ, published pictures of Red Army men fighting in the Mozdok area. They were wearing winter battledress, with heavy great coats and fur caps, with flaps down and fastened over their ears.

Cold already intense

The cold in the Mozdok area, in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, was already becoming intense, dispatches said. Normally, heavy blizzards begin in that area by the middle of next month, but ice coats the narrow trails weeks earlier and makes traveling over them almost impossible.

A big battle raged in the Mozdok area south of the Terek River, where the Germans, fighting time as well as attacking Russians, were trying to drive to the nearest Grozny oil fields.

The Soviet noon communiqué reported both Russian and German attacks inside Stalingrad. The Germans tried again to break through a factory settlement in northwest Stalingrad. They were beaten off and 250 of them were killed.

2,000 die in attack

Fifty German tanks and 3,000 men attacked in the same area yesterday breaking a three-day lull in the battle. They gained slightly, but at the prohibitive price of 2,000 men killed and 20 tanks destroyed.

A Russian unit penetrated German positions inside Stalingrad last night, killing 60 soldiers.

Frontline dispatches reported that the Russians had retaken a small railway station outside Stalingrad. Black, shining Italian tanks for the first time were thrown into counterattacks. Being thinly armored, Russian shells pierced them as if they were tin.

The battle raged with undiminished violence south of the Terek River in the Mozdok area of the Caucasus, where Adolf Hitler had thrown big forces, hoping to drive to the nearby Grozny oil fields from which he had been held for two months.

Armored train effective

The noon communiqué reported a Russian advance on one sector, the killing of 250 Germans by one Soviet unit, and the destruction of eight German planes. The government organ Izvestia said armored trains had been thrown into the battle and, shelling enemy positions, had killed hundreds and blown up many tanks in the last several days.

On one sector of the Mozdok Front, the Germans assaulted for eight continuous days. Three thousand of them were killed and the Russians held all their positions.

Fighting continues in north

Fighting continued north of Stalingrad, between the Don and Volga Rivers, and west of the Don, on the north side of the bend, where Marshal Semyon Timoshenko’s counteroffensive has been underway for weeks.

Generally, it was said, action above Stalingrad was on a reduced scale, and was now characterized by trench fighting, with tactical maneuvers, flank assaults and attempts to seep into the rear of the enemy’s trenches.

Inside Stalingrad, the Russians were reported to have put undamaged sections of a tractor factory back into production. It was building new tanks to repel the invaders and repairing wrecks practically on the battleground itself.

The noon communiqué reported that attacking Germans on the Northwestern Front (presumably in the Sinyavino area, southeast of Leningrad) had met a withering blast of fire, and fallen back, leaving 400 dead on the field.

On the Leningrad Front, Soviet snipers, scouts, artillerymen, and trench mortarmen have accounted for 400 more Germans in the last two days.

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Völkischer Beobachter (October 14, 1942)

Die Ölbrände um Groszny erweitert –
Erfolgreicher Gegenstoß der Blauen Division

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 13. Oktober –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Im Nordwestteil des Kaukasus wurde in schwierigen Waldkämpfen abermals eine feindliche Kräftegruppe eingeschlossen und vernichtet. Angriffsvorbereitungen der Sowjets wurden an anderer Stelle durch wirksames Artilleriefeuer zerschlagen. Südlich des Terek blieben von Panzern unterstützte feindliche Gegenangriffe erfolglos. Deutsche und rumänische Kampffliegerkräfte belegten feindliche Versorgungsstützpunkte und Transportbewegungen beiderseits der Wolga mit Bomben aller Kaliber. Die in den kaukasischen Erdölzentren Groszny entstandenen Brände wurden durch nächtliche Luftangriffe erweitert.

Im Raum von Stalingrad und an der Donfront wurden örtliche Angriffsversuche des Feindes durch deutsche, beziehungsweise ungarische Truppen im Keime erstickt. Im mittleren und nördlichen Abschnitt der Ostfront bei zunehmender Wetterverschlechterung nur Artillerie- und Spähtrupptätigkeit, wobei die spanische Blaue Division angreifende Russen im Gegenstoß restlos zurückwarf und ihnen schwere blutige Verluste zufügte. Die Luftwaffe bekämpfte den feindlichen Nachschubverkehr auf wichtigen Eisenbahnstrecken im Waldaigebiet und erzielte Volltreffer in Ausladestationen.

Auf Malta bombardierten bei Tag und Nacht deutsche und italienische Kampffliegerverbände britische Flugplätze mit starker Wirkung. In heftigen Luftkämpfen verlor der Feind 15 Flugzeuge bei 10 deutschen Verlusten.

Britische Bomber führten in der letzten Nacht Störflüge über der Nord- und Ostsee durch, wobei einzelne Spreng- und Brandbomben ohne Wirkung abgeworfen wurden. Zwei feindliche Flugzeuge wurden abgeschossen. Leichte deutsche Kampfflugzeuge griffen gestern im Tiefflug Industrieanlagen einer Stadt an der englischen Südküste an.

171

The Pittsburgh Press (October 14, 1942)

Reds advance at Stalingrad

Take initiative on flanks and in Volga city
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Bulletin

London, England –
The Air Ministry announced tonight that the Royal Air Force attack on ever made in that German naval base.

Moscow, USSR –
The Red Army, taking the initiative from the north side of the Don River bend to the Caucasus, advanced slightly above, below and inside Stalingrad today.

The Germans gained nowhere. Southeast of Novorossiysk, the Germans did penetrate behind a Soviet unit, but it turned out to be a small disaster.

The Russians cut them off from their main force, killed 400 and captured 15 machine guns.

For the second time in 24 hours, a Soviet communiqué reported in its operational section:

Last night there were no changes on the fronts.

It said, however, that Soviet forces inside Stalingrad had wrested two buildings from the Germans. One was understood to be a big school.

Front dispatches revealed that the Red Army, attacking below Stalingrad, had taken an important German base, and that Marshal Semyon Timoshenko’s counteroffensive above Stalingrad was slowly gaining.

Communiqués had not reported such a lack of action on the fronts since last spring, before Adolf Hitler opened his summer offensive.

The Battle of Stalingrad began 51 days ago. German attacks suddenly dropped to almost nothing last Friday, and though the Germans have launched one heavy assault since, there was nothing now to indicate that they meant to resume the offensive in its full fury immediately.

Yesterday, the Russians recaptured two streets inside Stalingrad. The rumbling of artillery shook the ruins today, as Russian and German big guns battled.

The Communist Party organ, Pravda, said the slopes facing an industrial section of northwest Stalingrad, where the Germans had made their most desperate efforts, where “one vast cemetery of killed Germans.”

Pravda said:

Hundreds of shattered tanks litter the charred slopes… where the enemy lost scores of thousands in recent weeks of his futile offensive.

The Stalingrad City Council met amidst the rubble Sunday and Monday and wrote Premier Joseph Stalin, assuring him that the defenders would fight on until the Germans were smashed.

Fight in winter dress

Meanwhile, fighting along the Terek River banks, in the Mozdok area of the Eastern Caucasus, where Hitler had thrown big forces in a supreme effort to reach the nearby Grozny oil fields, seemed to have dwindled.

Russian forces in the Mozdok area were fighting in heavy winter battledress because of the cold.

The latest communiqué reported that Red Fleet marines, in a Commando-like raid, had landed from cutters on the Black Sea coast, wiped out the Romanian garrison in an inhabited locality, blown up an ammunition dump and a radio station, and returned safely to their bases.

Nazis stalled in Caucasus

Dispatches said the Germans had not advanced in recent days in either the Mozdok area or southeast of Novorossiysk, on the Black Sea where they have been trying for three weeks to get started down the coastal road to Batum, on the Turkish border.

Instead, dispatches said, the heavy tank, infantry and aircraft forces Hitler had dispatches to the Caucasus were being fast destroyed.

There had been heavy fighting in the Mozdok area, and dispatches said that, in a three-day battle, the Russians had advanced slightly on one sector and beat off powerful infantry-tank-aircraft assaults on another. Romanian and German prisoners said their regiments had lost 35% killed in recent fighting around Novorossiysk.

London quarters said the communiqué reflected increasing Russian confidence. Military experts were divided as to whether the Germans intended to retire to winter lines now, or were preparing for one desperate last attempt to take Stalingrad.

These experts said the date German military experts had set as the latest possible time for the capture of Stalingrad had already passed, and the Russians were still in firm possession of the city, with the threat of Marshal Timoshenko’s counteroffensive growing daily.

The Germans complained of cold weather slowing operations.

The German Transocean Agency said Nazi forces had repulsed large-scale Soviet attacks north of Stalingrad, and that the German High Command expected “large-scale operations” by the Russians south of Stalingrad soon.

It was announced that the system of war commissars had been abolished in the Soviet Navy, as it was last week in the Red Army.

1 Like
172

Völkischer Beobachter (October 15, 1942)

Im Gebiet Maikop-Tuapse –
Beherrschende FeindstelIungen erstürmt

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier‚ 14. Oktober –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Im Kaukasus an der Straße von Maikop nach Tuapse erstürmten Truppen des deutschen Heeres, unterstützt durch Sturzkampf- und Zerstörerverbände der Luftwaffe, weitere beherrschende Höhenrücken und Bergstellungen. Hiebei wurden allein in einem Divisionsabschnitt über hundert befestigte Stützpunkte genommen. In Stalingrad und an der Donfront wurden einige Gegenangriffe und Vorstöße der Sowjets abgewiesen. Ostwärts der Wolga bombardierten Kampfflugzeuge am Tage Truppen- und Materialtransporte und bei Nacht Flugplätze der Sowjets. Auf der Wolga wurde ein Handelsschiff mittlerer Größe versenkt.

An der Donfront schossen italienische Jäger ohne eigene Verluste zwei feindliche Flugzeuge ab. Im mittleren Frontabschnitt wurden bei der Vernichtung eines feindlichen Stützpunktes 64 Bunker genommen und eine Anzahl Gefangener eingebracht. Im Finnischen Meerbusen schossen Jagdflugzeuge bei Tiefangriffen ein sowjetisches Kanonenboot in Brand.

Bei der Bekämpfung von Flugstützpunkten auf der Insel Malta durch deutsche Kampfflugzeuge wurden auch gestern große Zerstörungen und Brände erzielt. In heftigen Luftkämpfen schossen begleitende deutsche Jäger ohne eigene Verluste 13 britische Jagdilugzeuge ab. Ein eigenes Kampfflugzeug ging verloren. In Nordafrika waren während des ganzen Tages mot0risierte Kräftegruppen und Zeltlager der Briten an der mittleren und südlichen Alamein-Front heftigen Angriffen deutscher Fliegerverbände ausgesetzt. Deutsche Jäger brachten sechs britische Jagdflugzeuge bei zwei eigenen Verlusten zum Absturz.

Britische Bomber‚griffen in der vergangenen Nacht das norddeutsche Küstengebiet an. Die Bevölkerung hatte Verluste. Durch Spreng- und Brandbomben entstanden vor allem in der Stadt Kiel Sach- und Gebäudeschäden. Nachtjäger und Flakartilierie der Luftwaffe und Marine schossen nach bisher vorliegenden Meldungen zehn feindliche Flugzeuge ab.

Leichte deutsche Kampfflugzeuge erzielten gestern bei überraschenden Vorstößen Volltreffer in kriegswichtigen Anlagen auf der englischen Kanalinsel Wight. Im Seegebiet ostwärts der Insei wurde ein großes Schwimmdock durch Bomben beschädigt.

Wie durch Sondermeldung bekanntgegeben, haben deutsche Unterseeboote wiederum schnelle und wertvolle feindliche Truppentransporter vernichtet. Sie versenkten vor Kapstadt den britischen Passagterdampfer Orcades mit 23.450 BRT. und zwischen Freetown und Kapstadt den britisch-kanadischen Passagierdampfer Duchess of Atholl mit 20.119 BRT. Die beiden für die Beförderung von 9000 bis 10.000 Mann mit Waffen eingerichteten schnellen Schiffe waren im Truppentransport nach Ägypten und den mittleren Osten eingesetzt. Im gleichen Seegebiet wurden zwei weitere Schiffe von 17.425 BRT. versenkt‚ so daß der Feind vor der Westküste Südafrikas erneut 61.000 BRT. verlor.

Obgleich anhaltende schwerste Herbststürme die 0perationen stark behinderten, versenkten andere Unterseeboote im Nordatlantik aus nach England bestimmten vollbeladenen und stark gesicherten Geleitzügen in tagelangen härtesten Verfolgungskämpfen 14 Schiffe mit zusammen 82.000 BRT. und beschädigten zwei weitere Schiffe durch Torpedotreffer.

Damit hat der Gegner in den letzten vier Tagen zwischen Neufundland und dem Kap der Guten Hoffnung erneut durch deutsche Unterseeboote 18 Schiffe mit 143.000 BRT. verloren. Bei den Geleitzugkämpfen im Nordatlantik hat sich das Unterseeboot des Oberleutnants zur See Trojer besonders ausgezeichnet, das aus einem Geleitzug acht Schiffe mit 47.000 BRT. herausschoß.

173

The Pittsburgh Press (October 15, 1942)

Nazis crushed in new battle at Stalingrad

Russians kill 2,000, blow up 23 tanks as lull of week ends
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
Violent battle broke out anew in northern Stalingrad today, but the Russians killed more than 2,000 attacking Germans, blew up 23 of their tanks and even seized some Nazi strongholds.

The army organ Red Star reported that the Germans had attacked with powerful forces of infantry and tanks on two sectors, trying to take a northern district of Stalingrad after almost a week’s lull.

On one sector, the defenders, rested and reinforced, mauled the Germans so badly they fled from several houses they had captured days ago. The Russians quickly occupied the houses, and improved their own positions.

Nazis hurl in fresh troops

On a neighborhood sector, the Germans brought up fresh forces to make good their losses and attacked four times in quick succession in an effort to smash through to some factories. The entrenched Russians held their positions, killing 2,000 Germans and destroying 23 tanks.

Only a narrow strip of debris-littered street separated the Germans from Guardsmen defending approaches to the Volga River. The Germans, dispatches said, have been stabbing at the strip for several days, constantly throwing in fresh troops against Red Army men who have been fighting for months.

But the government organ, Izvestia, said the Guardsmen stood like iron among houses collapsing under artillery and mortar fire.

The Soviet High Command reported in the latest communiqué that there was “no change” on any front, a situation that has now prevailed for 48 hours.

Above Stalingrad, where Marshal Semyon Timoshenko was on the offensive between the Don and Volga Rivers, German counterattacks were reported by the communiqué. One Red unit smashed five such attacks and killed 300 Germans, it said. Soviet scouts penetrated German defenses and killed 60 soldiers.

Battle began 52 days ago

The Battle of Stalingrad began 52 days ago. With the exception of one heavy attack, there had been a lull in ground fighting since last Friday. But it was still problematical whether the Germans would resume hourly attacks with the great forces that once assaulted the city.

The fury of fighting also increased in the wintry Mozdok area of the Eastern Caucasus, and southeast of Novorossiysk, the Black Sea naval base the Germans occupied more than three weeks ago.

Dispatches said the situation was more serious in the Mozdok area, where the Germans were trying to drive from a point south of the Terek River 40 or 50 miles to the Grozny oil fields.

Hold in Western Caucasus

The Germans were reported to have intensified pressure in several directions simultaneously, with individual tanks wedged into Soviet positions. Upwards of three battalions (probably 300 men) of infantry with 60 tanks assaulted on one narrow sector between snow-fringed mountains in a seesaw battle.

The battle in the Western Caucasus centered on the Black Sea coast southwest of Novorossiysk and in the mountain district, from which the Germans were trying to smash toward other ports: Tuapse, Sukhum and Batum.

No German progress was admitted.

The Soviet communiqué reported small-scale fighting on the Leningrad Front and elsewhere in the northwest.

Red gunners pound Nazis

Soviet artillery blasted at the Germans inside Stalingrad night and day. A communiqué reported that one artillery unit demolished three German pillboxes yesterday, destroyed five guns, seven machine guns and 12 trucks loaded with ammunition and killed 400 Germans.

The Germans increasingly complained of snow and rain. The German Transocean Agency broadcast:

From the Arctic Front to Voronezh (350 miles northwest of Stalingrad), weather conditions have become still worse.

Heavy snowfalls and downpours of rains are reported from various sectors of this front, which are greatly handicapping operations…

The agency said it was again “comparatively calm” in the northern part of Stalingrad, following a Russian tank attack. Artillery duels continued and German dive bombers were trying to knock out fortifications, the agency said.

The German High Command reported that Russian troops in the Stalingrad area launched “relief attacks” which were repelled and that within the city, German infantry and armored formations “advanced deeply into the northern district of the city.”

The communiqué said the gain in Stalingrad were made after “stubborn Soviet resistance offered in blocks of houses ands barricades” had been broken.

174

Nazi war chief reported fired

Purge by Hitler laid to Stalingrad failure
By Ned Russell, United Press staff writer

Franz_Halder
Gen. Halder

London, England –
Adolf Hitler has dismissed Gen. Franz Halder, Chief of Staff in the German High Command, and dismissed or reduced in rank numerous other high officers in a drastic army purge, reports reaching London said today.

Halder, an artillery specialist, has been regarded as one of the key men of the German High Command.

Stockholm reports said he had been succeeded by Gen. Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations in the High Command, also an artillery expert and one of Hitler’s favorites.

Russian sources reported that a purge which had already cost Field Marshal Fedor von Bock the command of the southern front had been extended widely and in making it, Hitler used a secret report by Heinrich Himmler, Chief of the Nazi Gestapo, on high army men.

The reported army purge was connected directly with the failure to take Stalingrad.

There seems no remaining doubt that Hitler had based all strategy for the winter, against the advice of some members of the High Command including Halder, on the belief that Stalingrad would be in German hands early in September.

Doubt Italian-Nazi tension

One report which reached here said that at a conference in Berlin last August Hitler decided Stalingrad should be taken and then the Germans would establish a winter holding line so that as many men as possible could be sent to Western Europe, to meet any Allied invasion or even to attempt an invasion of Britain.

The general staff was said to have replied vainly that it was necessary, rather than to take Stalingrad or any other place, to crush the Russian Army.

There was doubt in official quarters here of reports of troubled relations between Germany and Italy.

One reason for the reports was that Gestapo Chief Himmler had visited Benito Mussolini in Rome.

Raps United States’ move

Another was that Germany was angry because the United States had withdrawn enemy alien status from Italians in America.

Both Italy and Germany in radio broadcasts, denounced the American action as a trick. The official Italian agency Stefani called it:

…a clumsy election maneuver.

Berlin broadcast today a report of “the International Information Bureau” that the British were preparing for a major landing on the Normandy coast of France. It was said small “attempted” landings had been made in this area since the Dieppe raid, British air reconnaissance was intensifying and landing boats were being concentrated on the British coast. The broadcast said:

It is assumed that the British High Command had the intention to give in to Russian pressure for a second front and make Normandy the scene of such an attempt.

175

Nine-day battle for one building tells story of Stalingrad fighting

By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer

Moscow, USSR –
The story of an amazing nine-day battle for a modern apartment building on the outskirts of Stalingrad – a building that will undoubtedly go down in Russian history as a symbol of that city’s defense – was related today in a dispatch to the newspaper Pravda.

The battle for the structure was typical of hundreds of such engagements in Stalingrad. The four-story building is windowless and its doors have been blown off. The corners have been shattered by bombs.

But Russian machine guns, anti-tank guns and rifles point through the embrasures of the bricked-up windows.

Officer tells story

Surrounding the building is a network of trenches.

The story of the battle was related to Boris Polevoy, special Pravda correspondent, by Lt. Tzvetkov, who was Russian commander inside the house.

The officer said the Germans captured the adjoining street in mid-September after intensive artillery and aerial attacks, and then occupied the house.

They dug a labyrinth of trenches in the inner courtyard and set up a strong artillery emplacement behind a pile of kindling wood.

Find dying woman

Russian Guards counterattacked, Polevoy said, and reoccupied the stairs and entrenched themselves hurriedly to await the German counterattack, which came the following morning.

The lieutenant said that when he and his men cleaned up the house in preparation for the new German assault, he found a dying woman, covering the body of her 18-month-old grandson. She was lying across the threshold of one apartment.

Before she died, the woman, a pensioned invalid named Anna Kapustina, told her story to the Russian lieutenant.

She said she had been trapped in her flat with the grandson and her 15-year-old daughter.

Nazis seize daughter

When the Russians began to drive the enemy from the house, she said, a drunken German officer rushed into her apartment and began emptying his pistol into the grandson’s bed.

When she rushed at the officer he fired three bullets at her, and soldiers carried off the daughter. The woman reached the threshold and collapsed.

The lieutenant showed Polevoy a celluloid parrot he had found in the dead child’s hand.

‘I won’t let you pass, skunks’

Having driven the Germans from the house, the Russians organized a circular defense, with machine-gun fire sweeping all the street approaches.

The Germans counterattacked the next morning, using artillery, dive bombers and tanks carrying Tommy-gunners.

Russian anti-tank riflemen opened fire and when they exhausted their ammunition, they rushed into the house and started hurling hand grenades from the windows. They halted all but four of a group of tanks.

A tall, unidentified soldier clutched a tank mine to his breast and shouted:

I won’t let you pass, you skunks!

He threw himself beneath the leading tank and stopped it.

Hurl back Nazi grenades

But the three other tanks broke through despite benzine bottle attacks. The Germans, outnumbering the Russians 3–1, tried to ascend the stairway but were held off by a lone Tommy-gunner.

After the enemy occupied several apartments, the defenders retreated to the third floor and hurled back the Germans’ own grenades. They shouted:

Here’s one for Stalingrad – here’s one for the Ukraine.

The next morning, the Germans tried to ascend again and the Russians met them with a few, but precise, rifle shots.

Then the Russians heard their comrades coming to relieve them from across the rooftops of neighboring houses. As the reinforcements arrived, the Germans fled. It cost them 52 men and two officers.

The Russians, according to the Pravda dispatch, are now entrenched and awaiting fresh assaults.

176

And the US would have Shermans with forks in Normandy

1 Like
177

Völkischer Beobachter (October 16, 1942)

Nächtliches Seegefecht im Kanal –
Vorstoß tief in das nördliche Stalingrad

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 15. Oktober –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Im Kaukasus durchbrachen deutsche und slowakische Truppen in dicht bewaldetem Gebirgsgelände unter erbitterien Kämpfen neue feindliche Stellungen und nahmen über 500 Stützpunkte und Kampfanlagen im Sturm. Am Terekabschnitt wurden feindliche Kräfte zurückgeworfen. In Stalingrad brachen Infanterie- und Panzerverbände den verbissenen Widerstand der Sowjets in Häuserblocks und Barrikadenstellungen und stießen tief in das nördliche Stadtgebiet vor. Kampf- und Sturzkampfgeschwader zerschlugen in rollenden Einsätzen feindliche Bunker und Artilleriestellungen. Entlastungsangriffe des Feindes wurden unter hohen blutigen Verlusten abgewiesen. Wirkungsvolle Luftangriffe richteten sich auch gegen Transportbewegungen und Umschlagplätze der Bolschewisten am Unterlauf der Wolga. Ein Tanker und zwei Lastkähne wurden durch Brand vernichtet.

An der Donfront wiesen rumänische Truppen örtliche Angriffe ab. Im mittleren Frontabschnitt führten eigene Stoßtruppunternehmen zur Vernichtung zahlreicher Bunker und Kampfanlagen. Kampfflugzeuge bombardierten wichtige Bahnstrecken‚ wobei der Feind beträchtliche Verluste an rollendem Material erlitt. Im Tiefangriff schossen Jagdflieger ein sowjetisches Schnellboot im Finnischen Meerbusen in Brand. Im hohen Norden richteten sich Angriffe von Zerstörerflugzeugen gegen Truppenlager ostwärts der Kolabucht.

Die britischen Flugstützpunkte auf der Inselfestung Malta wurden von Kampfflugzeugen bei Tag und Nacht mit Bomben schweren Kalibers belegt. Die zum Begleitschutz eingesetzten deutschen und italienischen Jäger schossen zusammen 25 britische Flugzeuge ab, davon 18 allein durch deutsche Jäger. Zwei eigene Kampfflugzeuge kehrten nicht zurück.

Bei einem Angriff gegen den Geleitverkehr an der britischen Küste versenkten Schnellboote vier feindliche Handelsschiffe von zusammen 8000 BRT. Alle Boote kehrten in ihre Stützpunkte zurück.

In der Nacht zum 14. Oktober kam es im Kanal zu einem Seegefecht zwischen deutschen Sicherungsfahrzeugen und einem überlegenen feindlichen Verband‚ der aus zwei Zerstörergruppen und mehreren Schnellbootflottillen bestand. Im harten Gefecht wurden ein britisches Artillerieschnellboot versenkt und fünf Schnellhoote durch Artillerietreffer beschädigt, beziehungsweise in Brand geschossen. Ein eigenes Fahrzeug ging verloren. Vorpostenboote und Marineflak schossen im Nordseegebiet zwei feindliche Flugzeuge ab.

Leichte deutsche Kampfflugzeuge bombardierten gestern kriegswichtige Anlagen und militärische Ziele an der englischen Südküste.

178

Brooklyn Eagle (October 16, 1942)

Russians yield more streets in Stalingrad

‘Decisive battle’ on as Germans apply crushing pressure

Moscow, USSR (UP) –
Soviet troops today fell back in the battered streets of a north Stalingrad industrial section under crushing Nazi pressure applied in the third day of what the Red Army organ Red Star called the “decisive battle of Stalingrad.”

The German High Command claimed a Nazi tank division broke through to the Volga on a two-mile front in a smashing attack on the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory.

Reports from Stalingrad said that “several streets” in the northern industrial section had been yielded to the Nazis and that the Germans were rapidly sending more men and armored machines “into the gap.”

Nazis attack in waves

The German Luftwaffe was said to be supporting the Nazi attack with a block-by-block bombardment described by Soviet reports as even heavier than the famous Nazi dive-bombing attack which obliterated the heart of Rotterdam during the campaign in the West.

Russian fighter planes, heavily outnumbered, shot down 14 German planes in an attempt to protect Red Army ground forces.

The German attacks were coming over in waves about every two hours, front dispatches said. Seven major land thrusts were repulsed but the Russian troops were forced to fall back under the pressure of admittedly superior enemy forces.

The Nazi drive was described as concentrated on an exceedingly narrow front in an effort to smash through to the Volga banks in the northern part of the city.

Red Star reported the huge Nazi effort started 48 hours ago with:

…frightful air attacks on the narrow sector designated for the breakthrough.

The Red Army organ said:

Now the decisive battle for Stalingrad is raging. We must defend the city at any cost.

A dispatch from Zurich said a German military spokesman had told neutral correspondents that:

After the reorganization of German troops, the lull in fighting at Stalingrad ended and the German offensive was resumed, with all reserves, infantry, artillery and aircraft.

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179

Here writes the German Press that they have fought for 5 weeks on the same spot, and that the panzer crews was not able to leave their panzers for 221 hours due to artilleri. It seems to me You can read between the lines that they recognize this is not a sustainable situation but now a matter of pure survival. About this time it must become somewhat clear to the public that the Army have reached the limit of their capacity, and they have underestimated the Russians. Still they managed to keep up the moral for almost another 3 years

2 Likes
180

Völkischer Beobachter (October 17, 1942)

Panzer- und Traktorenwerk Dshershinskij in deutscher Hand –
Nordbastion der Festung Stalingrad erstürmt

vb. Wien, 16. Oktober –
In dem erbitterten Kampf um die weiträumigen Industriewerke Stalingrads, die von den Bolschewisten festungsartig ausgebaut worden sind, haben die deutschen Angreifer einen neuen wichtigen Erfolg errungen, wie der Bericht des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht meldet: Das Traktorenwerk „Dshershinskij“, das schon im Frieden mit die besten russischen Panzer produzierte und seit Kriegsbeginn vollständig auf den Panzerkampfwagenbau umgestellt wurde, ist in deutscher Hand. Nach bolschewistischen Meldungen hat das Werk noch vor wenigen Tagen gearbeitet! Nicht minder wichtig aber als seine Ausschaltung ist die Entlastung, die durch die Einnahme dieser Bastion im Nordteil der Stadt der deutschen Riegelstellung gebracht wird‚ die zwischen Don und Wolga seit Wochen erbitterten Angriffen von Norden her ausgesetzt war. Die Hoffnungen Moskaus, Stalingrad zu entsetzen, sind also mit dem Verlust des Werkes „Dshershinskij“ besonders empfindlich getroffen worden.

Die deutschen Truppen traten in der Nacht zum 15. Oktober zu ihrem Angriff gegen den Nordteil der Stadt an. Die hier nebeneinanderliegenden drei großen Rüstungswerke: das Traktoren- und Panzerwagenwerk „Dshershinskij“, die Maschinenfabrik „Rote Barrikade“ und die Hütte „Roter Oktober“ sind nach ihrem Ausbau zu Verteidigungswerken die wichtigsten Bastionen der Festung Stalingrad geworden. Obwohl die Bolschewisten den deutschen Angriff erwarteten und ihm durch Massenaufgebote an Waffen und Truppen die Kraft zu nehmen versuchten, drang der wuchtige deutsche Stoß in den Raum zwischen dem am weitesten nördlich gelegenen Traktorenwerk und der südlich davon liegenden Maschinenfabrik „Rote Barrikade“ ein. Die Bolschewisten entfesselten zur Abwehr das ganze Toben der Materialschlacht, aber unsere Infanteristen und Panzer erreichten dennoch nach erbitterten Straßenkämpfen das Wolgaufer und stürmten die dort liegende Ziegelei. Nördlich davon drangen weitere Angriffskeile in die weitläufigen Anlagen des Traktorenwerkes ein und erreichten auch dort im weiteren Vorstoß mit ihren Spitzen die Wolga.

Um unseren Truppen ihren Erfolg streitig zu machen, zogen die Bolschewisten am Ostufer der Wolga ihre Reserven zum Gegenstoß zusammen. Bei dem Versuch‚ den Strom zu überqueren‚ wurden diese Kolonnen vom Feuer der deutschen Geschütze erfaßt und zusammengeschlagen. Nochmals versuchten die Bolschewisten, den Verteidigern des Traktorenwerkes Hilfe zu bringen, da griff unsere Luftwaffe ein. Sturzkampfflugzeuge legten mit ihren ununterbrochen einschlagenden Bomben einen undurchdringlichen Ring um das Werk‚ so daß kein Fahrzeug, keine Waffe und kein Mann in die Werkgebäude gelangen konnten. Unsere Schlachtengeschwader zersprengten die Reste der Entsetzungstruppen. Sie erstickten, wenige Meter über den Hügeln der Nordstadt fliegend‚ jeden Entlastungworstoß im Keime.

Das große Traktorenwerk von Stalingrad hat in der Geschichte der Sowjetpropaganda eine größere Rolle gespielt als irgend eine der anderen Schau1eistungen der Sowjetindustrie. Es ist kein Zufall, daß diese erste Traktorenfabrik der Sowjetunion überhaupt gerade in der Stadt errichtet wurde, die den Namen des bolschewistischen Diktators trägt. Das „Dshershinskij“-Werk – so benannt nach dem berüchtigten Gründer der Tscheka-GPU. – war überhaupt die erste Großfabrik, die die Boischewisten erbaut haben. Um welche Ausmaße es sich hier handelt, kann man daraus ersehen, daß die Anlagen des Werkes eine.Länge von sechs und eine Breite von zwei Kilometer haben. Schon vor fünfzehn Jahren gehörte der Name dieses Werkes, neben den noch aus der Zarenzeit stammenden Putilow-Werken in Leningrad, zu den in der ganzen Welt angepriesenen „Errungenschaften“ des Bolschewismus. Auch in der Folgezeit haben höchstens noch das Großkraftwerk Dnjeprostroi und die riesige Autofabrik und Kampfwagenfabrik in Gorki ähnlichen „Ruhm“ erworben.

Das Werk ist von vornherein für den doppelten Zweck bestimmt worden, der Landwirtschaft Traktoren und der roten Wehrmacht Panzer zu liefern. Seine Lage tief im Südosten der Sowjetunion‚ an der unteren Wolga, schien es auch in Kriegszeiten vor Feindeinwirkungen zu sichern. Seine Produktion wurde besonders wichtig, als im vergangenen Jahre die deutsche Offensive Charkow erreichte, wo sich ein weiteres großes Traktoren-Panzer-Werk befand, zumal auch die entsprechenden Anlagen in Leningrad nur noch für den örtlichen Einsatz Bedeutung behielten. Von den vier großen Panzerkampfwagenfabriken des europäischen Teils der Sowjetunion steht nun nur noch das Werk in Gorki zur Verfügung. Nenn man einem Bolschewisten vor einem Jahr gesagt hätte‚ daß das Hakenkreuzbanner über den Ruinen von „Dshershinskij“ wehen würde, so hätte er einen solchen Propheten bestimmt für unzurechnungsfähig gehalten.

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