My grandpa was in stalingrad and he throw away the ammo boxes for the MG42 and run for his bare life as the Soviet Tanks Rolled in Sight of his Position he returned Home wir a Shot trough the arm and his left Hand. Thanks to that he was 94 bevor he died. I was there in the age of 16 as he died.
My grandfather was also there. His name is friedrich Schulz. He was in the 6th army and was wounded sometime around 45 days or so before they were cut off. He has passed away now and always said that him being shot through his femur was the best thing that happened to him and saved his life as he would have never been removed and would be there when they were captured. He was a nice man. He said that they all knew for quite some time that they were in bad shape and the Soviet resistance kept getting worse and worse
We still have dusty old letters of my Grandfather during his service in the Soviet army. He recounts his service in the 293rd Rifle Division, which later became the 66th Guards Rifle Division, in 1942-45 He was wounded in Austria and medically discharged by the end of the war.
That's an amazing story! Did your grandpa avoid being trapped in the Kessel (as some did by sheer luck) or was he evacuated by air between November and late January?
It was unimaginable suffering after Stalingrad they should have got rid of that moron Hitler did he get flew out of the pocket before it fell to the Russians or before the surrender
2 of my 3 children married Russian immigrants, I used to joke cold war was over as we were intermarried to them. But now the Russians are the Nazi's in Ukraine. If we define nazi as invader of peaceful neighbor to steal land & kill civilians. This is not fault of the Russian people of course but its leader.
Ukraine up to a point deserves what is happening. With the maidan they ousted an officially elected government to replace it with Western puppets, the next more corrupt of the previous where the last was even an actor who knew nothing of state affairs and who did everything in his power to provoke Russia. Im sad for all the innocents used as cannon fodder.
Yea UA-cam has gotten so ridiculous with that and the PC bullshit. If I comment that someone on a video is a fat muck they block my comment. If it's true why block me.
What an extraordinary piece of work. Firsthand German accounts from the final days are scarce, yet 81 years later, thanks to History Hilt, we are privileged to read newly publicized letters from those desperate moments, through the eyes of Officer Lindeman.
There is a german doco made in the 90's (?) that interviews actual soldiers of the 6,000 who made it back to Germany. It has subtitles and also uses german archived footage. It IS the best doco. Interesting that it exploded myths that death would be preferrable to Russian capture. Instead, the germans were given coffee, food, blankets, overcoats and were treated humanely. Biggest killer was the 100km march.
Lived in Germany in the early 70’s and worked with a German veteran captured in Stalingrad. He was a 19 yr old enlisted man in the Luftwaffe. He wasn’t aircrew, but worked at one of the airfields until the surrender. He was a POW for nine years. Said of the 10,000 Germans in his camp less than 700 came home. Research shows that many POWs died early in captivity because they were already starving or sick with typhoid when captured. Charl was a hard working man, but prone to outbursts for no apparent reason. I was afraid of him. The other Germans respected him immensely.
Having just read Guy Sajers' "The forgotten soldier" it has become crystal clear to me just how terribly those young men suffered. I can't comprehend how teenagers could be sent to the Eastern front and all its' intrinsic horror, and then just come home and carry on like nothing happened. It doesn't surprise me one bit to learn a veteran was prone to rages. I would expect their tolerances for the mundane world we inhabit are almost non existent. God rest their souls. the Ostfront was a whole new level of savage.
@ yes, I read Forgotten Soldier several years ago. Best account from a German solder ever written. The best from an American soldier is The Old Breed by Eugene Sledge. It’s a from a Marine’s diary in the Pacific during the island hopping ground campaign.
Ο Τσαρλ σου είπε πριν τον πιάσουν τι έκαναν οι Γερμανοί στους Σοβιετικούς?Αν σου είπε να μας τα πεις κι αυτά.Ο Τσαρλ ήταν άλλος ένας ΝΑΖΙ του διαβόλου Χίτλερ.
Great Video. I worked in Turkmenistan a few decades ago and was in Turkmenbashi. Our agent drove us from the hotel to the heliport and explained that the road was built by German POW’s. Their graves (apparently very few if any POW’s survived) were right along this road which was miles long. Very poignant knowing these young men never went home and were treated abysmally. It’s true. War is Hell.
We shouldn't lose the fact that they killed 27 million people in the USSR though. The Holocaust is firmly on people's mind but because the USSR immediately became "the enemy", people don't learn this at school. For comparison, the US and UK took 500k fatalities each in WW2.
I think the craziest videos are the ones digging up bodies outside of Stalingrad. Vicious and deadly war where you never knew when your time on earth was over
What is even crazier is to see Germans voting for a political party that talks the same language the Nazis did. This is the same country that had these young POWs you are talking about.
Thank you for this amazing documentary. This is the most impactful documentary about Stalingrad that I have ever seen. It is very well paced with a wonderful blend of narration, recollections from participants in the battle, all accompanied by a variety of appropriate film clips to illustrate the narrative and evocative background music. Bravo!
@@verbalDK1 sorry but the west are the nazi's of today. Stop believing your false propaganda... I do not like any nation state or war but for real Russia has the moral high ground while US/NATO are the agressors. This conflict started already before 2014 coup. learn so you do not dishoner people wrongly.
My grandfather's older brother defended the city and perished there on October 15, 1942 at the outskirts of the Tractor Factory. 37 th Guard Rifle Division
I’ve watched a great many war documentaries and this one is particularly very done. Stalingrad is the focus of many of those. I would rate this one as the best . The letters and a lot of new film clips make this truly superb. Well done. Thanks.
My grandfather was also there with the Romanian army and he was captured and also managed to return afte years from the Gulag . I never got to meet him to hear his stories but im still amazed how he managed to go trough that and survive.
Thanks, couldn't stop watching. People would be foolish if they think everything has changed from these times. These fights are happening every day of the week on individual levels.
@@AuntieTrichome Yep, I have that! As well as a raft of others by Beevor. I think the last one I was reading was Ardennes. Somehow, he always makes otherwise factual acounts so harrowing, so interesting, capturing the human story so beautifully.
@@christinetaia8735 correct, millions of smart intelligent Germans went to Russia and few thousand Nazi criminals came back like beggars, 82 years on truth is don't under estimate RUSSIA....good night
@maheshperera171 To be honest I like your President Putin because he stands with Palestine. Thank you Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Free Lebanon New Zealand 🇳🇿🕊️🇵🇸🕊️🇱🇧
Every year still, hundreds of bodies of soldiers who died in the battle are recovered in the area around Stalingrad (now Volgograd) and reburied in the cemeteries at Mamayev Kurgan or Rossoshka.
Mamayev Kurgan is effectively (and rightly so) a sacred shrine now, along with the statue 'The Motherland Calls'. It's my goal to visit and pay my respects someday.
My uncle fought on the Italian side and went missing in action during the Little Saturn counter offensive. He was not a fascist nor was he evil. He was just a very young man lured into a meaningless war through propaganda.
Twenty-two German generals were captured at the Battle of Stalingrad: General Schmidt: Surrendered the German headquarters General Strecker: Surrendered on February 2, 1943 The Battle of Stalingrad was fought between the Soviet Union and the Axis powers, led by the German 6th Army. The Germans lost a total of 500,000 men during the battle, including 91,000 who were taken prisoner. On January 31 Paulus disobeyed Hitler and agreed to give himself up. Twenty-two generals surrendered with him, and on February 2 the last of 91,000 frozen starving men (all that was left of the Sixth and Fourth armies) surrendered to the Soviets.
These "poor fallen" should have stayed home, as simple as that. Invading other countries, killing millions of people, why in the world should we feel sorry for these German soldiers?
Excellent production. Despite having read many historical accounts of the battle the private thoughts of combatants gives me a much richer view of the absolute horror. Thanks.
My late best friend's father was in the German 6th Army in Stalingrad. He, along with a couple of other soldiers managed to escape the Russians and made their way back to Germany. He had been sent to the Russian front as punishment for commenting that "we can't fight the whole World". He had been overheard by an SS officer, then forced to dig trenches for 2 months before being sent there. Very sad indeed. He died in 1962, aged 42 years, from an enlarged heart, caused by the severe hardship in Stalingrad.
This documentary was really well done with lots of in depth coverage and authentic looking footage. I especially thought the juxtaposition of the promises of victory by the Fuehrer and Goehring against the brutal reality on the ground to be jarring and a good lesson for the present day.
I worked in Germany back in 80's in a company and got to know the truck driver who used to limp by walking. Out of curiosity I asked him one day what the limp was caused by. He looked at me and said have you heard of Stalingrad and I said yes and he replied I was there!!
Temperature during the battle fell to -25 to -40°c. At this temperature, only fuel and vodka doesn't freeze, bodies need more food just to cope, any wound or blood loss is lethal, frozen land is a hell to dig in.
The death rate in German camps is 60% Mortality in Soviet camps 14% Official statistics 90% of the deaths of Paulus' captive army were caused by two causes - dystrophy and typhus. Within just two to three weeks after the general surrender, a third of the prisoners had already died.
It would have been 0% and 0% if the Germans would have stayed in their own Country. And that was the 2nd horrific war Germany did had done to the world! Still today no matter where I've been in my Life, still today when someone asks me my heritage, or my family's, or my last name, whenever I have to say German, then there's a quiet awkward silence, till someone asks a different question to change the subject.
This is a really well-done video. Voices, images/footage, editing - apart from a few minor misspellings and misplaced apostrophes -are all expertly-handled. 1:39:10 I'm pretty sure Hans' treasured heirloom became Ivan's treasured war prize.
Klar, die primitiven Bolschewisten haben stets alles geklaut!!! Von den russischen Zivilisten, vor, während und nach dem Krieg in allen Ländern die sie okkupiert haben!!!
@allenomalley4014 Do you realise how retarded your comment is? Clearly you are dumb AF. A nazi needs not show himself as it is evident to all communists.
@@allenomalley4014 Says an angloid whose civilization built up Hitler. From Ford to IBM your entire elite supported him from the start. His entire ideology comes from America and England. Hitler pleaded for peace with England the whole time and even bragged about getting inspired by the British when building his concentration camps. Your racist Anglo-Saxon protestant civilization is directly responsible and guilty of the holocaust. Your lies aren't working anymore boomer.
The problem with relying on German film footage is that it gives an unrealistic impression of the Wehrmacht's level of mechanisation. The reality was actually that the German's were largely marching on foot and relying upon horses for supply. German logistics management were amateurish at best and the inability to effectively manage the regauging of the rail network added to the woeful situation. The reliance upon horses meant that more rail volume was consumed with fodder and vetinary supplies than for fuel and ammunition.
The German film footage that gives the most realistic impression of the mechanization are personal footage shot by soldiers, rather than the propaganda dept.
German generals couldn't have been the renown commanders that they were without being experts at logistics. Logistics is part and parcle to commanding. Otherwise, German commanders couldn't have executed the masterful maneuvers, counterstrokes and encirclements on a vast scale that they did on the Russian battlefield.
The Allies supplied the Soviets with 400,000 American trucks, many thousands of Jeeps and millions of tons of supplies, all on credit. Without it, Russia could not have survived.
@@johnwright9372 Possibly, without the food supplies. But the most important impact of the American supplies was that they facilitated the Red Army's ability to go on the offensive.
My grandfather was a German soldier in Russia in WWII… he never walked for long periods of time… Got around by train and truck. I think people underestimate how fucking huge Russia is… you would walk a very, very long time if you mostly rely on your feet and horses! My grandfather told me about those endless train rides… He told me that he was starring out of the window and thinking “What the fuck are we doing here???”
@guillermotell2327 For both but I get your point. If you found yourself being a German and getting your ass drafted you'd really have no choice now would you? Ever heard that soldiers really fight for their lives and their comrades lives and patriotism and ideals are not important when they're dodging bullets? In war the only aggressors are those old farts giving orders behind a desk far away from where hell rages the land. The boots on the ground aren't to blame.
Where are the lingering close-ups of the Russian fighters? Where are the diary entries of the Russian soldiers? This documentary is told entirely from the German perspective. That's fine . . . but in the West we lack any sort of balance in the narratives available. And this leads to sympathy for Nazis, and glorification of wars of conquest.
When we lived in Germany, my son and his friend found a storage walker built into the railroad train system with World War I guns in it. The town council brought it to the. Notification of the government, they found the very one that my children had looked at not only had guns but had grenades in it live grenades, and so they put out a thing to have the military police check each one along the railroad and remove these very old weapons. We live there when my husband was in the Air Force in the 1980s stationed at Rammstein, but we lived off base.
In the 1950's, I was a little boy, and my Danish dad (born 1907) had a job there. Our 3 story old house had a basement. Under a pile of sticks, we found two bayonets in perfect condition. The slim one was British, the heavier broad darker one was German. I don't know what happened to them, but I wish my family had held on to them.
I wonder, in 80 years how well people will know what the individual soldier of today experienced, without archived letters and even emails giving way to video chats?
The romance of letters home have a different impact than emails and video calls. There is poetry, expressions, and emotions that are simply lost with electronics.
@@jasonbailey1951Yes. I was thinking even more of the intimacy and honesty of personal correspondence compared to vlogs, tik toks, or public interviews.
@@ald1144you'll be able to have the most personal experiences possible w/o actually having been there. We extract so much information and retell the stories of the great wars using technology that we take for granted today bc it was so primitive in its infancy. In futures we'll be able to look back and see the specific soldiers purview instead of extrapolating it from his words in a letter. Real question is how much WW1 and WW2 will still be seen as the greatest wars in modern military history. It seems near impossible that we'd ever see so many soldiers and armor go to war w/ each other again. Casualty numbers in the millions for Germans and Soviets is just insane to think about. The 20yr Afghanistan war saw the US suffer some 20k casualties. Imagine if those numbers had been 5 million per 4yrs. Would be insane to experience
Although Stalin was initially collaborating with Hitler in invading and splitting Poland in half and was no saint ,the Allies supported the Russians who fought valiantly to repel the enemy from their territory and eventually overpowered the Nazis and Hitlers murderous rampage across Europe with the help of the Allies. The Russians lost 26 million people in WW2 …. A huge loss!!!!
Stalin did not cooperate with Hitler. Nazism was the most dangerous form of capitalism, and Stalin, as a Marxist, understood this very well. In Spain, we fought against Germany. Later, the Soviet government offered to France and England along to save Czechoslovakia in 1938, but they were rejected. France and England wanted to fight communism through Hitler, but Stalin realized this and instead concluded a non-aggression pact. This pact gave Hitler freedom of action in the west, but it was better for us than for them. If you don't believe me, you can read the memoirs of Winston Churchill to find out more.
@ Hitler planned operation Barbarossa and stabbed Stalin in the back cause he always hated the Bolsheviks,but for convenience collaborated with Stalin for a short period knowing that eventually he would take on 🇷🇺 RUSSIA…
@ It is also known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact or the Hitler-Stalin Pact. The arrangement included a 10-year non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. It also called for economic cooperation and territorial expansion. The German-Soviet Pact prepared the way for World War II.
@@tomipantich6484 , Poland also had a Pilsudski-Hitler agreement from 1934 (Declaration on the Non-Use of Force between Germany and Poland) and Poland and Hitler divided Czechoslovakia. Be attentive to all the facts!!! Well, the boomerang has come back.
This presentation is a superb account, made all the more interesting by the excerpts of letters from those involved and the whole mood portrayed with excellent narration and fitting music.
* Rest In Peace to all soldiers and civilians who fought and died in this hellish Battle. I found a book many many years ago called… LETTERS HOME… Each page was a letter to family members of soldiers at STALINGRAD… That lone BATTLE was its most and worst fight of ALL WARS…*
It was an informative, incredible, truthful documentary about Stalingrad invasion by Germans and liberation by Soviets...letters debates showed moral dwindling gradually...what was notable..inside Hitlers mindset[ changing operations names was a main problem...?]...not changing military situation from bad to better for German armies
So, tell me, Ms. UA-cam Censor, when this documentary was created decades ago and probably shown on TV, were certain images blurred out? Maybe we're more squeamish than audiences back then?
Yeah dudes no shit WAAAAY better documentary on the love fest of The Eastern Front than I've seen in quite a while. Bet y'all could do a great one on Kursk too!😊😊😊😊😊😊
The final message out of Stalingrad, picked up by short wave radio, was sent by one Heinrich Stoda, son of doctor Adolph Stoda of Munich, read: We are the last survivors in this place. Four of us are wounded. For four days we've entrenched ourselves in the ruins of the tractor factory. We've had nothing to eat for four days. I just opened up the last magazine for my automatic weapon. In ten minutes the bolsheviks will overrun us. Tell my father that I have done my duty and that I know how to die. Long live Germany. After that..... there was silence.
Great documentary. Could you do one on the German Invasion in June of 1941 and the thousands of villages and towns they burned down and all the cilvilians and 2.5 million Russian POWs that were deliberately starved to death? Thanks.
Yeah right after one on the Holodomor when the soviets starved over 6 million Ukrainians to death, helped take over Poland with the Nazis, and killed twice as mang german POWs.
Ein Bolschewisten Opferkult Jünger!!!! 😂😂😂 Was du uns vorlügst sind die Taten der Bolschewisten an ihrem eigenen Volk gewesen!!! Und natürlich haben sie auch 60 Millionen ihrer eigenen Leute ermordet, vor dem Krieg!!! Dazu kommt Zerstörung, Plünderungen, Vergewaltigungen und Ermordung vieler Millionen Menschen Europas!!! Allein 10 Millionen Deutsche wurden *nach* 1945 ermordet!!! Darüber berichtet man nicht, aber seit 1945 über das, was du behauptest und sehen willst!!!
My family were ethnic Germans who spoke German and lived in Stalingrad along the Volga river, When the Germans arrived at the city my family were able to apply for Reich Citizenship and moved to East Germany where they stayed until the end of the war. My great grandpa walked over to the Wehrmacht recruitment center and volunteered to fight for the German army, he went to Stalingrad and never came back home.
@@bigjake-ev7nj I do not know the full extent since my grandma who had told me this died a few years ago, but basically from what I remember as they were being put on trucks back to Germany somewhere along the way my Great Grandpa hopped off the truck and joined up with the Germans, (he was able to do this pretty easily I'm assuming since they had only lived in the soviet union for maybe 2 decades or so and still had their old German passports from the 1920s) my grandma still had the letters he sent back after he joined dated around April - June 1942. I also have a Bundesarchiv folder showing the signed document for their Reich Citizenship, interestingly it has an SS stamp on it, I'm not sure if they were involved with the process or not but it is super interesting nonetheless.
What an amazing story. I'm sorry your grandfather paid the ultimate price but I bet his knowledge of the area, language, and other information he gave helped tremendously.
One thing they didn't mention is that the red army abandoned stalingrad at the same moment Paulus become the commander of the 6th army. All Paulus had to do was to advanced in to Stalingrad and it would have been taken without a fight. But that was not to be. Paulus stopped the advance for several days giving the soviets time to pick their wounds and fall back in on Stalingrad.
очень жаль, что сейчас запад пытается переписать историю, будто бы СССР не был решающей силой, победившей нацизм. 25 миллионов человек только в СССР были у биты в этой войне. Слава Советскому народу и товарищу Сталину!
@@Fennek67 so you got nothing? In fact Stalin did more for soviet people more than ANYONE IN HISTORY, but you didn't know much, isn't you? Learn history, i mean ACTUAL history, not stupid youtube videos. Its a man who destroy nazi Germany, man who made USSR only for 20 years from village country to industrial giant, but you still repeating silly rumors of "butcher". My grands are very thankful him for all he did, and i believe them cause you know, they know something instead of you. Please learn more, and many things will be more clear.
@ВикторПрудников-ь1к Look this refusal of historical evident ist very sad...for You. But you are a grown adult, i presume. Believe what you want. I think in 10 years from now, you want us to make believe that Putin didnt Start the war with Ukraine or so. It will take decades until russia will be able to join the Rest of civilised mankind again after this mess.
My grandfather served in Stalingrad. He was lucky to get out. He’d been sent to the Black Sea to collect supplies of oil. Upon his return to Stalingrad the circle around the city had been closed and he could not return. Eventually he made his way to Holland and ended up in Llandudno as a POW. Guarded by Italians!! He never mentioned the war but would often make mention of “old Paulus”. Before his death however, he opened up and said it was “health on earth”.
that color film is excellent but could have done without the censorship! mark felton has a video on the german holdouts. resistance after the surrender
after an easy victory in Poland and an easy victory in France the German Wehrmacht suddenly met a serious opponent in Stalingrad the Germans are coming suddenly realized that they will not win
Great documentary I'm always mystified how us humans can invest and put so much into killing one another . Imagine all that energy focused on something more humanitarian and righteous . I hope we can stop this behavior and learn from our history , seems as though we haven't unfortunately .
Well done and researched film. There is nothing better to tell the story from the soldiers who were there using their written letters. Attention to details even taking care to use german prononciation when reading the letters.
"Iron wind was blowing into their faces, but they kept advancing and again and again the enemy was taken over by a superstitious feeling: were there really humans attacking them? Were they mortal?"
Crazy censorship of history I watched these images on TV when I was a child Jesus! It's war its messy. Don't watch this stuff if it offends,ridiculous pampering to minorities again
"History is a teacher, but it has no students." - "He who does not know history is condemned to repeat it." (Antonio Gramsci) Westerners and in particular the Anglo-Saxons continue to learn nothing from the lessons of the historical past. The conflict in Ukraine caused by NATO's expansion to the east will end exactly as it did in 1945.
Notice how Germans were aware of our help to the Soviets, they also understood that because of Allies, they had to sent troops and equipment to fight them in other fronts, making it easier for the Soviets, because the Soviets directed all their Forces and their Equipment to one front. Germans literally fought against entire world.
Yes, it was an unwinnable situation for Germany. She had woefully underestimated Soviet resilience during Barbarossa, and when that operation failed Germany had precious few strategic alternatives. Fall Blau was a frankly desperate attempt to deal a knockout blow to the USSR, using fewer men and equipment than had been available the previous summer, and starting from a badly overextended supply line--which only became more strained as the Axis advanced east and south. At the same time, the Red Army and the military-civilian leadership (STAVKA, essentially) had taken to heart the catastrophes of 1941 and were becoming increasingly proficient at the strategic and operational levels. Tough, successful generals were now being given increasing responsibility and the (relocated) armaments industry was finding its feet. In 1942 the USSR had more men under arms than the German forces in the East, and her armaments industry outproduced Germany's in every important metric. Operation Uranus was successful on a scale that would have been unimaginable a year before, though as the failure of Operation Mars showed, the USSR still had quite a bit to learn. In short, Germany burned herself out in Barbarossa, launching a last-gasp attempt to win the war in 1942, against an opponent who had learned hard lessons, put the learning to excellent use, and now commanded large and increasingly skilful forces.
Richtig, weil die Kabbale die Welt gegen uns aufhetzte und wir dennoch so lange Stand gehalten haben!!! Unvergessen und einmalige Leistung unserer Ahnen!!!
"If we see that Germany is winning, then we should help Russia, and if Russia wins, then we should help Germany, and thus let them kill as many as possible, although I do not want to see Hitler in the winners under any circumstances" Gary Truman 1941.
The death of the 6th army at Stalingrad gave the one million German troops in the Caucasus the chance to retreat. Presumably by this time Stalin was listening to his generals as presumably he was asking about seizing Rostov preventing the Caucasus army from an easy retreat apart from through Crimea but his generals understood their limitations.
For those who lament about German POW, they should ask themselves about what these soldiers did to Russian people. How many they killed or maimed, how many villages and towns they destroyed, how much misery they caused. They got retributed for the crimes they commited.
My grandpa was in stalingrad and he throw away the ammo boxes for the MG42 and run for his bare life as the Soviet Tanks Rolled in Sight of his Position he returned Home wir a Shot trough the arm and his left Hand. Thanks to that he was 94 bevor he died. I was there in the age of 16 as he died.
My grandfather was also there. His name is friedrich Schulz. He was in the 6th army and was wounded sometime around 45 days or so before they were cut off. He has passed away now and always said that him being shot through his femur was the best thing that happened to him and saved his life as he would have never been removed and would be there when they were captured. He was a nice man. He said that they all knew for quite some time that they were in bad shape and the Soviet resistance kept getting worse and worse
We still have dusty old letters of my Grandfather during his service in the Soviet army.
He recounts his service in the 293rd Rifle Division, which later became the 66th Guards Rifle Division, in 1942-45
He was wounded in Austria and medically discharged by the end of the war.
That's an amazing story! Did your grandpa avoid being trapped in the Kessel (as some did by sheer luck) or was he evacuated by air between November and late January?
It was unimaginable suffering after Stalingrad they should have got rid of that moron Hitler did he get flew out of the pocket before it fell to the Russians or before the surrender
I hope he didn't go to a Russian POW camp
This is by far the best documentary I've ever watched about Stalingrad. Please, do thank its author(s) and give us more documentaries of that type.
How many you watched?
@@BartmanMi How about... "many" ?! Plus the works of Glantz & House, J. Lopez among others.
@@jeanchasticot6893
yes actually i see new details and materials i had not seen previously .
This documentary is amazing!
When you are able to watch one that includes the Soviet stories and perspectives, as this one doesn't at all, you may find those even better.
The letters with the voice actors are so personal, great doc
So personal, and so racist.
I agree that there are racist part. But please mind the time and circumstances. Thxt@guillermotell2327
My grandmother was defending Stalingrad. As a nurse. She was 16. Слава советскому солдату!
The Russian soldiers, and people, rose to great heights in that war.
2 of my 3 children married Russian immigrants, I used to joke cold war was over as we were intermarried to them. But now the Russians are the Nazi's in Ukraine. If we define nazi as invader of peaceful neighbor to steal land & kill civilians. This is not fault of the Russian people of course but its leader.
Ja klar, alle Russen sind Helden und ausschließlich "Verteidiger"!!! 😂😂😂
War is hell, doco's like this should be shown in every school, maybe it could make a difference...
Humanity hasn’t learnt over thousands of years … no hope there
well you have a point but look at ukraine and we repeat history sadly
@@alexanderpepkin4110 true when you look at ukraine
@larryperera8724 Well, don’t look at Ukraine …
Ukraine up to a point deserves what is happening. With the maidan they ousted an officially elected government to replace it with Western puppets, the next more corrupt of the previous where the last was even an actor who knew nothing of state affairs and who did everything in his power to provoke Russia. Im sad for all the innocents used as cannon fodder.
The images should not be blurred. War should be seen as what it is.
Agree with you. It was unblurred before for sure but I think the new regulations from youtube hindered that. War should seen as real war indeed.
Liberals are censoring everything they don’t agree with or find offensive.
Yea UA-cam has gotten so ridiculous with that and the PC bullshit. If I comment that someone on a video is a fat muck they block my comment. If it's true why block me.
You Tube censors are to blame for the blurring....not the content creators.
The horror should not be blurred. War should be seen as what it is.
What an extraordinary piece of work. Firsthand German accounts from the final days are scarce, yet 81 years later, thanks to History Hilt, we are privileged to read newly publicized letters from those desperate moments, through the eyes of Officer Lindeman.
Hitler ,Staline : two monsters ...
There is a german doco made in the 90's (?) that interviews actual soldiers of the 6,000 who made it back to Germany. It has subtitles and also uses german archived footage. It IS the best doco. Interesting that it exploded myths that death would be preferrable to Russian capture. Instead, the germans were given coffee, food, blankets, overcoats and were treated humanely. Biggest killer was the 100km march.
You know what's even scarcer? Firsthand Soviet accounts.
@stemaig65
Both raised under poor abusive families, one Austrian, the other a Georgian shoe cobbler that was no Pinocchio.
@ that’s interesting. Do you happen to know why exactly that is?
Lived in Germany in the early 70’s and worked with a German veteran captured in Stalingrad. He was a 19 yr old enlisted man in the Luftwaffe. He wasn’t aircrew, but worked at one of the airfields until the surrender. He was a POW for nine years. Said of the 10,000 Germans in his camp less than 700 came home. Research shows that many POWs died early in captivity because they were already starving or sick with typhoid when captured. Charl was a hard working man, but prone to outbursts for no apparent reason. I was afraid of him. The other Germans respected him immensely.
Having just read Guy Sajers' "The forgotten soldier" it has become crystal clear to me just how terribly those young men suffered.
I can't comprehend how teenagers could be sent to the Eastern front and all its' intrinsic horror, and then just come home and carry on like nothing happened.
It doesn't surprise me one bit to learn a veteran was prone to rages.
I would expect their tolerances for the mundane world we inhabit are almost non existent.
God rest their souls.
the Ostfront was a whole new level of savage.
@ yes, I read Forgotten Soldier several years ago. Best account from a German solder ever written. The best from an American soldier is The Old Breed by Eugene Sledge. It’s a from a Marine’s diary in the Pacific during the island hopping ground campaign.
Ο Τσαρλ σου είπε πριν τον πιάσουν τι έκαναν οι Γερμανοί στους Σοβιετικούς?Αν σου είπε να μας τα πεις κι αυτά.Ο Τσαρλ ήταν άλλος ένας ΝΑΖΙ του διαβόλου Χίτλερ.
@@LanceRomanceF4E What's the best Soviet account?
@ haven’t read a good Russian soldiers account, but books on the Siege of Leningrad are the best
One of the best documentaries I've watched so far about. Stalingrad
I hate the blurry scenes. They been recorded on purpose and by sacrifice. Yet they are censored by people never had to suffer..
Great point.
Amen.
Great Video. I worked in Turkmenistan a few decades ago and was in Turkmenbashi. Our agent drove us from the hotel to the heliport and explained that the road was built by German POW’s. Their graves (apparently very few if any POW’s survived) were right along this road which was miles long. Very poignant knowing these young men never went home and were treated abysmally. It’s true. War is Hell.
We shouldn't lose the fact that they killed 27 million people in the USSR though. The Holocaust is firmly on people's mind but because the USSR immediately became "the enemy", people don't learn this at school. For comparison, the US and UK took 500k fatalities each in WW2.
I think the craziest videos are the ones digging up bodies outside of Stalingrad. Vicious and deadly war where you never knew when your time on earth was over
Ppppppppoʻoʻppĺpoʻ😮
What is even crazier is to see Germans voting for a political party that talks the same language the Nazis did. This is the same country that had these young POWs you are talking about.
Did you know that those soldiers killed millions of Soviet children and women?
One of the best WW2 docs I have seen in years. Need to come back and watch it all when I have time. Incredible stuff.
Thank you for this amazing documentary. This is the most impactful documentary about Stalingrad that I have ever seen. It is very well paced with a wonderful blend of narration, recollections from participants in the battle, all accompanied by a variety of appropriate film clips to illustrate the narrative and evocative background music. Bravo!
🎉Kaikoura always looked the epitome of a peaceful fishing village on a picturesque bay. Lucky you.
My grandfather's brother died defending Stalingrad. He was 22 years old. Only in 2019 did I find documents indicating the place of his burial.
80 yrs ago your grandfathers fought Nazis and today their grandchildren are Nazis... what a paradox!
@@verbalDK1 sorry but the west are the nazi's of today. Stop believing your false propaganda...
I do not like any nation state or war but for real Russia has the moral high ground while US/NATO are the agressors.
This conflict started already before 2014 coup. learn so you do not dishoner people wrongly.
@@verbalDK1 LoL. No it's not that black and white.
@@striderhein7299 it wasn't that black and white in Nazi Germany either, but again the ENTIRE German people paid the price. Keep it in mind.
@@verbalDK1 Скажите это нато !!
My grandfather's older brother defended the city and perished there on October 15, 1942 at the outskirts of the Tractor Factory. 37 th Guard Rifle Division
80 yrs ago your grandfathers fought Nazis and today their grandchildren are Nazis... what a paradox!
@@verbalDK1 shut-off zomby.
I’ve watched a great many war documentaries and this one is particularly very done. Stalingrad is the focus of many of those. I would rate this one as the best . The letters and a lot of new film clips make this truly superb. Well done. Thanks.
My grandfather was also there with the Romanian army and he was captured and also managed to return afte years from the Gulag . I never got to meet him to hear his stories but im still amazed how he managed to go trough that and survive.
Thanks, couldn't stop watching. People would be foolish if they think everything has changed from these times. These fights are happening every day of the week on individual levels.
Happening right now in Gaza. Substitute the citizens of Stalingrad with that of Gaza and the N.a.zis with the Zi.on.sts.
Or just look at Mariupol in 2022… way smaller scale but same viciousness
@@GrumpX irrelevant.
@@sael52 Genocid is irrelevant? Says much about your tribe.
If you haven't already, Antony Beevor's 'Stalingrad' is a must read. What a hell on earth. Anything tragic that could happen in this battle did.
Good book indeed. Berlin is also worth a read by the way.
@@AuntieTrichome Yep, I have that! As well as a raft of others by Beevor. I think the last one I was reading was Ardennes. Somehow, he always makes otherwise factual acounts so harrowing, so interesting, capturing the human story so beautifully.
Stalingrad by vassily grosman is a good one , he was a Russian reporter.
David m glants, is also highly recommended, he has done numerous books on stalingrad
@@redskyatnight123 I’m going to check that out. Thanks for the info. 👍
The camera men who filmed all of this get my total respect
Absolutely Totally Agree With Your Comment 💯
New Zealand 🇳🇿
most footages are reproduced or from films
@maheshperera171
The Truth has a powerful effect on those who choose ignorance rather than TRUTH!!!
New Zealand 🇳🇿🕊️🇵🇸🕊️🇱🇧
@@christinetaia8735 correct, millions of smart intelligent Germans went to Russia and few thousand Nazi criminals came back like beggars, 82 years on truth is don't under estimate RUSSIA....good night
@maheshperera171
To be honest I like your President Putin because he stands with Palestine.
Thank you
Free Palestine 🇵🇸
Free Lebanon
New Zealand 🇳🇿🕊️🇵🇸🕊️🇱🇧
Every year still, hundreds of bodies of soldiers who died in the battle are recovered in the area around Stalingrad (now Volgograd) and reburied in the cemeteries at Mamayev Kurgan or Rossoshka.
Mamayev Kurgan is effectively (and rightly so) a sacred shrine now, along with the statue 'The Motherland Calls'. It's my goal to visit and pay my respects someday.
Plenty of them are plundered that is very common in russia.
@@WielkaStopa-qh1rrне было уважения к захватчикам . Слишком много жестокости они принесли !
My uncle fought on the Italian side and went missing in action during the Little Saturn counter offensive. He was not a fascist nor was he evil. He was just a very young man lured into a meaningless war through propaganda.
@@WielkaStopa-qh1rrnormal für Russen!!!
Twenty-two German generals were captured at the Battle of Stalingrad:
General Schmidt: Surrendered the German headquarters
General Strecker: Surrendered on February 2, 1943
The Battle of Stalingrad was fought between the Soviet Union and the Axis powers, led by the German 6th Army. The Germans lost a total of 500,000 men during the battle, including 91,000 who were taken prisoner.
On January 31 Paulus disobeyed Hitler and agreed to give himself up. Twenty-two generals surrendered with him, and on February 2 the last of 91,000 frozen starving men (all that was left of the Sixth and Fourth armies) surrendered to the Soviets.
What a marvelous video, what a great job remembering the fallen. Great documentary indeed
These "poor fallen" should have stayed home, as simple as that. Invading other countries, killing millions of people, why in the world should we feel sorry for these German soldiers?
Excellent production. Despite having read many historical accounts of the battle the private thoughts of combatants gives me a much richer view of the absolute horror. Thanks.
They only wrote what they were allowed to say and even those were filtered
I recommend the Russian docuseries" Soviet storm " to have a wider perspective of the war ; the narrator seems to be the same voice .
My late best friend's father was in the German 6th Army in Stalingrad. He, along with a couple of other soldiers managed to escape the Russians and made their way back to Germany. He had been sent to the Russian front as punishment for commenting that "we can't fight the whole World". He had been overheard by an SS officer, then forced to dig trenches for 2 months before being sent there. Very sad indeed. He died in 1962, aged 42 years, from an enlarged heart, caused by the severe hardship in Stalingrad.
This documentary was really well done with lots of in depth coverage and authentic looking footage. I especially thought the juxtaposition of the promises of victory by the Fuehrer and Goehring against the brutal reality on the ground to be jarring and a good lesson for the present day.
I worked in Germany back in 80's in a company and got to know the truck driver who used to limp by walking. Out of curiosity I asked him one day what the limp was caused by. He looked at me and said have you heard of Stalingrad and I said yes and he replied I was there!!
Temperature during the battle fell to -25 to -40°c. At this temperature, only fuel and vodka doesn't freeze, bodies need more food just to cope, any wound or blood loss is lethal, frozen land is a hell to dig in.
In some cases it was so cold it froze the blood as it came out and stopped them bleeding out. I can't remember where I read it somewhere.
Yea, the coldest winter in like 100yrs.
cold temperatures will freeze blood
Thank Christ the booze didn't freeze at least.
@jameson32 Right, that'd be the worst lol. Not the swish!
The best documentary on the battle for Stalingrad. By far.
The death rate in German camps is 60%
Mortality in Soviet camps 14%
Official statistics
90% of the deaths of Paulus' captive army were caused by two causes - dystrophy and typhus. Within just two to three weeks after the general surrender, a third of the prisoners had already died.
It would have been 0% and 0% if the Germans would have stayed in their own Country. And that was the 2nd horrific war Germany did had done to the world! Still today no matter where I've been in my Life, still today when someone asks me my heritage, or my family's, or my last name, whenever I have to say German, then there's a quiet awkward silence, till someone asks a different question to change the subject.
Best documentary I have ever seen on Stalingrad. Thank you 👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
I really miss such documentaries in german language. They rarely give such vivid insights into the sacrifices of the comrades
This is a really well-done video. Voices, images/footage, editing - apart from a few minor misspellings and misplaced apostrophes -are all expertly-handled.
1:39:10 I'm pretty sure Hans' treasured heirloom became Ivan's treasured war prize.
Klar, die primitiven Bolschewisten haben stets alles geklaut!!! Von den russischen Zivilisten, vor, während und nach dem Krieg in allen Ländern die sie okkupiert haben!!!
Awe poor wittle Germans. They suffered at Stalingrad😢 Shouldn't have invaded Soviet Union.
True … maybe if Stalin hadn’t supported and encouraged Hitler to wage war they wouldn’t have
@allenomalley4014 Do you realise how retarded your comment is? Clearly you are dumb AF. A nazi needs not show himself as it is evident to all communists.
@@allenomalley4014 Says an angloid whose civilization built up Hitler. From Ford to IBM your entire elite supported him from the start. His entire ideology comes from America and England. Hitler pleaded for peace with England the whole time and even bragged about getting inspired by the British when building his concentration camps. Your racist Anglo-Saxon protestant civilization is directly responsible and guilty of the holocaust. Your lies aren't working anymore boomer.
The biggest lesson I take from war... People gotta stop killing each other for monsters. We probably never will.
When men make men their gods that only desire power and prestige only destruction and death be the final outcome 😢
People are not monsters. The Buddha teaches of joyful participation in the sufferings of the world.
Read the islamic hadiths...
We live alongside literal megalomaniacs with a genocidal intent.
@@cedricliggins7528 That didn't work with Japan and then China.
Certainly people should not kill each other, but you are missing the fact that this was desparate defense against a barbarian agressor.
The problem with relying on German film footage is that it gives an unrealistic impression of the Wehrmacht's level of mechanisation. The reality was actually that the German's were largely marching on foot and relying upon horses for supply. German logistics management were amateurish at best and the inability to effectively manage the regauging of the rail network added to the woeful situation. The reliance upon horses meant that more rail volume was consumed with fodder and vetinary supplies than for fuel and ammunition.
The German film footage that gives the most realistic impression of the mechanization are personal footage shot by soldiers, rather than the propaganda dept.
German generals couldn't have been the renown commanders that they were without being experts at logistics. Logistics is part and parcle to commanding. Otherwise, German commanders couldn't have executed the masterful maneuvers, counterstrokes and encirclements on a vast scale that they did on the Russian battlefield.
The Allies supplied the Soviets with 400,000 American trucks, many thousands of Jeeps and millions of tons of supplies, all on credit. Without it, Russia could not have survived.
@@johnwright9372 Possibly, without the food supplies. But the most important impact of the American supplies was that they facilitated the Red Army's ability to go on the offensive.
My grandfather was a German soldier in Russia in WWII… he never walked for long periods of time… Got around by train and truck. I think people underestimate how fucking huge Russia is… you would walk a very, very long time if you mostly rely on your feet and horses! My grandfather told me about those endless train rides… He told me that he was starring out of the window and thinking “What the fuck are we doing here???”
Fascinating great video well narrated and very informative
That was a superb piece of filmmaking.
Thank you for this excellent program
Splendid documentary. Heartbreaking...
So sorry for the poor agressors, right?
@guillermotell2327 For both but I get your point. If you found yourself being a German and getting your ass drafted you'd really have no choice now would you? Ever heard that soldiers really fight for their lives and their comrades lives and patriotism and ideals are not important when they're dodging bullets? In war the only aggressors are those old farts giving orders behind a desk far away from where hell rages the land. The boots on the ground aren't to blame.
Amazing video. The best material I've ever seen about Stalingrad. Thank you
The best history channel ❤
The sheer pointlessness and waste of life, what clearer example is there of mankind's destructive tendencies
Das war alles andere als "sinnlos"!!! Im Gegenteil!!! Kein Kampf hatte mehr Sinn, um Europa vor dem Bolschewismus zu schützen und bewahren!!!
The best Doc on Stalingrad I've seen in quite awhile, very good
Great oldschool style doc ❤ i grew up on this style tv
Where are the lingering close-ups of the Russian fighters? Where are the diary entries of the Russian soldiers? This documentary is told entirely from the German perspective. That's fine . . . but in the West we lack any sort of balance in the narratives available. And this leads to sympathy for Nazis, and glorification of wars of conquest.
Exactly
"I know many armies that have come to Russia. But I know none that have ever returned." - Otto von Bismarck
that russia doesn't exist more.
When we lived in Germany, my son and his friend found a storage walker built into the railroad train system with World War I guns in it. The town council brought it to the. Notification of the government, they found the very one that my children had looked at not only had guns but had grenades in it live grenades, and so they put out a thing to have the military police check each one along the railroad and remove these very old weapons. We live there when my husband was in the Air Force in the 1980s stationed at Rammstein, but we lived off base.
Yup, lotta guns here in Europe last century
Wow,just imagine how much is still stashed away and forgotten about.
In the 1950's, I was a little boy, and my Danish dad (born 1907) had a job there. Our 3 story old house had a basement. Under a pile of sticks, we found two bayonets in perfect condition. The slim one was British, the heavier broad darker one was German. I don't know what happened to them, but I wish my family had held on to them.
I wonder, in 80 years how well people will know what the individual soldier of today experienced, without archived letters and even emails giving way to video chats?
Today there's the Internet.
More info on day to day life than ever.
The romance of letters home have a different impact than emails and video calls.
There is poetry, expressions, and emotions that are simply lost with electronics.
@@jasonbailey1951Yes. I was thinking even more of the intimacy and honesty of personal correspondence compared to vlogs, tik toks, or public interviews.
@@ald1144you'll be able to have the most personal experiences possible w/o actually having been there. We extract so much information and retell the stories of the great wars using technology that we take for granted today bc it was so primitive in its infancy. In futures we'll be able to look back and see the specific soldiers purview instead of extrapolating it from his words in a letter.
Real question is how much WW1 and WW2 will still be seen as the greatest wars in modern military history. It seems near impossible that we'd ever see so many soldiers and armor go to war w/ each other again. Casualty numbers in the millions for Germans and Soviets is just insane to think about. The 20yr Afghanistan war saw the US suffer some 20k casualties. Imagine if those numbers had been 5 million per 4yrs. Would be insane to experience
Although Stalin was initially collaborating with Hitler in invading and splitting Poland in half and was no saint ,the Allies supported the Russians who fought valiantly to repel the enemy from their territory and eventually overpowered the Nazis and Hitlers murderous rampage across Europe with the help of the Allies.
The Russians lost 26 million people in WW2 …. A huge loss!!!!
Stalin did not cooperate with Hitler. Nazism was the most dangerous form of capitalism, and Stalin, as a Marxist, understood this very well. In Spain, we fought against Germany. Later, the Soviet government offered to France and England along to save Czechoslovakia in 1938, but they were rejected. France and England wanted to fight communism through Hitler, but Stalin realized this and instead concluded a non-aggression pact. This pact gave Hitler freedom of action in the west, but it was better for us than for them. If you don't believe me, you can read the memoirs of Winston Churchill to find out more.
@ Stalin had a non aggression pact with Hitler …. They both attacked Poland and divided it …. Get your facts straight!!!!!
@ Hitler planned operation Barbarossa and stabbed Stalin in the back cause he always hated the Bolsheviks,but for convenience collaborated with Stalin for a short period knowing that eventually he would take on 🇷🇺 RUSSIA…
@ It is also known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact or the Hitler-Stalin Pact. The arrangement included a 10-year non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. It also called for economic cooperation and territorial expansion. The German-Soviet Pact prepared the way for World War II.
@@tomipantich6484 , Poland also had a Pilsudski-Hitler agreement from 1934 (Declaration on the Non-Use of Force between Germany and Poland) and Poland and Hitler divided Czechoslovakia. Be attentive to all the facts!!! Well, the boomerang has come back.
This presentation is a superb account, made all the more interesting by the excerpts of letters from those involved and the whole mood portrayed with excellent narration and fitting music.
Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, can'be be any better than that.
* Rest In Peace to all soldiers and civilians who fought and died in this hellish Battle. I found a book many many years ago called… LETTERS HOME… Each page was a letter to family members of soldiers at STALINGRAD… That lone BATTLE was its most and worst fight of ALL WARS…*
2 million innocent civilians around Stalingrad perished because of German and Hungerian murder.
@@nikolaipotapenkov8823and Romanian
Great documentary, thank you for this
It was an informative, incredible, truthful documentary about Stalingrad invasion by Germans and liberation by Soviets...letters debates showed moral dwindling gradually...what was notable..inside Hitlers mindset[ changing operations names was a main problem...?]...not changing military situation from bad to better for German armies
I totally enjoyed this masterpiece! Many thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Why do you "enjoy" watching war and genocide?
Thank you for your service - Ivan
Great documentary. The best i've seen from the battle of Stalingrad.
So, tell me, Ms. UA-cam Censor, when this documentary was created decades ago and probably shown on TV, were certain images blurred out? Maybe we're more squeamish than audiences back then?
Because fascists love control.
Fantastic doce. Possible to Remaster in colour one day? Brilliant!
Many thanks for this video, this kind content is much needed in these times of troubles. Love from Italy! ❤
Excellent documentary! 👍
Right on. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah dudes no shit WAAAAY better documentary on the love fest of The Eastern Front than I've seen in quite a while. Bet y'all could do a great one on Kursk too!😊😊😊😊😊😊
You see this as a movie huh?..
Learn english
The final message out of Stalingrad, picked up by short wave radio, was sent by one Heinrich Stoda, son of doctor Adolph Stoda of Munich, read:
We are the last survivors in this place. Four of us are wounded. For four days we've entrenched ourselves in the ruins of the tractor factory. We've had nothing to eat for four days. I just opened up the last magazine for my automatic weapon. In ten minutes the bolsheviks will overrun us. Tell my father that I have done my duty and that I know how to die. Long live Germany.
After that..... there was silence.
Great documentary. Could you do one on the German Invasion in June of 1941 and the thousands of villages and towns they burned down and all the cilvilians and 2.5 million Russian POWs that were deliberately starved to death? Thanks.
you might like this: ua-cam.com/video/Hw-VUaeNmgw/v-deo.html
Yeah right after one on the Holodomor when the soviets starved over 6 million Ukrainians to death, helped take over Poland with the Nazis, and killed twice as mang german POWs.
Or do one about stalin and how he intentionally murdered millions upon millions of his own people...the russians...
Ein Bolschewisten Opferkult Jünger!!!! 😂😂😂
Was du uns vorlügst sind die Taten der Bolschewisten an ihrem eigenen Volk gewesen!!! Und natürlich haben sie auch 60 Millionen ihrer eigenen Leute ermordet, vor dem Krieg!!! Dazu kommt Zerstörung, Plünderungen, Vergewaltigungen und Ermordung vieler Millionen Menschen Europas!!! Allein 10 Millionen Deutsche wurden *nach* 1945 ermordet!!! Darüber berichtet man nicht, aber seit 1945 über das, was du behauptest und sehen willst!!!
Unrelated but I now hate Green King because it's the only advert that has interrupted the video a number of times.
no. Sponsored the video, so you could watch it for free.
My family were ethnic Germans who spoke German and lived in Stalingrad along the Volga river, When the Germans arrived at the city my family were able to apply for Reich Citizenship and moved to East Germany where they stayed until the end of the war. My great grandpa walked over to the Wehrmacht recruitment center and volunteered to fight for the German army, he went to Stalingrad and never came back home.
So, he became a Nazi voluntarily. The end result was the logical conclusion of that decision.
So your great grandfather ended up back where his family had lived before the war? How ironic is that?
@@bigjake-ev7nj I do not know the full extent since my grandma who had told me this died a few years ago, but basically from what I remember as they were being put on trucks back to Germany somewhere along the way my Great Grandpa hopped off the truck and joined up with the Germans, (he was able to do this pretty easily I'm assuming since they had only lived in the soviet union for maybe 2 decades or so and still had their old German passports from the 1920s) my grandma still had the letters he sent back after he joined dated around April - June 1942.
I also have a Bundesarchiv folder showing the signed document for their Reich Citizenship, interestingly it has an SS stamp on it, I'm not sure if they were involved with the process or not but it is super interesting nonetheless.
What an amazing story. I'm sorry your grandfather paid the ultimate price but I bet his knowledge of the area, language, and other information he gave helped tremendously.
@@RealTeuto Family history is fascinating!
Excellent presentation.
One thing they didn't mention is that the red army abandoned stalingrad at the same moment Paulus become the commander of the 6th army. All Paulus had to do was to advanced in to Stalingrad and it would have been taken without a fight. But that was not to be. Paulus stopped the advance for several days giving the soviets time to pick their wounds and fall back in on Stalingrad.
Paulus was a coward and a stupid comander result of his actions we all know it .....
Abandoned? Even the civilians stayed in Stalingrad, while the tractor factory continued to build and repair tanks under fire.
@@vulgarisopinioу них не история, у них пропаганда.
@@Sdhjsnide they? who are they?
Thank you History Hit, for this deeply revealing and heartfelt documentary on the human tragedy experienced during Hitler's battle for Stalingrad.
Excellent video essay!
очень жаль, что сейчас запад пытается переписать историю, будто бы СССР не был решающей силой, победившей нацизм. 25 миллионов человек только в СССР были у биты в этой войне. Слава Советскому народу и товарищу Сталину!
Stalin? What a Butcher.....to his own people.
@Fennek67 any proofs? Or just repeating of west propaganda?
@@ВикторПрудников-ь1к seriously?
@@Fennek67 so you got nothing? In fact Stalin did more for soviet people more than ANYONE IN HISTORY, but you didn't know much, isn't you? Learn history, i mean ACTUAL history, not stupid youtube videos. Its a man who destroy nazi Germany, man who made USSR only for 20 years from village country to industrial giant, but you still repeating silly rumors of "butcher". My grands are very thankful him for all he did, and i believe them cause you know, they know something instead of you. Please learn more, and many things will be more clear.
@ВикторПрудников-ь1к Look this refusal of historical evident ist very sad...for You. But you are a grown adult, i presume. Believe what you want. I think in 10 years from now, you want us to make believe that Putin didnt Start the war with Ukraine or so. It will take decades until russia will be able to join the Rest of civilised mankind again after this mess.
So Paulus cared more about Hitler than he did about his men.
it's called indoctrination. Sign on, shut up and never surrender.
Many of those letters were Soviet Forgeries, which was unknown until the fall of the USSR
My grandfather served in Stalingrad. He was lucky to get out. He’d been sent to the Black Sea to collect supplies of oil. Upon his return to Stalingrad the circle around the city had been closed and he could not return. Eventually he made his way to Holland and ended up in Llandudno as a POW. Guarded by Italians!! He never mentioned the war but would often make mention of “old Paulus”. Before his death however, he opened up and said it was “health on earth”.
You mean hell on earth
@@12345fowler Yes. Hell on earth.
Your WW2 docs are the best
Where do i see uncensored footage of this?
An excellent history, clearly explained and supported by the many letters that somehow made their way home to Germany!
that color film is excellent but could have done without the censorship! mark felton has a video on the german holdouts. resistance after the surrender
Brilliant voice actors.
Quite happy to stand up there while the military died in horrific circumstances.
Kinda makes you wonder if the plan all along was for some krauts and some slavs to do a little depopulation on each other.
after an easy victory in Poland and an easy victory in France the German Wehrmacht suddenly met a serious opponent in Stalingrad the Germans are coming suddenly realized that they will not win
Wasn't so easy before. An easy may walk is pure nazi propaganda.
Great documentary I'm always mystified how us humans can invest and put so much into killing one another . Imagine all that energy focused on something more humanitarian and righteous . I hope we can stop this behavior and learn from our history , seems as though we haven't unfortunately .
Well done and researched film. There is nothing better to tell the story from the soldiers who were there using their written letters. Attention to details even taking care to use german prononciation when reading the letters.
"Iron wind was blowing into their faces, but they kept advancing and again and again the enemy was taken over by a superstitious feeling: were there really humans attacking them? Were they mortal?"
Nothing like poetic style when in reality Germans treat an enemy as subhuman to exterminate.
@WielkaStopa-qh1rr that quote is an inscription on mamayev hill
Great video. Thanks for the new film and photos. There must have been miles of propaganda film taken, but may not have made it out?
Stop censoring history please. Excellent documentary though!
UA-cam has dumb rules. Idk why youtube censors history footage
Crazy censorship of history I watched these images on TV when I was a child
Jesus! It's war its messy. Don't watch this stuff if it offends,ridiculous pampering to minorities again
I hate, hate war, the loss of lives, suffering, the emotional toll, spilling of precious blood. It’s just too much. 😢
Ty , outstanding
"History is a teacher, but it has no students." - "He who does not know history is condemned to repeat it." (Antonio Gramsci) Westerners and in particular the Anglo-Saxons continue to learn nothing from the lessons of the historical past. The conflict in Ukraine caused by NATO's expansion to the east will end exactly as it did in 1945.
Notice how Germans were aware of our help to the Soviets, they also understood that because of Allies, they had to sent troops and equipment to fight them in other fronts, making it easier for the Soviets, because the Soviets directed all their Forces and their Equipment to one front.
Germans literally fought against entire world.
Yes, it was an unwinnable situation for Germany. She had woefully underestimated Soviet resilience during Barbarossa, and when that operation failed Germany had precious few strategic alternatives. Fall Blau was a frankly desperate attempt to deal a knockout blow to the USSR, using fewer men and equipment than had been available the previous summer, and starting from a badly overextended supply line--which only became more strained as the Axis advanced east and south.
At the same time, the Red Army and the military-civilian leadership (STAVKA, essentially) had taken to heart the catastrophes of 1941 and were becoming increasingly proficient at the strategic and operational levels. Tough, successful generals were now being given increasing responsibility and the (relocated) armaments industry was finding its feet. In 1942 the USSR had more men under arms than the German forces in the East, and her armaments industry outproduced Germany's in every important metric. Operation Uranus was successful on a scale that would have been unimaginable a year before, though as the failure of Operation Mars showed, the USSR still had quite a bit to learn.
In short, Germany burned herself out in Barbarossa, launching a last-gasp attempt to win the war in 1942, against an opponent who had learned hard lessons, put the learning to excellent use, and now commanded large and increasingly skilful forces.
Germans were not alone but they ignored foreign manpower as well for racially and logistic reasons (more soldiers, more supplies needed).
Hitler had declared war on United States after Pearl Harbor attack
Richtig, weil die Kabbale die Welt gegen uns aufhetzte und wir dennoch so lange Stand gehalten haben!!! Unvergessen und einmalige Leistung unserer Ahnen!!!
"If we see that Germany is winning, then we should help Russia, and if Russia wins, then we should help Germany, and thus let them kill as many as possible, although I do not want to see Hitler in the winners under any circumstances" Gary Truman 1941.
Thanks for this video... Great video.
History repeats itself. During the Great Nepoleon conquest, the chilling cold of Russia defeated his Army.
No, it was the russians, kaput nazis
Awesome video you guys. Really informative. ❤
Edit: subscribed.
The death of the 6th army at Stalingrad gave the one million German troops in the Caucasus the chance to retreat. Presumably by this time Stalin was listening to his generals as presumably he was asking about seizing Rostov preventing the Caucasus army from an easy retreat apart from through Crimea but his generals understood their limitations.
For those who lament about German POW, they should ask themselves about what these soldiers did to Russian people. How many they killed or maimed, how many villages and towns they destroyed, how much misery they caused. They got retributed for the crimes they commited.
The German POW were actually treated better than they deserved.
It would be amazing if, in a following project, we could hear the perspective from the Soviet soldiers.
And from the Soviet civilians.
Why does youtube say fewer adverts for this long advert ???? UA-cam becoming unbearable 🤬🤬🤬
They embarked on a war of conquest and annihilation!
Amazing Documentary!!
Glad you enjoyed it!