End to it all
In the end,
General Paulus surrendered without Hitler’s permission. With this surrender, the Germans failed
and 91,000 German’s were taken prisoner.
Because of this, Paulus is stripped of his rank and Hitler declared a day
of mourning, not for the men that were lost during battle, but for the shame he
felt Paulus brought to the German army.
"The God of War has gone over to the other side."
Hitler on the day of Mourning
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major turning point in WWII history, due to the
Russians defense against the Germans. If not for the Russians defending
Stalingrad and fighting back, the city would have been lost to the Germans and
would have been used as a major checkpoint in conquering Russia. It
was the first battle Germany really lost and represented a significant defeat
from which they never really fully recovered. It represented a military and
psychological defeat to the Germans and an important morale booster to the
Soviet people. With heavy
losses to the German army, the Battle of Stalingrad created a great turning
point in the whole war. The German
forces never recovered their earlier strength, and had no other strategic
victories in the East, effectively halting Hitler’s advance on the Eastern
Front.
The Soviet
victory at Stalingrad was a great humiliation for Hitler and caused him to
become more distrustful than ever of his generals. Many believe Stalingrad to be the
turning point of the war because Hitler spread his troops too thin for a cause
that was due more from arrogance than practicality. The Germans never recovered,
and its weakened defenses were no match for the Allied invasion of
1944.
If
the Soviets lost Stalingrad, they would have lost oil
fields in the south and the
much needed raw material would have fallen into the hands of the Germans, so
the defeat at Stalingrad was like cutting off a leg. The defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad
not only crushed the power of the Germans to make war, but also to defend itself
in the coming years. Not long
after the Battle of Stalingrad, the Americans, British, and Canadians would be
on the beaches of France. With over 500,000 killed or captured at Stalingrad,
the Germans would never be the same. The Soviets meanwhile realized they could
defeat the Germans and that they could produce weaponry faster, especially
tanks. In the coming months, this would be the key to war.