Stalin. Part 21: Stalingrad. Kill the German
By the summer of 1942, the war entered a new phase. Germany, which had lost its speed of advance as a result of the stubborn resistance of our troops, had another big problem - a shortage of energy resources. The main goal of Hitler was the industrial regions - the Caucasus and Donbass, it was necessary to block transport routes along the Volga and between the Volga and Don.
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By the summer of 1942, the war entered a new phase. Germany, which had lost its speed of advance as a result of the stubborn resistance of our troops, had another big problem - a shortage of energy resources. The main goal of Hitler was the industrial regions - the Caucasus and Donbass, it was necessary to block transport routes along the Volga and between the Volga and Don. Having gained access to Soviet raw material bases and cutting off our army from supplies, the Nazis could continue the war to attrition for ten or more years. And although, according to the German generals themselves, this would have been beyond human strength, Hitler could no longer be stopped. He strongly associated himself with the superman Nietzsche.
The mysticism of Stalin's name in the word "Stalingrad" played an important role in the choice of this city for total destruction. Indeed, in reality, the defeat of Stalingrad was not the main task of the campaign. The main goal was the raw materials Caucasus. Nevertheless, Hitler gave the order to destroy the city named after the Soviet leader. Stalin replies with Order No. 227 "Not a step back!"
The execution of the order of the Headquarters was ensured not only by military strategy and tactics. The concentration of hatred for the enemy reached its climax in these days. The noble rage and righteous anger of the urethral-muscular psychic of the whole people were fed by the irresistible need of every fighter, every worker in the rear to take revenge on the enemy for their killed compatriots, a sense of duty to relatives left in the occupied cities and villages, a clear realization of the righteousness of the cause of liberating their land from the fascist thugs. The culture still resisted the Oral Kill! But in the verses of the best poets-propagandists, steel hatred for the enemy was already ringing, hatred breaking down cultural taboos:
So kill at least one!
So kill him soon!
How many times will you see him, So many times and kill him!
(from K. Simonov's poem "Kill him")
Whom does the poet and writer Simonov urge to kill? Fascist. In Stalin's speech in 1941, the German people were not yet identical with fascism. Now the situation has changed. There was no sympathy, no mercy, no cultural division between Germans and fascists, this prevented killing and prevented survival. “We understood: Germans are not people,” writes Ilya Ehrenburg. Every word of Ehrenburg is an olfactory meaning expressed by an oral word. Breaking through the cultural layer, the oral "kill" destroyed the fear of breaking the primary taboo, fear for oneself, fear of death.
We understood: Germans are not people. Henceforth, the word "German" is the most terrible curse for us. Henceforth, the word "German" unloads the gun. Let's not talk. Let's not be indignant. We will kill. If you haven't killed at least one German in a day, your day is lost. If you think that your neighbor will kill a German for you, you do not understand the threat. If you don't kill the German, the German will kill you. He will take your [loved ones] and torture them in his accursed Germany. If you cannot kill a German with a bullet, kill a German with a bayonet. If there is a calm in your area, if you are waiting for a fight, kill the German before the fight. If you leave a German to live, the German will hang the Russian man and disgrace the Russian woman. If you killed one German, kill another - there is nothing more fun for us than German corpses. Don't count the days. Don't count the miles. Count one thing: the Germans you killed. "Kill the German!" the old mother asks. “Kill the German!"- this is a child begging you. "Kill the German!" - this is the native land screaming. Don't miss. Do not miss. Kill!
Ehrenburg's text expressed the same meanings as Stalin's order No. 227, which was later called "Not a step back!" The order was not published, but was brought to the attention of every front officer. By this order, penal battalions began to form, commanders were given the right to shoot on the spot alarmists and deserters or those who gave reason to consider themselves as such.
The Battle of Stalingrad has been repeatedly described in the best literary works and shown in excellent films. Most concentratedly conveys the mood of this carnage, and, probably, of the entire Great Patriotic War, the amazing poem by Konstantin Vanshenkin "Ballad of the latter", which we will cite in full:
Controlled the block
On the way to the house.
With shooting, he ran
from window to another.
Lime crunch. Glass clinking.
The weight of the legs is alien.
The bad thing is that the blood flowed, Hindering to aim.
He dreamed of hiding in the shade, Lie in the green floodplain …
Two rounds, meanwhile -
Everything that is in the clip.
Under the currant bush …
Don't wake up soon …
Only the chamber was empty, The sound of the shutter is pitiful.
He was knocked down from his feet by a sudden bullet, Shrank under the wall, And it seemed as if he was sleeping, Leaning on her back.
And there was silence, But of this kind, That the
enemy company was struck.
In the settling smoke, In the city block
- Come out one by one! -
They shouted to the dead.
By the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, one ten-thousandth 13th Guards Division of A. I. Rodimtsev, which turned the tide of the battle on the Mamayev Kurgan, numbered 320 people. The total losses of the Red Army at Stalingrad amounted to 1 million 129 thousand 619 people. The Germans lost less, but until now the word "Stalingrad" in German is synonymous with complete failure.
The significance of the Battle of Stalingrad can hardly be overestimated. The ingenious insight into the idea of a counteroffensive, when, it would seem, another crushing defeat was inevitable, did not come to Stalin, not even Zhukov or Vasilevsky. It was a collective decision of many people in a state of incredible, superhuman tension of thought and action. At the lowest point of plunging into the darkness of the catastrophe, pushing off from the bottom of despair of the combatants, who, without exaggeration, were already tearing each other with their teeth, there was a collective illumination with the light of the coming Victory.
When the ingenious counter-offensive plan, worked out in every detail, lay on Stalin's desk, for the first time he did not go into details. Without looking at the map, he wrote in the corner: “I approve. Stalin . There is much debate about Stalin's role in the war. They even agree to the point that the Russians won in spite of Stalin. One thing is systematically clear: in order to win a merciless war, you need to be extremely concentrated on one goal, one thought, one action. To unite the country into a single whole, destroying everything that could interfere with this unity, make millions of people think, feel, breathe in the same way, make them collectively survive at all costs could only be an olfactory measure - the projection of the power of reception in the mental unconscious of a big politician AND V. Stalin.
Then there was the Kursk Bulge, the lifting of the blockade of Leningrad, the liberation of Ukraine, access to the borders of the USSR, Europe, Berlin. But Stalingrad broke the war, finally depriving the enemy of the offensive initiative and will to victory. This fracture was borne on their shoulders by millions of the "last", living and dead.
Continue reading.
Other parts:
Stalin. Part 1: Olfactory Providence over Holy Russia
Stalin. Part 2: Furious Koba
Stalin. Part 3: Unity of opposites
Stalin. Part 4: From Permafrost to April Theses
Stalin. Part 5: How Koba became Stalin
Stalin. Part 6: Deputy. on emergency matters
Stalin. Part 7: Ranking or the Best Disaster Cure
Stalin. Part 8: Time to Collect Stones
Stalin. Part 9: USSR and Lenin's testament
Stalin. Part 10: Die for the Future or Live Now
Stalin. Part 11: Leaderless
Stalin. Part 12: We and They
Stalin. Part 13: From plow and torch to tractors and collective farms
Stalin. Part 14: Soviet Elite Mass Culture
Stalin. Part 15: The last decade before the war. Death of Hope
Stalin. Part 16: The last decade before the war. Underground temple
Stalin. Part 17: Beloved Leader of the Soviet People
Stalin. Part 18: On the eve of the invasion
Stalin. Part 19: War
Stalin. Part 20: By Martial Law
Stalin. Part 22: Political Race. Tehran-Yalta
Stalin. Part 23: Berlin is taken. What's next?
Stalin. Part 24: Under the Seal of Silence
Stalin. Part 25: After the War
Stalin. Part 26: The Last Five Year Plan
Stalin. Part 27: Be part of the whole
