The image of Soviet captivity for the entire Western world was the fate of those who were
surrounded at Stalingrad and surrendered in February 1943, led by Field Marshal Paulus.
The main sign of the "Stalingrad captivity" was the high death rate
of prisoners of war in the Soviet rear. It was indeed extremely high,
but all objective data demonstrate that high mortality was only in 1943-1944.
It was the Stalingrad prisoners who were actively used and
are still being used as propaganda against the Stalinist regime,
accusing the USSR of deliberately neglecting the lives of prisoners of war. Today,
propagandists equate Stalin's captivity with the captivity of Soviet troops in Hitler's Germany.
Despite the obvious fact that the Nazis simply exterminated prisoners of war as far as possible.
Nowadays, propagandists have gone further, under the guise of fighting Stalinism and
the symbols of the Soviet Union, the rehabilitation of the Nazis and the
glorification of their allies are taking place. And the USSR is equated with the Third Reich.
So let's try to understand this issue and try to find the truth.
During the Great Patriotic War, almost three and a half million servicemen of Nazi Germany
and its allied states were taken into Soviet captivity,
of which the Germans accounted for almost 2 million 400 thousand people.
The masses of German and allied Hungarian, Romanian, Austrian
and other prisoners of war appeared in the USSR in 1943 — after the Battle of Stalingrad
and a series of large encirclements of Fascist troops on the Soviet-German front in 1944.
The physical condition of the German soldiers who were surrounded by Soviet troops near Stalingrad
was extremely difficult — they were starving, many of them were on the verge of exhaustion and
starvation even before their capture. Frostbite, gangrene, typhus, pediculosis, dystrophy – all
this contributed to the fact that many of them died during the transition to places of detention.
Most of the 91 thousand prisoners from the Stalingrad "boiler" suffered from dystrophy.
This is due to the fact that the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht, having been surrounded,
received almost no food in the last weeks of the battle. Already on December 1, 1942,
the distribution of bread was reduced to 300 grams per day, later the ration was reduced to 200
grams ... Some report that already in mid-December they received only 50 or 100 grams of bread.
That's what the Wehrmacht soldiers wrote in their letters from Stalingrad. In letters
German soldiers wrote that war is not a fun walk at all,
as the Fuhrer promised them, but blood, dirt and lice.
Here is what, for example, German soldiers wrote to their relatives from Stalingrad.
My dear parents, if possible, send me food.
I write this so reluctantly, but the hunger is great.
We survivors can barely walk. If this continues, we will starve to death. Our mood dropped to zero.
We hoped that we would return to Germany before Christmas, that Stalingrad was in our hands. What
a great mistake! Stalingrad is hell! This city has turned us into a crowd of insensitive dead.…
My dears! How joyless and hopeless
everything is here. I haven't eaten bread for 4 days and I'm only alive
with a ladle of lunch soup. In the morning and in the evening, a sip of coffee and every 2 days
100 grams of stewed meat or a little cheese paste from a tube. Hunger lice and dirt.
One of the negative factors was the Russian winter, which German soldiers had already
managed to get acquainted with in 1941 near Moscow. The leadership of the Third Reich
did not draw proper conclusions and stepped on the same rake again.
By the way, on my second channel there is an interesting video
about the German felt boots that they wore near Moscow in 1941.
Probably propagandists will say again that it is evil Russians or bloody Stalin who is
to blame for the fact that the third Reich did not produce warm clothes for its own soldiers.
In Stalingrad, not only Red Army soldiers, but also General Frost successfully fought with
the Germans, since in 1942-1943 the winter turned out to be terribly frosty and harsh.
And the temperature has broken the record for the last 140 years. Already on November 9, 1942,
a frost of minus 18 degrees broke out. Near Stalingrad in November-December the temperature
often dropped to minus 20-30° C, and in the second half of January and February 1943,
it sometimes reached minus 40-45 degrees.
At that time there was a terrible snowfall near Stalingrad.
The transport that was supposed to bring ammunition and food to the German units got stuck,
and numerous transport planes were shot down when approaching Stalingrad.
On November 19, the offensive began as part of Operation Uranus.
On November 23, the Red Army closed the ring. 22 divisions and more than 160
separate units of the 6th Army and partially the 4th tank army of the enemy were surrounded.
Hitler morally supported Paulus and the soldiers of the 6th Army,
but demanded that they fight to the last soldier and the last cartridge. The encircled army
in a tight ring had no chance and every day worsened the already dire situation
of the soldiers of the Reich. Unlike Hitler, who was sitting in a warm and cozy headquarters,
the soldiers of the Red Army understood reality better.
And on January 8, 1943, they issued an ultimatum to the German army. They describe the hopelessness
of the situation and offer to surrender in an appeal to the commander of the sixth German army.
Here is a text of this document:
The 6th German Army, the formations of the 4th Tank Army and the reinforcement units attached
to them have been completely surrounded since November 23, 1942. Red Army units surrounded
this group of German troops in a tight ring. All hopes for the salvation of your troops
by the offensive of German troops from the south and southwest were not justified.
The German troops rushing to your aid have been defeated by the Red Army and the remnants
of these troops are retreating to Rostov. The situation of your surrounded troops is difficult.
They experience hunger, sickness and cold.
The harsh Russian winter is just beginning. Severe frosts, cold winds and blizzards are still ahead,
and your soldiers are not provided with winter uniforms and are in severe unsanitary conditions.
As the commander and all the officers of the encircled troops, you
understand perfectly well that you have no real opportunities to break through the encirclement
ring. Your situation is hopeless and further resistance makes no sense.
In order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed,
we suggest that you accept the following conditions of surrender:
1) All German encircled troops, led by you and your staff, cease resistance.
2) You will be able to transfer all personnel and weapons to our disposal in an organized manner.
We guarantee all officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers who have stopped resisting
life and safety, and after the end of the war,
return to Germany or any country where prisoners of war express their desire.
We keep military uniforms, insignia and orders, personal belongings, valuables for all personnel
of the surrendered troops, and cold weapons for the highest officers.
All surrendered officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers will be immediately
provided with normal food. All the wounded, sick and frostbitten will receive medical assistance.
As can be seen from the above, no one promised the Nazi prisoners of war comfortable
carriages and business class service during transportation to the prisoner of war camp.
The only thing that bloody Stalin deceived poor tourists from Germany is that after the end of the
war they will be able to return to Germany. But as you know, after the end of the war,
many worked and restored what they themselves destroyed. And then they returned to Germany.
The Soviet army was waiting for a response at 15:00 Moscow time on January 9, 1943.
Paulus refused to capitulate to the Soviet troops.
In fact, he signed the death sentence of both fallen in the battle and captured German soldiers.
The vast majority of the 91 thousand soldiers captured in Stalingrad,
by the beginning of February, had turned into living corpses — frostbitten, sick,
exhausted people. Thousands of them died before they even had time to get to the camp.
It is not difficult to calculate that 71 days have passed from November 23 to February 02. 71 days of
cold, hunger, disease without a single chance of unblocking the grouping of German troops.
The high mortality rate of those captured at Stalingrad and in other places during that
period is obvious. However, already in the second half of 1943, the fate of new prisoners of war,
apparently less exhausted by the conditions of the war, demonstrates a reduction in mortality
by 8-10 times. So in 1944, the mortality rate decreased from 52.5% to 8.8%, and in 1945 to 4%.
In general, German prisoners of war were treated more humanely
in the USSR than the Nazis treated Soviet prisoners of war.
So, at one time, 55% of the total number of Soviet prisoners of war (more than 2.5 million)
were tortured and killed in Nazi captivity, while 14.9% (or 580 thousand) died in Soviet captivity.
Also, many people forget or simply do not imagine that the rapid advance of German troops, the
policy of "scorched earth" and the concentration of all the forces of the Soviet Union on the
military economy led to the fact that civilians suffered from this often much more than prisoners
of war. Despite this, the Soviet Union sought to prevent prisoners of war from starving to death.
For example, the highest standards of bread supply were established for workers engaged in hard work
and workers in the most important sectors of the national economy.
In the first category, the daily bread allowance was 800 g, and workers engaged in underground
and hazardous work received 1 kg, in the second category — 600 g.
According to various orders of the NKVD from 1941 - 1943 "On the announcement
of food rations for prisoners of war." Prisoners were supposed to have from 400
grams to 1 kg of bread, depending on the physical condition of the prisoner. And
have enhanced nutrition for the sick and working prisoners of war.
Dear friends, I don't know about you, but personally I am very glad that Paulus
had the courage to surrender and thanks to this at least some of the people survived. Yes,
the Russians are very harsh and if Germans hadn't given up, they would definitely grind them all to
one. We have a saying in Russia that a recumbent person is not beaten. The Slavs cannot hate
someone for a long time or feel anger especially if the enemy laid down his arms. By the way, if
you are interested, I will make a video of why the Soviet Union did not join the Geneva Convention.
Unlike the inscription at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp Arbeit
macht frei. Which implied total annihilation. In Soviet captivity, prisoners of war worked and
thereby redeemed the evil that they brought to the Russian land and for this they received freedom.
But nowadays it's not interesting to anyone, it's much easier to give out propaganda cliches and
blame Stalin's Soviet Union for everything while forgetting to look in the mirror.
Dear friends, that's all for today. It was Tim and the Eastern Front channel.
I wish you peace and health. See you.