William Craig - Enemy at the Gates

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «William Craig - Enemy at the Gates» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Город: New York, Год выпуска: 2001, ISBN: 2001, Издательство: Penguin Books, Жанр: prose_military, military_history, nonf_military, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Enemy at the Gates: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Enemy at the Gates»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Two madmen, Hitler and Stalin, engaged in a death struggle that would determine the course of history at staggering cost of human life. Craig has written the definitive book on one of the most terrible battles ever fought. With 24 pages of photos.
The bloodiest battle in the history of warfare, Stalingrad was perhaps the single most important engagement of World War II. A major loss for the Axis powers, the battle for Stalingrad signaled the beginning of the end for the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler.
During the five years William Craig spent researching the battle for Stalingrad, he traveled extensively on three continents, studying documents and interviewing hundreds of survivors, both military and civilian. This unique account is their story, and the stories of the nearly two million men and women who lost their lives.
Review
A classic account of the Stalingrad epic Harrison Salisbury Craig has written a book with both historical significance and intense personal drama James Michener. Probably the best single work on the epic battle of Stalingrad… An unforgettable and haunting reading experience.
—Cornelius Ryan

Enemy at the Gates — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Enemy at the Gates», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

On this note, General Jodl launched a discussion of the dangers posed by the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa and the defeat of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at El Alamein. As Jodl spoke, Hitler interrupted several times to make biting remarks about men and armies. Regarding Rommel, he declared: “He has always got to spar around with all kinds of miserable elements out there. If you do that for two years, eventually your nerves go to pieces….That’s the Reichsmarshal’s [Goering’s] impression, too. He says that Rommel has completely lost his nerve.”

Going on, Hitler voiced his concern about the Italian armies in Africa and Russia, “I didn’t sleep last night; that’s the feeling of uncertainty. Once a unit has started to flee, the bonds of law and order quickly disappear unless an iron discipline prevails…. We succeed with the Germans, but not with the Italians. We won’t succeed with the Italians, anywhere.”

The conference went on until 3:00 P.M., adjourning after a briefing on the air supply program for Stalingrad. The figures were impressive as to number of flights attempted per day. But the statistics hid the fact that while planes were taking off for the city, their loads were not reaching troops inside the Kessel. Continuing bad weather forced planes to abort missions; Russian fighters had begun harassing the airlanes, and antiaircraft batteries were being reinforced. As a result, the steppe was becoming a highway of broken aircraft—a graveyard of planes.

By now Sixth Army headquarters was aware that Manstein was coming. Buoyed up, nervous, Paulus and Schmidt waited through the day for progress reports of Operation Winter Storm. They were hopeful, but each knew that time was robbing Sixth Army of its strength to break loose and meet its saviors.

That day’s Sixth Army War Diary reflected the precipitate decline inside the Kessel:

December 12, 1942, 5:45 P.M.

Rations decreased since November 26. Another ration decrease on December 8 as a result of which the fighting power of the troops has been weakened. At the present time, only one-third of the normal rations. Losses here and there because of exhaustion.

That night, Marshal Vasilevsky finally reached Stalin to explain developments of past hours. He told the premier that the Germans had already reached the southern bank of the Aksai River, and he wanted permission to detach the Second Guards Army from the Stalingrad front and move it at all possible speed to a blocking position in front of the German panzers.

Stalin’s immediate reaction was violent. He refused to go along with the proposal and assailed Vasilevsky for trying to pry troops loose from Rokossovsky without first checking with STAVKA in Moscow. Stalin warned him that he was holding him personally responsible.

In return, Vasilevsky was incensed, for he knew it was his duty to maintain the security of both fronts. His anger served no purpose. Stalin told him his request would be discussed that night at the Defense Committee meeting and rudely hung up.

At 5:00 A.M. the next morning, Stalin called back. He now agreed fully with Vasilevsky’s plan; the Second Guards Army was alerted for a forced march.

The decision came none too soon. At 8:00 A.M. on December 13, bleary-eyed German tank crews crossed the Aksai River on a rickety bridge. Now only the frozen Mishkova River remained as a natural barrier to the Kessel around Stalingrad.

Desperate to keep abreast of the relief force’s progress at Gumrak Airfield, Paulus ordered ten radio operators to monitor every wavelength for messages from the oncoming panzers. But Russian technicians constantly foiled their efforts by jamming channels and broadcasting false information.

While Paulus lingered in this limbo, he also had to contend with pressures on every sector of the Kessel. In the ruins of Stalingrad, the Soviet Sixty-second Army denied its own weaknesses and harassed the Germans from the tractor factory to the Tsaritsa Gorge. These aggressive tactics were totally consistent with Chuikov’s military philosophy. The combative general knew of no other way to wage war.

From her home in Kuibyshev, Chuikov’s wife had written recently and reminded him of that trait.

My dear Vassili:

I at times imagine you have entered into single combat with Hitler. I know you for twenty years. I know your strengths….It’s hard to imagine that someone like Adolf could get the better of you. This could not happen. One old lady, a neighbor, meets me every morning and says: “I pray to God for Vassili Ivanovich….”

Though beset by supply problems, and disgusted with the front command for not sending enough ammunition, Chuikov continued to mount small attacks against the increasingly weary Germans. One of his storm groups concentrated on the potato cellar that Lt. Wilhelm Kreiser had held since late October. While his exhausted men slept at their guns, the Russians crawled up, then drove them outside, back to the system of trenches that Kreiser had thoughtfully prepared for just such an emergency.

Kreiser rallied his men to counterattack, but he forgot to keep low. From a nearby cottage, a Russian machine gunner put one bullet in his left shoulder, another through his arm. The lieutenant went down into the snow. Still conscious, he gave command of the company to another lieutenant and then staggered off to the rear. In minutes, his successor followed him there with a bullet through his own arm.

Kreiser radioed for reinforcements, then led a group of wounded to an aid station, where a doctor jabbed him with morphine and put him on a sled. Towed further to the rear by a Hiwi laborer, the drowsy Kreiser fell asleep and rolled off into the road. When the loyal Hiwi came back and dragged him from a snowbank, the grateful lieutenant mumbled his thanks and fell unconscious.

In the days to come, Kreiser would be one of the fortunate men flown out of the Kessel. That night, another Soviet storm group crossed the German lines. Faulty Soviet intelligence reports had pinpointed General Paulus’s command bunker within the city limits and the blond sniper, Tania Chemova, and three other Russians had been sent to kill him.

Carefully picking their way past mountains of rubble, the execution squad looked for German sentries outlined against the snow. Tania was trying to control her temper because the girl ahead of her blundered frequently and made too much noise. “That cow,” Tania thought as she looked at the plump figure that increasingly annoyed her.

The “cow” stumbled and a fiery explosion smashed Tania to the pavement. Unconscious, she bled into the gutter from a gaping wound in her stomach. Moments later, Vassili Zaitsey hurried to her side and tenderly lifted her limp form.

Zaitsev struggled back to his lines, to a cellar hospital where doctors worked desperately to staunch the flow of blood from Tania’s wounds. For hours they despaired of saving her, but by morning she rallied and the surgeons made plans to transport her across the Volga for a major operation.

After Tania regained consciousness, her first questions were about what had happened to her patrol. Told that the woman ahead of her had stepped on a mine but survived with only superficial injuries, she listened to the details with mixed emotions. Her vendetta with the Germans was ended; she had “broken eighty sticks” in her three months of war. But the image of that “damned cow” kept intruding on her thoughts and made her furious.

On the morning of December 14, the German 6th Panzer Division charged ahead toward the Kessel and ran directly into Russian reinforcements of almost three hundred tanks. One platoon of panzers was chased by forty Russian T-34s, and an armored battery which went to their rescue came over a low rise to find the Russian tanks barely a thousand meters away. Painted white “just like the Germans,” with black numbers on the turrets, they were surrounded by a large knot of soldiers.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Enemy at the Gates»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Enemy at the Gates» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «Enemy at the Gates»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Enemy at the Gates» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x