SJ Lewis - Strategique.org

half a tennis racket), the Red October Metallurgical Factory, Bread
Factory No. 2, the Red Barricade Armaments Factory, and, at the
extreme north, a tractor factory.
Despite seeing their city pulverized and the continuing combat
operations, 300,000 to 350,000 civilians were still in Stalingrad. Most
of them lived in holes, cellars, and homemade bunkers. Since even the
German army was incapable of its own logistics support, many
civilians faced eventual starvation. Most of those remaining were
women, children, and old men. German authorities knew the civilians
required evacuation but were unable to carry out the movement. By
mid-October, some 25,000 had fled the rubble, walking toward
Kalatch. Some of the outskirts of the city still stood, mostly grimy
houses occupied by workers. Other than several major streets, most of
the roads were unpaved. Russian artillery units that deployed en masse
east of the river could hit streets running east and west. Streets running
north and south were under Russian small-arms fire. 10
Besides the enormous military problem of taking Stalingrad, Paulus
also had to safeguard his northern flank along the Don River. He never
solved this task because the Soviets held a number of bridgeheads from
which they launched numerous offensives. Three Soviet armies
launched the first offensive on 24 August. Although they suffered great
casualties, they succeeded in slowing down the German divisions’
arrival in Stalingrad. 11
Three weeks into the German summer offensive, Stalin remained
convinced that the main attack would be against Moscow. He
responded clumsily in fits and starts, first splitting Stalingrad between
two Front headquarters. In mid-July, however, he corrected this error
and created the Stalingrad Front under General A.I. Yeremenko,
consisting of the 28th, 51st, 57th, 62d, and 64th armies. The Russians
also deployed the North Caucasus, South, Southwest, and Bryansk
Fronts in southern Russia. Most men of military age in Stalingrad had
already been drafted, but local CP officials mobilized an additional
200,000 men and women to serve in “Worker’s Columns” while
unneeded workers were placed in militia battalions. Stalin ordered that
Stalingrad would not be given up and dispatched the dreaded secret
police (NKVD) to enforce discipline. The latter soon controlled all the
boats on the Volga and allowed no one out of the city. On 2 August,
Luftwaffe General von Richthofen noted that Stalingrad seemed to act
like a magnet, drawing Russian forces from all directions.
The last major headquarters left in Stalingrad was General Vasili I.
Chuikov’s 62d Army. While the German 6th Army methodically
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