The Battle of Stalingrad

It's dangerous talking about the World Wars. Generally speaking it's relatively safe to talk about relatively obscure historical topics (the Dionne Quintuplets, The Plains of Abraham, Louis Riel... well, anything Canadian really) because it's rare that you're going to bump into anyone who knows them well enough to correct you on anything. However, the World Wars are popular enough of a topic to not quite be able to sneak past a mistake or two - not saying that there will be any here... but I'm also certainly not saying there won't be. Because of this, I'm going to be really throwing a full fledged statistic barrage in this blog, because the numbers at the very least will tell the truth. I guess I'm saying something about this blog in that I clearly fear being corrected more than being wrong, but I digress.

A street fight much more intimidating
than those in West Side Story.

The book I read on the topic was Stalingrad: The Battle That Shattered Hitler's Dreams of World Domination. It was well worth the five dollars I spent on it at Chapters while killing time until my birthday in which I would inevitably receive a book or two (you're up next, Canada's national dream of building a transcontinental railway!).

Here's the funny thing about Stalingrad. As far as priority targets go, this one was pretty far down the list. The Germans didn't really need it, and it was more of a "take it if you get the chance" type mission for the generals. There's a good chance they wanted it to prevent reinforcements from Stalingrad to disrupt their forces, sure, but it certainly wasn't a be-all-end-all type city for Russia. A possible reason for the mistakenly high priority was the name itself - defeating Stalingrad would serve as a moral blow to the Russian forces (hint: the name Stalin is in the name Stalingrad). Regardless, they thought it was a good idea to sack the city, but when their first attempt failed, they sent in reinforcements... which failed. Naturally, they would - guess what? - send in more reinforcements. The Russians would in turn respond with more troops, which the other side required more troops to kill those ones. You can see how this builds on each other. All in all, the end result was two kids playing Bloody Knuckles in junior high with both parties being too full of pride to quit and let the other win - except this time the stakes were the lives of millions in what would be one of the most horrible places to be in the entire world.

Russians defending what are already absolutely
annihilated buildings - or it's just how Russia looks.

On one side there was the big Russian kid who wouldn't let the German one on his playground. Stalin instituted the "Not One Step Back" policy for the defenders of Stalingrad, meaning you don't retreat, you don't surrender, and if you're giving an inch of grounds to the Germans you had best be dead, or else they would help you get there. How they managed to put this into action was having a full line of Russian soldiers on the perimeter with a roving, smaller set of men behind them armed with machine guns. If the Russians attempted to retreat - or deemed not fighting hard enough, I kid you not - they would fire on their own men, mowing them down with machine gun fire. Those that survived would be put into "Punishment Companies", which were basically impossible suicide missions that would earn you back your pride. This included high risk areas or walking through minefields to set off the explosives - again, I am quite serious. 422,000 soldiers were placed in these companies in what was the single most vicious form of quality control of all time.

I forgot to mention, they also bombed the place into oblivion.

Inside the city the civilians didn't fare much better. Stalin wanted to keep up appearances, and the idea of having civilians evacuate meant that they were accepting that there was a chance that Stalingrad might fall. This meant that the majority of men, women and children were not allowed to exit, and those that did were shot. The civilians would have to dig tank trenches, build defensive fortifications, or join the Worker Militia Battalion, a poorly equipped force that didn't have enough guns to properly supply their numbers. The logic was they would be sent at the Germans, sometimes two people to a gun. If the man you're following dies, you pick his gun up and shoot things with it, preferably a German.

Regardless of all the extra forces, extreme tactics or tough-as-nails Russian women and children digging trenches, the Germans were still advancing and making their way into the city itself. This meant that the Germans were moving house to house in an unfamiliar urban warfare style. They called it "Rattenkreig", meaning "rat warfare". Death was quite literally around the corner - they would toss a grenade into a room, move in, check if it's clear, and move out. Rinse and repeat. It was terrifying, nervy work.

The Germans were under the impression they were basically going to roll through Russia pretty well unopposed, and for the most part that is how the war on the eastern front began. They would capture so many prisoners and win so many battles, but the Russian forces would resupply and send in more men from what was seemingly an endless supply. Massive losses were irrelevant. They were essentially the "zerg" from the Starcraft franchise. The reason why the superior numbers were not instantly winning was mostly due to inferior tactics and decision making, as well as having technology that was behind the German capabilities. So naturally, when you're getting kicked around by a superior fighter, you adopt his tactics. The Russians decided they were to turn a German warfare staple into their own, and shock the Nazis with a massive force. With tanks moving past the infantry and destined to penetrate deep into enemy lines, they intended to attack with speed - lightning speed. The Russians were going to Blitzkrieg the Nazis.

A modern day picture of "Pavlov's House",
a fortified apartment in which the
Russian forces defended mightily. It
says "We will rebuild you, dear
Stalingrad!"... and they did, just forgetting
to paint it the same colour.

The Russians started forming a massive force; 13,000 guns, 894 tanks, 1,150 aircraft and a million infantry men. They bombarded the German line suddenly, tearing through them and placing them so quickly on the defensive they did not have the time to react. The result of the Blitzkrieg was a massive amount of trapped German troops - 220,000 to be exact. The Russians encircled them, cut off their supply, and waited. Supplies were brought in from the Luftwaffe, but flying past the Russians made it a hugely dangerous and often ineffective mission. The Germans were low on ammunition, didn't have enough fuel for their tanks, and were hungry, cold and fearful in the Russian winter. Conditions became about as bad as you could imagine, and an outbreak of sudden, inexplicable deaths occurred. Men that would be fine - well, at least relatively fine, considering - would die on the spot just a few hours later. Moral dropped as they awaited rescue that would be almost impossible.

The Russians offered surrender, to which the Germans refused. They began to be cut down, although held out surprisingly well considering the situation. A second offer of surrender was taken, but being a German prisoner to a bunch of Russians that you were previously attacking is arguably worse. The 111,465 men that were taken were put to work rebuilding Stalingrad, only half of them surviving to spring. Only 5,000 of them would ever see Germany again. The Russians were incredibly vengeful, and understandably so.

So the battle is over, the Germans defeated after an incredible Blitzkrieg maneuver by the Russians, but the victory is difficult to claim. 200,000 Russian civilians died, with another 13,541 being executed by the Russians themselves for conspiracy to help the Germans. The Red Army fared no better; 478,471 were killed, with another 650,878 injured. On the German side, 750,000 were killed, wounded or taken prisoner, effectively ruining a massive part of the Nazi force in attempting to take just one rather insignificant city.

It makes you wonder how the war would have gone if it was still named Tsaritsyn, having changed it's name to Stalingrad in 1925. Oh, and it's called Volgograd now by the way. Russians just can't keep city names.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "From above, it was very well visible to the pilots, that civilians were waiting on the shore. Many times we saw enemy pilots acting as professional assassins. They opened fire on the unarmed women and children and selected targets so as to maximize the number of people killed. The pilots dropped bombs in a crowd at the moment they were beginning to board a boat, fired at the decks of the boats, and bombed islands on which hundreds of wounded had accumulated. The people crossed the river not only on boats and barges. They sailed on overcrowded boats, even on logs, barrels, and boards bound with wire. And the Fascists opened fire from the air on each floating target. They were massacring people." A quote on the atrocities committed by the Nazis on the Russian civilian population. It went both ways.
2. "The 6th Army is temporarily surrounded by Russian forces. I know the 6th Army and your commander in chief and have no doubt that in this difficult situation it will hold on bravely. The 6th Army must know that I am doing everything to relieve them. I will issue my orders in good time." - Hitler's message to the trapped 6th Army.
3. "The bitter frost, the cold biting winds and the snowstorms have yet to come. Your men have not been supplied with winter uniforms, and live in appalling unhygienic conditions. You as the commander must realize full well that you have no real chance of breaking out of the ring of encirclement. Your situation is hopeless and further resistance is useless." A Russian message sent to the trapped German forces, suggesting surrender. 

Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat is one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" stories. Here we have a successful soldier who doesn't exist, used for a plot by men that worked with the creator of James Bond, a corpse-spy that fooled Hitler and his best men, and a British plot that saved countless lives by misinforming the Nazis to pave the way for one of the largest invasions of all time. If it were a movie and not a true story, it would be deemed too unrealistic. It's a tale of sheer luck, expert planning and dressing up the corpse of some poor Welshman. 

Now, for the background. The Allies wanted to attack Germany through initially landing in an invasion in Sicily, believing it to be what they called the "soft underbelly" of the Axis forces. However, the Nazis had this nasty tendency of defending their positions and killing everyone, a frustrating issue for the Brits. Obviously the borders to defend are massive, but that was largely a non-issue. Between any number of spies, wire-tapping and all sorts of espionage, it was darn near impossible to send a full invading force without the enemy finding out about it prior to the landing, giving them time to set up defences, move troops, and go all 300 on the attackers and hold the line. To trick the enemy, there had to be a plan of absolute sheer genius. Aaaaand enter Operation Mincemeat. 

The ID card of Major Martin. He lived by the motto
"live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse
...that can be used to trick Nazis".

Two men spearheaded an idea of tricking the Nazis into believing the attacks would not land in Sicily, but elsewhere close by, likely in Greece. Their plan was an audacious one - find a corpse, plant enough important (although faked) documents to make an enemy spy wet himself with glee, and hope it gets passed up the chain of command until it becomes fact, causing the enemy to move his pieces in all the wrong places. While on paper it sounds like a sound plan, there are an almost endless number of ways the plan would fail; the corpse wouldn't wash up on shore, it wouldn't be believable, it wouldn't be passed up the ranks, or worst of all, the Germans would read it, see it as a ruse, and prepare all the more in the Sicily believing it to be a faint. And then of course there's the matter of finding a corpse... that's not as easy as it sounds, unfortunately.

The dead man that was chosen was a poor Welsh guy with little family to speak of, meaning they could slip past the awkward "would you be so kind as to let us borrow the corpse of your son" conversation. As for the man, he died from accidentally killing himself with rat poison. He lived an uninspired life, with not much to make note of - in a way it's rather sad how his accomplishments in death, through no choice or decision of his own, far surpassed what he had done in life; heck, they blew out of the water the accomplishments of what most people would do with theirs, so maybe it's not depressing at all but morbidly inspiring. That or the most likely conclusion, being it's simply an interesting anecdote and I should continue on with the story.

Charles Chomondeley, a man who
from this picture alone you can tell put on
a quality, British, cracking good show.

Unfortunately for the masterminds behind the operation (Ewan Montagu and Charles Chomondeley) getting the body was only half the battle. If they simply put the corpse in the water with a number of battle plans the Nazis would pick it up as a fake faster than a blitzkrieg through Poland. Their job was to create a life for a dead man; they had to falsify documents, make up a personality, give him family, friends, an attitude, a rank in the military, bank dept, and every number of things that can not only be used to make him look like just an everyday military man but also things that can be completely verified. Montagu and Chomondeley slaved over letters to fill his pockets, trying to make him sound like a real man without forcing an air of honesty that would come across as unrealistic. After countless attempts and interference from higher-ups, they came to their finale - Major Martin was born from the corpse of an Welshman. The newly created Major was placed in obituary papers, had a sweetheart back home, money issues with his wealthy father, and an ID card with his photo taken (the photo was actually a separate man as the corpse was not particularly cooperative in the act of looking alive). He was also fitted for military dress, which involved the unseemly task of temporarily unfreezing his feet (he was frozen to prevent rotting) in order to remove his shoes to put on the tight military boots he needed to look authentic. I sincerely doubt Montagu had that particular moment on any future resume.

The New York Times listed him in their list of casualties.
The book noted it was the only time a fake man was listed in the
obituary pages of the newspaper. I thought this was an unnecessary thing to mention.

Now that the body was prepared (as well as a capsule to transport the corpse that was so notoriously difficult to sink and took so many gunshots when trying to dispose of the evidence it almost ruined the mission) they had to drop the body off in a place where they knew it would get picked up with the documents read and sent up the chain of command. The chosen location was neutral Spain - in particular, a part of Spain that had a large number of German sympathizers, as well as a prominent and high quality German spy. The hope was they would pick up the body, delay the attempts of the British to recover it, pass along the documents and return them untouched. Britain's plan would be to feign casual interest in retrieving the documents (too much interest would be showing their hand too much in the importance of the body, too little would mean it's obviously a fake) and eventually get them back to continue with their plans. The documents themselves stated an attack on Greece was imminent, 

with a feint to distract the Germans through an attack on Sicily - of course, it was entirely the opposite. 

Through a series of chance, the ideal people on the German side to pick up the documents and believe them (namely an expert spy to get them and an incompetent official to believe them so willingly), and absolutely ingenious planning from the Brits back home, the plan worked perfectly. The faked invasion plans made it all the way up the line to Hitler himself. On landing on the shores of Sicily some weeks later, they were met with just a fraction of the defences they had anticipated, the German army set up far, far away unable to reinforce. The Allied army crushed through the weakened line in an absolutely massive military campaign, with so much of the thanks going to a poor Welsh lad who killed himself while trying to bump off a few rats. 

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "The German in Sicily is doomed. Absolutely doomed. He won't get away." Words from British WW2 General Montgomery upon the successful invasion of Sicily. 
2. "Joy of joys to anyone, and particularly a Jew, the satisfaction of knowing that they had directly and specifically fooled that monster." Ewan Montagu, one of the leading ideas men of Operation Mincemeat.
3. "In that case, we shall have to get the body back and give it another swim." Winston Churchill on the worries of the corpse not making it to the shoreline in Spain.
4. "Glyndwr Michael served as Major William Martin." The words on the gravestone for the created agent, buried in Huelva. 

Berlin Wall

The logo for the Eastern Bloc. The shaking
hands are notably not east and west Germans.

Finally, a topic that I at least knew something about. Not a lot mind you, but better than what I normally have as a starting point for these blogs. From what I knew beforehand; the Berlin Wall was put up between East and West Germany during the Cold War, and... wackiness ensued. I blame my ignorance on my crappy education. I thought it was about time to do something a little more modern as the majority thus far have been before the days of television (as significant a chronological marker as anything I know). That aside, it's time to dive right in.

Post WWII, Germany was split up by the allied powers in an effort to prevent them from remobilizing. The eastern side was under the control of the Soviets while the western portion was under control of the  French, Brits and Americans. Meanwhile, Stalin had a decent buildup of countries under his influence, called the Eastern Bloc; Russia led the charge with Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia by her side. West Germany fell under the name the Federal Republic of Germany with the east named the German Democratic Republic. However, calling them by east and west seems the much easier route, and thus the one I'm certain to take.

I guess the holes in the wall
were bigger than you would imagine.

The two sides quickly began to represent the styles of the opposing factions of the Cold War; the Russian side was their own land but secretly under Soviet rule, and the west was being run under a western world style capitalist economy (one that flourished). Due to the better economy, the split German populace began to swing more towards the west, bringing with it a brain drain on the east through a number of defecting scholars, students and other people associated with smart things. Wishing to keep the larger brained individuals in their land, the Soviets created a system of border checks to prevent east Germans from crossing over to the "dark side" of non-communist run countries. To allow easterners over to see their families while still keeping their lives within their borders, the Russians decided to set up visitations through applying for Visas to swing over to the western side of the country. Over time the restrictions began to become stronger and stronger until it felt like the only way to keep the sides separated was a massive physical barrier.

Like a wall or something. The purpose of the wall according to the eastern side was to prevent fascist ideas from spreading over to their lands. The eastern side began building the Berlin Wall and shut off eastern Germans visiting the western side entirely, enforced through a line of soldiers with strict instructions to kill those that try to cross if need be. During this time, the economy on the Soviet side actually began to grow, but people being shot for trying to cross a border and schools indoctrinating children in the ways of Leninism and Marxism tends to put a damper on the whole public relations experience. During the creation and standing of the wall at least one hundred were killed in trying to cross over.

A east German border guard heroically prancing over the
line before the wall was put up.

The eventual falling of the wall seems to be more of a steady process more than a single, glorious event. In fact, the beginning fallings of the wall centred around a few legal loopholes and a few communication screw ups. The first of which was Hungary finding a way to briefly disable the border defences with Austria allowing 13,000 east Germans through, eventually finding their way to the west German embassy and not being too keen on crossing back over to Soviet controlled territory. Sometime afterwards, the Soviet side held a press conference that, through a hilarious number of mix ups and poor communication they slipped up and said the borders were no longer all shut up. Naturally, excited throngs of people stormed the gates. The guards, unable to hold back that many people, not to mention they weren't entirely too sure what the heck was going on either, finally let the east Germans through with little in the way of identity checks. They were met with booze and good cheer, as all good things should be.

In 1989 the wall starting being literally chipped away. Members on both sides would chop chunks off of it and start sneaking through the holes. The forces protecting the wall were slimmed down, travel back and forth became easier, and new crossings were opened up. It just wasn't viable to keep it separated anymore. When east Germany adopted west German currency border controls essentially halted, although the border was pretty much worthless by that point. It was a slow deterioration that culminated into the eventual destruction of the wall. So down it went. Off to the Cuban Missile Crisis!

The Bulin Wall, on the other hand, was taken down by a number of hockey players over the years, as well as a drunk driving charge.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "Wall of shame..." The nickname used by the west German mayor Willy Brandt in regards to the Berlin Wall. Wait... hold on... Willy Brandt? The west German mayor? Oh... he was born Herbert Frahm. That sounds more like it.
2. "The Wall certainly ought not to be a permanent feature of the European landscape. I see no reason why the Soviet Union should think it is - it is to their advantage in any way to leave there that monument to Communist failure." -Dean Rusk, Secretary of State. The president shortly after remarked; "oh, snap!". 
3. "Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used." This was a document sent to the soldiers on the border, one of those times that a Soviet license to kill was not from a Bond film.
4. "I'm not here for or against any government. I've come to play rock 'n' roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down." Bruce Springsteen played a concert for the Germans. I don't have much to add to this, I just thought it was kinda cool. 
5. "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'" Hear that?! Kennedy's a German! Conspiracy!!!