Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History

Introduction, ‘The Dancing Floor of War’

1 Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Lend-Lease: Weapon for Victory (New York: Macmillan, 1944), pp. 208, 215.

2 T. H. Vail Motter, The Persian Corridor and Aid to Russia (Washington, DC: Center for Military History, 2000), p. 4.

3 ‘Khrushchev Remembers’, The Glasnost Tapes, 1990.

4 Homer, The Iliad, tr. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin, 1990) p. 16.1001-5.

5 William Craig, Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad (New York: Penguin, 2001), p. xi.

Chapter 1, Führer Directive 41

1 Paul Carell, Hitler Moves East 1941-1943 (New York: Bantam Books, 1967), p. 479.

2 Joel Hayward, ‘Too Little Too Late: An Analysis of Hitler’s Failure in 1942 to Damage Soviet Oil Production’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4, 1995, p. 2.

3 Carell, Hitler Moves East, pp. 479-80.

4 http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavka, accessed 7 June 2012. ‘Stavka was the term used to refer to a command element of the armed forces from the time of the Kievan Rus.’

5 Geoffey Jukes, Stalingrad to Kursk (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2011), pp. 78-9.

6 Carell, Hitler Moves East, p. 480.

7 Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad (New York: Penguin, 1999), pp. 69-70.

8 ‘Annex 5 to Report by the C-in-C, Navy, to the Führer, 13 April 1942’, in 3 Fuehrer Conferences on Matters Dealing with the German Navy 1942, Office of Naval Intelligence, Washington, DC, 1946, pp. 65-6.

9 *Aaron T. Davis, Hitler and Directive 41: Decisive Decisions of World War II (Los Angeles: Ronald Reagan Center for Strategic Issues, 2004), p. 82.

10 Vail Motter, The Persian Corridor and Aid to Russia, Appendix, Tables 2, 7, 10.

11 Zehra Onder, Die tiirkische Aussenpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munich, 1977) p. 150.

12 John Gill, ‘Into the Caucasus: The Turkish Attack on Russia in 1942’, in Peter G. Tsouras, ed., Third Reich Victorious (London: Greenhill, 2002), p. 149.

13 Gill, ‘Into the Caucasus’. pp. 149-50.

14 *Franz Baron von Oldendorf, ‘Hitler’s Grand Turkish Gesture’, Journal of Second World War Studies, Vol. XXII, p. 832.

15 Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941-1944, ed. H. R. Trevor-Roper (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), pp. 554-5.

16 Mathew Hughes & Chris Mann, Inside Hitler’s Germany: Life Under the Third Reich (New York: MJF Books, 2000), p. 184.

17 *Ivan Chonkin, The Life of Andrey Vlasov: Patriot and Liberator (New York: Hudson Press, 1982), pp. 119-22.

18 *Ibrahim Sayyid, Nazi Propaganda in the Muslim World (New York: International Press, 1987), pp. 121-23. Nazi propaganda was finding a receptive audience, especially in the Arab world which was becoming more and more agitated by the increasing Jewish settlement in the British Mandate of Palestine.

19 Gill, ‘Into the Caucasus’, p. 149.

20 Vozhd is a Russian term that means great war leader. In the movie Enemy at the Gates, the English wording used by the character representing Khrushchev to convey the emotional meaning of the term is ‘the boss’, with all the connotations of a Mob boss.

21 This figure of 2.5 million irrecoverable losses was provided by Russian military historians to the author in a symposium at the Moscow Military History Institute in July 1992.

22 This statement was made by Russian military historians to the author in a symposium at the Moscow Military History Institute in July 1992.

23 Richard Woodman, Arctic Convoys 1941-1945 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2011), pp. 13-14.

24 Woodman, Arctic Convoys, p. 14.

25 Albert L. Weeks, Russia’s Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the USSR in World War II (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), p. 142.

26 Alyona Sokolova, ‘American Aid to the Soviet Union’, Vladivostok News, 17 April 2005, www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1385548/posts, accessed 15 February 2012.

27 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 223.

28 Weeks, Russia’s Life-Saver, p. 122.

29 Weeks, Russia’s Life-Saver, p. 43.

30 Woodman, Arctic Convoys, p. 345.

Chapter 2, A Timely Death

1 Grossadmiral (Grand Admiral) was the German naval rank equivalent of a British admiral of the fleet or a United States fleet admiral.

2 Under the Weimar Republic, the German Navy was called the Reichsmarine; Hitler renamed it the Kriegsmarine.

3 Peter G. Tsouras, The Book of Military Quotations (St Paul: Zenith, 2005), p. 396.

4 German Naval History, www.german-navy.de, accessed 17 April 2012.

5 Erich Raeder, Grand Admiral (New York: Da Capo, 2001), p. 374.

6 David Irving, The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17 (New York: Simon et Schuster, 1968), pp. 4, 10.

7 Woodman, Arctic Convoys, p. 65.

8 Alan E. Steinweiss and Daniel E. Rogers, The Impact of Nazism: New Perspectives on the Third Reich and its Legacy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2003), pp. 186-8.

9 Raeder, Grand Admiral, pp. 255-65.

10 Jägers were elite light infantry trained to operate in difficult terrain.

11 Tsouras, Book of Military Quotations, p. 229.

12 Vasili Ivanovich Chuikov, The Battle for Stalingrad (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), p. 14.

13 Michael K. Jones, Stalingrad (Barnsley: Pen Ɛt Sword, 2007), p. 76.

14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henning_von_Tresckow.

15 Peter Hoffmann, The History of German Resistance 1933-1945 (Macdonald and Janes, 1977), p. 265

16 Peter Hoffmann, Stauffenberg: A Family History 1905-1944 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University, 2008), pp. 163, 168.

17 Peter Hoffmann, Carl Goerdeler and the Jewish Question, 1933-1942 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 115.

18 *Friedrich von Heinzen, Hoch! Hoch! Dreimal Hoch! Ludwig I, Ein Leben (Frankfurt: Rolf Martin, 1996), p. 109.

19 Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma: The Battle for the Code (New York: John Wiley, 2000), p. 218.

20 http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine, accessed 18 February 2012. ‘Enigma was the codename for a system of electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Although Enigma had some cryptographic weaknesses, in practice it was only in combination with procedural flaws, operator mistakes, captured key tables and hardware, that Allied cryptanalysts were able to be so successful.’

21 Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma, p. 218.

22 Irving, The Destruction of PQ-17, p. 1.

23 Winston Churchill, The Second World War (New York: Penguin, 1985), Vol. IV, p. 98.

24 Raeder, Grand Admiral, p. 359.

25 www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/destroyer/zerstorer1936a/z24/history.html, accessed 21 Feb 2012. Destroyer Flotilla 8 consisted of Z-24, Z-25 and Hermann Schoemann.

26 Horvitz, Leslie Alan; Catherwood, Christopher, Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide (New York: Facts On File, 2006), p. 200; Bryant, Chad Carl, Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2007), p. 140.

Chapter 3, The Second Wannsee Conference

1 Chuikov, The Battle for Stalingrad, p. 14.

2 Carell, Hitler Moves East, p. 483.

3 With the annexation of Austria to the Reich, its army of eight divisions was incorporated directly into the German Army bringing with them the lineages and traditions of the old Imperial Austrian Army.

4 Peter G. Tsouras, The Great Patriotic War : An Illustrated History of Total War: Soviet Union and Germany, 1941-1945 (London: Greenhill, 1992), p. 79.

5 David Glantz, Armageddon in Stalingrad, September-November 1942, The Stalingrad Trilogy, Vol. 2 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, 2009), p. 14.

6 Friedrich Paulus, http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Paulus, accessed 18 February 2012.

7 *Edward M. Williams, ‘Soviet Equipment Employed by the Germans in WWII’, US Army Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 3, 25 February 1966.

8 Paul Carell, Stalingrad: The Defeat of the German 6th Army (Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 1993), p. 36.

9 Beevor, Stalingrad, pp. 67-8.

10 Jukes, Stalingrad to Kursk, p. 81.

11 Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma, pp. 269-70.

12 Robert Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), p. 50. Heydrich and Himmler’s ‘relationship was one of deep trust, complementary talents and shared political convictions’. Heydrich was fundamentally loyal to Himmler.

13 British television documentary, Edward VIII: The Traitor King, first aired by Channel 4 in 1995.

14 1940-1944 insurgency in Chechnya, http://wikipedia.org/wiki/1940-1944_Chechnya_insurgency#cite_note-history.neu.edu-4, accessed 13 March 2012.

Chapter 4, Race to the Don

1 *Henning von Tresckow, Manstein und Hitler: Entscheidung 1942 (Frankfurt: Ernst Janning, 1962), p. 87.

2 Beevor, Stalingrad, pp. 69-70.

3 http://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U-boat_flotillas, accessed 20 Feb 2011. The German U-boat flotillas in France were: Brest: 1st and 9th; Lorient: 2nd and 10th; St-Nazaire: 7th and 6th; La Rochelle: 3rd Flotilla; Bordeaux: 12th (+ Italian submarines). The German U-boat flotillas in Norway were: Bergen: 11th; Trondheim: 13th; Narvik: 14th.

4 Dudley Pope, 73 North: The Defeat of Hitler’s Navy (New York: Berkeley Books, 1958), pp. 98-9.

5 *Jason Colletti, The Führer Naval Conferences (Annapolis, MD: Naval Association Press, 1988), p. 199.

6 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, pp. 24-31.

7 *Albert Adlinger, The Devil’s Twins: Heydrich and Dönitz (London: Mayfair et Sons, 1973), p. 121.

8 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, p. 24.

9 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, p. 31.

10 Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma, pp. 203-4.

11 *Alistair Williams, Former Naval Person: Churchill and the Naval War (London: Blackstone, 1955), p. 129

12 *Desmond Richardson, Decision of Ill-Omen: The Wasp in the Battle for the Arctic Convoy (New York: D. H. Dutton Press, 1949), p. 32.

13 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, p. 300.

14 Signal from C-in-C Home Fleet to Admiralty and Rear-Admiral Hamilton, originating at 11:55 a.m. GMT, 22 June 1942, cited in Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, p. 35.

15 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, pp. 31-2.

16 David Wraag, Sacrifice for Stalin: The Cost and Value of the Artic Convoys Re-Assessed (Barnsley: Pen Ɛt Sword, 2005), p. 216.

17 Carell, Stalingrad, pp. 58-9.

18 Vail Motter, The Persian Corridor and Aid to Russia, Appendix, Tables 4, 7, 10.

19 http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight‘s_Cross_of_the_Iron_Cross, accessed 1 Mar 2012. ‘The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes, often simply Ritterkreuz) was a grade of the 1939 version of the 1813-created Iron Cross (Eisernes Kreuz). The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross was the highest award of Germany to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership during World War II. It was second only to the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross (Großkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) in the military order of the Third Reich.’

20 Adolf Galland, http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Galland#High_command_.281941.E2. 80.931945.29, accessed 1 March 2012.

Chapter 5, The Battle of Bear Island

1 Woodman, Arctic Convoys, p. 200.

2 Woodman, Arctic Convoys, pp. 200-1.

3 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, pp. 37-8.

4 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, pp. 50-1, taken from Lieutenant Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., USNR: ‘Cruiser Covering Force June 25 to July 8, 1942’.

5 Douglas TBD Devastator, http://wikipedia.org/wiki/TBD_Devastator, accessed 6 March 2012.

6 Characteristics of aircraft aboard HMS Victorious and USS Wasp:

7 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, p. 19.

8 Woodman, Arctic Convoys, p. 201.

9 Irving, Destruction of PQ-17, pp. 65-6.

10 The caution of P.614’s captain may have due to the fact that his boat was one of four built for the Turkish Navy but retained by the Royal Navy when the war started.

11 Wragg, Sacrifice for Stalin, p. 144.

12 *Joseph P. Hartwell, Aerial Predator: The Life of Josef ‘Pips’ Priller (Boulder, CO: Air Force Academy Press, 1992), p. 129.

13 Woodman, Arctic Convoys, pp. 204-5.

14 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, p. 105; Woodman, Arctic Convoys, p. 207.

15 Woodman, Arctic Convoys, pp. 208-9.

16 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, p. 107.

17 *William H. Crowdon, Brave Cruisers: The Cruiser Covering Force at the Battle of Bear Island (London: Collins, 1958), p. 90.

18 *Franklin R. Miller, Treason on the Troubador: Mutiny in the Face of the Enemy (Annapolis: Naval Society Press, 1980), p. 138. The mutineers were returned to the United States at the conclusion of the Treaty of Dublin and the American citizens among them successfully prosecuted for treasonously aiding and abetting an enemy in wartime.

19 *Alexander Stuart, Convoy Disaster (Aberdeen: Highland University, 1963), p. 221.

20 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, p. 214.

21 Irving, Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, pp. 184-6.

22 Wragg, Sacrifice for Stalin, pp. 148-9.

23 Tsouras, Book of Military Quotations, p. 27.

24 A comparison of armour on the German and American cruisers at the Battle of Bear Island:

25 *Crowdon, Brave Cruisers, pp. 83-4.

26 wikipedia.org ‘Battle of Drøbak Sound’, accessed 3 March 2012.

27 *Edwin Markham, On HMS London at the Battle of Bear Island (London: Charing Cross Publishers, 1983), p. 93.

28 *Hartwell, Aerial Predator, pp. 153-6.

Chapter 6, The Battle of 20° East

1 *Rudolf Schumdt, In the Wolfsschanze with Hitler: As Told by his Chief Adjutant (New York: Harper et Doubleday, 1956), p. 232.

2 *Yelena Markova, Hard as Men: Soviet Women in the War with Germany (Moscow: Progress, 1978), p. 265.

3 *Schumdt, Wolfsschanze, p. 233.

4 10th U-Boat Flotilla, http://wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_U-boat_Flotilla, accessed 5 March 2012.

5 *Samuel Morison, The Battle That Won the War for Germany (Annapolis: Naval Society Press, 1955), p. 299.

6 *Morison, The Battle That Won the War for Germany, p. 370.

7 *Richard Sullivan, USS Wainwright: Hero of the Battle of Bear Island (Annapolis: Naval Association Press, 1963), p. 189.

8 *Steven J. Yablonsky, The Cruiser Action at The Battle of 20° East (Philadelphia: Appleton, 1986), p. 157.

9 *James R. Edison, Rolf Carls: The Knightly Admiral (London: Castlemere Publishers Ltd), p. 311. Carls’s rescue of so many British and American sailors made him the object of professional admiration in both countries to which he was welcomed after the war as a guest of their naval societies.

10 *Bruce W. Watson, The Intelligence Duel at the Battles of Bear Island and Twenty East (Washington, DC: Defence Intelligence University Press, 2010), p. 245.

11 *Robert C. Giffen, The Battle of 20° East (Boston: Liber Scriptus, 1952), p. 233.

12 Pope, 73 North, p. 184.

13 *Dudley Patterson, The Big George: The Story of the Battleship, USS Washington (Norfolk, VA: Warships Press, 1955), p. 93. The Washington was the only battleship in WWII to sink two enemy battleships, one in each theatre of war. Off Guadalcanal in 1943 it sank the IJN Kirishima without taking a single hit.

14 *Hartwell, Aerial Predator, p. 142.

15 Morison, The Battle That Won the War for Germany, p. 290.

16 Lieutenant David McCampbell would go on to become the US Navy’s top-scoring ace of World War II.

17 *Wilson J. Johnson, Duel of the Titans: Washington versus Tirpitz (New York: Gotham Publishers, 1960), p. 322.

18 *Morison, The Battle That Won the War for Germany, p. 376.

19 *Gerhardt von Kitzengen, Der Schalcht bei 20° Ost (Frankurt: Markbreit, 1976), p. 299.

20 *Harrison Kitteridge, For Want of a Nail: The Closure of the Arctic Convoy Route to Russia (New York: Mason & Chandler, 1995), pp. 322-34.

21 *Schumdt, Wolfsschanze, p. 287.

Chapter 7, Counting the Victories

1 Kessel, literally a kettle, but meaning in a military sense an encircled pocket of enemy forces.

2 Carell, Stalingrad, p. 63.

3 Carell, Hitler Moves East, p. 511.

4 Benôit Lemay, Erich von Manstein: Hitler’s Master Strategist (Philadelphia: Casemate, 2011), pp. 250-66.

5 Lemay, Manstein, pp. 34-8. Mischlinge was the Nazi term for Germans with a Jewish parent or grandparent.

6 Carell, Stalingrad, pp. 64-5.

7 Horst Scheibert, Panzer-Grenadier Division Grossdeutschland (Warren, MI: Squadron/Signal, 1977), pp. 7, 39-41.

8 NKVD — Narodnyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del — People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs — the Soviet secret police at the time of the Second World War.

9 Jones, Stalingrad, pp. 46-7.

10 Remaining at this point were USS Ranger, Saratoga, Enterprise and Hornet. The first of the Essex Class, the USS Essex, was commissioned in December 1942 and joined the fleet the next year. Also in 1943, the new USS Yorktown, Intrepid and Hornet joined the fleet in the Pacific. Yorktown and Hornet were named for the original ships lost at the battles of Midway and the Santa Cruz Islands.

11 *Edward W. Pruitt, Strategic Command Decisions of World War II (Washington, DC: Center for Military History, 1962), pp. 138-40.

12 Carell, Stalingrad, p. 63.

13 Jones, Stalingrad, pp. 23, 25.

14 Homer, tr. Robert Fagles, The Iliad (New York: Viking, 1990), 9.1-8.

15 Philipp von Boeselager, Valkyrie: The Plot to Kill Hitler (London: Phoenix, 2009), p. 72.

16 Matthew Hughes & Chris Mann, Inside Hitler’s Germany: Life Under the Third Reich (New York: MJF Books, 2000), p. 80.

17 Boeselager, Valkyrie, p. 74.

18 Chuikov, Battle for Stalingrad, pp. 18-19.

19 Jones, Stalingrad, p. 39.

20 Not to be confused with Rostov Veliki (Rostov the Great), a medieval city north of Moscow.

21 Carell, Stalingrad, p. 74.

22 Carell, Stalingrad, p. 78.

23 *Franz Halder, Decision at Werewolf (Frankfurt: Schiller, 1960), pp. 35-9.

24 *Erich von Manstein, Desperate Victories (New York: Steindorf, 1963), p. 131.

25 Craig, Enemy at the Gates, pp. 19-20.

26 Carell, Hitler Moves East, pp. 583-4.

27 Earl E. Zeimke, Stalingrad to Berlin (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1996), pp. 34, 39. Tank armies were made up of tank and mechanized corps, equivalent to panzer and panzergrenadier divisions.

28 Chuikov, Battle for Stalingrad, p. 31.

29 Stalin to Churchill, 23 July 1942, Works, Vol. 17, 1942, www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/Stalin/v17_1942.htm; accessed 30 March 2012.

30 Carell, Hitler Moves East, p. 587.

31 Chuikov, Battle for Stalingrad, pp. 33-6.

32 Jones, Stalingrad, p. 41.

33 V. I. Stalin, Sochineniia, Vol. 15 (Moscow, 1977), pp. 110-11.

34 *Gill, ‘Into the Caucasus’, pp. 150-1.

Chapter 8, ‘Those Crazy Mountain Climbers’

1 *Edwin R. Unger, Admiral Canaris: Master of Military Intelligence (London: Blackfriars, 1980), p. 211.

2 *Vernon T. Nelson, ‘Betrayal of the German Navy’, Naval Society Journal, Vol. XX, No. 3, June 1970.

3 A marcher land is a hostile border area between two states such as the border between England and Scotland, which was called the ‘Disputed Land’ for centuries as each side raided the other.

4 Mehmet Iconoglu, Turkey and the German Alliance (Cambridge: Massachusetts University Press, 1972), pp. 83-5.

5 Chuikov, Battle for Stalingrad, pp. 42-3.

6 Chuikov, Battle for Stalingrad, pp. 38, 47.

7 Chuikov, Battle for Stalingrad, pp. 51-2.

8 Beevor, Stalingrad, pp. 99-100.

9 Jones, Stalingrad, p. 29.

10 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 97.

11 A Hoax at the Soviet oilfields’, www.germanmilitaryhistory.com/blog/51608-a-hoax-at-soviet-oil-fields, accessed 13 March 1942.

12 *Baron Adrian von Fölkersam, Green Devils: The Brandenburg Regiment in the Second World War (London: Greenhill, 1985), p. 93. This book is considered the authoritative account of the German special forces in World War II and was the type of military book gem that Greenhill Books editor/owner, Lionel Leventhal, the grand old man of British military publishing, was famous for bringing to the English-speaking readership.

13 Carell, Hitler Moves East, pp. 557-8.

14 David Glantz, To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, 2009), p. 419.

15 Glantz, To the Gates of Stalingrad, pp. 429-31.

16 *Boris Oblomov, Monster: The Life of Lavrenti Beria (Boulder, CO: Eastview Press, 1993), pp. 290-2.

17 Carell, Hitler Moves East, p. 559.

18 *William S. Johnson, Hoist on Their Own Petard: The German Use of Soviet Equipment in World War II (London: Charing Cross Road Publishers, 1966), pp. 153—66.

19 *Alfredo Coletti, Soaring Roman Eagles: The Alpini in the Caucasus (New York: Frederick, Bolton Et Myers, 1966), p. 156. In appreciation of this assistance, the Germans emblazoned their Caucasus mountain fighting badge with the image of an Alpini mule.

20 *Manfried von Sulzbach, Conquering the Caucasus: German Mountain Troops in Action (Warren, MI: Squadron/Signal Publications, 1967), p. 122.

21 *Coletti, Roman Eagles, p. 157.

22 Hans Ulrich Rudel, Stuka Pilot (New York: Ballantine, 1958), p. 57.

23 Albert Speer http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=50Ett=28721Etstart=0, accessed 17 March 2012.

Chapter 9, The Terror Raid

1 Chuikov, The Battle for Stalingrad, p. 43.

2 Herbert Selle, ‘The German Sixth Army on the Road to Catastrophe’, Military Review, Volume XXXVII, September 1957, No. 6.

3 Carell, Stalingrad, pp. 124-5.

4 Stalin, Works, Vol. 17, 1942, to Roosevelt, 22 August 1942. www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/Stalin/v17_1942.htm; accessed 30 March 2012.

5 ‘Alger Hiss’, www.conservapedia.com/Alger_Hiss#cite_note-237, accessed 30 March 2012.

6 Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, ‘Reds in the White House’, A review of The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors, Claremont Institute, Summer 2001.

7 Racey Jordan with Richard L. Stokes, From Major Jordan’s Diaries (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1952), p. 42.

8 *Aaron C. Davis, ‘The Convoy Decision’, Journal of Civil-Military Relations, Vol. XXXI, No. 12, June 1977, p. 1101.

9 Victor Nekrasov, Eront-Line Stalingrad (New York: Fontana/Collins, 1964), p. 43.

10 Nekrasov, Front-Line Stalingrad, pp. 61-2.

11 Beevor, Stalingrad, pp. 104-5.

12 Jones, Stalingrad, p. 57.

13 Wolfram von Richthofen’s cousin was the famous Manfred von Richthofen, the greatest German ace of the First World War.

14 David Glantz, Armageddon in Stalingrad, September-November 1942, The Stalingrad Trilogy, Volume 2 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, 2009), p. 25.

15 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 97.

16 Craig, Enemy at the Gates, p. 32.

17 Beevor, Stalingrad, pp. 97-8.

18 Carell, Hitler Moves East, p. 594.

19 Glantz, Armageddon in Stalingrad, p. 17.

20 Jones, Stalingrad, pp. 59-61.

21 Glantz, To the Gates of Stalingrad, p. 264.

22 Jones, Stalingrad, pp. 42-4.

23 *Alexei Suvorov, ‘Red Army Mutiny at Stalingrad’, Military Review, Vol. XXX, No. 12, Dec 1956, p. 55.

24 *Karl Schmidt, ‘How Henry Ford won the Battle of Stalingrad’, Military History Review, Vol. XXX, No. 12, 1957, pp. 199-202,

25 Craig, Enemy at the Gates, p. 10.

26 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 113.

Chapter 10, New Commanders All Round

1 *Gill, ‘Into the Caucasus’, p. 154.

2 *Gill, ‘Into the Caucasus’, p. 153.

3 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 117.

4 Craig, Enemy at the Gates, p. 78.

5 Gerhard Engel, At the Heart of the Reich: The Secret Diary of Hitler’s Army Adjutant (London: Greenhill, 2005), p. 131.

6 Glantz, Armageddon in Stalingrad, p. 545.

7 Carell, Hitler Moves East, p. 577.

8 Beevor, Stalingrad, pp. 123-4.

9 *Bennett C. Archer, The Battle for Sukhumi 1942, Battle Study No. 137 (London: Peregrine, 2012), p. 77.

10 *Boris Oblomov, Monster: The Life of Lavrenti Beria (Boulder, CO: Eastview Press, 1993), p. 321.

11 *Archer, Sukhumi, pp. 94-6.

12 *Samuel Morison, Gallant Sailor: The Life of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov (Annapolis: Naval Society Press, 1955), p. 198.

13 *Gerhard Engel, The Hitler I Served: The Story of Hitler’s Army Adjutant (London: Greenhill, 1993), p. 121.

14 Stalin, Works, Vol. 17, 1942, to Churchill, 7 September 1942. www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/Stalin/v17_1942.htm; accessed 30 March 2012.

15 Craig, Enemy at the Gates, pp. 79-80.

16 *Gill, ‘Into the Caucasus’, pp. 156-7.

17 *John R. Wilson, The Wehrmacht’s Foreign Legion (London: Greenhill, 1985), p. 211.

18 *Peter G. Tsouras, ‘Killing the Red Tsar’.

19 Sverdlovsk’s name before the Revolution was Yekaterinburg, named after its founder, Catherine the Great. It was here that the Bolsheviks murdered the Romanov Imperial family. Its name was changed to Sverdlovsk after the name of a prominent Bolshevik.

20 Vassili Zaitsev, Notes of a Russian Sniper (London: Frontline, 2009), pp. 1-2, 9, 12.

21 Chuikov, The Battle for Stalingrad, pp. 74-6.

22 Chuikov, The Battle for Stalingrad, p. 78.

23 Carell, Stalingrad, p. 138.

24 Jones, Stalingrad, pp. 107-15.

25 Glantz, Armageddon in Stalingrad, pp. 125-9.

26 Glantz, Armageddon in Stalingrad, p. 134.

Chapter 11, Der Rattenkrieg

1 *Stephen J. Haithwaite, German Airborne Operations in the Caucasus: The Battle for Grozny, Battle Study No. 144 (London: Peregrine, 2001) p. 34.

2 Chuikov, The Battle for Stalingrad, p. 99.

3 Jones, Stalingrad, pp. 118-19.

4 Chuikov, The Battle for Stalingrad, p.101.

5 Zaitsev, Notes of a Russian Sniper, pp. 12-13.

6 *Archibald Perry, Treason Et Atrocities: Germany’s Collaborators in World War II (London: Blackheath Publishers, 1966), pp. 233-4.

7 *Ewald von Kleist, Caucasus Victory (Frankfurt: Sandvoss, 1955), pp. 239-42.

8 Engel, At the Heart of the Reich, pp. 133-4.

9 Earl E. Ziemcke, Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East (New York: Barnes Et Noble, 1996), pp. 32-3.

10 Glantz, Armageddon in Stalingrad, p. 137.

11 Craig, Enemy at the Gates, p. 111.

12 *Guy R. Williams, Hitler and His Generals (New York: Veni, Vidi, Vici, 1976), p. 199.

13 Jonathan Trigg, Hitler’s Jihadis: Muslim Volunteers of the Waffen-SS (Stroud: History Press, 2008), p. 47.

14 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 152.

15 Beevor, Stalingrad, pp. 221-3.

16 Feldgrau (field grey) was the colour of the German uniform. It was actually adopted in 1954 by the East German People’s Army (Volksarmee) which was at pains to explain that it was not really Feldgrau but Steingrau (stone grey), a case of ‘What’s in a name?’

17 *Rupert Graf von Hentzau, Hitler, Manstein, and the High Command: Derision on the Volga (London: Greenhill, 1992), pp. 239-41.

18 *Benoit Lemay, Erich von Manstein: Hitler’s Master Strategist (Philadelphia: Casemate, 2011), p. 392.

19 *Albert Tomlinson, The Stalingrad Plot Against Hitler (New York: Veni, Vidi, Vici, 1977), p. 290.

20 Lemay, Manstein, p. 292.

21 *Alexander Stahlberg, Serving with Manstein on the Volga: The Memoirs of his Military Assistant (London: Greenhill, 1985), p. 193.

22 Lemay, Manstein, p. 293.

Chapter 12, ‘Danke Sehr, Herr Roosevelt!’

1 Zaitsev, Notes of a Russian Sniper, p. 54.

2 Zaitsev, Notes of a Russian Sniper, p. 59.

3 *Ranjit Singh, The Indian Corps in the Battle of Baku (New Dehli: Armed Forces Publishers, 1975), pp. 155-60.

4 Stalin, Works, Vol. 17, 1942, to Roosevelt, 7 October 1942. www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/Stalin/v17_1942.htm; accessed 30 March 2012.

5 *Mason C. Wilkenson, Roosevelt and Soviet Aid: The Art of the Possible (New York: Stafford Et Sons, 1962), pp. 233-4.

6 Erich von Manstein, Lost Victories (London: Collins, 1958 ), pp 268-9.

7 *Helmut Graf von Kitzingen und Langheim, Hitler und Manstein (Frankurt: Ritterlich, 1977), pp. 339-41.

8 Bloody Sunday, 22 January 1905, a squadron of Cossack cavalry was ordered by a local official to charge and disperse a peaceful march on the Winter Palace in St Petersburg to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. The tsar was not even present in the city and had no hand in the tragedy at all. Nevertheless, it sparked the 1905 Revolution that was only barely suppressed but which served in effect as a rehearsal for the 1917 Revolution.

9 *Dale M. Patterson, The Stalingrad Plot Against Stalin (Boulder, CO: Eastview Press, 1999), p. 146.

10 Chuikov, The Battle for Stalingrad, p. 185.

11 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 206.

12 *Jason R. Smith, ‘A Masterpiece of Deception and Logistics: The Counter-Offensive Build-up for Operation Uranus’, Military Review, June 1976,

13 *Helmut Ratzinger, The Road to Astrakhan: A Soldier with 1st Panzer Army (New York: Kingston, 1988), pp. 188-9.

14 The rank of Oberjäger was a variation of the rank Oberschutze, equivalent to private first class and awarded to a soldier who had distinguished himself but was not thought suitable for the first NCO grade of Gefreiter (corporal). For Pohl the rank was recognition of his deadly efficiency as a sniper.

15 *Friedrich Pohl, A Sniper at Stalingrad (London: Greenhill, 1980), p. 23.

16 Mungo Melvin, Manstein: Hitler’s Greatest General (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2010), p. 289.

17 Manstein, Lost Victories, p. 287.

18 *Henning von Tresckow, Desperate Days (London: Greenhill, 1988), p. 211.

19 Melvin, Manstein, p. 289,

20 *Paul H. Vivian, ‘4th Panzer Army in the Battle of Stalingrad’, Military History Review, July 1992, p. 32. Both the XIV and XLVIII Panzer Corps had participated in the late October assaults in Stalingrad; at that time they had about 300 tanks. By the time each had been redeployed on the flanks, each had fewer than 100 tanks, putting them at the normal strength of a panzer division.

21 Zaitsev, Notes of a Russian Sniper, pp. 157-8.

22 Manstein, Lost Victories, p. 271.

23 Joachim Fest, Plotting Hitler’s Death, 289-90.

24 *Werner Maria Pohl, Ten Righteous Men of Germany (Berlin: Sandvoss, 1997), p. 310.

Chapter 13, Der Totenritt bei Leninsk

1 *Ivan I. Chonkin, The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Georgi Zhukov (New York: Paladin, 1978), pp. 331-2.

2 *Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, Command Decisions in the Stalingrad Campaign (Potsdam: Wehrmacht Press, 1955), p. 199.

3 Carell, Stalingrad, p. 158.

4 In Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812 his starving, freezing army attempted to cross the Beresina River over a few makeshift bridges. Discipline broke down as a mass of stragglers jammed onto the last bridge as the Russians poured artillery into them. The French lost as many as 20,000 men and a large number of camp followers. To this day Beresina is a French term for military disaster.

5 Jones, Stalingrad, p. 241.

6 Craig, Enemy at the Gates, pp. 194-5.

7 *Christopher Reese, The Cavalry to the Rescue: The LX Panzer Corps in the Battle for Stalingrad, Great Fighting Forces Series (London: Peregrine, 2002), p. 77.

8 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 249.

9 *Georgi Zhukov, Operation Uranus and the Battle for Stalingrad (Moscow: Russian Armed Forces Press, 1966), p. 221. The RAFP had an active English-language publishing division that earned it considerable profits in the West by offering excellent translations of major works by senior officers. The works were highly respected since by that time there was no official editing of the author’s words.

10 Carell, Stalingrad, p. 161.

11 Erhard Raus, ed. Peter G. Tsouras, Panzers on the Eastern Front: General Erhard Raus and his Panzer Divisions in Russia 1941-1945 (London: Greenhill, 2002), p. 121.

12 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 259.

13 *Ernst Thalmann, I served with von Seydlitz: The Account of a Signal Soldier in 6th Army Headquarters (London: Charing Cross, 1961), p. 177.

14 Carell, Stalingrad, pp. 604-5.

15 *Erich von Manstein, Decision on the Volga (New York; World, 1955), p. 322.

16 Carell, Hitler Moves East.

17 Rudel, Stuka Pilot, pp. 131-2.

Chapter 14, ‘Manstein is Coming!’

1 *Valentin V. Petrochenkov, The Tragic Hero: Chuikov at Stalingrad (London: Coopersmith, 1977), pp. 311-14.

2 Combat pilots of the Red Air Force were often referred to as Red Falcons.

3 *Albert Speer, Making War Feed War (Frankfurt: Sandvoss, 1966), pp. 339-42.

4 *Manstein., Decision on the Volga, p. 388. Since Hoth commanded only one panzer and one infantry corps in 4th Panzer Army, Seydlitz with the far larger force was put in command of both armies despite his being junior to Hoth.

5 *Nikita S. Khrushchev, The Crimes of Stalin: His Rise and Fall (Moscow: Progress, 1965), p. 304,

6 *Carl F. Goerdeler, To Remove a Tyrant (London: Greenhill, 1985), 316-18.

7 Raus, Panzers on the Eastern Front, p. 127.

8 Raus, Panzers on the Eastern Front, p. 128.

9 *Mason N. Dixon, The German LX Panzer Corps at Stalingrad, Elite Formations 98 (London: Peregrine, 2005), pp. 77-9.

10 *Nigel R. Nicholson, Stalin and Zhukov: A Study in Command Relationship (London: Collins, 1966), p. 332.

11 Tsouras, Book of Military Quotations, p. 314.

12 *Walther von Hünersdorff, Panzer Battle (Frankfurt: Altstein, 1965), p. 211.

13 Raus, Panzers on the Eastern Front, p. 128

14 Craig, Enemy at the Gates, p. 241.

15 Peter G. Tsouras, ed., Fighting in Hell: The German Ordeal on the Eastern Front, (London: Greenhill, 1995), pp. 78-82.

16 Alfred Novotny, The Good Soldier: From Austrian Social Democracy to Communist Captivity with a Soldier of Panzer-Grenadier Division ‘Grossdeutschland’ (Bedford, PA: Aberjona Press, 2003), pp. 44-7.

17 Erich von Manstein, Lost Victories (St Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2004), pp. 361-2.

18 *Gerhard Engel, Scenes from the Werewolf (London: Greenhill, 1992), pp. 220-1.

19 Raus, Panzers on the Eastern Front, p. 168.

20 Craig, Enemy at the Gates, p. 241.

21 Raus, Panzers on the Eastern Front, p. 169.

22 *Eugene R. Wilson, Disaster at Kalach (New York: Hudson Publishers, 1977), pp. 321-2. The 66th Army had already been largely destroyed when the Germans had broken through the pocket and by 11th Army.

Chapter 15, Coda

1 *Paul McClellan, Molotov: The Life of the Red Diplomat (Vancouver: King’s College British Columbia, 1988), p. 332.

2 *Sergei A. Alexandrov, They Met at Brest-Litovsk (Moscow: Voenizdat Press, 1968), pp. 92-6.

3 *Pohl, A Sniper at Stalingrad, p. 177.

4 *Vassili Zaitsev, The Last Bullet was for the Motherland (London: Greenhill, 1980), p. 238. This book and Pohl’s above were issued by Greenhill at the same time, a coup for the publisher who was actually able to host both Zaitsev and Pohl at the same London reception. It was harder to get Pohl to come out of his self-imposed anonymity in the mountains of Southern Argentina where he settled after the war to escape the vengeance of die-hard Nazis.

5 *Tom Rafferty, Double Shot: The Perfect Kill (New York: Soldier Press, 1988), p. 239.

6 *Zaitsev, Last Bullet, p. 240.