Josif Visarionovic STALIN.

[Toro]

Joseph Stalin




Josif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Russian: Èîñèô Âèññàðèîíîâè÷ Äæóãàøâèëè) (December 21, 1879 - March 5, 1953), better known as Joseph Stalin (Èîñèô Ñòàëèí; Iosif Stalin is a stricter but seldom used transliteration) was the second leader of the Soviet Union. He was also known as Koba (also a Georgian folk hero; see: Koba). The name Stalin (derived from combining Russian stal, "steel" with Lenin) originally was a conspiratorial nickname; however, it stuck with him and he continued to call himself Stalin after the Russian Revolution. Stalin is also reported to have used at least a dozen other names for the purpose of secret communications, but for obvious reasons most of them remain unknown.

Stalin is widely regarded as one of history's worst tyrants, responsible for massive repression of his people and for millions of deaths. However, many Russians, especially elderly Russians, see Stalin as a national hero and a great leader.





Childhood and early years
Born in Gori, Georgia to illiterate peasant parents (who had been serfs at birth), his harsh spirit has been blamed by some on severe beatings by his father, inspiring vengeful feelings towards anyone in a position to wield power over him (perhaps, it is speculated, also a reason he became a revolutionary). His mother set him on a path to become a priest, and he studied Russian Orthodox Christianity until he was nearly twenty.

His involvement with the socialist movement began at seminary school, from which he was expelled in 1899. From then on he worked for a decade with the political underground in the Caucasus, facing repeated arrest and exile to Siberia between 1902 and 1917. He adhered to Vladimir Lenin's doctrine of a strong centralist party of "professional revolutionaries". His practical experience made him useful in Lenin's Bolshevik party, gaining him a place on its Central Committee in January 1912.


Rise to power
Initially opposed to the overthrow of Aleksandr Kerensky's provisional government in the Russian Revolution of 1917, Stalin was won over to Lenin's position following the latter's return from exile in April, but played only a secondary role in the Bolsheviks' seizure of power on November 7. Stalin spent his first years after the Revolution in a number of senior administrative posts within the government and party apparatus, becoming in April 1922 general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, a post which he subsequently built up into the most powerful in the country.

After Lenin's death in January 1924, a triumvirate of Stalin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev governed the party, placing themselves ideologically between Trotsky (on the left wing of the party) and Bukharin (on the right).

During this period, Stalin advanced the policy of building Socialism in One Country, in contrast to Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution and prioritisation of revolution in other countries. Stalin would quickly switch sides and join with Bukharin. Together, they fought a new opposition of Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev. By 1928 (the first year of the Five-Year Plans) Stalin was supreme among the leadership, and the following year, Trotsky was exiled. From then on, Stalin can be said to have exercised control over the party and the country, although this was not complete until the Great Purge of 1936-1938.


Stalin and Changes in Soviet Society
Stalin replaced Lenin's market socialist New Economic Policy with a system of centrally-ordained Five-Year Plans, which called for a highly ambitious program of state guided crash industrialization, and collectivization of agriculture. In spite of early breakdowns and failures, the first two Five-Year Plans achieved rapid industrialisation from a very low economic base. Russia, generally ranked as the poorest nation in Europe before 1914, now industrialized at a phenomenal rate, far surpassing Germany's pace of industrialization in the 19th century and Japan's earlier in the 20th.

With no seed capital, little foreign trade, and barely any modern industry to start with, Stalin's regime financed industrialisation by both restraining consumption on the part of ordinary Soviet citizens, to ensure capital went for re-investment into industry, and by ruthless extraction of wealth from the peasantry.




Stalin had a vast cult of personality.Stalin's regime moved to force collectivisation of agriculture. The theory behind collectivisation was that it would replace the small-scale un-mechanised and inefficient farms, that were then commonplace in the Soviet Union, with large-scale mechanised farms that would produce food far more efficiently.

Theoretically, landless peasants were to be the biggest beneficiaries from collectivisation, it promised an opportunity to take an equal share in the labour, and in its rewards. For those with property, however, collectivisation meant giving it up to the collective farms and selling most of the food that they produced at artificially low prices (set by the state) with only the bare minimum left for themselves.

Collectivisation meant the destruction of a centuries-old way of life, and alienation from control of the land and its produce. Collectivisation also meant a drastic drop in living standards for many peasants, and it faced widespread and often violent resistance among the peasantry.

In an attempt to overcome this resistance Stalin's regime used shock brigades to coerce reluctant peasants into joining the collective farms between 1929 and 1933 . In response to this many peasants preferred to destroy their animals rather than give them over to collective farms, which produced a major drop in food production.

Stalin blamed this drop in food production on Kulaks (rich peasants) who he believed were capitalistic parasites who were organising resistance to collectivisation. All Kulaks who resisted collectivisation were to be shot, transported to Gulag prison camps or deported to remote areas of the country. In reality however, the term "Kulak" was a loose term to describe anyone who opposed collectivisation, which included many peasants who were anything but rich.

Most historians agree that the disruption caused by collectivization was largely responsible for major famines which caused up to 5 million deaths in 1932-33, particularly in Ukraine and the lower Volga region, at a time when the Soviet Union continued to export millions of tonnes of grain on world markets.

Stalin's regime placed heavy emphasis on the provision of basic medical services. Campaigns were carried out against typhus, cholera, and malaria; the number of doctors was increased as rapidly as facilities and training would permit; and death and infant mortality rates steadily decreased. Education was also dramatically expanded, with many more Russians learning to read and write, and higher education expanded. The generation that grew up under Stalin also saw a major expansion in job opportunities, especially for women.


Purges
Stalin consolidated near-absolute power afterwards with the Great Purge against his suspected political and ideological opponents, most notably the old Bolshevik cadres. Measures used against them ranged from imprisonment in work camps of the Gulag prison administration to execution after show trials or assassination (such as that of Trotsky and, some allege, Leningrad party chief Sergei Kirov). Thousands of people merely suspected of opposing Stalin's regime were killed or imprisoned. Stalin is said to have personally signed 40,000 death warrants of suspected opponents of the regime.

During this period, the practice of mass arrest, torture, and imprisonment or execution without trial of anyone suspected by the secret police of opposing Stalin's regime became commonplace. By the KGB's own estimates, 681,692 people were shot during 1937-38 (although many historians think that this was an undercount) and millions of people were transported to Gulag work camps.

Several show trials were held in Moscow to serve as examples for the trials that local courts were expected to carry out elsewere in the country. There were four key trials during this period: the Trial of the Sixteen (August 1936); Trial of the Seventeen (January 1937); the trial of Red Army generals, including Marshal Tukhachevsky (June 1937); and finally the Trial of the Twenty One (including Bukharin) in March 1938.

Trotsky's August 1940 assassination in Mexico, where he had lived in exile since 1936, eliminated the last of Stalin's opponents among the former Party leadership. Only two members of the "Old Bolsheviks" (Lenin's Politburo) now remained - Stalin himself and his foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov.

It is believed by most historians that with the famines, forced migrations, state terrorism, prison and labor camp mortality and political purges, Stalin and his colleagues were responsible for the deaths of millions. How many millons died under Stalin is greatly disputed. Although no official figures have been released by the Soviet or Russian governments, most estimates put the figure at between eight and twenty million. Comparison of the 1926-39 census results suggests 5-10 million deaths in excess of what would be normal in the period, mostly through famine in 1931-34. The highest estimates put the figure as high as 50 million from the 1920s to the 1950s.


World War II
In August 1939 Stalin agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany which divided Eastern Europe into the two powers' respective spheres of influence. In June 1941, however, Hitler broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Stalin had not expected this and the Soviet Union was largely unprepared for this invasion. Until the last moment, Stalin had sought to avoid any obvious defensive preparation which might provoke German attack, in the hope of buying time to modernize and strengthen his military forces. Even after the attack commenced Stalin appeared unwilling to accept the fact and, according to some historians, was too stunned to react appropriately for a number of days.

The Nazis initially made huge advances, capturing or killing hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops. The earlier execution of many of the Red Army's experienced generals in the Red Army had a severely negative effect on Russia's ability to organise defences. In response on November 6, 1941, Stalin addressed the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier that year on July 2). He stated that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a wildly false lie) and that Soviet victory was near. The Soviet Red Army did in fact put up fierce resistance, but during the war's early stages was largely ineffective against the better-equipped and trained Nazi forces until the invaders were halted and then driven back before Moscow (December 1941).

Stalin's Order No. 227 of July 27, 1942 illustrates the ruthlessness with which he sought to stiffen army resolve: all those who retreated or otherwise left their positions without orders to do so were to be summarily shot. In the war's opening stages, the retreating Red Army also sought to deny resources to the enemy through a scorched earth policy of destroying the infrastructure and food supplies of areas before the Germans could seize them. Unfortunately, this, along with abuse by German troops, caused starvation and suffering among the civilian population that was left behind.

The Soviets bore the brunt of civilian and military losses in World War II. Between 21 and 28 million Soviets, most of them civilians, died in the "Great Patriotic War", as the Soviets called the German-Soviet conflict. Civilians were rounded up and burned or shot in many cities occupied by the Nazis. The Nazis considered Slavs to be "sub-human", ranking the killings in the eyes of many as ethnically targeted mass murder, or genocide. The conflict left a huge deficit of men of the wartime fighting-age generation in Russia. As a result, to this day, World War II is remembered very vividly in Russia, and May 9, Victory Day, is one of its biggest national holidays.



Post-war era
Following World War II Stalin's regime installed friendly Communist-led satellite governments in the countries that the Soviet army had occupied, including Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, the later "Communist Bloc" allied from 1955 in the Warsaw Pact. Stalin saw this as a necessary step to protect the Soviet Union, and ensure that it was surrounded by countries with freindly "puppet" governments, to act as a "buffer" against any future invaders, a reversal of inter-war western hopes for a sympathetic Eastern European Cordon sanitaire against Communism.

But this action convinced many in the west that the Soviet Union intended to spread communism across the world. The relations between the Soviet Union and its former World War II western allies soon broke down, and gave way to a prolonged period of tension and distrust between east and west known as the Cold War.

At home Stalin presented himself as a great wartime leader who had led the USSR to victory against the Germans. Internally his repressive policies continued, but never reached the extremes of the 1930s. Stalin had, according to some, prepared a new wave of arrests and executions aimed at "cosmopolitans," a code word for Jews, in 1953, but died before implementing his plans.

On March 1, 1953, after an all-night dinner with interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin collapsed. He died four days later, on March 5, 1953, at the age of 73. Officially, the cause of death was listed as a cerebral hemorrhage. His body was left in state in Lenin's Tomb until October 31, 1961. The political memoirs of Vyacheslav Molotov, published in 1993, claimed Beria had boasted to Molotov that he poisoned Stalin.


Policies and accomplishments
Under Stalin the Soviet Union was industrialized to the point that by the time of World War II the Soviet industrial-military complex was able to help resist the German invasion. Unfortunately, this had been achieved at a staggering cost in human lives.

While the social and economic transformations over which he presided laid the foundations for the USSR's emergence as a global superpower, much of Stalin's conduct of Soviet affairs was subsequently repudiated by his successors in the Communist Party leadership, notably in his denunciation by Khrushchev in February 1956. His successors were not, on the other hand, able to wean themselves from the basic principles on which Stalin based his rule -- the political monopoly of the Communist Party presiding over a command economy, relying on force to maintain its position at home and abroad.

[Veshtrusja]

Toro:

Me pelqejn temat qe keni hapur te Historia.

Do me vinte mire nese (kur te kishit kohe, dhe po te kishit deshire sigurisht) ta perkthenit edhe kete pjese.

Me respekt,
V.

PS: Poashtu, do kisha deshire te dija burimin e kesaj pjese.

[nausika]

Shume interesant artikulli i meparshem...

Kam gjetur nje faqe ne internet (quhet Degenerate Magazine) kur behet nje social commentary me fakte historike per disa nga diktatoret dhe kriminelet me me buj...Nje nga ata edhe Berria ose "dora e djathte" e Stalinit...

Sigurisht includohet edhe Enveri...


http://www.diacritica.com/degenerate/index.html

Lexim te mbare

Nausika

[Kryeplaku]

Stalini eshte pa dyshim politikani me i madh qe nxorri Bashkimi Sovjetik. Mbase u tregua sadist edhe vrases i miliona njerezve por sidoqfte titullin "i hekurt" (Stalin) vetem ai e meritonte. Gjeti nje perandori te renuar dhe me vendos'shmeri dhe kokefortesi prej provinciali e beri BS superfuqi, arriti te korre fitore kundra Hitlerit, te nxjerre menjane fuqite e medha (Angli, France) dhe te abuzoje me SHBAn. Per vete e vej ne dyshim nese nje udheheqes tjeter ne ate kohe do mundej t'i jepte Moskes, me aq probleme te brendeshme, kontrollin e 2/3 te botes. Por Stalini arriti triumf edhe i vdekur, ai vdiq por la sosite e tij mbrapa. Pra sado problematik qe ishte do mbetet nje mit, dhe mbase per kete e meriton nje "bravo"!

"Shtetet europiane jane industrialisht 100 vjet para nesh dhe ne do duhet qe ta mbulojme kete distance per 10 vjet" kjo ishte nje nga shprehjet e Stalinit kur morri udheheqjen , 1924, dhe Moska arriti me te vertet industrine europiane ne 1944 (per 20 vjet) dhe e kaloi ate. Ky ishte Stalini -e beri BS nga nje vend bujqesor ne fuqine me te madhe industriale- me te mirat dhe te keqijat e tij. Mbase po te jetonte Machiaveli do e kishte per idhull sepse Machiaveli dikur kishte thene "qellimi shenjteron mjetin", dhe Stalini ishte personi qe pa llogaritur koston dhe mjetin e arriti qellimin e tij!

[Toro]

Stalini eshte pa dyshim politikani me i madh qe nxorri Bashkimi Sovjetik. Mbase u tregua sadist edhe vrases i miliona njerezve por sidoqfte titullin "i hekurt" (Stalin) vetem ai e meritonte. Gjeti nje perandori te renuar dhe me vendos'shmeri dhe kokefortesi prej provinciali e beri BS superfuqi, arriti te korre fitore kundra Hitlerit, te nxjerre menjane fuqite e medha (Angli, France) dhe te abuzoje me SHBAn. Per vete e vej ne dyshim nese nje udheheqes tjeter ne ate kohe do mundej t'i jepte Moskes, me aq probleme te brendeshme, kontrollin e 2/3 te botes. Por Stalini arriti triumf edhe i vdekur, ai vdiq por la sosite e tij mbrapa. Pra sado problematik qe ishte do mbetet nje mit, dhe mbase per kete e meriton nje "bravo"!

"Shtetet europiane jane industrialisht 100 vjet para nesh dhe ne do duhet qe ta mbulojme kete distance per 10 vjet" kjo ishte nje nga shprehjet e Stalinit kur morri udheheqjen , 1924, dhe Moska arriti me te vertet industrine europiane ne 1944 (per 20 vjet) dhe e kaloi ate. Ky ishte Stalini -e beri BS nga nje vend bujqesor ne fuqine me te madhe industriale- me te mirat dhe te keqijat e tij. Mbase po te jetonte Machiaveli do e kishte per idhull sepse Machiaveli dikur kishte thene "qellimi shenjteron mjetin", dhe Stalini ishte personi qe pa llogaritur koston dhe mjetin e arriti qellimin e tij!

Bravo? Qe coi ne vdekje 50 milione njerez? Qe vdiq urie 2,5 milione fshatare ukrainas? Qe internoi dhe burgosi miliona te tjere?
Nuk e di ne cfare shkolle studion mor vlla, por zotesia e nje politikani nuk duket ne sa miliona njerez do te vrasi!
Qe mundi Hitlerin? Edhe kete merite do tia japesh nje injoranti qe nuk merrte vesh nga arti ushtarak?
Mjere Shqiperia nese neser pasneser bie ne duart tuaja!

[Brari]

krieplak.. te pata keshilluar njehere qe te lexosh me shjume..
Mirpo e sho qe nuk ha pyka..
po te lexosh behesh me njerzor e i shikon me mire gjerat..
deri tani po cfaqesh si lej fen..

[Kryeplaku]

Toro flamuri i pare qe u ngrit ne Berlin me renjen e Hitlerit ishte komunist/sovjetik (mbi Reistagun)! Saper te tjerat une Shqip fola!

[darwin]

ehe Kryeplak.. edhe Shqiperine e mori lumi pastaj! Apo ka me shume rendesi ai flamuri i ndyre i kuq ne Berlin ??

sa te papergjegjshem jeni kur flisni, cudi me ju..

[Kryeplaku]

sa te papergjegjshem jeni kur flisni, cudi me ju..

Mos e ke fjalen, sa e papergjegjshme qe eshte Historia?



Problemi i Toros dhe i Brarit -per mendimin tim- eshte se megjithese kane shume njohuri historike i bashkojne ato me ambiciet dhe besimet e tyre politike, prandaj nuk do behen kurre historiane te mire (shpresoj ta marrin si keshille).

Edhe nje keshille tjeter Toros: kur i perserit fjalet e mija te lutem mos ia hiq thonjezat (nese kane) sepse ia heq te gjithe lezetin.



Beteja e StalinGradit :

After the narrow failure of Hitler's invasion of Russia in 1941 the German Army no longer had the strength and resources for a renewed offensive of that year's scale, but Hitler was unwilling to stay on the defensive and consolidate his gains. So he searched for an offensive solution that with limited means might promise more than a limited result. No longer having the strength to attack along the whole front, he concentrated on. the southern part, with the aim of capturing the Caucasus oil which each side needed if it was to maintain its full mobility. If he could gain that oil, he might subsequently turn north onto the rear of the thus immobilized Russian armies covering Moscow, or even strike at Russia's new war-industries that had been established in the Urals. The 1942 offensive was, however, a greater gamble than that of the previous year because, if it were to be checked, the long flank of this southerly drive would be exposed to a counterstroke anywhere along its thousand-mile stretch.

Initially, the German Blitzkrieg technique scored again - its fifth distinct and tremendous success since the conquest of Poland in 1939. A swift break-through was made on the Kursk-Kharkov sector, and then General Bwald von Kleist's 1st Panzer Army swept like a torrent along the corridor between the Don and the Donetz rivers. Surging across the Lower Don, gateway to the Caucasus, it gained the more westerly oilfields around Maikop in six weeks.

The Russians' resistance had crumbled badly under the impact of the Blitzkrieg, and Kleist had met little opposition in the later stages of his drive. This was Russia's weakest hour. Only an installment of her freshly raised armies was yet ready for action, and even that was very short of equipment, especially artillery.

Fortunately for Russia, Hitler split his effort between the Caucasus and Stalingrad on the Volga, gateway to the north and the Urals. Moreover when the first attacks on Stalingrad, by Paulus's 6th Army, were checked in mid-July, although narrowly checked, Hitler increasingly drained his forces in the Caucasus to reinforce the divergent attack on Stalingrad. This was by name, 'the city of Stalin' so Hitler could not bear to be defied by it - and became obsessed by it. He wore down his forces in the prolonged effort to achieve its capture, losing sight of his initial prime aim, the vital oil supplies of the Caucasus. When Kleist drove on from Maikop towards the main oilfields, his army met increasing resistance from local troops, fighting, now to defend their homes, while itself being depleted in favor of Paulus' bid to capture Stalingrad.

On August 23, 1942, precisely at 18:00, one thousand airplanes began to drop incendiary bombs on Stalingrad. In that city of 600,000 people, there were many wooden buildings, gas tanks and fuel tanks for industries. Stalingrad was heavily hit by air attack; one raid of 600 planes started vast fires and killed 40,000 civilians.

On August 23, the Wehrmacht was in the Stalingrad suburbs, German tanks reached the Volga river. At that time, the Soviet 62nd Army was not in the city yet. The first attacks of the German panzers were taken by a single division of NKVD and some workers from the city tractor factory.

When the Germans entered Stalingrad, they saw nothing but ruins. But surprisingly, there was life in those ruins, and that life didn't even think about surrender. The word "surrender" was not even in the vocabulary of Russian soldiers and civilians trapped in the city. Thousands of micro battles erupted all over the streets of what used to be a city just weeks ago. Everybody was fighting, everything was exploding, everywhere was death. Wehrmacht met the toughest resistance in those ruins, and Stalingrad came into the history of WWII as one of the worst experiences for the German army.

"The Germans obviously thought that the fate of the town had been settled," wrote Vasily Chuikov, the Russian commander. "We saw drunken Germans jumping down from their trucks, playing mouth organs, shouting like madmen and dancing on the pavements." They penetrated to within two hundred yards of his command post.

Hitler was already claiming total and impending victory (just like Napoleon once, in 1812). It looked like it was over… But it was not. Germans met severe resistance in the streets of Stalingrad. They had to fight for every house. A German general said: "The mile, as a measure of distance, was replaced by the yard ..."

General Chuikov, the commander of Soviet 62nd Army, threw in every last reserve. Everything that could shoot was on the streets, everything that could fly was in the sky. But his troops were outnumbered and could not stop the German advancement. By the end of November the Wehrmacht cut through Stalingrad, cutting the 62nd Army in two parts. But that still did not mean the end of it. Shrinking and weakening, the Red Army was stubbornly fighting. Particularly severe clashes took place over the Mamaev Mound. The hill changed hands at least 8 times.

One house in Stalingrad was defended by a single platoon of sergeant Pavlov. That house, known as "Pavlov’s house", became a symbol of determination of Russians to hold the city no matter what. Completely surrounded by Germans, Pavlov’s soldiers were holding the constantly attacked house until the relief came. That intensive fighting was going on for 59 (fifty nine !!!) days.

In many books on Stalingrad one can find the same quote over and over again. It is a record from the diary of 62nd Army, describing the intensity of fighting for the Central Station in Stalingrad, which changed hands fifteen times: "0800 Station in enemy hands. 0840 Station recaptured. 0940 Station retaken by enemy. 1040 Enemy ... 600 meters from Army command post … 1320 Station in our hands."

"At the Central Station, a battalion of Soviet Guardsmen dug in behind smashed railroad cars and platforms. Bombed and shelled, 'the station buildings were on fire, the walls burst apart, the iron buckled'. The survivors moved to a nearby ruin where, tormented by thirst, they fired at drainpipes to see if any water would drip out. During the night, German sappers blew up the wall separating the room holding the Russians from the German-held part of the building and threw in grenades. An attack cut the battalion in two and the headquarters staff was trapped inside the Univermag department store where the battalion commander was killed in hand-to-hand fighting. The last forty men of the battalion pulled back to a building on the Volga. They set up a heavy machine-gun in the basement and broke down the walls at the top of the building to prepare lumps of stone and wood to hurl at the Germans. They had no water and only a few pounds of scorched grain to eat. After five days, a survivor wrote, 'the basement was full of wounded; only twelve men were still able to fight'. The battalion nurse was dying of a chest wound. A German tank ground forward and a Russian slipped out with the last antitank rifle rounds to deal with it. He was captured by German machine gunners. Apparently, he persuaded his captors that the Russians had run out of ammunition, because the Germans 'came impudently out of their shelter, standing up and shouting'. The last belt of machine-gun cartridges was fired into them and 'an hour later they led our anti-tank rifleman on to a heap of ruins and shot him in front of our eyes'. More squat German tanks appeared and reduced the building with point-blank fire. At night, six survivors of the battalion freed themselves from the rubble and struggled to the Volga."

The German air-force, the Luftwaffe, was making up to 3000 sorties a day. Germans were superior in airpower and artillery. To neutralize it, general Chuikov directed his troops to "hug" the Germans, to remain in a close combat so that German commanders could not use air strikes without endangering their own men.

The city was practically on its own. Red Army could not even help with the replenishments, they just weren't reaching the city. They would have to cross the Volga river under the German fire. The survivors of those crossings said some days the river was red with the blood. The whole battle was a complete nightmare for the both sides.

The fighting never stopped. It could slow down at times, and then erupt with new energy, any time of the day. With all the technology and equipment involved, there were hand-to-hand fights all over the Stalingrad. Russians practiced night attacks on the isolated German units. They would use knives and bayonets in such a close combat. None of the armies of WWII were really trained for the knife fights, nobody expected that kind of warfare, neither Germans nor Russians. Perhaps, that type of fighting suited fatalistic Russians better then Germans. Germans who fought on the Eastern Front remarked often that Russians found some inspiration in the close combat, and in desperate situations fought with some crazy passion. And Stalingrad definitely seemed to be a desperate situation for Russians surrounded and outnumbered in the ruins of what used to be a city.

The intensity of fighting can be seen from what one Wehrmacht lieutenant wrote: "We have fought during fifteen days for a single house. The front is a corridor between burnt-out rooms; it is the thin ceiling between two floors ... From story to story, faces black with sweat, we bombard each other with grenades in the middle of explosions, clouds of dust and smoke, heaps of mortar, floods of blood, fragments of furniture and human beings ... The street is no longer measured by meters but by corpses ... Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching howling bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure."

On November 19, a Russian counter-offensive began (coded as operation "Uranus". The Wehrmacht was taken by surprise and could not hold the front. On Novermber 23 the two wings of the Red Army met. The German 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army, about 300,000 men, were trapped in a pocket 35 miles wide and 20 miles from north to south. On February 2, Field Marshal von Paulus surrendered, with 23 generals, 2500 other officers and 90,000 soldiers.

Even before Stalingrad German casualties on the Eastern front were over 1.5 million. … Paulus’s army of 300,000 had been squandered at Stalingrad.



Beteja e Kursk:
The battle of Kursk was monumental for numerous reasons but will almost always be remembered for being the largest clash of armor, certainly during W.W.II and would not be rivaled until the Arab-Israeli wars of the 1960's and 1970's. The vast area around the city of Kursk presented itself as a target with a salient being formed in the Russian line of defense. Hitler needed a victory that would regain the initiative in the east and declared that Operation Zitadelle as it was known" would shine like a beacon to the world" and would avenge the crushing defeat at Stalingrad earlier in the year, but even he had misgivings about the whole affair. The brilliant armor strategist Heinz Guderian once asked Hitler "Was it really necessary to attack Kursk and indeed in the East that year at all. Do you think anyone even knows where Kursk is?" to which Hitler agreed with him saying, "I know. The thought of it turns my stomach."


But Colonel-General Kurt Zeitzler insisted that the offensive go ahead and he became the main avocet of the offensive. The facts however were plain to see as a large salient had been created with the capture of Kharkov by the Germans a few months previous in March and was logically the next sector in which to start an offensive.


The salient was positioned just south of Orel with Maloarkangelsk at the northern base, at the center of the salient was the city of Kursk and at its southern base was Belgorod. The Russians without a doubt knew of the impending German offensive with the massive build up of German armor and troops around the salient and through their "Lucy" spy network in Germany and also from ULTRA codes intercepted by the British and passed on to Stalin. It was obvious anyway that this would be the next German point of attack as the "bulge" presented too tempting a target for the Germans to ignore and the Russians saw this as a catalyst to start their own summer offensive.


Stalin was intent on attacking the Germans in a pre-emptive strike but General Zhukov insisted on letting the Germans attack first and wearing themselves down on the defenses he had planned. These defenses were of a scale never seen before for a battle and the Russians immediately put the military and 300,000 of the local civilian population to work laying a massive array of tank traps, minefields, anti-tank guns and dug in tanks and other defensive positions in anticipation of the German attack. The minefields were specially designed to channel the armored formations into dug in antitank defenses and it was hoped that the Germans would burn themselves out trying to break through the defenses


Armour and troop concentrations were also built up by both sides with the Russians amassing 1,300,000 men, 3,600 tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces and 2,400 aircraft. The Germans also assembled a formidable fighting force which was slightly smaller with 900,000 men 2,700 tanks 2,000 aircraft. As well as the three premier Waffen SS divisions taking part.



The original date for the offensive to take place was the 4th May 1943 but Hitler wanted to wait for the new Panther and Elefant tanks to be ready and a series of postponements followed. June 12th was the next scheduled date but the collapse of the African front in Tunisia also delayed the start of the offensive for a further three weeks until July. On the night of the 3rd July German Army sappers cleared and taped paths through some of the minefields, an extremely dangerous business as the ground was full of metal and the readings on detectors went into a frenzy. This meant that the mines had to be prodded with a bayonet and lifted out and made safe by hand. Testimony to the expertise of the Großdeutschland engineers was the fact that ten men of the 2nd Engineer Company on the night of the 3rd July lifted and made safe a total of 2,700 mines which worked out at a rate of a mine a minute by each man! On the same night the Red Army captured a sapper of the 6th Infantry Division-Private Fermello after a skirmish, who informed the Soviets of the start time of the offensive which was to be at 3am on 5th July. In the Belgorod sector a Slovene sapper deserted and told the Soviets of the date and start time of the offensive confirming what they already knew.


At 14.45 hrs on the 4th July Stukas belonging to the five Ju 87D Gruppen of Luftflotte 4 bombed an area around Butovo two miles long and 500 yards deep. The attack lasted ten minutes and as the dive bombers turned for home German artillery and Nebelwerfers opened up on the Red Army positions. Hoth's III Panzer Korps advanced on the Soviet positions around Savidovka, Alekseyevka and Luchanino. At the same time at Butovo the Soviet 199th Guards Rifle Regiment were attacked by 3rd Battalion Panzer Grenadier Regiment in torrential rain and the high ground around Butovo was taken by 11th Panzer Division. To the west of Butovo the going proved tougher for the 3rd Panzer Division who met stiff Soviet resistance and did not secure their objectives until midnight.


Meanwhile II SS Panzer Korps were launching preliminary attacks to secure observation posts for the next days fighting and again were met with stiff resistance until assault troops equipped with flame-throwers cleared the bunkers and outposts. At 22.30 hrs the Soviets hit back with a fierce artillery bombardment which, aided by the torrential rain, slowed the German advance. At this time Georgi Zhukov had been briefed on the information about the start of the offensive gained by the German prisoners and decided to launch a pre-emptive artillery bombardment on the German positions.


Ten minutes before the Offensive was to begin and the German artillery barrage was to open up, the Soviets launched their own bombardment with 600 guns, mortars and Katyusha rocket launchers belong to Central Front which lasted for thirty minutes. The German response was slow at first but by 4.45am had grown in intensity. In fact the weight of shells fired during this bombardment was heavier than that fired during the whole of the Polish and French campaigns. A second Russian battery opened up but was ineffectual in disrupting German assembly areas and after the war Zhukov, analyzing the battle admitted that both fronts had opened up too early as German armor and infantry were still under cover. However some of General Model's troops were caught in the open and could not start their attack until 90 minutes after their scheduled start time. The Großdeutschland division had made the best progress advancing towards its objective of Oboyan forcing the Russian 3rd Mechanized Corps back to the River Pena.


II SS Panzer Korps under the command of Paul Hausser progressed quite well using a tactic known as the "Panzerkiel" which was basically spearheaded by the heavy Tiger I tanks followed up by Panther, MK IV and MK III tanks. By the 6th July they had penetrated some twenty miles but had come under increasingly harsh resistance. Losses were high too with the Leibstandarte for example losing on the first day of action, 97 men killed and 522 men wounded.


II SS Panzer Korps continued on towards Prokhorovka with the 3rd SS Totenkopf leading the advance and smashing all resistance to the west of the town. Their flank however was unprotected as Kempfs 6th,7th and 19th Panzer Divisions (III Panzer Korps) were stalled by 7th Guards Army after crossing the River Donets. The 5th Guards Tank Army were situated to the east of the town of Prokhorovka and were preparing a counter attack of their own when II SS Panzer Korps arrived and an intense struggle ensued with elements of the 5th Guards Army being deployed to halt the advance. During which the Soviets managed to halt the SS-but only just. This sent alarm bells ringing in the Soviet camp and they knew that if III Panzer Korps broke out, the balance of armor would tip in the Germans favor. They decided to deploy the rest of the 5th Guards Tank Army to destroy the SS armored divisions.


On the 12th July the Luftwaffe and artillery units bombed Soviet positions and the SS Divisions formed up into their "Panzerkiel" formations and were astonished to see masses of Soviet armor advancing towards them. What followed was to go down history as one of the largest tank engagements ever mounted. The Germans contrary to popular belief did not deploy masses of Tiger I tanks which made up a small percentage of the the total number of tanks with the main force consisting of up-gunned MK III and MK IV tanks. The conflict was fought at very close range with main armament and armor bearing little importance as a hit at almost point blank range would mean certain death. The Luftwaffe and Soviet air forces fought dogfights in the sky above but could play no part in the battle below as friend and foe were indiscernible through the dust and billowing black smoke pouring out from destroyed tanks. The battle raged on all day and by evening as the last shots were being fired the two sides disengaged. German losses amounted to over 300 tanks lost with the Soviets losing a similar number.


German losses, not just from this engagement but from the start of the offensive and losses in men and machine due to the extensive defensive preparations the Russians had made before the offensive had started and the immensely deep minefields which had proven themselves extremely effective had taken a seriously high toll. This along with the extensive Russian artillery and Katyusha fire had also taken a heavy toll on the floundering German divisions.


The new tanks had turned out a very disappointing show with most of the Mk V Panthers breaking down on the first day due to problems with the complex electrical cooling systems (from a total of 200 only forty were in running order at the end of the first day). The Elefant tanks although a formidable machine with their 88mm gun had also proved a disappointment with Russian infantry simply attacking the 73 ton monsters with satchel charges and Molotov cocktails when they were separated from the infantry with relative ease due to the absence of a hull machine gun as a secondary defenses.


Although German losses were quite high Russian losses were higher with the 6th Guards Army (which had borne the brunt of the assault) suffering very high losses and by the 11th July the battle hung in the balance. Things did not look promising for the Germans for two reasons.


The defeat of the Afrika Korps meant that the invasion of Sicily was imminent and units that were badly needed on the eastern front would have to be transferred to the western front to bolster the defenses in Italy. The second reason and more alarming to the German forces at Kursk was the arrival of the 5th Guards Army in the salient.


When the Allies landed in Sicily Hitler called von Kluge and Manstein to his headquarters and declared that he was calling Operation Zitadelle off. von Manstein was furious and argued that one final effort and the battle could be won. Hitler would have none of it particularly as the Soviets had launched a new counter offensive in the Orel sector. It was decided the Leibstandarte would be transferred to Italy and Sepp Dietrich would personally escort the deposed Mussolini's mistress Clara Pettachi to him after Skorzeny's rescue of the Duce from Gran Sasso. Sepp Dietrich was duly disgusted!


On the 15th July, Rokossovsky's Central Front struck at the Orel bulge and by 5th August Orel was liberated. The Germans withdrew to the partly prepared Hagen line at the base of the salient. To the south of Kursk the Russians re-grouped and by 3rd August another offensive opened up and Belgorod was liberated on the same day as Orel. The attack forced a 40-mile gap in Army Group South between 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf. On the 11th August the last battle of Kharkov began and by 20th August the Germans were forced to withdraw. The Germans from then on would be fighting defensive battles all the way back to the frontiers of the Reich and into the Reich itself.


Zitadelle had proved a costly gamble which, if one analyses the battle, had a very slim chance of success and one from which the Germans would never fully recover their losses.


The total number of losses for the whole offensive were put at 100,000 men killed or wounded. The Soviet casualty figures were not released until the end of the communist regime in the USSR and were recorded at 250,000 killed and 600,000 wounded. They also lost 50% of their tank strength.


Beteja e Berlinit :
Hitler once said, "The world will hold its breath and fall silent when Barbarossa is mounted." Now the scales of war were against Hitler, and in the summer of 1943 the Germans met with a devastating defeat in Russia at the Battle of Kursk and the German and Italian armies in Africa were destroyed. 1944 found Germany totally on the defensive with the successful Allied invasion of France and repeated loses in Russia. By the beginning of 1945, the British, Americans, and Russians were closing in on Germany. The Russians by the end of January were within 100 miles of Berlin. Hitler resolved to fight on, which resulted in even more deaths and devastation. While the war was progressing, Hitler embarked on a campaign to totally eliminate Jews and other peoples that were not to his liking. Millions were sent to extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor and Treblinka.



In April, 1945, the Russians were closing in on Berlin. Hitler demanded a fight to the death and designated Berlin a "fortress" to be defended to the last. The city's commandant, Major General Hellmuth Reymann, calculated that it would take at least 200,000 experienced troops to defend the capital, however the only ones available to make up the Volkssturm (or home guard) were mostly old men, women, and children.

Berlin, through the efforts of the Volksstrum, was prepared for the Russian offensive. Barricades were constructed and trenches were dug to **** tanks, however Reymann saw the preparations as futile and said, "I only hope that some miracle happens to change our fortunes, or that the War ends before Berlin comes under siege. Otherwise, God help the Berliners!" Despite fortification efforts, the men and artillary needed to defend the capital never materialized. Meanwhile, 1.3 million soldiers of the Red Army stood poised to descend upon Berlin for what Marshal Georgy K. Zhukov called, their "final hour of vengenance." Every man, on orders from Moscow, had been required to swear an oath on the Soviet flag to fight with special zeal for the motherland, the Communist Party and final victory.

The Russian defeat of Berlin was inevitable for they outnumbered the Germans in men 5:1, guns 15:1, tanks 5:1 and planes 3:1. Yet the battle for Berlin was a unpredictable and bloody; fueled by mutal hate and marked by atrocities. Hitler by this time was talking about armies long since destroyed and had delusions that the British, Americans and Russians would turn against one another. Meanwhile, Stalin believed that whomever raised their flag over Berlin first would be the victor of the war. The Western Allies believed differently and as the Red Army fought for Berlin, they sought to conquer strategic industrial territories for the future division of Germany. The Red Army paid a high price for Stalin's misconception. The casuality rate for the Red Army during the battle for Berlin matched the war-long casuality rate of four Soviet soldiers to one German fatality.

The Soviet battle to capture Berlin finally came on 16 April and was fought building to building and street by street. By 25 April, Berlin had been encircled by the Russians and on 30 April at the Reichstag was finally captured. At 2:25 p.m., the Russian flag was raised on top of the Reichstag barely before the deadline decreed by Stalin. The city surrendered on 2 May.



While Germany lay in ruins as well as his dreams of a New German Order, on 30 April, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker. When told of the news of Hitler's death, Stalin remarked, "So that's the end of the bastard. Too bad it was impossible to take him alive." With his death, Germany surrendered. Hitler changed the face of the world. As a result of the forces he set in motion, the world was left with basically only two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, which set the pace for the resulting Cold War. It is estimated that at least 40 million people died in Europe alone as the result of World War II along with immeasurable devastation and destruction.



Tocqueville once prophesized approximately 150 years prior to 1945 that the United States and Russia would soon or later become the two main powers of the world. This prophesy came true following the collapse of Germany and Japan in 1945.

The United States was probably the strongest nation at the close of World War I, but after the war, the country pulled its troops completely and swiftly out of Europe. This did not occur following World War II. As Eastern Europe was absorbed by the Soviets, Western Europe, under leadership from the U.S., forged a new anti-totalitarian military and political alliance.

For Russians of the post World War II generation, left a deep mark on the country. The war is an event that left 1 in 3 without a father and the repercussions of the war are still being felt today. For instance, it is still required that every bride place her wedding bouquet on a local war memorial. Following the defeat of Germany, the Soviets, despite enormous losses, were in a politically powerful position. Stalin would see that Russia would never be invaded again. He sought to create a buffer zone in the event the capitalists powers decided to use their might against the country. Winston Churchill summed up the situation in a speech in Fulton, Mississippi in March 1946, "An iron curtain has descended across the continent."






Mbase fituesit e nje perleshjeje ose nje konkurence munden qe ta shkruajne historine si te duan. Mbase do munden te fshijne shkronjat nga literatura historike por askush nuk do mundet te fshije gjakun e 13 milione ushtareve sovjetik( shiko ketu )!

[dardajan]

mir e keni ju po kemi nge dhe nerva te lexojme gjith ato faqe ne anglisht ne

un mund tju them se kam lindur ne te njejten dit me Stalin vetem shum vite me vone.