Comments by "Cary Black" (@caryblack5985) on "Fight for the Factories | BATTLESTORM STALINGRAD E32" video.

  1. The Croatian government was allied with the Germans and one way of showing their loyalty was sending troops to fight the Soviets.
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  2. Paulus could not have known the Soviet plan in September. It was possible that he sensed this from reports of the Romanian Army about build up but this would have been till October/November at the earliest.
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  3. Allmemoirs must be used cautiously and checked against other evidence.
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  4. What area do you mean when you ask about the central Stalingrad pocket?
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  5. No they only sent partof the division. After enough weapons arrived the rest of the division was sent.
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  6. They did aerial surveillance. There seemed to be several splits in the German intelligence and assumptions regarding the Soviets. The Fremde Heere Ost, German intelligence in the east expected an attack at the center. Some in the OKH thought the Soviets were too weak to attack at all. Some thought they might attack but were too weak for the attack to be significant. It seems that no one expected two powerful attacks at the same time, one in the center, one in the south. This came from the chronic underestimation of the Soviets and German arrogance.
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  7. The first offensive was to break through the Germans in the north and link up with the 62nd Army. It was rushed and not carried out well but it made sense and at that time it was feared that Stalingrad would collapse. The 2nd was the sam idea thinking they could link up and was probably justified. By the 3rd and 4th it seemed a repetition of a failure and seemed wasteful to me. That is my view of the 4 offensives. Of course the Soviets hoped one of them would succeed.
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  8. You are right. The Soviets were on the brink until the end as far fighting in the city Stalingrad goes.
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  9. That is exacyly what they wanted to do but after failing twice it would be wiser to try something else rather than attempting it for a third and fourth time.
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  10. Agree
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  11.  @МихаилЧерников-п2т  I agree. I think the myth started with the 13th Guards. And of course it is a myth.
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  12. German army intelligence Fremde Heere Ost thought the attack would be in the center and were prepared for it (Operation Mars). They did not believe the Soviets could launch two powerful offensives at the same time.
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  13. If Paulus refused to continue the attack Hitler would just replace him with another who would attack.
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  14.  @mladenmatosevic4591  There is the fact that he asked Hitler to pull his troops back from Stalingrad and he may have made that request more then once and of course it was refused. It is not clear whether this was because of high losses or because he feared a Soviet attack. The Romanians had reported large buildup of Soviets in their area and I imagine Paulus was informed of this.
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