Stalingrad performance

The "in awe" Romanians were there at German request! What about Odessa? That was Antonescu's ambition to conquer an objective without German help!

Like Germany's Luftwaffe diverting the forces from bombing London, back to their initial objectives during Battle of Britain, because Hitler wanted retaliation? Or divert their strategy back to Manstein's elastic defence of Harkov during 1943 instead of following Hitler's orders not to give any ground from 1943 onwards?

Yes, Hitler should have diverted his forces, but unfortunately for him, he was not in"awe"

Romanians did conquer Odessa without German help, and they were able to do that, costly. What Antonescu discovered was that Romanian Army was not what he was expecting, but it was a result of an inefficient training system and a result of a corruption that spanned a century long till our present times.

That's not entirely true.
When the Rumanian troops were not able to proceed according to the (several times extended) timetable, they called in the German aviation and artillery for support.
Also, in early October, the OKW had enough of the prolonged siege (by then the front line had had overpassed Odessa with hundreds of km), and planned to divert ground forces to finish the job. At the end, this proved not to be necessary.

Gen. Dénes

So true!
The German help didn't count so much - I guess the Soviet decision to evacuate was more important!

Yes, indeed. That was the key to the conquer of Odessa.
However, the evacuation order was triggered by the German troops' rapid advance, so all available Soviet forces were badly needed for the defence of the Crimea.

Gen. Dénes

True! I believed that if the Germans wouldn't have neither advanced, nor helped the Romanians (not that they really helped much at Odessa), the siege could have lasted much longer and who knows who would have won... (i.e. who knows how many losses would have suffered the Romanian army before calling it off )

Hallo everybody and my appreciation for this interesting discussion...
Stalingrad ...I see it from different perspectives ...from books I read ...and from what some veterans (luky to speak with some) narrated...now from the interesting discussions here...
Fact and legend first ...Fact that the romanian troops had to cover much more of the frontline that any tactical manual recommand ...much more than they were able to ...much more any army (german included) could defend ...
Legend ...if our troops had better weapons they could resist ...no, I don't believe it ...even better armed the thin veil of romanian troops could not resist ...they could inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, but not stop the armored columns and huge reserves ...
Fact that the romanian troops had serious shortage in ammo and weapons and a lot of useless obsolete guns of tanks ...
Fact is that the hungarians manage to obtain in may-june 1942 german weapons to equipped completely their 1st Armored Division -with german tanks, tractors, trucks and guns -for the missions given on the Don Front, but their faith was the same as our two armies...
Legend is that if our troops had the same excellent unteroffizier class NCO better known, as the germans, they could resist the soviet thrust ...I agree it could be a big advantage in battle...but at the end I am sure ...the same faith!
Just an oppinion...

Indeed, but the only thing that could have been done would have been a counter-attack. It was tried, with two armored divisions (1-st.Ro, 22-nd Panzer), but failed miserably. Had it succeeded, there would have undoubtedly been another Soviet attack and so on - as it happened, in fact, all along the winter 1942/1943 and early spring 1943. The tide has turned (Churchill said it, not me )

Hi again...
I don't know if somebody talk before about the treason theory...
Can't say how serious it could be? I mean the theory that Paulus treason was in fact the cause of the disaster... The main argument is that he refuses to try to meet halfway the Hoth panzers in the well known Wintergewitter Operation lauched by Manstein ...and the refusal to comit suicide after the debacle of his army and the advance as Feldmarshall made by Hitler...
What you think about that?

There are two possible explanations, IMO:
1. (most plausible): Paulus was too scared either to commit suicide or to disobey a direct order from Hitler and return to Germany (he did disobey the suicide order, however), so he preferred to be the highest-ranking prisoner of Moscow.
2. He realised the war was lost and just saved his skin (see above).
Any of them is in a certain amount, treason - we speak of a Prussian General, not of a spy or something "unclear"...

disobeying suicide hardly qualifies as trason. nor does following the orders.

However, if Paulus would have turned back to Reich (with or without remnants of 6-th Army), that would have meant disobeying a direct order! His choices were limited and, as history tells us, he made the right choice both for him personally (see his career after surrendering) and for the retreating Caucasus troops. The bill was paid by his 6-th Army soldiers - either right there in Stalingrad, or in the prison camps
This was a lose-lose situation.

Later edit: seems that Paulus wouldn't suicide because of his religion...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Paulus#Stalingrad

This post has been edited by MMM on August 05, 2009 08:47 am

Mannstein was order to hold Charkow at all costs, in Feb. '43.
he pulled out, retreated and struck back as soon he had the 2nd SS Panzerkorps at his disposal.
hitler wanted to relieve him of command, but his success made this impossible.

The key word being success, right? Manstein took back Harkov then, whereas Wintergewitter was only about relieving some troops in Stalingrad, right? Hitler's idea was for 6-th Army to stay back there, the counter-offensive meaning just a corridor opening for refuel or something. I'm not really clear what were the later plans...

This post has been edited by MMM on August 05, 2009 12:27 pm