Hitler sent all AGS troops to Stalingrad ?

23 July 1942
Hitler issues Directive # 45
One of the most important orders given in WW II.
Directive #45 splits up Army Group south. Hitler's generals can not
believe what they are reading...

Hitler, anxious to break into the Caucasus quickly, ordered the transfer of 4th Panzer Army to Army Group A on July 17th. As a result, 4th Panzer Army was not utilized by either army group for a critical two weeks at the end of July. Army Group B's slow advance during this period was directly attributable to its loss of the panzer army while Army Group A did not gain any further advances because of its temporary availability. On July 29th 4th Panzer Army was returned to Army Group B.

von Kleist remembered :

"The 4th Panzer Army was advancing on my left. It could have taken Stalingrad
without a fight, at the end of July, but was diverted to the south to help me crossing
the Don. I did not needs it's aid, and merely congested the roads I was using.
When it turned north again, a fortnight later, the Russians had gathered just
sufficient forces at Stalingrad to check it."

As well late in July Hitler transferred Manstein's five divisions from the Crimea to
the Leningrad front instead of the Caucasus, assuming that the Russian were almost
beaten.

What if all AGS troops were sent towards Stalingrad as well as those Manstein´s divisions?

 

With Germany holding Stalingrad, and thereby controlling the Volga, it would have made a big mess for Stalin...but the critical target was still Moscow. Had the Germans then utilized this victory to its fulles potential by swinging up the Volga and heading towards Moscow, then maybe they could have won the war.

 

With enough troops to secure the flanks and early victory at Stalingrad..Who knows..

At least Hitler´s idea of getting Maikop etc was not worth a penny as that part of direction was totally useless- those troops came fast back as Stalingrad was going towards its end.











That´s 1000!

http://www.continet.com/ppsh/photo1.html

 

I thought modern histography already proved most of those post-war apologizes by the German General Staff ("We did not know", "Hitler alone messed it up", "We knew it better"; "If only...") to be wrong or at least misleading. Former german generals were pretty succesfull by faking history with her apologetic by "tuning" history ti their favor in their role within the U.S. Historical Division.

Leningrad relieved, Soviet landings at Kerch/Crimean threatening the entire southern front. Maybe.

Cheers,

[ 07. December 2002, 09:28 AM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

 

I tend to agree with dasreich. If all of AGS's forces moved on Stalingrad, that would have changed the war on the Eastern Front.

If the city had been captured within the first couple of weeks, then those couple of hundred thousand men that were wasted in the ruins of Stalingrad could have been used to great effect elsewhere, such as moving on Moscow, or moving further east towards the Caspian Sea, thus securing the Crimea region. And then maybe even south to Turkey, maybe then this would encourage Turkey to join the war on Germany's side.

I won't say that it may have won the war on the Eastern Front, but it would have been a severe blow for Stalin, and with a renewed thrust against Moscow, or further east, the situation would not have been good for the Soviets.

______________

"Chamberlain seemed such a nice old gentleman that I thought I would give him my autograph."
Adolf Hitler.

 

A couple points to throw in...

Even if the 4th Panzer had been thrown at Stalingrad earlier, there still remains a problem. Keep in mind that even though the germans were delayed in reaching Stalingrad, the city defences were nonetheless still under-strength when the germans arrived. In the first few weeks of the battle many of the russian "soldiers" were civilians pressed into service. Had the germans arrived earlier, this would have been an advantage only in that it could have given them more time before russian reinforcements arrived. Considering the urban nature of the fighting, a few weeks advantage may not have meant too much...

There is even the clear possibility that had the germans taken Stalingrad quickly, the same brutal battle would still have taken place. Keep in mind that the russians lost thousands of troops at Stalingrad as well, as they kept pouring in reinforcements. Had the germans taken the city quickly, the russian army would have still had access to all these divisions. So this presents a compound problem... Either the russians likely throw all these divisions into a massive attempt to re-take the city (Stalin would likely refuse to abandon the city much as Hitler did), or, all these divisions are withdrawn to bolster Moscow's defences, making it clearly impossible for the germans to take Moscow.

This holds true for the russians as well, no?

 

Just a little thing I found in the net. Some generals did think the plans were not well thought at the HQ:

Autumn 1941

Von Rundstedt recalled :

After accomplishing a first part of my objective,encirclement and destruction of the enemy forces west of the Dnieper, I was given my second objective. It was to advance eastwards and take Maykop and Stalingrad. We laught aloud when we received these orders...

http://216.198.255.120/germanpart/agsouth_part2.html



A bit weird time for such thoughts but maybe it was Maikop only and not Stalingrad included as I think it was not until 1942 that Hitler wanted Stalingrad.



[ 08. December 2002, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

Ummmm... how does that relate to the earlier deployment of 4th Panzer towards Stalingrad??

Also, I do think Andy has a really good point about trusting the "recollections" of the higher-up german generals. They were looking back on things whose outcome they knew, not to mention that many of those generals do seem to tend to just blame Hitler for everything.
Here again- they "laughed" at Hitler's orders? Somehow I find that hard to believe...

But back to the topic, again, I can't imagine how 4th Panzer alone could have made a huge difference at Stalingrad, no matter how early they arrived. Could one Panzer division take an entire city?? Or even effectively surround Stalingrad? And mamange to cut off the Volga? Seems like a tall order to me...