A story from Stalingrad!!!! A diary from a soldier!!!!

[Guest Rommel22]

This is a passage from a Russian's soldier diary in the fighting in Stalingrad. It's fairly long, but interesting, here you go!

........We moved back, occupying one building after another, turning them into strongholds. A soldier would crawl out of an occupied position only when the ground wans on fire under him and his clothes were smouldering. During the day the Germans managed to accupy only two blocks.

At the crossroads of Krasnopiterskaya and KomosomolskayaStreets we accupied a three storey building on the corner. this was a good position from which to fire on all comers and it became our last defense. I ordered all entrences to be barricaded, and windows and embrasures to be adapted so that we could fire through them with all our remaining weapons.

At a narrow window of the semi-basement we placed the heavy machine-gun with our emergency supply ammunition-the last belt of cartridges. I had decided to use it at the last most critical moment.

Two groups, six in each, went up to the third floor and the garret. Their job was to break down walls, and prepare lumps of stone and beams to throw at the Germans when they came up close. A place for the seriously wounded was set aside in the basement. Our garrison consisted of forty men. Difficult days began... The basement was full of wounded; only twelve men were still able to fight. There was no water. All we had left in the way of food was a few punds of scorhced grain; the Germans decided to beat us with starvation. Their attacks stopped, but they kept up fire from their haevy calibre machine-guns all the time... The Germans attacked again. I ran upstairs with my men and could see their thin, blackened ans stained faces, the bandages on their wounds, dirty and clotted with blood, their guns held firmly in their hands. There was no fear in their eyes. Lyuba Nesterenko, a nurse, was dying, with blood flowing from a wound in her chest. She had a bandage in her hand. Before she died she wanted to help to bind someone's wound, but she failed.....

The German attack was beaten off. In the silence that gathered around us we could hear the bitter fighting going on for Matveyev Kurgan and in the factory area of the city.

How could we help the men defending the city? How could we divert from over there even a part of the enemy forces, which had stopped attacking our building.

We decided to raise a red flag over the building, so that the would not think we had given up. But we had no red material. Understanding what we wanted to do, one of the men who was severly wounded took off his bloody vest and, after wiping the blood of his wound with it, handed it over to me.

The Germans shouted through a megaphone: "Russians! Surrender! You'll die just the same!"

At that a moment a red flag rose over our building.

"Bark, you dogs! We've still got a long time to live!" Shouted my orderly, Kozhushko.

We beat off the next attack with stones, firing occasionally and throwing our last grenades. Suddenly from behind a blank wall, from the rear, came the grind of a tank's caterpillar tracks. We had no anti-tank grenanedes. All we had was one anti-tank rifle with three rounds. I handed the rifle to an anti-tank man, Berdyshev, and sent him out through back to fire at the tank point blank. But before he could get into possition he was captured by a German tommy-gunners. What Berdyshev told the Germans I don't know, but I can guess that he led them up the garden path, becuase an hour later they started to attack at precisely that point where i had put my machine-gun with it's emergency belt of cartridges.

This time, reckoning that we had run out of ammunition, they came impudently out of their shelter, standing up and shouting. They came down the street in a column.

I put the last belt in the heavy machine-gun at the semi-basement window and sent the whole of the 250 bullets into the yelling, dirty-grey Nazi mob. I was wounded in the hand but did not let go of the machine gun. Heaps of bodies littered the ground. The Germnas still alive ran for cover in panic. An hour later they led our anti-tank rifleman on to a heap or ruins and shot him in front of our eyes, for havinng shown them the way into my machine-gun.

There were no more attacks. An avalanche of shells fell on the building. The Germans stormed at us with every possible kind of weapon. We couldn't raise our heads.

Again we heard the ominous sound of tanks. From behind a neighbouring block stocky German tanks began to crawl out. This, clearly, was the end. The gaurdsmen said good-bye to one another. With a dagger my orderly scratched on a brick wall: "Rodimtsev's guardsmen fought and died for their country here."

[Guest Madmatt]

Rommel22, where is this from? I would love to find the full version.

Madmatt

[Grobdeutschland]

Cool post. Reminds me of a good book...RUSSIA AT WAR...BY ALEXANDER WERTH...

I have lots of respect for those troops.

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"Far better it is

To dare mighty things...

Then to take rank with

Those poor, timid spirits

Who know neither

Victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt 1899

[Guest Rommel22]

MadMatt, it's from a book called

Barbarosa The Russian-German conflict 1941-1945 by Alan Clark

The book is about 470 pages, very good book, it has tons of passeges from diaries of soldiers. I just came across this one and struck me the most. I coulnd't belive the **** those guys went through. I still can't believe it, when I first read the pessage i was shocked.

Well there you go!

[Triumvir]

Barbarossa is a classic book, probably the best single-volume source for lay readings on the Eastern Front. It's a damn shame that he doesn't have as detailed a bibliography as others so that we could get the primary source.

[Simon Fox]

I think it is also on the web as I have seen it before. A Stalingrad web site IIRC.

[Guest Rommel22]

bump

[Dar]

Although most likely cited here in lots of other threads, <u>Enemy at the Gates</u> by William Craig is an outstanding work covering the battle of Stalingrad from several personal-level perspectives.

Despite the upcoming movie of the same name based on the sniper excerpts from the book (and which promises to be filled with some cheesy love story... *sigh*), the book covers the entire battle with prelogue and epilogue. Some great examples of what real leadership means to a unit are also in there, such as when a sniper kills a German company commander, rendering the entire company ineffective for some time out of sheer grief for their beloved CO.

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Dar

[Guest Rommel22]

Is there a site anywhere for this movie, enemy at the gates. Just want to see a preview if they have one somewhere.

and bump

[Dar]

Don't know of a site for the movie, and a search on Infoseek turned up squat. They are showing a preview in the theaters, though. Some neat looking pix of He111s flying over a burned out city landscape.

The movie is based on a duel between a Russian and a German sniper, and then they have to throw in a female Russian sniper as a love interest (although I understand there were quite a few good female snipers in the Red Army). It's got Bob Hoskins as a senior Red Army commander and Ed Harris as the Ueberscharfschuetze.

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Dar

[Guest Rommel22]

bump

[Guest Madmatt]

Use www.google.com as there are tons of links!

Here are some nice ones:

http://movieweb.com/movie/enemygates/co2.jpg

http://www.ew.com/ew/moviepreview/0,3971,237,enemyatgates.html

http://mrshowbiz.go.com/features/moviepreview_fall2000/EnemyattheGates.html

http://movies.go.com/movies/E/enemyatthegates_2000/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/movies/titles/enemy_at_the_gates/

Madmatt

[MichaelU]

My girlfriend gave me Barbarossa as a gift for our first anniversary. What a babe. I'm waiting till CM2 is imminent before reading it.

[Guest Rommel22]

Thanx Matt,

Damn thos pix look good.

[TownsendVol]

Rommel22

Hey I bought the book yesterday but they are going to have to order it. I hope its as good as you say and as good as this story. I like books that have diary entries and stories from the actual soldiers. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Guest Der Unbekannte Jäger]

Nice post, I am now on the hunt for that book! Thanks!

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"The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum."

[Guest Rommel22]

No problem guys, there is another passage I found in the book. It's a lot longer but when i get a chance I'll type it up and post it. There are so many, some short some long but all of them are very good.

Hope you like the book I certainly do!!!

[Guest Rommel22]

bump

[Lmandrake]

In traditional Hollywood fashion, the "true" story of a sniper duel in Stalingrad is fiction. A Russian sniper, Zaitsev, did exist, but his supposed German adversary did not. The film appears to be based either on this legend or on a novel called "War of The Rats" which I read recently and thought was pretty good...

[crepitis]

The quote does indeed come from Alan Clarks excellent book(page 227,to be precise!)I can heartily reccomend this book,along with these others: "stalingrad" by Antony Beevor,published by Penguin books, "Stalingrad 1942-1943 The Infernal Cauldron" by Stephen Walsh,published by Simon&Schuster and,slightly off topic,"Waffen SS The unpublished Photographs 1923-1945"which contains some astounding photographs of the war in Russia.It seems to live up to its title as I don't think I've ever seen any of the photographs before!What made it even better was its price,reduced from £25. to just £9.99,in a local "bargain books" store.