Episode 19 - “Animals flee this hell, the hardest stones cannot bear it for long.. only men endure…”

A terrible battle had been waged inside the Red October plant since the big push began by the German Sixth Army on the 14th October. The Tractor Factory and the Barrikady plant were the centres of carnage which has become part of the mystique of Stalingrad where men were fighting for each workshop and canteen, each small room, each bombed out building. It was worse than hand-to-hand, it was tooth and nail. And in some cases, literally as men tore at each other with blunt instruments like bits of rebar, chunks of rubble, and even their teeth. At the three main factories north of Mamaev Hill the Germans threw themselves into the fight day after day, trying the crush the Russians. By October 20th they had seized all the tractor plant’s shops and broken into the mammoth breastworks of the Barrikady. Further south they also occupied the western end of the Red October Plant. General Chuikov who commanded the Russian 62nd Army had moved his headquarters on the 17th October, three days after the start of the major offensive ordered by Hitler. As we heard last episode, that was fortunate for Chuikov because his former trench come bunker was overrun by the Germans. Chuikov ended up in his new HQ on the river bank level with Mamaev Kurgan. He would remain there until the relief of the city the following February. Despite the fact that General Paulus had seen his forces bolstered by specialist units of engineers and police battalions experienced in street fighting, the Russians remained the masters of fighting inside buildings – room by room. They had developed killing zones around houses and squares which were heavily mined and covered by intersecting machine gun crossfire. Chuikov was a specialist himself and described some the techniques. “Experience taught us …” he said “.. get close to the enemies positions, move on all fours making use of craters and ruins dig your trenches by night, camouflage them by day, make you build-up for the attack stealthy, without any noise, carry your tommy-gun on your shoulder, take ten to twelve grenades. Timing and purpose will then be on your side..” . “two of you get into the house together ..” Chuikov continued in his memoirs “.. be lightly dressed without a knapsack and the grenade bare, go in grenade first, you go after, the whole house, again always with a grenade first and you after..”