The Battle of Stalingrad was a truly turning point in the Great Patriotic War. The importance of this historic event in an interview with Izvestia was revealed by an employee of the Center for Military History of the RANEPA, candidate of historical sciences Alexei Isaev.
“It is absolutely fair that this event must be remembered, this is really the moment when a turning point occurred in the entire war, and this is not some kind of psychological, but a purely military and economic turning point,” he stressed.
According to the historian, firstly, the enemy was not allowed to enter the oil field. Secondly, the territory of the European part of the country was liberated, which provided troops with conscription to the liberated territories.
“Who fought in the Battle of Kursk? Half of the replenishment that the fronts received were people called up for the liberated territories, and that same resource, the call to the liberated territories in the densely populated European part of the Soviet Union, was a resource that was scooped up in 1942-1944. The fact that the Germans were thrown back to Kharkov, to Kursk, this provided the very resource of conscripts and provided the opportunity to receive oil from the Caucasus and other mineral resources, ”Isaev explained.
In addition, the largest number of military cargoes passed through the Caucasus, which became possible as a result of the Battle of Stalingrad.
“Therefore, this is a turning point in the war, of course, including a psychological one, because those people who defeated the Germans at Stalingrad, they saw these mountains of German corpses, they saw that a strong dangerous enemy can be beaten, they took this knowledge further to front,” the historian concluded.
You can listen to the full version of the interview on the Izvestia podcast.
During the conversation, Isaev also explained the meaning of the order by I.V. Stalin “Not a step back” during the Great Patriotic War. According to him, this document was aimed at explaining the plight of the Red Army and the entire country, and its repressive part is usually overestimated.
In addition, the historian answered the question of why the counter-offensive near Stalingrad was called “Uranus” and whether it was connected with atomic weapons. Thus, the names of some operations of the Soviet armed forces during the Great Patriotic War came from the names of the planets of the solar system.
