Editing Battle of Stalingrad (section)

===September city battles===
[[File:62. armata a Stalingrado.jpg|thumb|upright=.9|Soviet soldiers running through trenches in the ruins of Stalingrad]]

A letter found on the body of a German officer described the insanity of the battle and brutal nature of the urban combat:<ref name="Johnson-1991" />{{blockquote|We must reach the Volga. We can see it{{snd}}less than a kilometer away. We have the constant support of our aircraft and artillery. We are fighting like madmen but cannot reach the river. The whole war for France was shorter than the fight for one Volga factory. We must be up against suicide squads. They have simply decided to fight to the last soldier. And how many soldiers are left over there? When will this hell come to an end?}} Historian David Glantz stated that the grinding and brutal battle resembled "the fighting on the [[Battle of the Somme|Somme]] and at [[Battle of Verdun|Verdun]] in 1916 more than it did the familiar blitzkrieg war of the previous three summers".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Glantz |first1=David M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M1UqAQAAIAAJ&q=Verdun |title=Armageddon in Stalingrad: September-November 1942 |last2=House |first2=Jonathan M. |publisher=University Press of Kansas |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-7006-1664-0 |pages=705 |language=en}}</ref>

On 5 September, the Soviet 24th and 66th Armies organized a massive attack against [[XIV Panzer Corps]]. The ''Luftwaffe'' helped repel the offensive by heavily attacking Soviet artillery positions and defensive lines. The Soviets were forced to withdraw at midday after only a few hours. Of the 120 tanks the Soviets had committed, 30 were lost to air attack.{{sfn|Bergström|2007|p=75}}

On 13 September, the battle for the city itself began. With German forces launching an attack which overran the small hill where the 62nd Soviet Army headquarters was established, in addition, the railway station was captured, and German forces advanced far enough to threaten the Volga landing stage.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Winchester |first=Charles D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gum6CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA91 |title=Hitler's War on Russia |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2011 |isbn=9781849089906 |pages=93–94 |language=en}}</ref>

Soviet operations were constantly hampered by the ''Luftwaffe''. On 18 September, the Soviet [[1st Guards Army (Soviet Union)|1st Guards]] and 24th Army launched an offensive against VIII Army Corps at Kotluban. ''[[8th Air Corps (Germany)|VIII. Fliegerkorps]]'' dispatched multiple waves of [[Stuka]] dive-bombers to prevent a breakthrough. The offensive was repelled. The Stukas claimed 41 of the 106 Soviet tanks knocked out that morning, while escorting [[Messerschmitt Bf 109|Bf 109]]s destroyed 77 Soviet aircraft.{{sfn|Bergström|2007|p=80}}

Lieutenant General [[Alexander Rodimtsev]] was in charge of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, and received one of two Hero of the Soviet Union awards issued during the battle for his actions. Stalin's [[Order No. 227]] of 27 July 1942 decreed that all commanders who ordered unauthorised retreats would be subject to a military tribunal.<ref>{{harvnb|Beevor|1998|pp=84–85, 97, 144}}</ref> [[Blocking detachments]] composed of NKVD or regular troops were positioned behind Red Army units to prevent desertion and straggling, sometimes executing deserters and perceived malingerers.{{Sfn|Glantz|House|2009a|pp=134–135}} During the battle, the 62nd Army had the most arrests and executions: 203 in all, of which 49 were executed, while 139 were sent to penal companies and battalions.<ref name="G.F.Krivosheev1997">{{cite book|last1=Krivosheev|first1=G. I.|title=Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century|date=1997|publisher=Greenhill Books|isbn=978-1-85367-280-4|pages=51–97}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=ru:Чудо Сталинграда|last=Соколов|first=Борис|date=2017-09-05|publisher=Litres|isbn=978-5040049417|pages=section 7|language=ru}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=ru:Война на весах Фемиды: война 1941–1945 гг. в материалах следственно-судебных дел|last=Звягинцев|first=Вячеслав Егорович|date=2006|publisher=Терра|isbn=978-5275013092|pages=375|language=ru}}</ref> Blocking detachments of the Stalingrad and Don Fronts detained 51,758 men from the beginning of the battle to 15 October, with the majority returned to their units. Of those detained, the vast majority of which were from the Don Front, 980 were executed and 1,349 sent to penal companies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Reese |first=Roger |title=Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought: The Red Army's Military Effectiveness in World War II |year=2011 |isbn=978-0700617760 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |edition=First|pages=164–165}}</ref>{{sfn|Hill|2017|p=357}}{{sfn|Ellis|2011|pp=196–197}} In the two-day period between 13 and 15 September, the 62nd Army blocking detachment detained 1,218 men, returning most to their units while shooting 21 men and arresting ten.{{Sfn|Glantz|House|2009a|p=134}} Beevor claims that 13,500 Soviet soldiers were executed by Soviet authorities during the battle,<ref>{{harvnb|Beevor|1998|pp=|p=xiv}}</ref> however, this claim has been disputed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hellbeck |first=Jochen |url=https://archive.org/details/stalingradcityth0000hell/mode/1up |title=Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich |publisher=PublicMedia |year=2015 |pages=17 |isbn=9781610394963 |language=en}}</ref>

By 12 September, at the time of their retreat into the city, the Soviet 62nd Army had been reduced to 90 tanks, 700 mortars and just 20,000 personnel.{{sfn|Beevor|1998|p=198}} The remaining tanks were used as immobile strong-points within the city. The initial German attack on 14 September attempted to take the city in a rush. The 51st Army Corps' 295th Infantry Division went after the Mamayev Kurgan hill, the 71st attacked the central rail station and toward the central landing stage on the Volga, while 48th Panzer Corps attacked south of the Tsaritsa River. Though initially successful, the German attacks stalled in the face of Soviet reinforcements brought in from across the Volga. Rodimtsev's 13th Guards Rifle Division had been hurried up to cross the river and join the defenders inside the city.{{sfn|Joly|2017a|p=81}} Assigned to counterattack at the Mamayev Kurgan and at Railway Station No. 1, it suffered particularly heavy losses. Despite their losses, Rodimtsev's troops were able to inflict similar damage on their opponents. By 26 September, the opposing 71st Infantry Division had half of its battalions considered exhausted, reduced from all of them being considered average in combat capability when the attack began twelve days earlier.{{Sfn|Glantz|House|p=204|2009a}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 116-168-618, Russland, Kampf um Stalingrad, Soldat mit MPi.jpg|thumb|left|October 1942: A German soldier with a Soviet [[PPSh-41]] [[submachine gun]] in [[Barrikady factory]] rubble]]

The brutality of the battle was noted in a journal found on German lieutenant Weiner of the [[24th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)|24th Panzer Division]]:<ref name="Kaplan-2023">{{Cite journal |last=Kaplan |first=Robert |date=2023 |title=Stalingrad: The Hinge of History – How Hitler's hubris led to the defeat of the Sixth Army |url=https://jmvh.org/article/stalingrad-the-hinge-of-history-how-hitlers-hubris-led-to-the-defeat-of-the-sixth-army/ |journal=Journal of Military and Veterans' Health |volume=31}}</ref>

{{blockquote|The street is no longer measured by meters but by corpses... Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching howling bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure.}}

A ferocious battle raged for several days at the giant grain elevator in the south of the city.<ref>{{harvnb|Beevor|1998|p=139}}</ref> About fifty Red Army defenders, cut off from resupply, held the position for five days and fought off ten different assaults before running out of ammunition and water.<ref name="Beevor 1998">{{harvnb|Beevor|1998|p=140}}</ref> Only forty dead Soviet fighters were found, though the Germans had thought there were many more due to the intensity of resistance. The Soviets burned large amounts of grain during their retreat in order to deny the enemy food. The grain elevator and silos were decided upon by Paulus to be the symbol of Stalingrad for a patch he was having designed to commemorate the battle after victory.<ref name="Beevor 1998" />

[[Mamayev Kurgan]] changed hands multiple times over the course of days, with fighting over the hill, rail station and Red Square being so intense that it was difficult to determine who was attacking and who was defending.<ref name="McLaurin-1987">{{Cite journal |last1=McLaurin |first1=R. D. |last2=Jureidini |first2=Paul A. |last3=McDonald |first3=David S. |last4=Sellers |first4=Kurt J. |date=1987 |title=Modern Experience in City Combat |url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA180999 |journal=Technical Memorandum |via=DTIC}}</ref>

In another part of the city, a Soviet [[platoon]] under the command of Sergeant [[Yakov Pavlov]] fortified a four-story building that oversaw a square 300 meters from the river bank, which was later called ''[[Pavlov's House]]''. The soldiers surrounded it with minefields, set up machine-gun positions at the windows and breached the walls in the basement for better communications.{{sfn|Beevor|1998|p=198}} The soldiers found about ten Soviet civilians hiding in the basement. They were not relieved, and not significantly reinforced, for two months, with the defense lasting around 60 days. The building was labelled ''Festung'' ("Fortress") on German maps. Pavlov was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union title for his actions. General Chuikov took note of the brutal efficiency of the defense of ''Pavlov's House'', stating that "Pavlov's small group of men, defending one house, killed more enemy soldiers than the Germans lost in taking [[Paris in World War II|Paris]]".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jacobsen |first=Eli G. |title=No Land Behind The Volga: The Red Army's Defense of Stalingrad and the Encirclement of the German 6th Army. |url=https://jsis.washington.edu/ellisoncenter/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/05/Jacobsen_REECASNW.pdf |journal=Reecansw}}</ref>

[[File:Pavlov's House.jpg|thumb|right|[[Pavlov's House]] (1943)]]
''Generalmajor'' Hans Doerr stated about the conditions of the battle that:<ref>Hayward 1998, p. 200</ref>

{{blockquote|A bitter battle for every house, workshop, water tower, railway embankment, wall, cellar and every pile of rubble was waged, without equal even in the [[First World War]]... The distance between the enemy's arms and ours was as small as could possibly be. Despite the concentrated air and artillery power, it was impossible to break out of the area of close fighting. The Russians surpassed the Germans in their use of the terrain and in camouflage, and were more experienced in barricade warfare for individual buildings.}}Stubborn defenses of semi-fortified buildings in the center of the city cost the Germans countless soldiers. A violent battle occurred for the Univermag department store on Red Square, which served as the headquarters of the 1st Battalion of the 13th Guards Rifle Division's 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment. Another battle occurred for a nearby warehouse dubbed the "nail factory". In a three-story building close by, guardsmen fought on for five days, their noses and throats filled with brick dust from pulverized walls, with only six out of close to half a battalion escaping alive.<ref>{{harvnb|Beevor|1998|pp=140, 141}}</ref>

The Germans made slow but steady progress through the city. Positions were taken individually, but the Germans were never able to capture the key crossing points along the river bank. By 27 September, the Germans occupied the southern portion of the city, but the Soviets held the centre and northern part. Most importantly, the Soviets controlled the ferries to their supplies on the east bank of the Volga.{{sfn|Adam|Ruhle|2015|p=68}}