Word: stalingraders
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...torment Russia lashed out on the Moscow front like a wounded giant beating a beast that gnaws his vitals. Stalingrad's peril was so great that distraction was necessary. For the desperate offensive, handsome, hard-eyed General Georgy Zhukov chose the Rzhev region, where the German lines bent within 130 miles of Moscow. One morning, early in August, deep-throated Soviet artillery opened up in the birchwood and meadow land around Rzhev. It concentrated first on Nazi battery positions, then on German division headquarters, finally on communications and transport centers. Ground-strafing Stormoviks joined the fray, followed by waves...
Herds of Nazi tanks gored a gaping wound in Russian defenses between the Volga and the Don. Day by day they dug deeper toward Stalingrad and Russia's Volga artery. Northeast from Kotelnikovski and southeast from Kletskaya they came, clamping a giant pincers around the strategic city...
...battle for Stalingrad will probably be decided within a week, but there is not yet sufficient information form official quarters to indicate which side will crack first, he said. Although the capture of this city would mean the loss of the Volga, most important supply line for the shipment of oil from the rich fields across the Caucusas, there are still other routes...
...With Stalingrad gone, said Karpovich, Baku oil could be sent across the Caspian to ports in the Ural region and shipped from there overland by rail. Such a method, of course, would tax Russian rail facilities to the utmost...
Another factor in favor of the Russians is the approaching winter which is just as severe around Stalingrad as it is in the Moscow region, although delayed for two or three weeks. According to Karpovich, however, the Germans have about two months of fair weather upon which they may count...