Hello guys I’m doing a history term paper and Stalingrad has to be covered. When I read the textbooks, as well as other sources, I find that the date which the battle for Stalingrad started differs from each source. A date of between August 19th to August 23 1941 is claimed to be the date which Stalingrad was besieged… Well which date is it ? Anybody knows ?
Also you could check:
http://battle.volgadmin.ru/osn_eng.asp?np=20
http://users.pandora.be/stalingrad/
http://www.stalingrad.com.ru/history/history.htm
http://zhukov.mitsi.com/Stalingrad.htm
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_stalingrad.html
http://www.battle-fleet.com/pw/his/stalingrad.htm
On August 19 1942 Friedrich Paulus ordered the 6. Armee to attack the city of Stalingrad. The first units reached the outskirts and the Volga river on August 23 1942.
you have to remember its hard for everyone to agree on what day the battle started. There could have been skirmishs for weeks before the main battle even broke out. Else what is defined as the “start” of a battle anyways. SO if you get a range of 3 days your lucky to get that. Especially when it comes to the eastern front where anything goes.
Yeah, with most battles it’s hard to get everyone agree to an actual start date. However 19 Aug 1942, seems to be one of the more agreed-upon start dates for the Battle for Stalingrad.
It depends: are you dealing with the city of Stalingrad, or a bit larger area, or sort of “province of Stalingrad” - concept, or larger strategic “securing southern sector” - view… And how do you define “battle”… Soviet side have different view than german side… It depends on so many factors that it’s natural to different sources to have different dates.