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Stalingrad Turning Point

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World War II was dominated by the Axis powers initially; Nazi Germany had pushed a couple hundred miles into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and killed, wounded, or captured nearly six-hundred thousand soviet soldiers. By the end of Operation Barbarossa, eight-hundred thousand soldiers of the Red Army had been killed, and another six million were wounded or captured. The battle on the eastern front was not looking good for Russia as they were being pushed back and slaughtered on their home turf. However, a turning point occurred on the eastern front that would change it from being a German-led offensive, to a Russian-led offensive and German defensive for the rest the war – the Battle of Stalingrad. To begin with why Stalingrad was a turning …show more content…

With a limited supply of healthy men for battle, Germany had to decide where it wanted to focus its resources. Of course, they could not afford to keep people in factories and have weakened defenses on the front, so they pooled their manpower and put them on the front. This handicapped the production capabilities of the factories, and simply sent more valuable men to their death. According to Table 4.2 (Dingle 44), Germany saw a decrease in one million workers in industry from 1941 to 1943. There was, however, a one and a half million increase in foreign workers in industry during that time period. The key thing to realize about those numbers is that the “foreign” workers are mostly prisoners of war. They are not the most efficient workers Germany could have on its side, since morale is usually low and no one wants to build a tank to kill men from their own country. Since the Battle of Stalingrad, not only were there weaknesses on the fronts, but a chain reaction led to internal problems that had the capability of crippling Germany even

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The victories of the Red Army at Stalingrad and Kursk were the turning points in the Eastern front. The will to fight of the Russian forces and the significant industry capabilities were able to overcome the overstretched German forces capitalizing on Nazi strategic miscalculations. The American and British strategic bombing campaign played an important

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The Wars caused the painful loss of energetic labor forces. This was because during the World War I and II, lots of men in most powerful and prosperous nations in the globe at that time: the U.S, Germany, Italy, the U.K., Japan, and France took part in the Wars and a large portion of soldiers died. Without proper labor forces, nations could not achieve a normal pace of national development except the field of technology relevant to war machines. Fortunately, America was located outside of battlefield except Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, so Americans infrastructure in the U.S. territory kept in safe and became the base of the future growth in a relatively rapid pace. However, the infrastructure in Europe, a main battle field in the Wars, was almost completely demolished during the Wars.

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While this action preempted the domination of the DAF by extremist worker organizations, it allowed the less fanatical employers to widen their power. The corporate power structure under the Nazis heavily favored those in management positions over those working the factory floor. As Adam Tooze mentioned, new regulations instituted by the Nazis shifted power away from shareholders and allowed businesses to gouge prices (174). While the loss of powers traditionally guaranteed to shareholders might have driven off some smaller investors, the capital that they would have provided the corporation was more than made up in investments by the state. Based on figures determined by René Erbe, by 1938, roughly 62% of Germany’s total government expenditures

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Lots of jobs were created on the Homefront and for the war in Europe. Due to this boost in the industrial economy, there was a full employment as hundreds and thousands of Canadian men and women found work in war industries by 1942. Previous factories that made other supplies converted into war factories, and started producing supplies for the war effort. For example, many car and appliance companies started using their equipment to create machine guns, tanks, fighter planes, and other weaponry equipment for the war overseas. By the end of the war, all these factories had produced billions of dollars of equipment, machinery, and other supplies.

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Germany experienced a far more severe economic impact during the same period. In contrast to Overy’s judgement, Historian Ian Kershaw underscores that "The Allied bombing campaigns inflicted catastrophic economic damage on Germany, crippling industrial capacity and exacerbating wartime shortages, demonstrating a profound and significant impact on the nation's economy." The Allied bombing campaigns systematically targeted industrial cities like Hamburg and Dresden, resulting in widespread destruction and near-collapse of the German war economy. The bombings not only destroyed factories and infrastructure but also led to severe shortages of food, fuel, and other essential supplies. Germany's efforts to decentralize production and mitigate the impact of bombings were largely unsuccessful, prolonging economic hardship and delaying post-war reconstruction efforts.

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Some children left their families to go serve their country. The number of sick people increased because they got sick from tuberculosis or pneumonia and other diseases that spread from lack of food or medications. The people died from the disease or they committed suicide because they did not know what to do with their life because they were unemployed and living on the streets and were starving. The people that were living in the streets were now robbing stores and anything on the site that they could eat or use because they could not feed their family and did not have the money or a job. This was the social effects of the German

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While on the other hand the Allied Forces had powerful allies such as the USA which could contribute greater resources of men and materials. Furthermore, the British had put in place a Naval Blockade prevent the passing of cargo of any ships that attempted to pass through, this was very effective and starved much of Germany’s population. Lastly, Germany’s two front with Russia greatly weakened German forces and had larger repercussions later on. Although these are all important causes, the most factor that

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