| A panorama of the Volga River bank near the Solyanaya (“Salt”) Landing taken from the east bank during the initial bombing of Stalingrad. The Neftsyndicat (“Oil Syndicate”) fuel tanks are burning from Luftwaffe (“Nazi German Air Force”) strikes by Luftflotte 4. The Nazi German Heer (“Army”) 6.Armee reached the outskirts of Stalingrad on August 23, 1942, and that day the Luftwaffe (“Air Force”) dropped a 1,000 tons of bombs on the city. On August 30, 1942, the Stalingrad Front Military Council designated 5 crossings, including Solyanaya Landing. For 2 weeks, crossings over the Volga continued until 6.Armee reached Solyanaya Landing on September 13-14, 1942. 6.Armee could then interdict river traffic with hostile artillery fire. The Soviet Red Army responded with using armored minesweepers to bring men and supplies. They brought the 13th Guards Rifle Division across the Volga on September 14-15. By September 25, armored minesweepers brought 10,000 men and a 1,000 tons of supplies across the Volga, and evacuated 5,000 wounded. By October, the hour-long crossing slowed to 4 or 5 hours as the armored minesweepers had to break through ice on the Volga River. From left to right in the photo: The Brewery, or beer factory, captured from the 13th Guards Division by the Heer 71st Infantry Division in September 1942; Narodnyy komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD; “People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs”) Headquarters, scene of determined resistance by the 13th Guards Division and the 10th NKVD Division, and later a Heer field hospital, was completely destroyed in the fighting; Gerhardt’s Mill, near “Pavlov’s House,” was assaulted by Heer forces for 58 days, and is 1 of 3 buildings in modern-day Volgograd left unrepaired since the war; the Railway Workers’ and the “L-Shaped” Buildings, 5-story apartment complexes occupied by the Nazi Germans that they used to monitor Soviet Red Army movement in Stalingrad, Volga River traffic, and the banks of the river. These buildings were recaptured by the Soviet Red Army in December 1942. On October 2, 1942 – when “nothing special” happened, according to Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (1October 10, 1895 – July 12, 1945), except for “a tiny advance in Stalingrad” – Luftflotte 4’s General Martin Fiebig (7 May 1891 – 23 October 1947) launched heavy attacks by Heinkel He-111s and Junkers Ju-87 Stukas, again in conjunction with artillery and flak fire, against the Krasnyi Oktyabr Factory and Soviet Red 62nd Army General Vasily Chuikov’s (February 12, 1900 – March 18, 1982) crude, earthen command post near the Volga. The results were dramatic; Chuikov mistakenly believed the huge oil tanks near the Factory were empty. Hit by bombs, they exploded with ground-shaking blasts. “Bombs dropped all over the bank,” the Soviet commander recalled, “blowing up the oil-tanks full of oil, and a burning mass gushed across our dug-outs towards the Volga. The command post was in the middle of a sea of flames.** The situation was horrendous. Chuikov continued: “The streams of flame burned everything in their path. Reaching the bank of the Volga, the burning oil poured onto the barges standing near the command post. The burning oil floated down with the current. The Volga itself seemed to be bursting into flame. Telephone lines also went up in flames. Communication could be maintained only by radio, which was intermittent. We were imprisoned by fire, descending on us from all directions…Surrounded by fire, we stayed where we were and continued directing the Sixty-Second Army.” This panorama is created from stills from a wartime Soviet newsreel. | |
| Image Filename | wwii2222.jpg |
| Image Size | 69.46 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1500 x 247 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | October 2, 1942 |
| Location | |
| City | Stalingrad |
| State or Province | Stalingrad |
| Country | Soviet Union |
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| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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