Stalingrad - dawn attack

11th November 1942: Part of a detailed account by a German soldier of his involvement in an infantry assault that took place on this day

German tanks and infantry advance through the ruined suburbs of Stalingrad, November 1942

Team of the German 50mm PaK-38 anti-tank gun of the Nazi Wehrmacht Artillery at the crossroads of city streets in the Battle of Stalingrad

German soldiers in Stalingrad fire a 5 cm Pak 38 anti-tank gun.

In mid November 1942 the Germans found themselves in almost complete control of the west bank of Stalingrad. The Russians still hung on in some now quite small pockets on the banks of the Volga. Surely it would not take much more to finally dislodge them.

Yet even as they took ground they found bands of Soviet infantry popping up behind them and attacking their rear - these men were being infiltrated through access tunnels for the factory district.

Helmut Walz of the 179th Engineer Battalion devotes a chapter¹ to describing just one day's fighting on the 11th November. As battalion commander, he was now only able to scrape together a group of 30-40 men for another surprise attack at dawn. He describes how the diminishing band of survivors had adapted to their grim existence in the city: