There Was No Shortage of Condoms at Stalingrad,During the first stages of the Battle of Stalingrad i

There Was No Shortage of Condoms at Stalingrad,During the first stages of the Battle of Stalingrad it seemed that he German Army would soundly defeat the Russians and overrun the city.  However on the 19th of November the Russians launched Operation Uranus, a massive counterattack in which the German’s themselves were surrounded and held under siege.  The situation in the German pocket, called The Kessel (the cauldron) was very desperate as the German’s quickly ran out of food, ammunition, and other essential supplies.  Worse yet, the Germans had little winter clothing, and were still wearing their regular summer uniforms.  Despite the situation, Hitler demanded the German 6th Army hold their ground and fight to the last man, rather than attempting to break out and escape.To supply the beleaguered troops at Stalingrad, Luftwaffe (air force) head Herman Goring devised a plan in which supplies would be airlifted and airdropped to keep the 6th Army going.  Such an endeavor had been done before, only on a 1/10th scale.  In reality the airlift was not feasible as there were not enough large aircraft available to supply an entire army.  As a result, the 6th Army always suffered a terrible shortage of badly needed supplies.  Worse yet, the items that were shipped by airlift were not always the most necessary items.  Due to rivalry between the Luftwaffe and Heer (army), there was little to no cooperation on what supplies were needed in The Kessel.  Worse yet, the horrid disorganization of the Luftwaffe resulted in the shipment of the wrong items.  As result, a saddening but hilarious array of items were airlifted to Stalingrad.  Such items included oddities such as fish food, ground pepper, schnapps, and vodka.  In one bungle up cellophane casings for grenades were delivered containing no grenades.  Winter clothing was a badly needed commodity, however the Luftwaffe delivered endless amounts of summer uniforms. In another bungle up, 20 tons of vodka and schnapps were delivered. On Christmas day, cases of wine were delivered to cheer the men up for the holidays.  The wine froze and the bottles exploded before delivery, resulting in a transport plane filled with red slush.  The most bizarre mistake occurred towards the end of the battle when the Luftwaffe para-dropped cases of condoms directly on the Kessel.  It must have a hot time in Stalingrad that night.Without the vital supplies needed, the men of the 6th Army suffered from frostbite, hypothermia, malnutrition, disease, and ammo shortages.  Finally, on the 2nd of February, 1943 the most of the 6th Army surrendered.  Around 110,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner and marched of to Soviet labor camps in the east.  Only around 5,000 would ever return home. -- source link

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