This Date in History: November 5

 

Dietrich von Choltitz, Army General of Infantry, born November 9, 1894 in Wiese-Gräflich (Upper Silesia), winner of the Iron Cross 1st Class in World War I, commander 11th Panzer Division, commander 48th Panzer Corps, Military Commander of Paris, wounded in action, winner of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, author Soldat unter Soldaten, died on November 5, 1966 in Baden-Baden, said of himself: “Since Sevastopol it has been my fate to cover the retreat of our armies and to destroy the cities behind them.”  (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1,000-Year Reich)

**********

Bombers and dive-bombers from the Luftwaffe‘s VIII Air Corps pounded enemy positions near the Krasny Oktyabr Steel Factory, Bannyi Balka and at Beketovka, south of Stalingrad on November 5, 1942.  Hitler expressed his opinion that the ground east of the Barrikady Gun Factory and the Krasny Oktyabr Steel Factory should be taken before the Lazur Chemical Plant was attacked.  (Stalingrad: The Death of the German Sixth Army on the Volga, 1942-1943)