German 6th Army surrenders at Stalingrad
The Soviet counteroffensive operation to trap German 6th
Army by ringing the open country to the west of Stalingrad was code named
URANUS. It began on November 19, 1942, and lasted to February 2, 1943. The Red
Army also launched a diversionary attack against Army Group North in the center
of the larger Eastern Front, against the Rzhev bulge on November 25. At the
time there were 2.5 times as many Soviet troops and tanks, and 50 percent again
as many VVS aircraft, facing Army Group Center than faced Army Group South.
That was because Stalin still believed the main German strategic threat was
against Moscow, not at Stalingrad or in the Caucasus. Concentrating forces farther
north may also have reflected Stalin’s and the Stavka’s strong preference for
offensive operations over defense, and the fact their long-term strategy was to
advance along the shortest and most direct route to Germany. The fatal thrust
against German 6th Army at Stalingrad would be made by a Front whose presence
west of Rokossovsky’s Don Front was wholly concealed by a maskirovka operation.
URANUS thus began with a stunning attack north of the city by a fresh and
well-equipped Southwestern Front under General Nikolai Vatutin. It cut right
through 3rd Rumanian Army and advanced 100 miles into the Axis rear, before
turning south to partly encircle 6th Army. Meanwhile, the other arm of the
Soviet encirclement struck south of the city two days later, as Yeremenko led a
reinforced Stalingrad Front through 4th Rumanian Army deep into the Kalmyk steppe
and the rear of German 6th Army. This was Blitzkrieg in reverse: Soviet tanks
and mobile infantry that the Abwehr did not even suspect existed swept ahead.
Armored columns gobbled huge chunks of territory while leaving enemy
strongpoints undigested and isolated in the rear, to be reduced later by
friendly follow-on troops. The pincers met at Kalach on the Don on November 23.
German 6th Army and tens of thousands of Hiwis, Rumanians, and other Axis
troops were trapped in a huge kotel.
General Paulus asked his Führer for permission to retreat.
He hoped to fight westward to link with a newly formed and scratch Army Group
Don under Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, who was hurriedly recalled from the
Caucasus and ordered to break through to the city. Paulus’ request was denied:
he was ordered to stay put and fight. Hermann Göring boasted to Hitler that the
Luftwaffe alone could resupply 6th Army. It failed miserably in that task:
winter weather, lack of a suitable transport aircraft or numbers of aircraft in
the Luftwaffe battle order, loss of more airfields as the Red Army compressed
the pocket, and the sheer tonnage needs of food, fuel, and ammunition needed
defeated the air lift. Frostbite and hypothermia overtook the front, marking a
heavy toll on both armies and on civilians still trapped in the city. By late
November freezing and surrounded Axis troops were worst off, as supplies were
reduced far below minimum requirements. Outside the western perimeter of the
kotel Manstein assembled a hodgepodge of German, Rumanian, Italian, and
Hungarian divisions for a relief mission. WINTERGEWITTER (“Winter Storm”) was
launched on December 10. Within four days it ran into a Soviet counterstorm, as
the Stavka let loose yet another counteroffensive that formed a second set of
deep pincers looking to complete a double encirclement of all Axis forces
within the Stalingrad battle zone. Code named LITTLE SATURN, this new drive
smashed through underequipped and demoralized Rumanian, Hungarian, and Italian
armies north of the city. Those troops quickly gave up the ghost to the Red
Army. Rapid advances by armored and motorized units stretched out 200 miles
west of the city, threatening to trap Manstein’s Army Group Don. Manstein
pulled out of the closing trap, halting all efforts to reach 6th Army on
December 24 and reversing his line of march. The relief effort was over.
Fighting, freezing, and dying inside Stalingrad went on for several more weeks.
As the last airfields available to 6th Army were overrun,
the last Luftwaffe aircraft to leave the tightening noose abandoned German
wounded amidst scenes of decadent corruption and a total collapse of military
discipline into “sauve qui peut” desperation. Virtually all resupply of 6th
Army ended, except for occasional air drops. Inside the city, Soviet storm
groups retook several strongpoints on December 3. On the last day of 1942
remnants of a long-isolated Soviet division— “Lyudnikov’s island”—was reunited
to one of the larger 62nd Army bridgeheads. On January 10 Operation RING was
launched as an annihilation battle to finish off 6th Army. The Mamaev Kurgan
was retaken the next day, as well as the Red October Factory. Paulus’ men were
alternately frozen or slaughtered on a daily basis through the end of January.
On January 26 the outer formations conducting RING met the inner defenders of
Stalingrad. Just 110,000 frozen 6th Army survivors lived to see Paulus disobey
his Führer and surrender himself and his men on January 31st, to Soviet 64th
Army, which had fought into Stalingrad from the south. After five months of war
without mercy and a final massive artillery bombardment personally overseen by
Chuikov, the final capitulation and end of all resistance in the north of the
city came on February 2. The captured enemy throng were a ragged lot. They were
ceremonially marched down the banks of the Volga in front of singing Red Army
divisions, before being shipped off to prison camps.
A broadcast from Hitler’s Wolfsschanze HQ in the Rastenberg
Forest proclaimed “the sacrifice of the Army, bulwark of a historical European
mission, was not in vain.” In fact, when the battle for Stalingrad and
Operation URANUS and other attendant operations were over, the Axis order of
battle was shorter by 50 ravaged divisions, or 300,000 men, including 110,000
dead. Fully 22 divisions or their surviving elements had surrendered. German
6th Army and Rumanian 3rd and 4th Armies were gone, along with all equipment,
supporting armor, and guns. 4th Panzer Army was bloodied and mauled, a remnant
of its former self. Most Germans who surrendered faced years of hard
imprisonment and forced labor. Nine out of ten prisoners taken that January
never returned to their homes: they died in Soviet captivity from infected
wounds, tuberculosis, cold, hunger, or mistreatment, many in the first months
of captivity. Survivors were shipped east to forced labor camps or mines; many
would remain there for 10 years or more. One of the most important military
consequences of Stalingrad was to reinforce Hitler’s distrust of top generals,
even as the successful counteroffensive helped Stalin see that he should
interfere less often or directly with the military professionals of the Stavka
and his experienced and tough Front commanders.
For the first time in the war Axis soldiers had tasted the
iron in the mouth of bitter defeat on the Eastern Front. An entire Wehrmacht field
army was lost, along with two Rumanian armies and substantial elements of the
Italian and Hungarian armies. After Stalingrad a cruel worm began to burrow
into the mind of the German nation and its army: Germany could lose the war.
Mainly for that reason, and because of its acceleration of attrition of the
Wehrmacht, Stalingrad was one of the great turning points in World War II. But
only one: the war was too vast for any single battle or campaign to decide its
outcome. There was much grinding attrition to come, and many millions more
lives to forfeit. It is also worth recalling that news of defeat at Stalingrad
came on the heels of the first great defeat of the Germans at Second El Alamein
and Anglo-American TORCH landings in North Africa. The Wehrmacht was badly
overstretched, and Hitler had made too many enemies for Germany. In 1992, it
was revealed that Soviet casualties at Stalingrad were far higher than previously
reported: a staggering 1.3 million. Several tens of thousands of Soviet dead
from the fight inside the city were buried in the Mamaev Kurgan. Long after the
war, several of their former commanders were laid there with them, including
Chuikov at his own request.
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