THE EASTERN OFFENSIVE

STALINGRAD, AND THE BEGINNING OF THE END

For Germany, and for Hitler in particular, the Eastern front was of dominating importance during 1941 and 1942. The sheer scale of the task that the Third Reich had undertaken in attempting to overrun Russia, and the overwhelming proportion of the German armed forces that were committed to the task, made it inevitable that its successful completion should be at the forefront of Hitler's thinking.

The winter of 1941/42 had, as we have seen, inflicted appalling suffering upon an ill-prepared German army that lacked proper winter clothing, and which was subjected to a ferocious counter-attack by Zhukov's Russian forces in December. Morale had reached a desperately low state. Generals had asked for and had been refused permission to retreat. Yet, somehow, the superbly trained and experienced German army had held its line despite the hardships inflicted upon it. The Hitler magic was still there. The decay of the conquering spirit of the Third Reich had not yet eaten into the fabric of the world's greatest fighting machine.

Thus, by April, when Hitler issued his Directive No. 41 for the 1942 summer offensive and beyond on the Eastern Front, the Fuehrer was able to claim with some truth that `Thanks to the extraordinary bravery and spirit of sacrifice displayed by our troops, the defensive battle on the Eastern Front is proving a most striking success for German arms'. The Directive went on to define the objectives for the Wehrmacht in Russia, and the means by which it was to achieve them. In summary, the objectives were to capture or destroy the remaining Russian armed forces - Hitler believed on the basis of faulty intelligence that the Russian army was so depleted as to be near defeat - and to capture the rich sources of raw materials that the southern USSR had to offer.

To achieve this, Hitler directed, the entire force of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, with the exception of those engaged in the siege of Leningrad, was to be concentrated in the southern sector in a drive to the Don, and to the oilfields and mountains of the Caucasus. Beyond the Caucasus lay Turkey and the Middle East - and Hitler confidently expected that 1942 would also see the Axis conquest of Egypt and an assault on the British protected territories beyond, making it theoretically possible for the Axis forces to link in a mighty circle from Libya almost to the Arctic. While there is no firm evidence that Hitler actually planned such a vast operation, there is written proof that it was discussed (and rejected) by his generals, notably by Halder. On a more limited canvas, the generals were, in any case, less than enthusiastic about Hitler's planned offensive, believing that there was more than a danger of the Russians having greater reserves than German intelligence indicated, and that the commitment of greater resources to the Russian adventure would further weaken the ability of Germany to sustain its position on other fronts.

To the final defeat of what Hitler believed was a severely depleted Russian enemy, the Wehrmacht brought 18 more infantry divisions than had been available in Russia in 1941, but virtually no increase in the available armoured and motorised divisions - a factor that was to prove important to the coming campaign. On paper, the equivalent of 215 German divisions were massed against Russia for the summer offensive, of which 31 were "Satellite" (Rumanian, Hungarian and Slovak) divisions. These in fact numbered 46, but were marked down in value by a third by cautious German planners doubtful of their actual capability in the field.

The assault by the augmented Army Group South was code-named "Operation Blue", and was to be preceded by attacks designed to retake the positions around Izyum captured by the Russians during their December offensive, and to mop up the remaining Russian defence of the Crimea. Beginning on May 8th 1942, nine Axis divisions, three of them Rumanian, attacked 17 Russian divisions. The German formations, despite their numerical inferiority, made rapid progress, largely because of their superiority in the air. Colonel-General Lohr's Luftflotte IV provided constant dive-bombing and strafing support, and reduced the effectiveness of the Soviet Air Force in harrying the advancing German columns. By May 9th, the day after the attack began, the Germans had broken through the Russian lines and were fanning out. By May 11th, eight Russian divisions had been driven back to the Sea of Azov; on May 20th what was left of the Russian forces in the northern part of the Crimea retreated across the narrow Strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, losing in the process 170,000 prisoners, 258 tanks and 1,138 guns.

On the Izyum salient, things did not go so easily for the Germans. Bock had decided to attack on the 18th May, but the Russians attacked first, advancing on General Paulus' Sixth Army around Kharkov with great ferocity. As if from nowhere, the Russians under Marshal Timoshenko produced a major force of some 36 divisions with plenty of modern armour, advancing as a two-pronged attack. The northern attack was checked comparatively quickly, and held by the Germans, but in the South the Russians advanced inexorably until the 16th, virtually routing a Hungarian division and a German "Security" Division. The German commanders, somewhat rattled, revised their plan intended for the 18th, and launched their armoured assault under Kleist on the 17th, whose Panzergruppe advanced rapidly with Luftwaffe support to the Donets.

At this point Timoshenko appealed to Stalin to allow a retreat from Kharkov, but was ordered to hold his position, vulnerable as it was to encirclement. He did not have to wait long. General Mackensen's 3rd Panzerkorps moved swiftly up the right bank of the Donets river, pushed the rear positions of the Russian army aside, and made contact with General von Seydlitz-Kurzbach's Corps, thereby sealing off the Russians in the Izyum pocket. Fight as they might, the Russian forces could not break out, and by the 28th, when the end came, the German Sixth Army had crushed the Russian army, which lost 1,246 tanks, 2,026 guns and an incredible 214,000 prisoners. General Gorodnyansky was killed in the closing stages of the fighting.

By failing to allow Timoshenko to pull Gorodnyansky's army back, Stalin had temporarily lost much of his ability to restrain the German advance in that part of Russia. Paulus was quick to seize the advantage that this offered, and the German Sixth Army pushed onward and eastward to the River Volga, meeting comparatively little resistance by comparison with its recent experiences.

Meanwhile, in the South of the Crimea, Colonel-General Erich von Manstein, probably Germany's greatest military strategist of the war, was preparing to take Sebastopol. With the Russians gone from the North of the peninsula, he was able to devote all his forces to the attack on the besieged Russians, which began on June 7th. Reinforced with massive siege artillery and large numbers of the comparatively new Nebelwerfer rocket launchers, and supported as ever by the strafing and dive-bombing attacks of the Luftwaffe , against which the Russians had no effective remedy, Manstein's task looked straightforward. That it was not, and became a protracted and bloody battle, was entirely due to the tactical skill and bravery of the Russian commander, General Petrov, and of his eight divisions plus three brigades of Marines. Not until July 9th, five days after Hitler promoted von Manstein Field-Marshal, did the last defenders of Sebastopol surrender. Even then, their capitulation was due only to total exhaustion of their ammunition and water supplies. For the loss of just over 24,000 German dead, the invaders had captured 95,000 prisoners and 467 guns.

The Push to the Caucasus and Stalingrad

Throughout June and the first half of July, the 1st and 4th Panzerarmee under Colonel-Generals von Kleist and Hoth respectively maintained their advance towards the Caucasus, and General von Paulus' Sixth Army continued towards Stalingrad, as set out in Hitler's Directive for the summer offensive. But, in late July, Hitler's Directive No. 45 meddled with the original plan, and against the judgment of Halder, Hoth and Kleist, swung the Panzer armies South-East, away from their eastward course. General Paulus and his Sixth Army continued, in accordance with the original plan, towards Stalingrad, but without the support of the Panzer armies. This made his position progressively weaker as his supply line became more extended and his rear more vulnerable. By 15th August, four weeks later, after a slow advance hampered by lack of fuel and poor supplies of food, ammunition and medical supplies, General Paulus was close enough to Stalingrad to issue his orders for an attack upon the city.

The German assault on 15th August was in two waves. The 14th Panzer Division attacked the North of the city, defended by General Gordov, and by the 22nd of August was ensconced in the northern suburbs. On August 23rd, the 79th Panzergrenadier Regiment announced by radio that it was in the suburb of Spartanovka, on the Volga, commanding a view South over the southern suburbs. Stalin was not pleased, and for the next few crucial days took tactical command of operations himself, drawing to do so on his detailed personal knowledge of the city. When the Germans failed to make rapid progress in the southern part of Stalingrad, the Luftwaffe was called up to deliver a demoralising blow to the defenders, and Luftflotte VIII< bombed both residential and commercial areas with a devastating rain of high explosive.

Once more, defective German intelligence hampered German planning and assisted the Russian defenders. The sheer size of Stalingrad had not been appreciated by the Germans, and their tactical plans had not taken account of the fact that the city extended 20 miles along the banks of the Volga. Perhaps more to the point, the assumption was made that the Russians were a demoralised and almost beaten enemy. In fact, Stalin was as determined to prevent Hitler taking Stalingrad as Hitler was determined to capture it, and massive reinforcements were poured in as the battle for the South of the city wore on. Everywhere, the Soviet troops displayed a toughness and a skill in street fighting that was quite unexpected by the Germans. The battle for Stalingrad stretched on through September and the Autumn and into the Winter, and by its nature deprived the Germans of their principal strengths - air support and skill in tank warfare. Reduced to street by street clearance of the Russian troops, the Germans found the Soviet army difficult to beat.

To the South, Army Group A's advance on the Caucasus had begun to peter out after the fall of Rostov, and Hitler had become enraged at the failure to make the rapid, searing progress that he had envisaged for the assault. After sending General Jodl to check on Field Marshal List's plans and strategy and receiving a report from Jodl that he agreed entirely with what List was doing and planning, Hitler dismissed Field Marshal List and, extraordinarily, took command for himself of Army Group A, in addition to his roles as Commander in Chief of OKW (Armed Forces High Command) and Commander in Chief of OKH (Army High Command). Hitler was now personally directing the attack on the Caucasus, and, to cap his other changes, dismissed General Halder from his position as Chief of Staff at OKW and appointed in his place the relatively inexperienced General Kurt Zeitzler, whose principal qualification for the task was that he could be relied upon not to disagree with the Fuehrer.

Defending the southern areas of Stalingrad, General Chuikov made the maximum use of the resistance to artillery fire offered by modern concrete commercial buildings, of which there were many in the city, and of the guerilla tactics of sniper fire and Molotov cocktails. More than 1,000 armed workers fought alongside the Russian troops in the defence of the city. At the end of August, on the 27th, Stalin reinforced the Russian armies around Stalingrad by sending Zhukov and the 24th, 66th and 1st Guards Armies to attack the Germans to the North of the City. After some initial failures, Zhukov launched a fierce offensive, supported by heavy bombing by General Golovanov's heavy bombers, but had to report to Stalin that he could not make sufficient headway against the 14th Panzer< Division to be able to link up with the Russian defenders in the South of the city.

General Paulus' army was taking severe losses, but Hitler was determined to have Stalingrad. On September 12th, three Panzer Divisions and 11 infantry divisions were added to the German strength in the South of the city. Colonel-General Hoth's panzers had penetrated the southern suburb of Kuporosnoye, (thereby dividing the Russian armies) and had taken the high Mamaya Kurgan, which provided a commanding view of the city, but lost it again to the Russian 13th Guards in fierce hand to hand fighting on the 14th. Every day throughout September the Stukas dive-bombed, the shelling continued, and the bloodiest battles ebbed and flowed through the streets of Stalingrad.

At the beginning of October 1942, Paulus was ordered to take the city at any cost, and was supplied with five battalions of sappers to reinforce his efforts. Even this was not enough to ensure results, for the Russian forces continued to be reinforced nightly, as they had been in September, via ferry boats from the other side of the broad River Volga. For every new German that appeared at Stalingrad, there were several new Russians.

The suffering on both sides during the battle of Stalingrad was appalling. Bombing attacks reduced large areas of the city to rubble. German tanks climbed over that rubble to the attack and, not infrequently fell victim to snipers with anti-tank rifles, able to get a good shot while the tank was relatively immobile. Civilians had either left and become homeless refugees on the other side of the Volga, or were being killed and maimed in the fighting. The Russian soldiers were being bombed, strafed, shot at and beleaguered from all sides. Yet still they held on.

Both sides planned massive attacks for 7th October. In the event the German assault started first, with two divisions attacking Chuikov's forces on Paulus' direct orders. They stood little chance of success and the attack resulted in enormous slaughter of German troops - almost four battalions were killed and dozens of tanks were destroyed. It has been said that this and other suicidal missions ordered by Paulus had their origin in Paulus' personal ambition to be promoted Field-Marshal once successful at Stalingrad, but it seems more likely that the Germans continued to underestimate the strength of the Russian forces, and their superiority in a street fighting environment.

On October 14th, a massive German push by two Panzer Divisions - the 14th and 24th - and two infantry divisions wrought appalling damage on the two major industrial areas of Stalingrad, known as "Barricades" and "Dzerzinsky", but, despite inflicting crushing damage, failed to make much headway. Not until a month later did the Germans succeed in penetrating the area of "Barricades", and cutting off its defenders from the rest of the Russian 62nd Army. But even then, on November 11th, they were unable to press home the final force of their attack. For their men and machines were in a sad state - the two Panzer Divisions had fewer than 200 tanks between them, and the German infantry were at less than half strength. Every man was exhausted, most had minor wounds. All were hungry.

Stalingrad's Russian defenders were in a similarly poor state, but the German attacks of November 11th proved to be the last, and Chuikov at last had time to breathe again, albeit for a very short time. Winter was setting in, the ice was forming on the Volga, and once again the Russians planned a winter counter-offensive to take advantage of the Germans' poorer winter equipment and ability to withstand the cold. General Chuikov had only to hold his ground for a little longer.

Away from Stalingrad, Colonel-General von Kleist's 1st Panzerarmee had been ground to a halt only some 50 miles from the Groznyy oilfields, and had been unable to reach them. The German forces in the foothills of the Caucasus had been unable to complete the encircling movement that Hitler's Directive required of them. The German advance had come to an end.

The Sixth Army Forced to Surrender

On October 14th, Hitler had issued a Directive ordering all Wehrmacht Eastern Front offensives other than in Stalingrad and the Caucasus, to cease. The German forces in Russia were ordered to prepare for winter defence, and it was announced that the Red Army would be destroyed in 1943. He and Zeitzler had decided, again apparently on the basis of intelligence that the Soviet armies had little in reserve, that no Russian offensive would be possible this winter. All the Wehrmacht had to do was wait for spring.

In fact, Stalin and Zhukov had spent a large part of October planning alternative versions of a major offensive. The offensive in the North, on the River Don, was to be very similar in concept to that which, in August 1942, Hitler had himself warned could occur - foresight which he seemed to have abandoned by November. Codenamed "Saturn", the northern offensive was to break through the German line and retake a line from Rostov to Milerovo. The alternative plan for a southerly offensive, known as `Uranus', sought to break through at two points simultaneously North and South of the German Sixth Army some sixty miles West of Stalingrad, and encircle the much weakened German forces in the battle-torn city.

Stalin, Vasilievsky and Zhukov opted for "Uranus", and, on 19th November, ten days after the "Torch" landings in North Africa, the carefully planned offensive was launched after weeks of personal briefings by Zhukov and his colleagues of all the commanders in the field. To the operation the Russians brought 1,000,500 men, 13,541 guns, 894 tanks and 1,115 aircraft. Bad weather hampered routine German reconnaissance, and the Germans had little or no idea of what was about to hit them. It has been suggested that "Uranus" was the greatest surprise the Wehrmacht ever received.

The initial attack was to the North of Stalingrad. After an artillery barrage through freezing fog, Russian infantry poured down upon Rumanian Axis troops, who fought vigorously to defend their positions. Unclear as to exactly what was happening, Hitler sent orders from his HQ at Vinnitsa that General Heim's 48th Panzerkorps should attack towards Kletskaya. This did not work because the enemy was somewhere else, and the unfortunate Heim lost valuable time and tactical advantage. Instead he found himself facing General Romanenko's 5th Tank Army in the snow, which caused panic among the Rumanian infantry. The 1st Rumanian Armoured Division was virtually annihilated, and the breakthrough in the North was achieved. Late on the 19th, Hitler ordered Paulus to deal with the gap in his defences to the North, not knowing that the next morning would see even bigger events to the South of the line.

Next morning, General Eremenko's southern offensive began with an artillery barrage at 10am, again in freezing fog. The Rumanian 6th Corps surrendered, and what was left of the 4th Panzerarmee had to withdraw at considerable speed to avoid being encircled and trapped. Two days later, General Volsky's advance over-ran the positions of the German headquarters, and by November 23rd, the Russian forces of the northern and southern attacks had met at the village of Sovetsky to complete the encirclement of the Axis forces in Stalingrad.

To the utter amazement of the unfortunate General Paulus, Hitler sent a telegram commanding him to "adopt a hedgehog position" and await relief "when it was convenient". Paulus swiftly sent a signal back to Hitler telling him that the situation was desperate, that ammunition and petrol supplies were running out, and that the only available course of action was to break out by delivering a knockout blow to the encircling Russians. Colonel-General Weichs, who was still in contact with Paulus, supported this view. He told Hitler that it would be impossible to supply an army of 22 divisions from the air, and that an offensive to relieve Stalingrad could not possibly be launched until December 10th, by which time the 6th Army's position would be desperate in the extreme. Hitler replied, after some hours, with a new order to Paulus to hold Stalingrad at all costs, apparently based on boastful and groundless assurances from Hermann Goering that 500 tons of supplies per day would be dropped to the besieged army by the Luftwaffe .

In fact, as winter set in, and the much improved Soviet Air Force took its toll of Luftwaffe supply aircraft, the average drop of supplies reaching Stalingrad from December 1st to 12th was only 97.3 tons per day. In the second half of December the figure rose to just over 135 tons per day, then it fell again as the winter weather and the worsening military position made the airlift more difficult. The deficiency of supplies by comparison with Goering's estimate was 81$IM over the whole 70 days of the airlift, and the Germans lost 488 aircraft, including 266 valuable Ju52 transports.

Besieged within the city and immediately around it, Paulus had 278,000 men and their equipment. The task of relieving the city and making possible the rescue of the 6th Army was given to Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, who had just been given the command, in the third week of November, of a new Army Group, to be called "Army Group Don". On November 27th, his command was reinforced by the arrival of the first units of the 6th Panzer Division, assigned to him from France. Once the whole division had arrived, it added 160 tanks, 42 self-propelled guns and a battalion of half-tracks to his much depleted strength - by now the 4th Panzerarmee amounted to little more than one Corps. The 23rd Panzer Division, imported from the Caucasus, had only 20 tanks, and the 17th had only 30.

On December 12th-13th, the Germans succeeded in crossing the Aksai River, and, by December 16th were within 30 miles of Stalingrad after battling 50 miles in eight days. But they were not to succeed, for the Russians launched an attack under Zhukov to destroy the Rumanian 3rd Army and the Italian 8th Army, and thereby open the way for an advance to Rostov. Manstein's plan to bring the 48th Panzer Corps across the Don to reinforce the advance on Stalingrad had to be abandoned, and that in turn made it necessary to call the 6th Panzer Corps back across the Don to counter the Russian offensive. The attempt to relieve Stalingrad was effectively over.

As the New Year came and went, the situation of the Sixth Army became more desperate, and the extent of the criminal disregard of reality by Hitler and Goering in asserting that they could be supplied from the air became clearer. As the Russians advanced towards Rostov, the Luftwaffe was obliged to retreat to new bases, which lengthened its flights to the besieged city. General Paulus and his men were starving, virtually without fuel and ammunition, victims of Hitler's megalomaniacal zeal for unattainable victory. On January 8th, the Russians offered Paulus surrender terms under flag of truce. Paulus made no reply. Two days later, the Russians attacked the half-starved German army around Stalingrad with 7,000 guns and mortars. Gradually the Russians closed in, capturing on January 17th the airfield at Gumrak, the last at which German aircraft could land to bring supplies to Paulus' army. On January 26th, after Hitler had ignored Paulus' appeal to be allowed to surrender, the Russians drove a wedge between two halves of the 6th Army, separating the 71st, 113th, 297th and Rumanian 20th Divisions from Paulus' command. All were obliged to surrender. Finally, on the 31st January 1943, Paulus, newly and cynically promoted Field-Marshal by Hitler, apparently on grounds of superstition because Hitler had noted that no German Field-Marshal had ever surrendered, decided that the end had come. Honourably and with dignity, he surrendered to the Russian General Shumilov. But even that was not the end of the Stalingrad tragedy. General Strecker, commanding the northern pocket of the besieged army, held out until February 2nd. He and his men were the last of the betrayed to surrender.