[9.2] OPERATION WINTER STORM
[9.3] PAULUS SURRENDERS
[9.4] STALINGRAD: THE AFTERMATH [9.5] SOVIETS RESURGENT
[9.1] COUNTERSTROKE: OPERATION URANUS
* Paulus was not completely surprised by the Soviet counteroffensive, or at least he shouldn't have been. He had been getting plenty of reports that the Red Army was secretively building up forces above his northern flank, one intelligence officer telling him on 27 October that they were confronted with "an attack army, armed to the teeth, and of considerable size."
Two days later, on 29 October, the commander of Rumanian forces in the area reported that Red Army units had been making continuous small attacks, clearly probing the strength of the defenses. Paulus acknowledged that there was a Soviet buildup in the area but downplayed its size and significance. It would prove a fatal misjudgement.
* Plans for the counteroffensive had begun way back in mid-September. On 12 September, Stalin had conducted a strategy session with his senior generals concerning the relief of Stalingrad. Zhukov was in attendance, and he and General Vasilevsky, Chief of the General Staff, muttered a few comments to each other about the possibilities of the situation. Stalin did not like people trying to keep secrets from him and challenged them.
They couldn't elaborate much on their comments, but Stalin was feeling open-minded and told them to consider different options, then report back to him at a meeting the next night. The two generals showed up at the appointed time on the night of 13 September. Stalin was feeling grumpy,
complaining at length about the failure of the British to deliver satisfactory amounts of war material, but having vented his frustrations he then asked the two men: "Well, what did you come up with?" Their plan was straightforward, if not necessarily easy to implement. The brute-force approach to relieving Stalingrad would be to send the Red Army into the city in force and push the Germans back. A more sensible plan, the two generals explained, would be to build up forces on the flanks of the German salient at Stalingrad and then launch an encirclement operation, with pincers driving south and west to meet at the critical bridgehead at Kalach. The German 6th Army would be trapped and wiped out.
Time would be needed to build up the forces. The counteroffensive would jump off in November, after the arrival of winter weather that would provide the Red Army with a tactical advantage. In addition, although Stalin had been thoroughly unhappy to find out that Operation TORCH, the Anglo-
American invasion of North Africa, scheduled for November, had led his allies to suspend the Murmansk convoys following the current PQ 18 convoy due to demands on escort vessels.
Chuikov would be given only the minimal amount of men and material needed to allow him to hang on, keeping Hitler and the Wehrmacht fixated on Stalingrad. In fact, while Paulus would try to take Stalingrad with the equivalent of ten divisions during his attacks in September and October, Chuikov would only get five to defend the city. The Red Army was going to hold Stalingrad with one hand and use the other for a sucker punch.
Stalin liked the plan, telling the two generals: "No one except the three of us is to know about it." He approved the formal battle plan for Operation URANUS, as it was designated, on 28 September. * The northern pincer was to be built up around Serafimovich, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Kalach. The Don flowed almost due east there, with the town on the south bank of the river. Serafimovich had been defensible enough to keep it in Red Army hands during the German drive east over the past summer. The German line opposite Serafimovich was held by the Rumanian 3rd Army; the Rumanians were spread thin along their section of the line, and were poorly equipped and led anyway. Italian and Hungarian divisions held the line to the northwest. They were not in much better shape than the Rumanians and were unlikely to come to their aid.
The northern pincer would hinge on the southern suburbs of Stalingrad, along the Soviet defensive line on the west bank of the Volga to the south of the city. The target was elements of Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, and particularly the Rumanian 4th Army. The buildup was performed quietly, with troops and equipment sent forward in groups at night to help conceal the overall size of the effort. There's a story that when Zhukov saw a truck turn its lights on, he went up to it and shattered its headlights with a stick. True or not, Zhukov was a good planner and took a personal interest in checking up on things himself, sometimes seeming to be everywhere and making sure that things were done as he ordered them done.
Everything was hidden and camouflaged during the day. Since it was impossible to completely conceal that there were Red Army forces in the area, considerable effort was spent to build fortifications to suggest a defensive posture. Red Army troops, who had traditionally tended to be unnerved by German armor, were put through exercises where they were required to remain in their trenches and let tanks roll over the top of them.
* Although Stalin had caused repeated disasters in the first year of the conflict by refusing to take realities into consideration, he had largely learned his lesson, and was willing to be patient with the extensive preparations; in fact, he worried that there weren't enough resources for a successful counter-offensive. On 13 November, Zhukov and Vasilevsky went to Moscow to brief Stalin and reassure him. Zhukov later wrote: "We could tell he was pleased, because he puffed unhurriedly on his pipe, stroked his mustache, and listened to us without interrupting."
Koba had good reason to purr. A million men were ready to move forward; they would be supported by 900 tanks, over 13,000 artillery pieces, and over 1,100 aircraft. Forces would not be committed in bits and pieces this time.
On the other side of the coin, enough intelligence about Soviet activities behind the lines was coming in to make Hitler nervous, and on 10 November he ordered a panzer division into the area as
reinforcement. Weather and equipment breakdowns hobbled the movement, and only a portion of the panzer division made it there in time to meet the assault.
The word to go ahead was sent from Moscow: SEND A MESSENGER TO PICK UP FUR GLOVES. Soldiers of the Soviet Fifth Tank Army and Twenty-First Army, under Major General Nikolai
Vatutin, readied themselves to go forward in the dark hours of 19 November, and then 3,500 guns and Katyusha rocket launchers punched through falling snow and thick ground fog to give the Rumanian 3rd Army a memorable predawn wakeup call. Although in the past such barrages had usually been conducted all up and down the line, this time they were focused on important breakthrough sectors. Red Army troops began a push at 8:50 AM, and were soon followed by hundreds of tanks.
The Rumanians actually held their ground for a few hours, but they were completely outmatched and soon broke and ran in panic. The weather helped keep the Luftwaffe grounded, though it cleared enough by mid-morning to allow swarms of VVS Shturmoviks to add their weight to the attack, and
soon Vatutin's troops had torn a huge hole in the enemy line. Soviet troops poured through and moved rapidly southeast, with a stream of messages flowing out of Stalin's office prodding them on.
* The southern pincer, consisting of the Soviet Fifty-Seventh and Fifty-First Armies under the command of Major General Konstantin Rokossovsky and under the overall direction of Yeremenko, was to jump off the next morning, 20 November. The delay between the first and second assaults was intended to draw German reinforcements away from Yeremenko's lines. Yeremenko had protested that the delay was too short, and been overruled. He still held back as long as he could on the morning of 20 November until orders came in to move out, period.
Yeremenko's guns and rocket launchers began their bombardment at 10:00 AM. He was pleasantly pleased to find that the Rumanian 4th Army quickly crumbled under his attack. The advance was hazardous, since obstructions, including gullies and ravines that could swallow up a tank, could be almost invisible in the white-on-white conditions. A number of tankmen suffered broken arms and the like from being slammed around inside their vehicles in unexpected collisions with obstacles. It was so foggy in places that tank commanders had to try to steer by compass, but the Red Army was on a roll. The troops were cheerful, excited, and willing to put up with hardships. Wounded stuck in hospitals wrote home that they were upset that they were missing out on it -- though it should be remembered that they knew their mail was being read by security personnel.
The Germans, suffering from complacency plus command confusions caused by Hitler's attempts to control the front by remote control, were slow to react. The initial assumption was that these attacks were just more Soviet probes that would be quickly turned back. The scale of the attack and its objectives didn't start to become apparent until the morning of 21 November. If Paulus had been perceptive and prompt, he might have been able to defeat the Soviet encirclement operation by parts, focusing his armor on the southern pincer first and then turning on the northern pincer.
It didn't happen. The southern pincer counteroffensive moved rapidly northwest toward the bridge at Kalach, but the northern pincer reached the bridge first and captured it intact. Lieutenant Colonel Grigor Filippov used two captured German tanks to drive up to the bridge and then open fire on the guards, with T-34s following them up discreetly. The Germans knocked out two tanks that were still trying to cross the bridge, but Filippov radioed for help. His comrades weren't far away and arrived quickly, overwhelming the guards and securing the bridge.
The next day, 23 November, forward elements of the northern and southern pincers met each other about 48 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Kalach, firing off green signal flares to identify themselves, as well as celebrate a bit. Although the encirclement was now complete, the Germans were not inclined to sit idly by while they were cut off, and there was fierce fighting to consolidate the ring around Stalingrad. It was done by the end of the day. The Red Army had lost over 100,000 men in the operation, but inflicted about 95,000 casualties on the enemy and taken 72,000 prisoners.
[9.2] OPERATION WINTER STORM
* With the completion of the encirclement around Stalingrad, the Red Army had trapped about 300,000 enemy troops in Stalingrad. Paulus's complacency had vaporized. On 20 November, Paulus had radioed Berlin with a proposal for his forces to fall back to a defensive position. Hitler denied the request. On 22 November, Paulus asked for "freedom of action", requesting the right to break out of encirclement if the situation became dangerous enough. The word came down from the Fuehrer: REQUEST DENIED. On 23 November, when the situation was clearly becoming desperate, Paulus pleaded with Berlin for permission to pull out. A third time the answer came back: REQUEST DENIED. Paulus was informed that he would be kept resupplied by air.
Senior Luftwaffe officers were dumbfounded at the idea. The success of the airlift that had sustained the Demyansk pocket the winter before had suggested the same trick would work twice, but the German forces in the Demyansk pocket had been much smaller. The Luftwaffe didn't have the airlift capacity to keep 6th Army resupplied at the best of times, and the weather in the Stalingrad area was nasty even by Russian standards. However, in a meeting on 24 November, Reichsmarshal Goering assured Hitler that his Luftwaffe could do the job.
OKH had a new chief of staff, General Kurt Zeitzler, a hyperactive and round-built fellow nicknamed "General Lightning Ball" who had replaced Halder in September 1942. Zeitzler had been encouraging
the Fuehrer to approve a breakout. Zeitzler angrily protested Goering's proposal, detailing the large quantities of material that would need to be delivered just to keep 6th Army minimally supplied. Goering replied: "I can manage that."
Zeitzler was infuriated, firing back: "It's a lie!" It was, Goering's own staff having told him it was impossible. It made no difference. Hitler sided with Goering and the airlift went forward. Zeitzler was absolutely correct. Even on the best days, the Luftwaffe could only provide a fifth of the required tonnage. Worse, the Luftwaffe and the Army suffered from interservice rivalries, and the Luftwaffe refused to coordinate shipments of materials with Army quartermasters. Such supplies as were provided were often botched, with airlifts of such famously ridiculous items as large quantities of contraceptives, right shoes, and Christmas trees.
* Hitler did take more positive actions to deal with the crisis. On 20 November, he had created Army Group Don, under the command of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, which consisted of the encircled 6th Army; what was left of the Rumanian 3rd and 4th Armies; and most of Hoth's 4th Panzer army, which had been mostly deployed outside the Soviet encirclement. Due to the poor weather, Manstein had to take the train to his new assignment. He stopped to meet with Field Marshall von Kluge of Army Group Center, who warned him: "You will find it impossible to move any formation larger than a battalion without first referring back to the Fuehrer."
Manstein had no particular intention of giving much more weight to what the Fuehrer said than absolutely required. Manstein had sympathies with Naziism, supporting the harsh treatment of Jews in the occupied territories even though he had some Jewish ancestry himself, but he was no great
admirer of the top Nazis. In fact, Manstein had trained his pet dachshund to raise a paw when told: "Heil Hitler!"
More to the point, Hitler was back in Berlin while Manstein was on the front, with a battle to fight and an army to rescue. Manstein devised a plan for a breakout. He would perform a diversion towards Kalach, and then a corps of Hoth's 4th Panzer would drive northeast to punch a hole through the Soviet ring around Stalingrad. That done, Paulus would be sent a simple message --
"DONNERSCHLAG (THUNDERCLAP)" -- as the signal to Paulus to lead the 6th Army through the hole out of its trap.
* The diversion towards Kalach was spearheaded by the 11th Panzer Division under Major General Hermann Balck. Balck was a competent, energetic, and imaginative commander, and when his panzers ran into two Soviet tank brigades near State Farm #79 on 7 December, he conducted a brilliant two-day battle of deception and maneuver that all but wiped the Red armor out, along with their supply train. However, the Red Army was in the area in force and Balck soon found himself in a slugging match, forced to fight a battle of attrition that favored the Soviets. By nightfall on 9
December, the Red Army had destroyed half of 11th Panzer.
Still, the Soviets were distracted as planned. At dawn on 12 December, Hoth's push to relieve Stalingrad, codenamed Operation WINTER STORM, jumped off, led by the 6th Panzer Division, which had just been brought from France by train. For the first two days, the advance went well, though it was not a stroll in the park by any means. There was some resistance in the form of hit-and- run attacks by small groups of Soviet infantry by day and cavalry by night, with the attackers making use of the network of ravines that crisscrossed the landscape for concealment. The ravines also made the going difficult for German tanks.
There were two tributaries of the Don, the Aksai and the Mishkova, flowing roughly to the west that blocked the path of the drive. 6th Panzer reached the Aksai during 13 December and paused to allow the supply train to catch up. Having resupplied, the tankmen moved out towards the Mishkova -- and soon found themselves in a nasty fight with large numbers of Soviet tanks. Superior German skill and training prevailed and the Red Army was forced to fall back, but the Soviets remained in the area in force and continued to contest 6th Panzer's advance. The Germans didn't reach the Mishkova until 19 December. On the morning of 20 December Hoth reported to Manstein that 4th Panzer was prepared to begin one last push whenever Paulus felt ready to perform a breakout.
* By this time, Manstein was trying to deal with an unpleasant complication to his plans. The Red Army had obtained such excellent results with the attack on the Rumanian 3rd Army along the Don
that the Kremlin decided to give the 225,000 troops of the Italian 8th Army, further upstream along the Don, the same treatment. The plan was codenamed Operation SATURN.
The Italians were a soft target -- poorly trained, equipped, led, and motivated. Three full Soviet armies fell on them early on 16 December 1942 and sent them running to the rear in terror. In two weeks of fighting, the Red Army would drive deep through Axis lines and take about 60,000 Italians prisoner, only a fraction of whom would survive captivity. About half the Italians managed to escape, but the Italian 8th Army had ceased to exist. The Italians were mostly conscripts who had no enthusiasm for the Axis cause. When a whole battalion of Italian troops surrendered to the Red Army without offering any resistance, Soviet interrogators asked an Italian sergeant why they hadn't put up a fight. He replied, sensibly: "We didn't fire back because we thought it would be a mistake."
The Italians deserted in mass, some of them walking hundreds of kilometers west until they could jump on trains to carry them out of the war. The Germans, who had never regarded them as much of an asset in the first place, decided it would be more trouble than it would be worth to force them to fight, and charitably let them go. Many of the Italians died of exposure and starvation. Some
Ukrainian peasants took pity on them and took them in. Ukrainian peasants could somehow see Italian peasant boys in such desperate circumstances as not so different from their own sons. The collapse of the Italian Army in the East was yet another bitter tragedy flowing from Mussolini's foolish delusions of military glory, and another blow that would lead to his fall in the coming summer.