III.

The Soviet Counteroffensive

The Soviets raised fresh armies for a counteroffensive—known as Operation Uranus—which was launched on November 19, taking the Germans completely by surprise. The German advance to Stalingrad had added about 1,100 km (about 680 mi) to their line. No German troops were available to hold that extra distance, so Hitler had to use troops contributed by his allies, including Hungary, Italy, and Romania. Germany and its allies were known as the Axis powers.

While the Sixth and Fourth Panzer armies were tied down at Stalingrad in September and October 1942, they were flanked on the left and right by Romanian armies. An Italian and a Hungarian army were deployed farther upstream on the Don River. Trial maneuvers by the Red Army had exposed serious weaknesses in some of the Axis’s armies. The ill-equipped and ill-trained Hungarian, Italian, and Romanian armies guarding the German supply route to Stalingrad collapsed in chaos in the face of the Soviet counteroffensive.

On the morning of November 19, in snow and fog, Soviet armored spearheads hit the Romanians west and south of Stalingrad. Their points met three days later at Kalach on the Don. The Soviet forces had encircled the entire Sixth Army, about half of the Fourth Panzer Army, and a number of Romanian units, creating a pocket in which the Axis forces were trapped. Hitler ordered Paulus to hold the pocket, promised to supply his troops with food and ammunition by aircraft, and sent Field Marshal Erich von Manstein to organize a relief.

The airlift failed to provide the 300 tons of supplies that Paulus needed each day, despite assurances from Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring that the German air force could keep the Sixth Army adequately supplied by air. Soviet forces halted Manstein’s relief operation 55 km (34 mi) short of the pocket in late December. The Sixth Army began to run out of ammunition, fuel, and food.