All language subtitles for Soviet Storm WWII in the East Series 1 7of9 The Battle of Stalingrad 1080p.eng

Summer 1942. One year on
from Hitler s invasion.

The USSR has suffered enormous
losses but Moscow and Leningrad
have been saved.

Now the Red Army faces
the war s last great blitzkrieg,

which will carry the enemy to
the River Volga and the city of
Stalingrad.

Early on the morning
of 19th June 1942,

an unarmed German liaison plane
glided to earth near Red Army
positions.

There was no trail of smoke or
obvious reason for its
crash-landing.

When Soviet troops later
captured the aircraft,

they found a single bullet hole
though its petrol tank.

The pilot was killed in
the shoot-out that followed,

before he could destroy his
briefcase which contained top
secret documents.

Red Army soldiers grabbed the
prize and brought it back to
their trenches.

The dead German was
Major Reichel,

Head of Operations for the
German 23rd Panzer Division.

He was carrying plans for a
forthcoming operation codenamed
"Case Blue".

The offensive was
part of Hitler s plan

to capture the Soviet oil fields
in the Caucasus region.

Major Reichel s documents
revealed just a small part of
the operation.

And there was always the risk
that they were planted by the
Germans

to deliberately
mislead the enemy.

After examining the captured
papers, Stalin advised caution:

It is safe to assume that
similar plans have been
developed

for all the other fronts
as well, he wrote.

But Case Blue was for real. It
was launched by the Wehrmacht on
28th June, 1942.

Case Blue called for German Army
Group South to split into two
parts.

Army Group A was to attack the
Caucasus region and seize the
Soviet oil fields.

Army Group B, led by Paulus s
6th Army, was to advance
eastwards,

towards the Volga river and
Stalingrad, covering the advance
into the Caucasus.

The German columns dashed
towards Voronezh, Stalingrad,
and Rostov-on-Don.

Despite the warnings,
the Red Army s southern sector

hadn t received nearly enough
reinforcements to withstand the
impact.

Soon the Soviets were
in full retreat.

During a meeting of the Stavka
the Soviet High Command

Stalin turned to Front Commander
Timoshenko, and demanded:

Why does the Front Command not
know where its troops are? As
far as I recall,

there were 14 divisions in those
armies that s over 100,000
soldiers.

Timoshenko was removed
from command within days.

Vasily Gordov became
the new Front Commander.

But a new commander was not
enough to salvage the situation.

The army s retreat continued,

as one population centre
after another fell to the Nazis.

Soviet soldiers surrendered
in growing numbers.

Many of them went across to the
enemy, becoming the so called
Hiwis .

The term Hiwi came
from the German

Hilfswilliger meaning
those willing to help .

It referred to Soviet citizens,
including ex-soldiers,

who volunteered to help
the German armed forces.

They usually served in support
roles, such as drivers, medical
orderlies, or cooks.

As the Red Army retreat
continued, Stalin issued his
famous Order 227.

It gave birth to the famous
slogan, "Not a step back!"

The order read, All talk about
us having plenty of room in
which to retreat endlessly,

about our territory being vast,
our country being large and
rich,

our population numerous, and
there always being bread in
abundance

all this talk must
be eliminated.

We will not tolerate
any commander or commissar

who allows their unit to leave
its positions without
authorisation.

Panic-mongers and cowards must
be exterminated on the spot.

So-called "blocking detachments"
were created.

These units had orders to fire
on their own men if they tried
to retreat.

Many approved of the order. It
should have been issued
earlier ,

one Red Army soldier wrote.

If it had, we wouldn t have
given up our winter positions.

Many thought the Order would
prove impossible to enforce.

The blocking detachments were
rarely more than a few hundred
strong

and often made up of the
worst soldiers in the unit.

The 4 blocking detachments of
the 62nd Army totalled 650 men.

They were expected to enforce a
"no retreat" order on an army of
56,000 men.

In reality, blocking detachments
were only good for rounding up
malingerers

and sending them
back to the front.

But new slogans and blocking
detachments were not going to
stop the Wehrmacht.

In crowded railway stations
across the Soviet empire,

new recruits were ordered
aboard their railway transports.

From all corners of the land,
troop trains rolled towards the
river Don.

Meanwhile German troops were
continuing their advance on
Stalingrad.

The 6th Army had almost reached
the Don, but its commander was
uneasy.

Friedrich Paulus had served as
Chief of Staff in various army
divisions since 1935.

He d helped to plan Operation
Barbarossa, the German invasion
of the USSR.

When Field Marshal von
Reichenau, Commander of the 6th
Army,

died of natural causes,
Paulus was given command.

Paulus s superiors described him
as clever and talented,

but questions remained
about his decisiveness.

With his staff
officer background,

Paulus had more the air of a
civil servant than a general.

He was not lionised by his men,
as his predecessor von Reichenau
had been.

It was Paulus s lot to be
constantly compared to von
Reichenau,

much to his irritation.

The Sixth Army consisted
of 270.000 men,

3.400 guns and mortars, and 350
tanks, supported by 1,100
aircraft.

The Soviet Stalingrad Front
could muster 300.000 troops,

5.500 guns, 230 tanks
and 1.000 aircraft.

Although the Red Army
had a numerical superiority,

its forces had to cover
a front of more than 500 km.

Paulus, in contrast, could
gather his forces into a single
fist,

ready to smash east towards
Stalingrad and the Volga.

The Germans began their advance
across the Don steppe.

Here the Don river, running
north to south, comes very close
to the river Volga,

before turning south-west
to form a long bend.

Within that bend, the
Soviet armies dug in.

The steep Don river bank,
between 25 and 30 metres high,
made retreat difficult.

A German breakthrough
here could leave Soviet troops

trapped on the wrong side of
the river. For the Red Army,

to stand and fight
was the only option.

The German offensive at the Don
bend began on 17th July 1942.

The Germans anticipated
a rapid victory,

against an enemy they had
defeated many times already.

But stubborn resistance caused
the fighting to drag on for many
more days than expected.

This hold up threatened the
success of the entire German
summer offensive.

If Paulus s army didn t reach
Stalingrad, Army Group A moving
into the Caucasus

could easily become cut off
by Soviet counter-attacks.

Fourth Panzer Army,
under General Hoth,

now swung around to threaten
Stalingrad from the south.

The city named after Stalin was
becoming the centre of
attention.

Soon all the eyes of the world
would be upon it.

By the end of August 1942,
the German 6th Army

had wiped out Soviet
resistance west of the Don.

Red Army survivors were
retreating to the eastern bank
of the great river.

The Germans were only 60 km
from Stalingrad.

Meanwhile General Hoth s tanks
were approaching from the south.

Hoth s 150 kilometre
drive across the steppe

allowed him to unexpectedly
burst onto the enemy s flank.

Soviet troops in this area were
part of the South-Eastern Front,

commanded by General Yeryomenko.

Near a small railway station
south-west of Stalingrad,

they greeted advancing German
tanks with volley-fire from
Katyusha rocket launchers.

Yeryomenko reported
to the Stavka High Command:

Pilots whom I sent
to reconnoitre the battlefield

reported that the whole area is
on fire every bit of it was
burning.

I conclude that the Katyushas
made a lot of trouble there

Hoth s offensive was
stopped in its tracks.

This success led to Yeryomenko s
promotion. Soon he was
co-ordinating the actions

of the South-Eastern and
Stalingrad Fronts in the defence
of the city.

Meanwhile General Paulus s 6th
Army was preparing to cross the
river Don.

Early on the morning
of 21st August,

more than 200 German assault
boats were launched onto the
waters of the Don.

But the soldiers of the
Stalingrad Front were ready.

The Germans were met with heavy
fire. Dozens of boats were sunk.

But the Germans got ashore, and
established a beachhead on the
east bank of the Don.

Soon a pontoon bridge was up and
reinforcements flooded across.

The next stop was Stalingrad.

Stalingrad, known as Tsaristsyn
before the Revolution,

was one of the most beautiful
and well-planned cities in
pre-war Russia.

New factories attracted
many young people to the city.

In 15 years its population grew
from 85,000 to 450,000 people.

The Embankment, with its cafés,
cinemas and public gardens,

was considered the most elegant
along the whole of the Volga.

The population of Stalingrad
had not been evacuated promptly.

Only about 100,000 a fifth
had been evacuated by August.

At noon on 23rd August, panzers
of the 6th Army rolled towards
Stalingrad.

Above them roared the might of
Air Fleet 4, saluting the
soldiers with their sirens.

They were en route
to Stalingrad,

to unleash the heaviest bombing
campaign yet seen on the Eastern
Front.

When the air raid sirens
sounded, Many people assumed it
was a test.

Only when the sky became dark
with planes and anti-aircraft
batteries opened fire,

did people rush to the shelters.

Bombs rained down on the city.

Approximately 80% of buildings
were destroyed in the first day
of bombing.

Most of Stalingrad s suburbs
were built of wood.

Inside the city itself, there
were oil storage facilities and
timber yards.

The city was parched
by the August sun.

German incendiary bombs caused
the whole city to flare up like
gunpowder.

Rivers of burning oil and petrol
flowed towards the Volga.

First the surface of the water
and then the ships caught fire.

German Air Fleet 4, commanded
by General von Richthofen,

flew 1,500 missions
on 23rd August.

Its aircraft dropped 1,000
tonnes of bombs, and lost only 3
aircraft.

On that single day, an estimated
40,000 people died in
Stalingrad.

Most of the survivors
fled the city.

But some choose to stay,
and share the city s fate.

At about 4 pm Paulus s tanks
reached the Volga.

Approaching Stalingrad
from the north,

all the Germans could see
through their binoculars was
fire and smoke.

It seemed nothing could prevent
the Germans from entering the
burning city.

And yet, their attempt to take
Stalingrad in one swift assault
was bloodily repulsed.

What s more, infantry and
tanks of the Stalingrad Front

launched a series of
counterattacks from the north.

Two reserve armies
had also reached Stalingrad.

They were joined
by the two foremost strategists

of the Red Army, Marshall Zhukov
and Marshal Vasilevsky.

Zhukov told Stalin: Our swift
strike caused the enemy troops
to turn their forces away

from Stalingrad and direct them
against our grouping.

This eased the situation
at Stalingrad,

which otherwise
would have fallen to the enemy.

A lull of several days
followed the initial attack.

Stalingrad was half-encircled.

The 62nd and 64th Armies inside
the city were cut off from the
Stalingrad Front.

They could only be reinforced
and supplied across the Volga
river.

But the German position
was also far from ideal,

having to fend off
counterattacks from the north,
and from within Stalingrad
itself.

It had become clear that the Red
Army could never be forced out

of the ruins of the city, as
long as they received
reinforcements and supplies.

The original plan for Case Blue

had paid little attention
to the capture of Stalingrad.

Paulus s new orders were to
capture the city, destroy the
river crossings,

and then take up a defensive
position. From Stalingrad he
would protect

the flank of German forces
advancing into the Caucasus.

The taking of Stalingrad was
regarded as a matter of a few
weeks

by the German general staff.

But Paulus was less gung-ho
when he arrived to meet Hitler

in his headquarters
near Vinnitsa in Ukraine.

His 6th Army was far from the
force it had been just two
months before.

It had suffered heavy casualties
in the struggle at the Don.

And Paulus now had to send his
best divisions to defend a left
flank

that stretched all the way
from the Don to the Volga.

When Hitler asked him when he
would take Stalingrad, Paulus
answered:

I cannot predict the final date
in view of the state of our
troops,

as well as the strength of
Russian resistance. On the
contrary,

I must ask for reinforcement by
at least three good divisions.

Paulus s army got
its reinforcements.

Now Hitler expected Stalingrad
to be taken without delay.

The 62nd Army was the only
defence and hope for the city.

It had already been reduced to
about one sixth of its normal
strength.

There were only about
fifty tanks left.

Damaged tanks, immobilised
but still able to fire,

were dug in and turned
into fixed gun emplacements.

But the city would not hold out
for long without substantial
reinforcement.

On 9th September General
Rodimtsev s 13th Guards Rifle
Division

was despatched to the city.

Three days later,
General Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov

was put in command
of the 62nd Army.

At the outbreak of the
Russian Revolution,

Chuikov was a 17 year old naval
cadet at Kronstadt.

By 19, he was commanding a
regiment in the Russian Civil
War,

and was twice decorated with
the Order of the Red Banner.

Chuikov arrived at the 62nd
Army s Headquarters on 14th
September.

The same day the Germans began
an all-out assault on the city.

The German assault on Stalingrad
found a weak point in the Soviet
defences,

where the 112th Soviet Rifle
Division had once stood.

Its regiments had been reduced
from 2,500 soldiers each, to
less than 100.

Its artillery consisted of one
howitzer, and one gun, of 1902
vintage.

The Germans broke
through the decimated division

and captured the high ground
of Mamayev Kurgan.

Then they reached the Volga,
hoping to seize the central
river crossing.

If they had succeeded,
Stalingrad s fate would have
been sealed that same day.

Chuikov threw every
available man into the battle.

He had to buy time for
Rodimtsev s division to cross
the river.

Every man able to fire a gun was
despatched to the front line.

With the river at their backs,
and Chuikov s declaration that

There is no land for
us across the Volga!

every man knew this was
a fight to the death.

By now the Germans had gained
control of the southern part of
the city,

and had split Chuikov s 62nd
Army from General Shumilov s
64th Army.

The German capture of the city s
huge grain elevator was seen as
a turning point.

Paulus personally chose
the grain elevator

as the emblem
for his soldiers victory badge.

But German victory plans
were a little premature.

The Rodimtsev division prepared
to cross the river by night.

They had equipped themselves
for street fighting,

ditching long rifles in favour
of Submachine guns and anti-tank
rifles.

When German observers
spotted movement on the river,

they called in artillery fire,
smashing boats and men,

and causing many to drown.

The soldiers who reached the
shore were instantly plunged
into battle.

The Germans occupied
the high bank,

and had a perfect view of
Soviet soldiers as they landed.

The fighting was
soon hand-to-hand.

Men used bayonets, rifle
butts and entrenching tools.

In brutal, bloody fighting the
Soviets recaptured the
embankment and Mill 4,

which overlooked the
river crossings.

With the capture of this
position, the river crossings
were finally secure once more.

Rodimtsev succeeded in forcing
the Germans back and recapturing
the railway station.

His men regained Mamayev Kurgan
on 19th September.

The same day the Stavka High
Command ordered an attack by the
Stalingrad Front

to link up with the city s
defenders. It was repulsed by
the Germans.

But much needed German manpower
was drawn away from the fighting
in the city.

Fighting in the city raged for
two weeks with hardly any
respite.

On 27th September Paulu s
launched another assault.

Chuikov s task was to hold the
city and its industrial centres.

But the city was consuming his
men at a terrifying rate.

Those who survived for any
length of time learned new
tactics

for this ruined urban landscape.
Ironically it was the Germans,

by bombing the city to rubble
that had done most to undermine
their own tactics.

Tanks, the German
army s shock weapon,

quickly got stuck in the
mountains of broken bricks.

While from around every corner
they were pelted with Molotov
cocktails.

German bomb-aimers were finding
it more and more difficult to
spot targets in the city.

From the air, it was almost
impossible to distinguish
between Germans and Russians.

Nor were the Heinkel s
very accurate,

scattering their bombs over a
path of several hundred metres.

To further negate
German air superiority,

Chuikov ordered his men to
advance as close as possible to
the enemy lines.

The distance between Red Army
and German positions

was reduced to as
little as 10 metres.

This made it impossible
for Heinkels to bomb the enemy

without also hitting
their own troops.

The Germans turned to their
Junkers 87 dive bombers.

These aircraft were far more
accurate than the level bombers.

In the Battle of Stalingrad,
German dive bombers and their
crews

operated at the very limit
of their endurance.

One German pilot flew 228
missions in just 3 month at
Stalingrad

the same number he d flown in
his previous 3 years of service.

On Chuikov s orders, the
powerful long-range artillery of
the 62nd Army

remained on the east
bank of the Volga,

where it was less exposed
to German air raids.

Artillery spotters
remained in the city,

often working from
the top floors of buildings.

When they found a good target,
such as German troops massing
for an assault,

the spotter would use radio or
telephone to direct artillery
fire onto their position.

The city became an ideal
landscape for snipers from both
sides.

It became almost impossible to
move around the city except on
all fours.

Chuikov had ordered all
commanding officers to join
their men on the frontline,

in order to boost morale.

He also ordered the formation of
assault teams from the infantry
companies.

These were much
more efficient tactical units

for the savage street fighting
that had developed.

An assault team consisted of 20
to 30 of the most experienced
soldiers.

Their prime weapons were
submachine guns, grenades,

knives and Sharpened
entrenching tools.

Where possible the group was
supported by a light, mobile
antitank gun,

a tank, antitank riflemen,
or flame thrower teams.

It was up to the assault teams
to take on the most hazardous of
all operations

storming enemy-held buildings.

A favourite tactic was to blow a
hole in a side wall with the
anti-tank gun.

Several grenades were thrown in,

the soldiers charging in
in the wake of the blasts.

Basements were cleared with
flame throwers and more
grenades.

Before entering a room, a
soldier would throw a grenade in
first,

then come in spraying
from his submachine gun.

Some buildings were contested
floor by floor.

Soviet assault teams could be
on the ground floor,

with Germans defenders
above them,

and more Soviet troops fighting
their way down from the upper
floors.

Hand-to-hand fighting
became common in these battles.

It was an arena in which
Red Army soldiers seemed to hold

a psychological edge
over the Germans.

The Russian preference for
sharp-edged entrenching tools
terrified them.

Individual buildings
turned into fortresses,

with covering fire from the
surrounding buildings and
streets.

On the evening of 27th
September, Sergeant Yakov Pavlov

was ordered to lead a patrol
to the Consumer Union building,

a hundred meters in front
of the Red Army lines.

The building was
an ideal observation point.

Pavlov s men fought their way
through the building.

When the Germans realized their
loss they launched a furious
counterattack,

and were met with heavy fire.

The shattered wreck of the
Consumer Union building soon had
a new name.

Official reports and orders
began to call it Pavlov s
House .

Underground passages were dug,

connecting the house with a
neighbouring factory and block
of flats.

This allowed reinforcements to
reach the house under cover.

Loopholes were made
to provide firing positions.

And the approaches
were sewn with mines.

In one of the flats, Russian
soldiers found a gramophone

that had been left behind. But
only one record was still
intact.

They played it constantly, music
floating eerily across the ruins

during lulls in the fighting,
heard by friend and foe alike,

as the desperate struggle
for Pavlov s house went on.

Chuikov s 62nd Army headquarters
had moved to an open area

near some huge oil
storage tanks.

When German spotters found it,
the shells began to fall.

Both sides had assumed
the storage tanks were empty.

When they began to explode
into enormous fireballs,

it was a nasty shock
for everyone.

Rivers of burning oil gushed
towards Chuikov s headquarters.

By a miracle they escaped, but
their telephone lines were
incinerated.

Chuikov was cut off in this
hellish trap for three days.

General Yeryomenko,
on the east bank of the Volga,

did not know where Chuikov s
headquarters were,

or whether the general
was alive or dead.

At last, a message arrived
from Chuikov. It read,

We are at the spot where the
fire and smoke are thickest.

While 62nd Army Headquarters
looked for a new home,

the Germans were building the
pressure on the city s
defenders.

Into the cauldron was thrown
Major General Viktor Zholudev s
airborne division.

On 14th October the Germans
launched yet another offensive.

This time the goal was
the Tractor Factory.

Zholudev s division was tasked
to hold the position

against an attack by three
German infantry divisions and
two panzer divisions.

The Division Commander fought
with a submachine gun in his
hands,

side by side with
his paratroopers.

A fresh division was arriving at
the river crossing to reinforce
them,

but Zholudev s men had to hold
out until they got there.

The Germans next attacked
the Barrikady gun factory.

Only volley firing from
Katyushas on the far bank
stopped their advance.

But elsewhere on the front the
Germans had already reached the
Volga,

splitting the 62nd Army in half.

Nobody, not even Chuikov,
believed Stalingrad could be
held for much longer.

On 16th October, with the battle
raging just 300 metres from his
command post,

Liudnikov s 138th Rifle Division
crossed the river

and went straight into action
near the Barrikady factory.

At huge cost, the Germans
were repulsed once more.

From his own headquarters, Adolf
Hitler raged at the failure to
take Stalingrad.

The BBC said that Stalingrad
had swallowed up Hitler s Army.

Poland , it continued,
was occupied in 28 days.

During this same time period
the Germans only managed

to occupy a few buildings
in Stalingrad.

France was occupied in 38 days.
But in the same time period

the Germans have only managed to
cross the street in Stalingrad .

The Germans called the fighting
in Stalingrad the rat war .

Soldiers fought
at ranges of 10 or 20 metres.

The soldier who was fiercest,
most cunning, courageous,

determined to win at any cost,
this was the soldier that would
win this fight.

11th November. The Germans
reached the Volga near the
Barrikady factory,

encircled Liudnikov s division,
and split the 62nd Army into
three parts.

The 138th Division, or as it
became known, "Liudnikov s
Island",

clung onto an isolated position
200 metres from the Volga.

The river crossings used
to ferry Soviet troops

and supplies into the city were
under constant fire.

Now the Volga began to freeze,
and boats could no longer reach
the city.

The Red Army Air Force was
called in. An obsolete biplane
bomber,

the U-2, was called on
to attempt resupply by air.

Sacks of food and ammunition
were strapped on to the
aircraft s wing.

The ropes could be quickly
untied to let the cargo crash to
earth.

One pilot recalled, "The
navigator had a sort of reins ;

he pulled them and the load fell
to earth rather randomly.

However vodka was parachuted.

We used to slow down and shout:
Ivan! Vodka s coming!

But such basic
methods of resupply

could never meet all the needs
of the city s defenders.

Winter was coming. The Germans
believed that their frontline,

stretching from the Baltic to
the Volga, was secure. Their
allies the Hungarians,

Romanians and Italians were
responsible for holding the line
in the Don region.

The German Army High Command

did not seriously consider the
possibility of a Soviet
offensive in this region.

The Red Army was thought
to be on the brink of collapse.

But as early as September, Red
Army generals had been working
on a plan

that s goal was nothing less
than the complete destruction

of the German Sixth Army.

Soviet forces were to attack
towards the town of Kalach.

Armies of the Stalingrad Front
were to attack simultaneously

to complete the encirclement
of the Germans.

The operation was
codenamed Uranus .

Three separate Fronts were
involved the Don, the
South-Eastern and Stalingrad.

The operation was planned
in complete secrecy.

It was time to turn the tables
on the German army.

On the night of 18th November,
the eve of the assault,

a snowstorm dramatically
reduced visibility.

Stalin himself had noted, If
the bombing preparation is
insufficient,

the operation will fail.

It was completely impossible
to fly in these conditions.

The bombing raids were
cancelled. But it was too late
to postpone Uranus.

In the southern zone, troops
had already crossed the Volga.

On the morning of 19th November,
at ten minutes to nine,

the roar of thousands of guns
was only eclipsed

by the screams of
Katyusha rocket fire.

The shelling was done almost
blindly through the snowstorm.

But the Romanian troops
scattered under the first blows
of the Red Army.

The German 48th Panzer Corps
tried to launch a
counter-attack.

They met the attacking Soviet
forces head on near the village
of Ust-Medveditsky.

An enormous tank battle raged
for more than a day.

At its end, the German
panzer corps lay crushed.

One of its divisions had been
hindered by an unlikely foe.

While the division had been in
reserve with its vehicles
standing idle,

field mice had got inside the
vehicles and gnawed through the
electrical wiring.

This humble ally of the Red Army
had put dozens of tanks out of
action.

The Red Army assault south of
Stalingrad began the next day.

The poorly-trained and
ill-equipped Romanian 4th Army

scattered in the face of
a massed Soviet tank assault.

Troops from two Soviet fronts
were approaching from north and
south

to meet at the River Don.

The severe weather
slowed their advance.

No local guides could be found
in the villages, all of which
lay abandoned.

At dusk on 22nd November, a
detachment of 2 motorized
infantry companies, five tanks

and one armoured vehicle
approached the bridge near the
town of Kalach.

The capture of this bridge was
critical to the success of the
whole Operation.

The German guards on the bridge
couldn t believe enemy tanks

could be so far
behind the frontline.

By the time they realised their
mistake, it was too late.

The capture of the bridge
allowed the Red Army to move
large numbers of troops

across the Don, to link up with
Yeriomenko s tanks coming from
the south.

On the fourth day of
Operation Uranus,

units of the Stalingrad Front
met troops of the South-Eastern
Front

near the town of Sovetskiy.
The trap was sprung

Paulus s Sixth Army
was surrounded.

But the act of encirclement
alone wasn t enough to guarantee
victory.

There was no panic amongst the
German forces that were now
cut-off.

Hitler told Paulus: The army
can rely on my taking every step

to provide it with everything it
needs, and to end its blockade.

The surrounded German troops
were ordered to hold their
positions and wait for rescue.

But when a meeting was convened
of the Sixth Army corps
commanders,

most wanted to
attempt a breakout.

It was General Erwin Jaenecke
who gave vent to what many were
thinking

Reichenau wouldn t have hung
about." Paulus instantly
retorted,

I m not Reichenau!
Paulus prevailed.

Sixth Army would take up
defensive positions,

and await a relief attempt
from the outside.

Field Marshall Von Manstein was
given the job of rescuing Sixth
Army

from its predicament. He quickly
gathered all available forces
for the offensive,

which was to be led
by four panzer divisions.

The operation was
codenamed Winter Storm .

Not for nothing was
Von Manstein regarded

as the best operational mind
in the Third Reich.

He won the first round of the
fight, launching his attack

not in the obvious place where
the German lines were closest
together,

but from the south-west.

Von Manstein s panzers burst
through the perimeter of the
Soviet encirclement.

The Red Army had been
caught off-guard.

Stalin, alarmed that the prey
might be about to escape the
trap,

immediately ordered Soviet
reserves to counter this new
threat.

But troop movements across this
frozen, devastated landscape
were no simple task.

One unit reported that the
trains could not keep up steam.

Motor transport was useless
for lack of fuel.

Communications with units
moving on foot was difficult.

For the time being, Von
Mantstein s attack would have to
be resisted

by whatever troops
lay in its path.

These scattered and often
isolated Red Army units

fought desperately to keep
the Germans at bay.

The whole course of the Battle
of Stalingrad lay in the
balance.

General Schulz, Von Manstein s
Chief of Staff, tried to
persuade Paulus

to fight his way out of
Stalingrad, towards von
Manstein s forces.

The earlier your attack starts,
the better ,

Schulz told him.
We cannot wait

But Paulus was no longer sure
his troops were capable of
fighting their way out.

He grew increasingly
pessimistic, as Von Mansterin s
troops were first stopped,

and then forced into retreat.

Hitler had hoped that the
Luftwaffe could keep Paulus s
men resupplied from the air.

But it was unfeasible. Paulus
and Sixth Army were doomed.

The operation to eradicate
German resistance in Stalingrad
was codenamed Ring .

Before it began, Paulus received
an ultimatum demanding his
surrender.

It was declined on
Hitler s orders.

The Red Army also appealed
directly to ordinary German
soldiers to surrender.

Red Army Air Force Pilot
Liashenko had the unenviable job

of flying his U-2 at low
altitude over the front lines,
while his navigator Ovsishcher

read an ultimatum to the German
soldiers through a loudspeaker.

They often came under heavy fire
from the ground.

Lee-shenko would climb out of
range and repeat the whole
process

somewhere else fifteen
minutes later.

Some German soldiers believed
they would get food and warmth
if they surrendered.

Others feared reprisals. Many
were scared to disobey orders.

Military discipline was
maintained within Stalingrad.

Deserters and thieves were still
shot wherever they were caught.

Operation Ring began on the 10th
January with an intense
artillery bombardment.

The German pocket was
about 60 by 40 kilometers.

Now the Germans were driven east
to the Volga, and into
Stalingrad.

Four days into the operation,
the Germans were forced

to abandon their main airfield
at Pitomnik. This was a
disaster.

Fights broke out over places on
the last German aircraft to
leave.

The wounded were forgotten. The
most deserving were elbowed
aside.

The only supplies that reached
Paulus s army now arrived by
parachute.

Many soldiers had fallen into
complete apathy, numbed by cold
and hunger,

only brought to life by the
sound of a transport aircraft
overhead.

Food had become
their only concern.

On 24th January, Paulus sent a
radio message to Hitler, which
ended with the words:

The Army requests permission
to surrender immediately

in order to save the lives
of the remaining troops.

The Fuehrer was adamant: I
forbid capitulation . He
replied.

The Army will hold its
positions until the last soldier
and the last ditch.

The Soviet advance had split the
German pocket into two parts:

the southern part was trapped
in the heart of the city

the northern lay in
the factory district.

Paulus s headquarters was
in the southern pocket.

The suffering of his men finally
forced him to act.

He surrendered on the morning
of 31st January with his staff.

The northern group under
Lieutenant General Karl Strecker
fought on, briefly.

After a massive Soviet
artillery pounding

they too laid down their arms
on the 2nd February, 1943.

The final surrender
at Stalingrad

resulted in 91,000 German
soldiers being taken prisoner.

They had destroyed 6,000 guns
and mortars, 1,000 German tanks,

and more than 60,000
assorted vehicles.

The disaster that had overtaken
Paulus s army and 2 Romanian
armies stunned Germany.

It was their first major defeat
at Soviet hands.

On the Eastern Front, the Stavka
High Command launched a
full-scale offensive

that routed Italian and
Hungarian armies along the Don
River.

German forces began a headlong
retreat from the Caucasus to
avoid being cut-off.

Hitler would never reach
the oilfields of Baku.

All of Germany s conquests in
the south that summer were
reversed.

The Soviet winter offensive
stopped only in March 1943.

Amongst the many towns and
cities liberated by the Red Army
was the city of Kursk.

It was there that the war s next
great battle would be fought.