The pro-German narrative says that the Germans
didn’t really have any problems (except
logistical) until they got into the city of
Stalingrad. Only when they entered the urban
area did they lose their amazing Blitzkrieg
capabilities, and got ground down by attritional
fighting. Thus, it’s Paulus’s fault for
entering the city, or madman Hitler’s fault
as well for wanting to go there in the first
place. Yet, on the eve of the city-fight at
Stalingrad, the German statistics show a different
story.
Here are 6th Army’s divisions at this time,
and they should have had 123 infantry or panzergrenadier
battalions. I’d like to point out that this
doesn’t include their engineer, or signals,
or reconnaissance, or panzerjäger battalions,
nor their artillery regiments and other supporting
units. This is purely the infantry and panzergrenadier
battalions that were part of their infantry
or panzergrenadier regiments.
But even though this isn’t a complete picture,
it’s very revealing.
On the 17th of August 1942, this is the number
of battalions that these formations actually
had. Excluding 22nd Panzer Division, they
should have had 117 battalions, and they were
down to 104. So they had lost 13 battalions
at this point, meaning they were down to 84.5%
of the total battalions that they should have
had (excluding 22nd Panzer).
Not too bad. However these 104 battalions
aren’t at full strength.
Many of them were only at 40 or 50% of their
combat or fighting strength. Some were doing
better than others - Wietersheim’s Corps
with the 3rd and 60th Motorized and 16th Panzer
Divisions (the top three divisions here) had
panzergrenadier battalions at around 65% in
strength. But, notice that the number of panzergrenadier
battalions in 3rd Motorized and 16th Panzer
Divisions has decreased. They’re now at
4 each. So the high percentages are only there
because they’d condensed their men into
fewer battalions. If they’d still had 6
battalions, that percentage would drop significantly.
So really, 60th Motorized Division is the
stronger of the three divisions in terms of
panzergrenadier battalions. Which is interesting
because Wietersheim decided to use his two
weaker divisions to lead the corps to the
Don. Yes, 16th Panzer Division should probably
go first because it has the most panzers,
but why follow it up with the weaker of the
two motorized divisions - 3rd Motorized Division?
Why not the healthier 60th Motorized Division?
An interesting question to ask.
And looking at the other divisions, we see
some more interesting figures. 71st and 376th
Infantry Divisions had infantry battalions
as low as 31%. But at least they had their
full number of battalions, even if they were
all weak. By contrast, 100th Jäger Division
(not including the Croatian Legion) had not
only decreased the number of jäger battalions
they had from 6 to 4, but those 4 now had
an average combat strength of just 28%. And
the unit attached to 100th Jäger Division
- the Croatian Legion Regiment - was at 70%
strength, but that’s only because it had
reduced the number of battalions from 3 to
1. So this division was battered. It was by
far the weakest division in 6th Army at this
point. It had suffered horribly during the
battles for the Don Bend and Kalach - the
battles we’ve just witnessed. So just by
looking at these numbers, it’s clear that
the Axis didn’t have a nice easy stroll
through the steppe on their way to Stalingrad
and then only started losing once they were
in the city. No, they were already suffering
outside the city. That old narrative is now
both dead and buried.
Alright, but there’s something else going
on here as well. Let’s take a look at the
number of battalions on the 24th of August
1942. The 105 battalion figure is slightly
misleading because we now have an extra three
battalions from 22nd Panzer Division, which
we didn’t have before. So, if the number
of battalions had remained the same, they
should have been at 107 battalions. But they’re
not at 107, they’re at 105, meaning they’ve
lost two battalions. And that’s true: the
376th Infantry Division is down by one battalion,
and the 100th Jäger Division is down by another
battalion as well. All the rest are the same.
Also, 100th Jäger Division’s strength is
now at 44%, but that’s only because it’s
reduced the number of battalions from 4 to
3, not because it’s received reinforcements.
Some divisions did receive reinforcements
though. 44th, 71st, 76th, 79th and 113th Infantry
Divisions all got a boost to the strength
of their battalions. However, many of the
other divisions were losing strength faster
than the reinforcements could replenish them.
And, looking to the future slightly, it was
Seydlitz’s 51st Army Corps that would go
into the city of Stalingrad first in order
to try and take it on the march. Well, which
divisions did he take into the city? He took
the 71st, 295th and 389th Infantry Divisions.
As we can see, 71st and 389th Infantry Divisions
were at their full complement of 9 battalions
each, but were at 36% and 32% strength respectively.
And the 295th Infantry Division’s battalions
were at 65% strength, but that’s only because
it had 7 battalions, not 9. So this was a
pretty weak force to be sending into Stalingrad
in the initial attack where you’re hoping
to take the city in one decisive strike.
If you’re trying to take Stalingrad in one
decisive strike, why not swap these depleted
divisions for some of the better divisions,
like the 44th, 76th or 79th Infantry Divisions?
Surely, if your priority is to take Stalingrad
on the march in one decisive strike, then
using your best divisions would make the most
sense. And this was, indeed, the argument
made in the post-war narrative - that the
6th Army’s best units sat on the Don, while
the weaker units went into the city.
And there’s some merit to this argument.
They could have easily swapped these divisions
out. 44th Infantry Division, for example,
had marched north to take over 60th Motorized
Division’s position along the Don prior
to the crossing of the Don. So 44th Infantry
Division could have relieved, say, the 295th
Infantry Division, which in turn could have
relieved 60th Motorized Division, and then
we would have seen 44th Infantry Division
crossing the Don and marching into Stalingrad.
That option was there. And yet, Paulus didn’t
take that option.
In fact, I was going to conclude that 6th
Army sent in its weakest units into the fight,
probably because Paulus didn’t want to sacrifice
his best units in the city, which may have
been the case. That was until Anton Joly pointed
out that - all of 6th Army’s units were
weak, and the difference between the best
and the worst units wasn’t actually that
much. The 6th Army deemed that most of its
divisions were only “suitable for limited
offensive tasks” anyway, so the differences
between the divisions wasn’t that substantial.
We should also remind ourselves that, at this
stage, Paulus expected the city to fall rapidly,
and so, from his point of view, it probably
didn’t matter which depleted units he used
for this attack. Arguably Paulus may not have
wanted to commit the best of his weak divisions
into the city and get them chewed up in urban
warfare. And he was worried about his northern
flank. But the differences were so small that
it could also be argued that none of these
reasons factored into the decision.
Whichever view you take, the most important
thing to note is that the divisions in the
6th Army were already depleted before they
got into the city fighting. And, for various
reasons, in the initial stages of the attack,
Paulus was sending in some pretty weak units
to take the city of Stalingrad. This fact
alone undermines the narrative that the Germans
had an easy ride up until they got into the
city, and it underlines the significance of
the fighting outside the city, which has been
neglected for too long.
As the Soviets counter-attacked the Germans
in the Kotluban region, to the west, 11th
Army Corps was still under pressure from Moskalenko’s
1st Guards Army. The Germans had to commit
two separate panzer detachments, as well as
the 22nd Panzer Division to halt the ongoing
Soviet attack.
And even further west, the 812th Rifle Regiment
of 304th Rifle Division moved across the Don
to the eastern flank of the 14th Guards Rifle
Division. Reacting to this, the ‘Savoy’
Cavalry Regiment counter-attacked this new
unit, causing heavy casualties on the Soviet
riflemen. The Soviets also claimed to have
killed 500 Italians in this action. But this
claim is clearly an exaggeration, because
the Italians had only lost 120 killed and
wounded by the 1st of September (in seven
days' time). In contrast, by the 1st of September,
the 304th Rifle Division had lost 94 killed,
351 wounded and 603 missing, indicating that
the Soviet side were the losers of this engagement.
And it’s worth pointing out that, as this
battle shows, Italian formations were not
necessarily the ‘pushovers’ that some
have claimed they were. In the right circumstances,
they could be quite effective, and could hold
their own. And so it’s worth bearing this
in mind as we move forward.
Worrying though for the Axis, the Germans
detected Pliev’s 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps,
which had begun to cross over the river. This
fresh commitment of forces had the potential
to overwhelm Axis units in the area, and Pliev
would be ready to launch his attack on the
next day - the 25th. Would the Axis be able
to react in time?
To the south, in the morning, the 71st Infantry
Regiment, supported by the 129th Panzer Battalion,
attacked the railway line between the 74km
and Tinguta Railway Stations. Meeting little
resistance, they easily captured the area
by mid-morning. With that mission fulfilled,
Fremerey’s units in this area were ordered
to move east to join the rest of the division’s
units in the lake-area, where they could guard
the army’s right flank. This would relieve
elements of the 24th Panzer Division, allowing
them to move north and also rejoin the bulk
of their division.
The Romanians also seem to have been attacking,
although details are scarce. Chuikov says
he was sent out by Shumilov to see what was
happening around Ivanovka. He drove from there
towards Vasilyevka, when he and his driver
suddenly found themselves in no man’s land
and being shot at by the enemy. Now, Chuikov
says they were Germans, but unless he has
the date wrong, it’s most likely that it
was Romanian troops who were firing at him.
Either way, they missed, and Chuikov managed
to get back to his own lines. However, he
happened to be wearing a non-Soviet coat,
and the riflemen of the 157th Rifle Division
looked upon him suspiciously.
“...had I not spoken to them in colloquial
Russian, we would probably have been met with
hand grenades, and my raincoat would have
been riddled with machine-gun bullets.”
After this, Chuikov helped direct the division’s
artillery, which scattered the Romanians moving
in the area. And, with the help of Kuropatenko,
a counter-attack was organized, and the Soviets
managed to retake the villages of Vasilyevka
and Kapkinskiy.
Otherwise not much happened in the south.
And this is understandable since both sides
had their problems. By this point some of
the Soviet units were in such a terrible state
that they were no longer combat worthy. As
Falk describes in his book “The 64th Army
at Stalingrad”, between the 126th and 29th
Rifle Divisions, was the Siberian 208th Rifle
Division. Battered by its previous combat,
and still in the line, this division was down
to just 502 men. It had no mortars or artillery
either, since they’d all been lost, and
only 6 anti-tank guns left. Well, as the Axis
assaulted their lines on this day, it was
decided to reinforce the 126th Rifle Division
with two cadet schools, a Guards Mortar Regiment,
and allow the division to absorb the remaining
troops of the 208th Rifle Division. The 208th
wouldn’t formally disband until November,
but for all intents and purposes, it now ceased
to exist.
Let’s just remind ourselves that the 208th
Rifle Division had only entered combat on
the 2nd of August 1942, after having many
of its troop trains blown up by Stuka attacks
as the division made its way to the battlefield.
It was disbanded in practice on the 24th of
August 1942. So, it had lasted 22 days - a
testament to the ferocious fighting that we’ve
witnessed so far.
But, of course, this battle has barely begun.
In fact, Hoth was now planning a new attack
in which he hoped to finally reach the city
of Stalingrad, which we still haven’t got
to yet. The aim of this new attack, which
would begin on the next day (the 25th of August),
was to occupy the high ground north-east of
Ivanovka, in order to allow a subsequent thrust
northwest towards Paulus’s army. So, to
give as much support to this attack as possible,
the 371st Infantry Division was pulled out
of the line and sent north, followed shortly
by the 94th Infantry Division. Also, as preparation
for this, Hauenschild reorganized his division.
The 24th Schützen Brigade was now in command
of the division’s two panzergrenadier regiments,
while 24th Panzer Regiment (with 85 panzers
at this time) was allowed to operate independently.
The 243rd Sturmgeschütz Battalion was also
in support of Hauenschild’s division, but
even with this help, it was clear that the
24th Panzer Division wouldn’t be able to
advance until Heim’s 14th Panzer Division
had attacked first and moved up to where 24th
Panzer Division was. So Heim would attack
first at 0500 hours, once elements of the
371st Infantry Division had moved into the
line and freed up Heim’s units.
Kempf had about 160 tanks (plus more tank
destroyers and StuGs) in 14th and 24th Panzer
Divisions. And what’s worth noting is that,
not only was there an ammunition shortage
at this time, but there was a shortage of
practically everything.
“Urgently necessary: lubricant, grease,
tyres, supply of panzer engines, general replacement
parts for new type vehicles, suspension springs,
bolts and nuts.”
Still, the Germans had more tanks than their
enemy. At this point, 13th Tank Corps had
just thirty-seven tanks. And while there were
some other depleted tank brigades in the area,
many of the Soviet tanks had actually been
transported half-complete from Stalingrad,
and were without engines. But even so, the
general lack of tanks on the German side was
going to be a problem, since they were the
ones who were attacking.
With the Germans bogged down in the Stalingrad
region, and in the Caucasus, and with Fall
Blau unravelling before their eyes, tensions
were high at the Führer’s headquarters.
Soviet troops were currently launching unceasing
attacks at Rzhev, and Halder now advised Hitler
to have the 9th Army fall back to a more defensive
line.
“You always come here with the same proposal,
that of withdrawal! I demand from the leadership
the same toughness as from the front-line
soldiers.”
“I have the toughness, my Führer. But out
there brave musketeers and lieutenants are
falling in thousands and thousands as useless
sacrifice in a hopeless situation simply because
their commanders are not allowed to make the
only reasonable decision, and have their hands
tied behind their backs.”
“What can you, who sat in the same swivel
stool in the First World War... tell me about
the troops, Herr Halder. You who don’t even
wear the black insignia of the wounded.”
Halder later sulked into his diary -
“Führer situation conference: Sharp clash
over interpretation of the situation at Rzhev,
where I perceive a distinct danger of attrition
for our forces.”
So yes, things weren’t going well in Hitler’s
court. But the situation wasn’t much better
on the Soviet side. At 2100 hours on the 24th
of August 1942, Khrushchev, Chuyanov, Malyshev
and Vasilevskii watched as Eremenko sent his
daily report of the situation to Moscow. The
previous evening, Vasilevskii had only managed
to send two short reports to Stalin, who hadn’t
taken them so well. Now he was about to get
the full report. And at 2300 hours, each of
these men grimly added their signatures to
the report, which was then sent to Moscow.
Now earlier in the day, Lopatin had asked
both Eremenko and the Red Army General Staff
if he could withdraw. And having not got a
reply, at midnight he sent in his own report,
in which he once again asked if he could withdraw.
Well, Stalin (who always worked late into
the night) read Lopatin’s report, and agreed
with it. So he told Vasilevskii that Lopatin
should withdraw to the K defensive line. The
problem was that Eremenko and Vasilevskii
were slow to reply to Lopatin, and had previously
issued orders for a counter-attack, prompted
by Stalin’s earlier messages. So having
still not got a message from Eremenko or Vasilevskii,
in the end Lopatin decided to just follow
his previous orders, and reported to Eremenko
that he was going to try to conduct another
counter-attack.
Stalin also read this new report, and was
angry that one of his army commanders had
no clear instructions from above and couldn’t
decide what to do. Stalin therefore turned
his criticism to Eremenko and Vasilevsky - arguing
that they had failed to establish a decent
defence, and that their badly conducted counterattacks
had done little more than waste their forces.
Since they couldn’t decide what to do, Stalin
decided for them, and ordered Eremenko to
counter-attack once again. The point is that
at this moment the Soviet commanders were
confused, indecisive, and were issuing conflicting
orders. They’d lost both command and control
of the situation.
And despite the lack of tanks, Hoth’s attack
had just begun. Kempf’s force advanced towards
Solianka and Ivanovka, with Heim starting
first as previously agreed. However, what
Hoth and Kempf hadn’t realized was that
they were now striking into the positions
of the next line of defenses - the Stalingrad
‘K’ defensive line.
“The ‘K’ line occupied the dominant
hilly terrain and contained extensive mine
fields, entrenched AT and machine guns, bunker
positions, and strong field fortifications.
Determined Russian infantry formations were
occupying these positions and backing them
up were numerous artillery units.”
It was no wonder that, by 0805 hours, 14th
Panzer Division was reporting -
“Heavy combat with enemy tanks at [Hills]
107.4 - 115.8. All Panzer IV long [barrels]
knocked out, all panzers except 5 are knocked
out. 24. Panzer-Division staying to cover
the flank to the west. Advisable for 24. Panzer-Division
to continue further to the north.”
Clearly, this wasn’t a good start to Hoth’s
new attack.
Because 14th Panzer Division had met tough
Soviet resistance, 24th Panzer Division began
its advance earlier than expected, slicing
between the 422nd and 244th Rifle Divisions
of 57th Army. But they also became bogged
down in minefields as Soviet artillery blasted
them from all directions. Eventually they
did get through the mines, and 14th Panzer
Division did catch up to them, however their
advance didn’t go very far and was stalled
in the face of stubborn Soviet resistance.
“During our advance on Stalingrad, my tank
had been knocked out by the Russians five
times… We were hit, it sounded as if you
were inside a bell that got hit with a hammer,
and I didn’t know what to do. Five lives
were at stake. In a short moment… I yelled
into my throat microphone: >Out! Out!< … because
we had been hit in the turret… Except for
the driver, we all made it out of the tank
and were lying behind it on the safe side
of the tank. Then they hit the tank a second
time. Three of the crew members and myself
survived. The driver had died.”
At 1410 hours, Hauenschild told 48th Panzer
Corps -
“Bulk of Division in hard fighting... This
combat is extremely bitter and costly and
will continue the entire day. Panzer Regiment
still has 13 panzers. One Russian tank was
hit 10 times without success, 3 were shot
up, 2 others withdrew on fire.”
Also interesting is this -
“The grenadiers were amazed to discover
that some of the enemy units employed here
wore First World War uniforms.”
Heavy casualties, the loss of many of their
panzers, and Soviet counterattacks (with 12
tanks from 6th Tank Brigade in support) persuaded
Hauenschild that the attack was doomed. After
a conversation with Hauenschild that evening,
Hoth called off his entire offensive.
And this is definitely worth emphasising:
Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army had failed to go
anywhere, and Shumilov’s and Tolbukhin’s
armies had successfully defended against them.
So let’s just zoom out and look at the bigger
picture for a moment. From the German perspective,
it’s hard to ignore the fact that, in this
first attack on the city of Stalingrad, it
was Hoth who let the side down. Compared to
Paulus’s 6th Army, 4th Panzer Army had achieved
very little in the past few weeks, and that
was despite receiving additional forces (including
one panzer division) from the 6th Army. And
yet, in the books, we don’t hear much criticism
of Hoth. When Paulus makes a mistake, he gets
called ‘weak’, ‘cautious’ and ‘indecisive’.
And yet, he was the first to get to the city
of Stalingrad. And up to this moment, Paulus
had done more damage to the Soviets, and had
taken more ground, and was dealing with more
issues, and a longer front, with more divisions
under his belt, than Hoth was doing. And yet
it was Hoth who fails to go anywhere. But,
where’s the criticism of Hoth? Where’s
the harsh accusations of weakness, just like
with Paulus? There isn’t any, or very little.
The obvious conclusion is that: the neglect
of the fighting outside the city in the July
and August period results in authors missing
this crucial development in the south, shifting
the blame to Paulus, rather than to Hoth,
who certainly deserves some of the criticism
too. It’s not hard to imagine that things
could have been different had Hoth broken
through to the north on the 24th or 25th of
August, racing into the rear areas of 62nd
and 64th Armies. This could have been a disaster
for the Soviets outside the city, and may
have meant less forces inside the city, allowing
the Axis to take it on the march. Obviously
there’s no way to know if that would have
happened or not, but the point is that it
wasn’t Paulus who failed here - it was Hoth.
And by the same token, Shumilov and the Soviets
really deserve the bulk of the credit for
this. Shumilov and his army did the majority
of the work, and successfully stopped Hoth
in his tracks. Chuikov gets praise later for
his defence of Stalingrad - and that’s fine
- but up until this moment, Shumilov is really
the one Soviet commander who seems to have
kept his own army in control, and probably
the only one who was able to check the Axis
forces that he faced. Even Chuikov had failed
to do that when he was in command of 64th
Army earlier in the battle.
“64th Army’s forces around Abganerovo
managed to keep the situation under control…
Within the confines of the manoeuvre battle
between the Don and the Volga the enemy’s
advance, in three weeks of back-and-forth
fighting around a railway siding in the middle
of the steppe, was minimal.”
Of course, Tolbukhin gets some praise as well
-
“They did not know it at the time, but a
significant defensive victory had just been
won by forces under the command of General
Shumilov and General F. I. Tolbukhin of the
57th Army. They had successfully stopped the
major German advance from the south.”
And obviously the heroism (and in some cases:
desperation) of the Soviet troops fighting
to hold the line deserves praise too. But
really, Shumilov is probably the man of the
hour here. Still, Hoth does seem to have learnt
from his mistakes. Speaking to his Chief-of-Staff,
Oberst Fangohr, Hoth said -
“We have to approach the matter in a different
way, Fangohr. We’re bleeding ourselves in
front of these damned hills, it’s no battlefield
for panzer units. We must regroup and attack
at a completely different spot far from here.”
And, indeed, they would do so.
To the west on the 25th of August, the situation
was rapidly deteriorating for the Axis. Under
attacks by the 304th Rifle, and the 5th and
6th Guards Cavalry Divisions, the Italians
were either forced back, or decided to withdraw
(it’s not clear which). Either way, this
annoyed the Germans and soured relations between
the Italians and the 17th Army Corps. There
was now a 20 kilometer-wide gap in the line,
which the Germans were rushing to fill. The
town of Serafimovich - which had been fought
over for weeks - was now abandoned to the
Soviets, freeing up units to go west. The
gap was partially filled and the situation
‘stabilized’ for the day. But it wasn’t
the Axis that had stopped the Soviets. What’s
interesting is that it was at this very moment
that Kutznetsov decided to halt his attacks
and consolidate his positions. It’s not
clear why this decision was made, but it allowed
additional reinforcements to arrive.
6th Army’s only real reserve in the area
was the 22nd Panzer Division. This was a pretty
interesting division, equipped with Czech
tanks, and would play an important role later
in the battle of Stalingrad. For now though,
its task was to protect the Don flank, and
Hitler himself ordered it to plug the gap
between the Italian and German armies. 22nd
Panzer Division therefore began to pull itself
out of the line and started riding west to
fulfill its duty.
This left 11th Army Corps to deal with the
Soviets in their area, which, in the evening,
struck at the German and Croatian lines. One
company of the Croatian Legion panicked and
fled, leaving behind some heavy equipment
and abandoning a hill they had occupied. The
Croatians, supported by the 227th Jäger Regiment
and two StuGs from the 177th Sturmgeschutz
Battalion, managed to retake the hill by dawn,
after an overnight struggle, and the situation
was stabilized for now.
But north of Kalach on the 25th of August,
51st Army Corps’s 71st Infantry Division
assaulted across the Don River, suffering
32 men killed, and 153 wounded over the course
of the day. But this forced 62nd Army’s
399th and 131st Rifle Divisions to fall back,
and the German division was now firmly across
the river. Reacting to this, Lopatin asked
Eremenko if he could withdraw his left wing
to the Rossoshka River. But Eremenko, preparing
the Kovalenko and Shtevnev counter-attacks,
denied Lopatin’s request.
And he was probably right to do so, since
Stalin was still frustrated with both Eremenko
and Lopatin for the failure of their previous
counter attacks, and authorizing another withdrawal
was probably the wrong political move. Somehow,
both generals managed to sooth Stalin’s
temper by the mid-afternoon, and at 1500 hours
Stalin sent another message saying, if Lopatin
thought it could succeed, then he would support
him in that next attack.
“...I propose to help him fulfill that decision.
In this regard our morning directive concerning
the withdrawal of 62nd and 64th Armies cannot
be considered obligatory.”
So, supported by 270 sorties from the 8th
Air Army, Eremenko’s forces attempted to
smash the Germans in their northern pockets.
However, 270 sorties were simply not enough
to combat German air superiority, and the
fact that Wietersheim’s men were trapped
in a pocket, caused Richthofen to shift the
focus of his attacks. He diverted forces from
the bombing of Stalingrad city, and instead
turned them north.
“As Eremenko’s shock groups concentrated
for the attacks, German Stukas unmercifully
pounded his troops throughout the entire duration
of these attacks, disrupting their combat
formations and hindering their timely reaction
to altered situations. As a result the assaults,
when they occurred, were late, disorganized,
and poorly coordinated.”
The Luftwaffe claimed 11 Soviet tanks destroyed,
and 12 artillery pieces, although at one point
they also bombed their own troops, probably
because the front line was all over the place
and they couldn’t tell who was who. Still,
Group Kovalenko tried in vain to dislodge
3rd Motorized Division, but was repulsed,
losing 35 tanks in the process. To the south
of the pocket, 2nd Tank Corps attacked again.
By this time however, the Germans had prepared
their defences, and Kravchenko barely went
a few hundred metres. So at mid-day, Kravchenko
ordered his tanks to consolidate the hard-won
ground that they had gained, and waited for
reinforcements to arrive. The result of this
unusually cautious approach to combat from
the Soviet side had only resulted in the loss
of 6 Soviet tanks, and 2nd Tank Corps remained
a major thorn in Wietersheim’s side.
And this thorn was made worse by the fact
that German troops in the pocket were now
running out of ammunition.
“Once again urgently request air supply
and ammunition and fuel.”
“Panzer 5cm and 7.5cm ammunition for long-barrels
critical. Columns no longer getting through.
Airdrop once again urgently requested.”
Paulus gave this final message to Richthofen
when he and Paulus met that day, and Richthofen
promised aerial resupply in the afternoon.
As it happened, the Luftwaffe did conduct
supply drops that evening, but most of the
cannisters fell into no man’s land or into
Soviet hands, which clearly wasn’t good.
What’s interesting though is that, while
Wietersheim’s force was surrounded and running
out of ammunition, the 16th Panzer Division
had the time and ammunition spare to fire
at boats that were crossing the river. In
the past few days, they’d already sunk several
boats carrying civilians over the Volga, and
on this day they got another.
“On their third evening, German panzers
sank a paddle-steamer taking women and children
from the city to the east bank. Hearing screams
and cries for help, soldiers asked their commander
if they could use some of the prisoners’
inflatable boats to rescue them. But the lieutenant
refused. ‘We know how the enemy fights this
war,’ he replied. After night had fallen,
the panzer crews pulled their blankets up
over their heads so that they did not hear
the cries any more.”
The 160th Panzer Battalion was still trying
to break through to Wietersheim, but was also
coming under attack from the 35th Guards Rifle
Division, and 169th Tank Brigade, and was
unable to advance at all.
It was now that Paulus was beginning to realise
that there weren't enough forces in the area
to break through to Wietersheim, or complete
the original goal of securing Stalingrad on
the march. So, for now, he ordered Rodenburg
to form Kampfgruppe Kaegler, which would be
spearheaded by Höhn’s 160th Panzer Battalion.
Kaegler was ordered to break through to Borodkin,
get supplies through to Wietersheim, and then
withdraw (since securing the area with so
few forces would be impossible). Therefore,
the formations began assembling around Hill
137.2 that evening, with the attack planned
to start at 0400 hours the next day. We’ll
see if they can break through or not next
time. Thanks for watching, bye for now.
