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Russia 1943 ▶ Battle of Stalingrad Capitulation (Part 2/2) Red Army Offensive Pocket 6th Army POW (Januar / February 43) General Friedrich Paulus
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On November 20, the attack by the 57th Army (General Tolbuchin) of the Stalingrad Front (Yeryomenko) also began in the south of Stalingrad. The Soviet 13th Armored Corps (Major General T. I. Tanashishin) broke through the northern wing of the Romanian 4th Army at Krasnoarmeisk. In the process, the Romanian 20th Infantry Division under General Tataranu was pushed northward to the German IV. Army Corps to Beketovka and later encircled with this corps still subordinate to the German 4th Panzer Army and the 6th Army. The second attack wedge, the 4th Mechanized Corps (Maj. Gen. V. T. Wolski) of the 51st Army (Maj. Gen. N. I. Trufanov), broke through the Romanian VI Corps front at the Tundutovo railroad station and could not be stopped by the German 29th Infantry Division. The breakthrough at the Romanian 4th Army and at the German 4th Panzer Army enabled the Soviet armored spearheads to make a double pincer movement that met at Kalach on the Don River on November 23, closing the ring around the German 6th Army, which was encircled in the Stalingrad area.
The Wehrmacht now found itself in a dangerous dilemma: In the event of defeat at Stalingrad, the Red Army could have broken through toward Rostov to the Black Sea, thus cutting off not only Army Group Don but also the entire Army Group A-which would have meant the loss of the entire southern wing of the German Eastern Front. Only when the failure of the relief attempt made the defeat of the 6th Army apparent, was the retreat of Army Group A initiated on December 28, 1942, which, due to the late decision, turned in part into a loss-laden flight over hundreds of kilometers, during which not infrequently all heavy weapons, vehicles and tanks had to be left behind simply because of the worsening permanent fuel shortage. Since November 22, the 6th Army was completely surrounded by Soviet troops. On that day, the units of the 4th Panzer Army (IV Army Corps) and the Romanians (two divisions), which had also been pushed into the encirclement, were also subordinated to it. Paul and his staff planned to first stabilize the fronts and then break out to the south. Even at that point, however, they lacked the necessary equipment for such an undertaking. On November 24, Hitler finally decided to supply the Kessel from the air after Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring assured him that the Luftwaffe was capable of flying in the required minimum of 500 tons of supplies daily. Allegedly, both Goering and Hitler were informed by the Army and Air Force general staffs that this was not possible. The highest supply level was reached on December 19, 1942, at 289 tons, but on some days no supply flights could be made because of bad weather. From November 25, 1942, to February 2, 1943, an average of only 94 tons could be flown in daily instead of the promised 500 tons. On November 24, the soldiers' rations were cut in half and the bread allotment was set at 300 grams daily and subsequently reduced to 100 grams, and toward the end to only 60 grams per man. This meant only three slices of bread per day, which never met the needs of a fighting soldier. The troops visibly starved over the next few weeks. The supply from the air, for which primarily the VIII. Fliegerkorps of Luftflotte 4 was responsible for, collapsed further when, during the raid on Tazinskaya as part of the Middle Don Operation, the airfields Tazinskaya (24 December 1942) and Morozovskaya (5. The airfields Tazinskaya (December 24, 1942) and Morozovskaya (January 5, 1943) west of the encirclement were captured by the Red Army as a take-off point for flights into the encirclement, and Pitomnik airfield (January 16, 1943) inside the encirclement was captured by the Red Army, and supplies could only be delivered from the makeshift Gumrak field airfield. Most of the encircled soldiers therefore did not die as a result of fighting, but from malnutrition and hypothermia. Another major problem for the soldiers and officers in the encirclement was that the wounded also had to be transported away via these supply airfields.
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