Battle of Stalingrad Timeline

It seemed that the Soviet Army, as desperate as they were, came up with victories when and where they needed them most. Stalingrad proved no exception to unfolding events along the East Front.

Besieged by the German 6th Army (and backed by elements of the Italian, Hungarian and Romanian armies), the strategic Soviet city held out with minimal supplies and a dwindling band of defenders of the 62nd Army. German propaganda, based on the grand thrusts into and around Stalingrad, were already proclaiming victory for the German Army. By now, Hitler was all but committed to taking the city - at whatever cost necessary to ensure the German Army did not fail in a big way. Soldiers and supplies were pouring to the 6th Army to make sure the assault went Germany's way. German General Paulus was the man in charge.

On the other side, Soviet Marshal Zhukov was planning his counteroffensive to help alleviate his beleaguered Stalingrad defenders. While a minimal number of supplies and replacements were sent into Stalingrad, Zhukov prepared his massive ground force a short distance away, committing whatever important elements came his way to the assault to come.

Defense of Stalingrad now fell to a smallish pocket numbering some 5 miles across and contained in an industrial sector of the city, their backs against the Volga River. The Soviet winter nights set in and the environment now played against bodies and spirits of the 62nd Army. Despite all this, the defenders had repulsed a half-dozen or so offensives launched by the German 6th already.

In the early morning hours of November 19th, 1942, Zhukov ordered his cannons and rocket systems to light up. Thousands of artillery guns and Katyusha elements all lit up the morning sky and brought down lethal rain onto the German north pocket. Later that morning, another salvo opened up against the German 6th pocket to the south of the city. Soviet ground forces made up of infantry and tanks poured in.

In only three days, the German 6th Army was cut off and surrounded from rescue or retreat. In effect, the besiegers were now the besieged. General Paulus made repeated overtures to Adolph Hitler for a retreat and was denied. Instead, Hitler ordered elements from elsewhere to reposition and come to the aid of the 6th Army.

The German 11th Army under von Manstein got the call and moved in. Operation Winter Storm was enacted on December 21st and failed to relieve the German 6th Army. Zhukov responded on Christmas Day and launched an attack and pushed the Germans so far back that resupply to Paulus' troops was all but impossible. Air drops were an option but weather generally curtailed any support for the 6th. The besieged Germans erected hasty defenses for the time being and regrouped.

In one final attempt to end the battle, Soviet General Rokossovsky delivered a formal request for surrender of the German Army on January 8th. This was hastily rejected and the final phase of the Battle of Stalingrad was put into effect by the Soviet Army. Artillery, ground and air elements of the Red Army pummeled the German 6th into oblivion. Deadly house-to-house fighting ensued..

General Paulus officially surrendered to the Soviet Army on February 2nd, 1943, formally ending the siege of Stalingrad and the battle as well.

Of the 300,000 German souls caught up in the Battle of Stalingrad, 160,000 died with some 80,000 lost to conditions brought about by weather and a lack of food. Only 35,000 German Army soldiers were successfully rescued by the Luftwaffe before the city fell back to Soviet control, leaving a further 90,000 to deal with the Soviet brand of justice. Only 5,000 of these men were ever seen again in the post-war years - the rest dying on the long march, executed in typical Soviet fashion or dying from exhaustion in the Siberian labor camps they were confined to.