23. Doubling Down Turns Defeat Into Debacle
The Soviet military buildup north and south of Stalingrad was the prelude to a pincer attack, Operation Uranus. Its aim was to bag the Germans inside the city, and the Axis armies guarding their flanks. Operation Uranus went like clockwork, as the Soviets smashed through the Italian, Romanian, and Hungarian armies protecting the Germans in Stalingrad. Within four days, the Soviet pincers had met.
The disaster was made worse by Hitler’s insistence that the Germans inside Stalingrad stay put and fight it out until relieved by a rescue force, rather than try and break out. No rescue came, and by the time the last Germans in Stalingrad surrendered in February of 1943, the Axis had suffered 728,000 casualties, and the German spell of invincibility was broken.
