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A year of Axis gains from Case Blue had been wiped out. The Sixth Army of Germany had ceased to exist, and the forces of Germany's European allies, except Finland, had been shattered. [323] In a speech on 9 November 1944, Hitler himself blamed Stalingrad for Germany's impending doom. [324]
The German Sixth Army, which was destroyed in the Battle of Stalingrad, was re-constituted and later made part of Army Group South in March 1943. By the end of December 1943, the strength of Army Group South had been reduced to 328,397 German soldiers, joined by another 109,816 allied soldiers and non-German volunteer troops. [4]: 386
The aerial assault on Stalingrad was the most concentrated on the Ostfront according to Beevor, [1] and was the single most intense aerial bombardment on the Eastern Front at that point. [2] The destruction was monumental and complete, turning Stalingrad into a sea of fire and killing thousands of civilians and soldiers.
The situation for the German troops in Stalingrad remained stable until the Soviets launched Operation Uranus on 19 November 1942. The aim of this operation was the complete encirclement and isolation of the German 6th Army. To accomplish this, the Soviets struck at the weak Romanian armies to the north and south of Stalingrad.
Operation Uranus (Russian: Опера́ция «Ура́н», romanized: Operatsiya "Uran") was a Soviet 19–23 November 1942 strategic operation on the Eastern Front of World War II which led to the encirclement of Axis forces in the vicinity of Stalingrad: the German Sixth Army, the Third and Fourth Romanian armies, and portions of the German Fourth Panzer Army.
The Axis order of battle at Stalingrad is a list of the significant land units that fought in the Battle of Stalingrad on the side of the Axis Powers between September 1942 and February 1943. Apart from the twenty divisions of the German Wehrmacht , eighteen Romanian divisions took part in the battle on the Axis side as well.
As the Red Army pursued the 4th Panzer Army toward the Aksai River and broke through the German defense on the banks of the Chir River, it also began to prepare for Operation Ring—the reduction of the forces in Stalingrad. [94] German forces in Stalingrad soon began to run out of supplies, with horse meat used to supplement diets. [95]
Its main focus is the Battle of Stalingrad, in particular the period from the initial German attack to Operation Uranus and the Soviet victory. It details the subsequent battles and war crimes committed by both sides. The book ends with the defeat and surrender of the Germans in February 1943 and the beginning of the Soviet advance on Germany.