Reading David Glantz's Stalingrad: Part Two
Note: A continuation of the previous post...
“Stalingrad, a city that barely figured in the original German plan for Operation Blau, quickly became the psychological and emotional center of both sides’ military efforts. Admittedly, the city had significant military value due to the weapons factories as well as its location on the remaining water and rail communications that connected Moscow with the Caucasus. Yet, to the German leadership, the very name Stalingrad, identifying the city with the Soviet dictator and the beleaguered communist regime, seemed to give it a psychological and political significance with its actual military worth. German propaganda centered more and more on the titanic struggle for Stalin’s namesake city. As Army Group A’s advance into the Caucasus ground to a halt during the autumn, Stalingrad and the Volga River bend increasingly seemed to be the logical place to conclude Operation Blau with at least the appearance of success.” (page 166)
So it was that the advance of Army Group A toward the oil fields gradually took a back seat to the capture of the city named after Stalin. This presented the Soviets with their greatest opportunity thus far in the war. But Glantz reminds the reader that this opportunity was not obvious to begin with and, contrary to orthodox histories of the conflict, the idea for the massive Soviet counterstroke known as Operation Uranus did not originate with Zhukov, but with the lesser known Soviet General Eremenko.
Eremenko and the Stalingrad Commissar Nitika Khrushchev believed that Zhukov’s repeated attacks near the city in an attempt to establish a land corridor to the embattled 62nd Army were pointless. Instead, they argued to Stalin and the Stavka that a “raid” should be conducted further from the city with a wider encirclement to disrupt German operations. When Zhukov learned of this proposal a few days later, he immediately began to champion it, with his own revisions. Instead of a raid it would be a full-scale counteroffensive. Stalin bought the idea.
The Germans knew that another attack was in the offing. But this was not particularly concerning to them. After all, established thinking was that the Soviets were on the verge of collapse and that they would not be able to hold their tiny enclaves in Stalingrad much longer. Recent experience seemed to confirm these assumptions. As Glantz puts it: “…the Germans had beaten off so many previous Soviet counterattacks that they were pardonably convinced that they could handle any future threat. Unlike all the frantic, premature attacks of the summer and fall, however, the coming blow was finally launched with sufficient time and resource to be decisive.” (page 325)
The resulting Operation Uranus used bridgeheads along the Don first captured in a failed offensive back in August. The northern attack was under the capable leadership of Don Front’s [General Konstantin Konstantinovich] Rokossovsky and Southwestern Front’s [General Nikolai] Vatutin. Meanwhile, Eremenko’s Stalingrad Front simultaneously prepared to attack Romanian forces south of the city. The plan was to completely encircle Sixth Army in Stalingrad. This was accomplished in just a few days.
Glantz records that the rapid success of the Soviet operation was nevertheless costly to them. “The Soviet execution of Uranus included numerous errors, and the Romanian and German defenders were far more determined and effective than most accounts admit. As a result, the operation took five days rather than the planned three, and it cost the Soviet mobile units up to 80 percent of their tanks. Against a stronger foe, the attackers might have failed. Nonetheless, the Red Army had achieved a strategic level victory by destroying two Romanian armies and, for the first time in the war, encircling an entire German field army.” (page 359)
German leadership decided, based on the previous year’s experience with the (much smaller) Demyansk pocket, that they could airlift supplies to Sixth Army, sustaining it until a relief operation could be put together. As with the myth that Zhukov contrived the Soviet counteroffensive, it is also untrue that Luftwaffe head Hermann Goring persuaded Hitler that the airlift (which was mathematically impossible given German capabilities) would keep Sixth Army supplied.
Goring was in Germany chairing a petroleum conference at the time. Instead, it was his chief of staff, Colonel General Hans Jeshonnek, who assured Hitler that resupply by air was possible. Goring merely rubber-stamped the idea later when he realized how much prestige he could personally garner from such an important operation. The airlift was a miserable failure, never once meeting the daily tonnage requirements for the massive Stalingrad pocket.
Against the advice of his generals, Hitler believed Sixth Army should stay in place. By now the propaganda value of holding the city was critical to the overall war effort. Glantz summarizes the basis for this misguided decision. “The ill-conceived promises made by General Jeschonnek and Marshal Goring had encouraged [Hitler] in this belief. Of equal significance, however, were Manstein’s assurances that relief was possible. From the moment he arrived on the scene to command Army Group Don, Manstein broke up the nearly unanimous assessment by [General Maximilian von] Weichs, Paulus, and other German generals that an immediate breakout was the best if not only solution to the threat posed by the Uranus encirclement. Manstein’s self-confidence helped eliminate this option, committing Sixth Army to wait for external relief. Manstein’s arguments confirmed Hitler’s natural tendencies, encouraging the dictator to believe that even if the Luftwaffe were unable to resupply the pocket completely, it could still provide sufficient help to allow Sixth Army to hold on long enough.” (pp. 386 – 387)
Glantz does an excellent job of pointing out Manstein’s responsibility, through arrogance and misjudgments, for the debacle of Stalingrad. Certainly, Manstein was a brilliant general, as Glantz himself discusses in the book’s account of action in the Crimea and as is evident later in his “backhand blow” at Kharkov after Stalingrad fell. But, the general must be held accountable for his share in the failure to adequately address the situation in November 1942.**
Part of Manstein’s confidence might be due to the fact that he planned to use the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps as part of the effort. But before the relief could be organized the Stavka ordered Eremenko to attack the panzer crops with fresh troops in Operation Little Saturn. This offensive not only completely tied up the panzer corps but it also decimated the Italian 8th Army, blowing a gigantic hole in the Axis front line along the Don River.
“Thus, by December 15, 5th Tank and 5th Shock Armies had ended any German hope for a relief effort from the west. Indeed, their success was so complete that the two mobile corps involved along the Don – [General Pavel] Rotmistrov’s 7th Tank and [General Issa] Pliev’s 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps – were available to help stop the other relief effort by LVII Panzer Corps. Both the ad hoc German defense groups and [General Otto von] Knobelsdorff’s XXXVIII Panzer Corps achieved notable tactical victories in this struggle, but at the operational level, the Soviets were victorious.” (page 401)
Manstein was frustrated that Hitler would not release the panzers of Army Group A for the relief effort.** Glantz states that Manstein was “…ignoring the fact that the Causasus oil fields were the true goals of the campaign.” (page 403) The German general cobbled together various German and Romanian units in an attempt to strengthen LVII Panzer Corps, but without reinforcement form the far south or from the embattled XXXXVIII Panzer Corps the probability of driving into the Stalingrad pocket was greatly diminished. A fierce five-day tank battle ensued as Manstein launched Operation Wintergewitter with what forces he had available.
Ultimately, the operation fell well short of Stalingrad and by December 24, the Soviets were pushing the relief effort back. In the meantime, the Red Army prepared Operation Ring, the final assault on Sixth Army. Once again, the Soviets took their time and made sure their preparations were complete. Part of the delay was due to the fact that the Soviets originally thought they had captured about 90,000 troops inside the pocket. The number was actually closer to 250,000, which shocked them. Additional preparations were necessary to secure that the pocket held tight.
On January 10, General Rokossovsky launched Operation Ring which concluded with the surrender of the city by the beginning of February. The Soviets lost 48,000 during this offensive. The Germans lost everything which Glantz estimates as “roughly 212,000 to 217,000” troops of which 91,000 were captured upon the surrender. The 200,000 number includes some 42,000 wounded German soldiers who were evacuated via airlift until the last air field was captured. It was a German catastrophe and a complete Soviet triumph.
Reflecting on the entire campaign, Glantz draws the following conclusions: “The original objective of Operation Blau, the Germans’ second major offensive in the conflict with the Soviet Union, was to seize the Caucasus oil fields…Given the Wehrmacht’s experienced commanders and the repeated blunders of their Red counterparts, it is at least conceivable that Germany might have achieved this goal.” (page 490)
“The Uranus counteroffensive was an unprecedented success…The Soviet performance was by no means flawless, however. Initial attacks against German divisions barely dented the defenders, while the Romanians put up a surprisingly stiff fight…the Southwestern and Stalingrad Fronts failed to push the outer encirclement far enough away from Stalingrad, offering the Germans a chance to relieve Sixth Army…once the Stalingrad pocket took shape, the Soviets proved unable to liquidate it with the forces originally allocated to this task, primarily because the besieged Axis force was almost three times the Soviet estimate of 90,000.” (page 493)
“The pivitol formation for the Soviets was Malinovsky’s 2nd Guards Army, originally assigned to Operation Saturn. The unexpected resistance offered by the Stalingrad pocket prompted the Stavka to divert this army first (on 10 December) to spearhead Operation Ring and then (two days later) to block LVII Panzer Corps’ strong attack northward from Kotel’nikovo. These diversions meant that the Soviets had to truncate Operation Saturn into Little Saturn and delay the reduction of Stalingrad by four weeks. However, these twin decisions determined the ultimate fate of Paulus’s army.” (page 495)
Glantz shows that German strategic decisions were conflicted and confused, dividing its strength and ultimately favoring urban warfare over the original objective of capturing the oil fields. Meanwhile, the Soviets showed great strategic flexibility in adapting to the situation, learning from many prior failed offensives (which made the Germans overconfident) and altering their grand plans as called for by the fluid situation. This includes repositioning a large number of forces when it was discovered the Stalingrad pocket was far larger than they ever imagined. Hitler divided his forces pursuing two unrealized goals whereas Stalin’s forces were divided in response to how the situation actually played out.
Whereas Hitler tried to accomplish everything at once, Stalin allowed his generals to alter their plans to accomplish what was practical within the immense scope of their designs. The Soviets were not chained to their original, expansive and likely unrealistic, plan of destroying all German forces in the south.
The book includes a large number of maps of varying complexity and quality. As a whole they make the action easier to follow. I have read many books about the Eastern Front and place names often leave me wondering where, exactly, is that. Stalingrad is a brilliant summation of four other books on this topic, the most ambitious of Glantz’s distinguished career. I am proud to have it as part of my library. Every military history buff will find it accessible, yet detailed and expansive without burdening the reader with minutia, and full of the horrific flavor of one of the turning points of World War Two.
**Other sources I have in my library suggest that Manstein had a different operational plan altogether which would have involved temporarily abandoning Stalingrad and the Caucasus, drawing the Soviet inward, and then crushing them With a massive envelopment when they became overextended. If this plan was ever discussed with Hitler, Glantz does not mention it. Regardless, Manstein deserves the scrutiny Glantz provides here.
“Stalingrad, a city that barely figured in the original German plan for Operation Blau, quickly became the psychological and emotional center of both sides’ military efforts. Admittedly, the city had significant military value due to the weapons factories as well as its location on the remaining water and rail communications that connected Moscow with the Caucasus. Yet, to the German leadership, the very name Stalingrad, identifying the city with the Soviet dictator and the beleaguered communist regime, seemed to give it a psychological and political significance with its actual military worth. German propaganda centered more and more on the titanic struggle for Stalin’s namesake city. As Army Group A’s advance into the Caucasus ground to a halt during the autumn, Stalingrad and the Volga River bend increasingly seemed to be the logical place to conclude Operation Blau with at least the appearance of success.” (page 166)
So it was that the advance of Army Group A toward the oil fields gradually took a back seat to the capture of the city named after Stalin. This presented the Soviets with their greatest opportunity thus far in the war. But Glantz reminds the reader that this opportunity was not obvious to begin with and, contrary to orthodox histories of the conflict, the idea for the massive Soviet counterstroke known as Operation Uranus did not originate with Zhukov, but with the lesser known Soviet General Eremenko.
Eremenko and the Stalingrad Commissar Nitika Khrushchev believed that Zhukov’s repeated attacks near the city in an attempt to establish a land corridor to the embattled 62nd Army were pointless. Instead, they argued to Stalin and the Stavka that a “raid” should be conducted further from the city with a wider encirclement to disrupt German operations. When Zhukov learned of this proposal a few days later, he immediately began to champion it, with his own revisions. Instead of a raid it would be a full-scale counteroffensive. Stalin bought the idea.
The Germans knew that another attack was in the offing. But this was not particularly concerning to them. After all, established thinking was that the Soviets were on the verge of collapse and that they would not be able to hold their tiny enclaves in Stalingrad much longer. Recent experience seemed to confirm these assumptions. As Glantz puts it: “…the Germans had beaten off so many previous Soviet counterattacks that they were pardonably convinced that they could handle any future threat. Unlike all the frantic, premature attacks of the summer and fall, however, the coming blow was finally launched with sufficient time and resource to be decisive.” (page 325)
The resulting Operation Uranus used bridgeheads along the Don first captured in a failed offensive back in August. The northern attack was under the capable leadership of Don Front’s [General Konstantin Konstantinovich] Rokossovsky and Southwestern Front’s [General Nikolai] Vatutin. Meanwhile, Eremenko’s Stalingrad Front simultaneously prepared to attack Romanian forces south of the city. The plan was to completely encircle Sixth Army in Stalingrad. This was accomplished in just a few days.
Glantz records that the rapid success of the Soviet operation was nevertheless costly to them. “The Soviet execution of Uranus included numerous errors, and the Romanian and German defenders were far more determined and effective than most accounts admit. As a result, the operation took five days rather than the planned three, and it cost the Soviet mobile units up to 80 percent of their tanks. Against a stronger foe, the attackers might have failed. Nonetheless, the Red Army had achieved a strategic level victory by destroying two Romanian armies and, for the first time in the war, encircling an entire German field army.” (page 359)
German leadership decided, based on the previous year’s experience with the (much smaller) Demyansk pocket, that they could airlift supplies to Sixth Army, sustaining it until a relief operation could be put together. As with the myth that Zhukov contrived the Soviet counteroffensive, it is also untrue that Luftwaffe head Hermann Goring persuaded Hitler that the airlift (which was mathematically impossible given German capabilities) would keep Sixth Army supplied.
Goring was in Germany chairing a petroleum conference at the time. Instead, it was his chief of staff, Colonel General Hans Jeshonnek, who assured Hitler that resupply by air was possible. Goring merely rubber-stamped the idea later when he realized how much prestige he could personally garner from such an important operation. The airlift was a miserable failure, never once meeting the daily tonnage requirements for the massive Stalingrad pocket.
Against the advice of his generals, Hitler believed Sixth Army should stay in place. By now the propaganda value of holding the city was critical to the overall war effort. Glantz summarizes the basis for this misguided decision. “The ill-conceived promises made by General Jeschonnek and Marshal Goring had encouraged [Hitler] in this belief. Of equal significance, however, were Manstein’s assurances that relief was possible. From the moment he arrived on the scene to command Army Group Don, Manstein broke up the nearly unanimous assessment by [General Maximilian von] Weichs, Paulus, and other German generals that an immediate breakout was the best if not only solution to the threat posed by the Uranus encirclement. Manstein’s self-confidence helped eliminate this option, committing Sixth Army to wait for external relief. Manstein’s arguments confirmed Hitler’s natural tendencies, encouraging the dictator to believe that even if the Luftwaffe were unable to resupply the pocket completely, it could still provide sufficient help to allow Sixth Army to hold on long enough.” (pp. 386 – 387)
Glantz does an excellent job of pointing out Manstein’s responsibility, through arrogance and misjudgments, for the debacle of Stalingrad. Certainly, Manstein was a brilliant general, as Glantz himself discusses in the book’s account of action in the Crimea and as is evident later in his “backhand blow” at Kharkov after Stalingrad fell. But, the general must be held accountable for his share in the failure to adequately address the situation in November 1942.**
Part of Manstein’s confidence might be due to the fact that he planned to use the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps as part of the effort. But before the relief could be organized the Stavka ordered Eremenko to attack the panzer crops with fresh troops in Operation Little Saturn. This offensive not only completely tied up the panzer corps but it also decimated the Italian 8th Army, blowing a gigantic hole in the Axis front line along the Don River.
“Thus, by December 15, 5th Tank and 5th Shock Armies had ended any German hope for a relief effort from the west. Indeed, their success was so complete that the two mobile corps involved along the Don – [General Pavel] Rotmistrov’s 7th Tank and [General Issa] Pliev’s 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps – were available to help stop the other relief effort by LVII Panzer Corps. Both the ad hoc German defense groups and [General Otto von] Knobelsdorff’s XXXVIII Panzer Corps achieved notable tactical victories in this struggle, but at the operational level, the Soviets were victorious.” (page 401)
Manstein was frustrated that Hitler would not release the panzers of Army Group A for the relief effort.** Glantz states that Manstein was “…ignoring the fact that the Causasus oil fields were the true goals of the campaign.” (page 403) The German general cobbled together various German and Romanian units in an attempt to strengthen LVII Panzer Corps, but without reinforcement form the far south or from the embattled XXXXVIII Panzer Corps the probability of driving into the Stalingrad pocket was greatly diminished. A fierce five-day tank battle ensued as Manstein launched Operation Wintergewitter with what forces he had available.
Ultimately, the operation fell well short of Stalingrad and by December 24, the Soviets were pushing the relief effort back. In the meantime, the Red Army prepared Operation Ring, the final assault on Sixth Army. Once again, the Soviets took their time and made sure their preparations were complete. Part of the delay was due to the fact that the Soviets originally thought they had captured about 90,000 troops inside the pocket. The number was actually closer to 250,000, which shocked them. Additional preparations were necessary to secure that the pocket held tight.
On January 10, General Rokossovsky launched Operation Ring which concluded with the surrender of the city by the beginning of February. The Soviets lost 48,000 during this offensive. The Germans lost everything which Glantz estimates as “roughly 212,000 to 217,000” troops of which 91,000 were captured upon the surrender. The 200,000 number includes some 42,000 wounded German soldiers who were evacuated via airlift until the last air field was captured. It was a German catastrophe and a complete Soviet triumph.
Reflecting on the entire campaign, Glantz draws the following conclusions: “The original objective of Operation Blau, the Germans’ second major offensive in the conflict with the Soviet Union, was to seize the Caucasus oil fields…Given the Wehrmacht’s experienced commanders and the repeated blunders of their Red counterparts, it is at least conceivable that Germany might have achieved this goal.” (page 490)
“The Uranus counteroffensive was an unprecedented success…The Soviet performance was by no means flawless, however. Initial attacks against German divisions barely dented the defenders, while the Romanians put up a surprisingly stiff fight…the Southwestern and Stalingrad Fronts failed to push the outer encirclement far enough away from Stalingrad, offering the Germans a chance to relieve Sixth Army…once the Stalingrad pocket took shape, the Soviets proved unable to liquidate it with the forces originally allocated to this task, primarily because the besieged Axis force was almost three times the Soviet estimate of 90,000.” (page 493)
“The pivitol formation for the Soviets was Malinovsky’s 2nd Guards Army, originally assigned to Operation Saturn. The unexpected resistance offered by the Stalingrad pocket prompted the Stavka to divert this army first (on 10 December) to spearhead Operation Ring and then (two days later) to block LVII Panzer Corps’ strong attack northward from Kotel’nikovo. These diversions meant that the Soviets had to truncate Operation Saturn into Little Saturn and delay the reduction of Stalingrad by four weeks. However, these twin decisions determined the ultimate fate of Paulus’s army.” (page 495)
Glantz shows that German strategic decisions were conflicted and confused, dividing its strength and ultimately favoring urban warfare over the original objective of capturing the oil fields. Meanwhile, the Soviets showed great strategic flexibility in adapting to the situation, learning from many prior failed offensives (which made the Germans overconfident) and altering their grand plans as called for by the fluid situation. This includes repositioning a large number of forces when it was discovered the Stalingrad pocket was far larger than they ever imagined. Hitler divided his forces pursuing two unrealized goals whereas Stalin’s forces were divided in response to how the situation actually played out.
Whereas Hitler tried to accomplish everything at once, Stalin allowed his generals to alter their plans to accomplish what was practical within the immense scope of their designs. The Soviets were not chained to their original, expansive and likely unrealistic, plan of destroying all German forces in the south.
The book includes a large number of maps of varying complexity and quality. As a whole they make the action easier to follow. I have read many books about the Eastern Front and place names often leave me wondering where, exactly, is that. Stalingrad is a brilliant summation of four other books on this topic, the most ambitious of Glantz’s distinguished career. I am proud to have it as part of my library. Every military history buff will find it accessible, yet detailed and expansive without burdening the reader with minutia, and full of the horrific flavor of one of the turning points of World War Two.
**Other sources I have in my library suggest that Manstein had a different operational plan altogether which would have involved temporarily abandoning Stalingrad and the Caucasus, drawing the Soviet inward, and then crushing them With a massive envelopment when they became overextended. If this plan was ever discussed with Hitler, Glantz does not mention it. Regardless, Manstein deserves the scrutiny Glantz provides here.
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