Battle of Stalingrad - The Subjugation of The Sixth Army

The Subjugation of The Sixth Army

About 250,000 German and Romanian soldiers, the 369th (Croatian) Reinforced Infantry Regiment, and other volunteer subsidiary troops including some 35,000 Soviet volunteers fighting for the Germans were surrounded. German strength in the pocket was about 195,000 according to strength breakdowns of the 21 field divisions and 100 battalion sized units of the Sixth Army on 19 November 1942. Inside the pocket (German: Kessel, literally "cauldron"), there were also around 10,000 Soviet civilians and several thousand Soviet soldiers the Germans had taken captive during the battle. Not all of the 6th Army was trapped; 50,000 soldiers were brushed aside outside the pocket.

The Red Army units immediately formed two defensive fronts: a circumvallation facing inward and a contravallation facing outward. Field Marshal Erich von Manstein advised Hitler not to order the 6th Army to break out, stating that he could successfully break through the Soviet lines and relieve the besieged 6th Army. The American historians Williamson Murray and Alan Millet wrote that it was Manstein's message to Hitler on 24 November advising him that the 6th Army should not break out, along with Göring's statements that the Luffwaffe could supply Stalingrad that "...sealed the fate of the Sixth Army." After 1945, Manstein falsified the record and claimed that he told Hitler that the 6th Army must break out. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that "Because of the sensitivity of the Stalingrad question in post-war Germany, Manstein worked as hard to distort the record on this matter as on his massive involvement in the murder of Jews." Manstein was tasked to conduct a relief operation, named Operation Winter Storm (Unternehmen Wintergewitter) against Stalingrad, which he thought was feasible if the 6th Army was adequately supplied through the air.

Adolf Hitler had declared in a public speech (in the Berlin Sportpalast) on 30 September 1942 that the German army would never leave the city. At a meeting shortly after the Soviet encirclement, German army chiefs pushed for an immediate breakout to a new line on the west of the Don, but Hitler was at his Bavarian retreat of Obersalzberg in Berchtesgaden with the head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring. When asked by Hitler, Göring replied, after being convinced by Hans Jeschonnek, that the Luftwaffe could supply the 6th Army with an "air bridge." This would allow the Germans in the city to fight on while a relief force was assembled. A similar plan had been used a year earlier at the Demyansk Pocket, albeit on a much smaller scale: a corps at Demyansk rather than an entire army. Also, Soviet fighter forces had improved considerably in both quality and quantity in the intervening year. But the mention of the successful Demyansk air supply operation reinforced Hitler's own views, and was endorsed by Göring several days later.

The head of Luftflotte 4, Wolfram von Richthofen, tried to get this decision overturned. The 6th Army was the largest unit of this type in the world and almost twice as large as a regular German army unit, plus there was also a corps of the 4th Panzer Army trapped in the pocket. It should have been clear that supplying them by air was impossible; the maximum 117.5 short tons (106.6 t) they could deliver a day—based on the number of available aircraft and with only the airfield at Pitomnik to land at—was far less than the minimum 800 short tons (730 t) needed. To supplement the limited number of Junkers Ju 52 transports, the Germans used aircraft wholly inadequate for the role, such as the Heinkel He 177 bomber (some bombers performed adequately—the Heinkel He 111 proved to be quite capable and was much faster than the Ju 52). General Richthofen informed Manstein on 27 November of the small transport capacity of the Luftwaffe and the impossibility of supplying 300 tons a day by air. Manstein now saw the enormous technical difficulties of a supply by air of these dimensions. The next day he made a six page situation report to the general staff. Based on the information of the expert Richthofen, he declared that contrary to the example of the pocket of Demjansk the permanent supply by air would be impossible. If only a narrow link could be established to Sixth Army, he proposed that this should be used to pull it out from the encirclement. He acknowledged the heavy moral sacrifice the giving up of Stalingrad means but this is made easier to bear by the conservation of the combat power of Sixth Army and the regaining of the initiative..." But Hitler backed Göring's plan and reiterated his order of "no surrender" to his trapped armies.

The air supply mission failed. Appalling weather conditions, technical failures, heavy Soviet anti-aircraft fire and fighter interceptions led to the loss of 488 German aircraft. The Luftwaffe failed to achieve even the daily supply of 117 short tons (106 t) that it had aircraft for. An average of 94 short tons (85 t) of supplies per day was delivered. The most successful day, 19 December, delivered only 289 short tons (262 t) of supplies in 154 flights. The supplies that did get through were often useless: one aircraft arrived with 20 t (22 short tons) of vodka and summer uniforms, another with supplies of black pepper and marjoram. Hitler's indecision on the purpose of Operation Winter Storm (either to allow a breakout or to open a corridor) meant that large quantities of fuel that would have helped with a breakout were shipped when food and ammunition would have been more useful. The transport aircraft that did land safely evacuated technical specialists and sick or wounded men from the besieged enclave. Sources differ on the number flown out: 25,000 to 30,000. Carell: 42,000, of which 5000 did not survive.

Initially, supply flights came in from the field at Tatsinskaya, called 'Tazi' by the German pilots. On 23 December, the Soviet 24th Tank Corps, commanded by Major-General Vasily Mikhaylovich Badanov, reached nearby Skassirskaya and in the early morning of 24 December, the tanks reached Tatsinskaya. Without any soldiers to defend the airfield, it was abandoned under heavy fire; in a little under an hour, 108 Ju 52s and 16 Ju 86s took off for Novocherkassk—leaving 72 Ju 52s and many other aircraft burning on the ground. A new base was established some 200 mi (320 km) from Stalingrad at Salsk, the additional distance another obstacle to the resupply efforts. Salsk was abandoned in turn by mid-January for a rough facility at Zverevo, near Shakhty. The field at Zverevo was attacked repeatedly on 18 January and a further 50 Ju 52s were destroyed.

The 6th Army slowly starved. Pilots were shocked to find the troops too exhausted and hungry to unload. Germans fought over the slightest scraps of bread. General Zeitzler, moved by their plight, began to limit himself to their slim rations at meal times. After a few weeks on such a diet, he had lost 26 lb (12 kg) and had become so emaciated that Hitler, annoyed, personally ordered him to start eating regular meals again.

The toll on the Transportgruppen was heavy. Some 266 Junkers Ju 52s were destroyed; one-third of the fleet's strength on the Eastern Front. The He 111 gruppen lost 165 aircraft in transport operations. Other losses included 42 Ju 86s, nine Fw 200 Condors, five He 177 bombers and a Ju 290. The Luftwaffe also lost close to 1,000 highly experienced bomber crew personnel. So heavy were the Luftwaffe's losses that four of Luftflotte 4's transport units (KGrzbV 700, KGrzbV 900, I./KGrzbV 1 and II./KGzbV 1) were "formally dissolved."