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General Rommel, had been defeated at El Alamein in Egypt, and on the 8th the Allies had landed in Morocco and Algeria, which threatened the Axis on a new front. These two events coincided with General Zhukov’s plan to unleash a reserve force. Secretly being built up was a force of a million men, 14,000 heavy guns, 1,000 tanks, and 1,350 aircraft. Inferior allied divisions guarded the flanks of the German force. These forces were weaker, and they did not have anti-tank defenses or armored units. The Russians planned to exploit this weakness in an offensive known as Operation Uranus. The Soviets did an excellent job of concealing their plans, and the Axis forces were caught totally off guard. Only Romanian units suspected anything, but the German command ignored them. On November 19,1942 a massive Russian attack surprised and overran the Romanian Third Army which exposed the left flank of the German Sixth Army. A day later another attack destroyed a mixed force composed of Germans and Romanians, that protected the right flank of the German Sixth Army. Four days later Russian assault groups joined up, and now General Paulus and his army, the same one that had taken Paris in 1940, was cut off from supply lines. The Russians had surrounded 330,000 German troops in only a few days. The German Army High Command begged Hitler to allow Paulus to retreat while he still could. The Luftwaffe Chief, Herman Goering, claimed that he could fly in 500 tons of supplies a day to the surrounded Sixth Army-which would be enough to keep it going. Hitler agreed to this and on November 22, 1942 he ordered Paulus to fortify his position and wait for reinforcements to arrive. General Manstein arrived with reinforcements and told Paulus to join up with him. Paulus refused because he did not have a direct order from Hitler to do so. Manstein’s force was driven off and now Paulus and his army were alone, surrounded, and at the mercy of the Russians and the cold winter. Since Hitler had believed that this offensive would not take too long, and since it was started in the summer, the soldiers were not provided with winter clothes. They were running low on supplies thanks to the lack of supplies being delivered by the Luftwaffe. (The Luftwaffe could only fly in about 100 tons a day while they needed over 500.) Only one day did the airlift provide enough supplies. The planes brought wounded soldiers home and they also brought mail from the soldiers bidding farewell to the people they knew in Germany, because they knew they would die. When General Paulus saw the miserable conditions his soldiers were in, he sent someone to plead with Hitler. In response, Hitler told him to hold out and that reinforcements would arrive. Conditions were miserable. Temperatures dropped to negative thirty degrees Celsius. Because of the lack of supplies the daily ration for soldiers was dropped from an already low 100 grams of bread a day, to 50 grams a day. One German soldier described the misery that they faced, “Only the toe of jackboot or an arm frozen to stone could remind you that what was now an elongated white hummock had quite recently been a human being.” German soldiers had to slaughter their horses for food and then later they had to dig up the horses’ bones to eat.

On January 8, 1943 the Russians demanded that the Germans surrender, but they refused and two days later the Russians attacked. Paulus radioed to Hitler that it was hopeless, but Hitler insisted that Paulus would not surrender. By the 25th of January 1943 the Russians took the last German airfield; thus totally cutting off the flow of supplies. By this point the German army was almost out of food and ammunition. Thousands of soldiers were wounded but could not be helped because there were no medical supplies. On January 31, 1943 Hitler promoted Paulus to field marshal and reminded Paulus that never in Germany’ s history had a field marshal surrendered. Hitler urged Paulus to commit suicide to avoid the dishonor of having to surrender from happening, but instead Paulus finally surrendered on February 2, 1943. The Russians took over 110,000 prisoners including 24 generals. In the whole Battle of Stalingrad over 800,000 German soldiers died. The defeat at Stalingrad went further than casualties and captured soldiers, but it also ended the German campaign in Russia. It also showed that the Germans could be beaten at their own game.

The Battle for Stalingrad was the first major victory for the Soviets and set the stage for a counter offensive that would not only reclaim all of their lost land, but would eventually bring them to Berlin. When Hitler heard of Paulus’ surrender he said, “The God of war has gone over to the other side.” Less than a week after the Battle of Stalingrad was over, Soviet forces reached the Sea of Azov, which cut off one of the three German armies deployed in Russia. In March, the Russian Army began to push westwards. In response the Germans began to amass Panzer units behind the front lines. German command debated about how to proceed. General Manstein suggested that the Soviets be allowed to advance greatly; then the Germans would cut them off and surround them. Hitler refused to follow this plan on the basis that it was politically risky-because it gave ground to the Soviets. Instead, Hitler decided to gather nearly all of his tank forces for an attack at the Kursk salient (a bulge in the front lines). Hitler wanted to attack Kursk because it was a crossroads for many railroads. Again, Hitler ignored the advice of General Manstein by delaying the attack until the new Panther and Tiger tanks were ready. This delay in the attack gave the Soviets time to prepare for the battle. Hitler wanted to wait for the new tanks because he wanted to do everything possible to ensure victory. He hoped that a victory at Kursk would demonstrate that even after the decisive defeat at Stalingrad the German armies were still the