Stalingrad, Battle of (September 5, 1942–January 31, 1943) As the last airfields available to 6th Army were overrun, the last Luftwaffe aircraft to leave the tightening noose abandoned German wounded amidst scenes of decadent corruption and a total collapse of military discipline into “sauve qui peut” desperation Virtually all resupply of 6th Army ended, except for occasional air drops Inside the city, Soviet storm groups retook several strongpoints on December On the last day of 1942 remnants of a long-isolated Soviet division— “Lyudnikov’s island”—was reunited to one of the larger 62nd Army bridgeheads On January 10 Operation RING was launched as an annihilation battle to finish off 6th Army The Mamaev Kurgan was retaken the next day, as well as the Red October Factory Paulus’ men were alternately frozen or slaughtered on a daily basis through the end of January On January 26 the outer formations conducting RING met the inner defenders of Stalingrad Just 110,000 frozen 6th Army survivors lived to see Paulus disobey his Führer and surrender himself and his men on January 31st, to Soviet 64th Army, which had fought into Stalingrad from the south After five months of war without mercy and a final massive artillery bombardment personally overseen by Chuikov, the final capitulation and end of all resistance in the north of the city came on February The captured enemy throng were a ragged lot They were ceremonially marched down the banks of the Volga in front of singing Red Army divisions, before being shipped off to prison camps A broadcast from Hitler’s Wolfsschanze HQ in the Rastenberg Forest proclaimed “the sacrifice of the Army, bulwark of a historical European mission, was not in vain.” In fact, when the battle for Stalingrad and Operation URANUS and other attendant operations were over, the Axis order of battle was shorter by 50 ravaged divisions, or 300,000 men, including 110,000 dead Fully 22 divisions or their surviving elements had surrendered German 6th Army and Rumanian 3rd and 4th Armies were gone, along with all equipment, supporting armor, and guns 4th Panzer Army was bloodied and mauled, a remnant of its former self Most Germans who surrendered faced years of hard imprisonment and forced labor Nine out of ten prisoners taken that January never returned to their homes: they died in Soviet captivity from infected wounds, tuberculosis, cold, hunger, or mistreatment, many in the first months of captivity Survivors were shipped east to forced labor camps or mines; many would remain there for 10 years or more One of the most important military consequences of Stalingrad was to reinforce Hitler’s distrust of top generals, even as the successful counteroffensive helped Stalin see that he should interfere less often or directly with the military professionals of the Stavka and his experienced and tough Front commanders For the first time in the war Axis soldiers had tasted the iron in the mouth of bitter defeat on the Eastern Front An entire Wehrmacht field army was lost, along with two Rumanian armies and substantial elements of the Italian and Hungarian armies After Stalingrad a cruel worm began to burrow into the mind of the German nation and its army: Germany could lose the war Mainly for that reason, and because of its acceleration of attrition of the Wehrmacht, Stalingrad was one of the great turning points in World War II But only one: the war was too vast for any single battle or campaign to decide its outcome There was much grinding attrition to come, and many millions more lives to forfeit It is also worth recalling 1039