The German offensive to capture Stalingrad began in August 1942, using Friedrich Paulus's 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intense bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble. The battle quickly degenerated into house-to-house fighting, as both sides fought for the city on the Volga.
By mid-November, the Germans were on the brink of victory as the Soviet defenders clung to a final few slivers of land along the west bank of the river. Then, on 19 November, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, targeting the weaker Romanian armies protecting the 6th Army's flank and the Germans in Stalingrad were surrounded and cut off.
Hitler was determined to hold the city insisting that Paulus hold out and the 6th Army would be supplied by air. With the airlift a disaster, in February 1943, without food or ammunition, some 91,000 starving Germans surrendered.
In this episode of the podcast, I'm joined once more by Jonathan Trigg. Jon specialises in looking at aspects of the war from the German perspective so in episode 147 we looked at Operation Barbarossa, in 115 Jon and I discussed the end of the war and in 102 we talked about D-Day.
Jon's new book is The Battle of Stalingrad Through German Eyes: The Death of the Sixth Army.
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167 - John Basilone
166 - Rodolfo Graziani
165 - P-51 Mustang
164 - Marshall and Stimson
163 - British Wartime Industry
162 - Tobruk
161 - Marine Aces of the South Pacific
160 - African American Medal of Honor Recipients
159 - The Aztec Eagles
158 - With the Old Breed: EB Sledge
157 - General Patton
156 - Churchill, Master and Commander
155 - Pearl Harbor
154 - Chemical Weapons
153 - Canadian Army Civil Affairs Units
152 - U.S. Naval Gunfire Support in the Pacific
151 - Escape from Greece
150 - Eisenhower's Broad Front Strategy
149 - Australia's war with France
148 - Luftwaffe Special Weapons
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