By the start of November, with 90% of Stalingrad in German hands, the battle was virtually won.
The pace of the fight slowed dramatically, the soviet winter had arrived. The Germans are still not fully equipped for the tremendously low temperatures around minus 30 degrees. They have some winter clothing, but they weren’t enough against the cold.
The German troops regroup for a final push. If they can claim the last scraps of the city, they can cross the vulgar and extend Hitler’s Empire to the euros. But still, the Soviets refuse to give away clinging to tiny enclaves along the Stalingrad riverbank. The Soviet resistance holds out until November the 19th The day the war changed. Russia’s Counter offensive took them by total surprise.
The Germans find themselves facing an offensive by over a million men and women stretched across the front and enormous drive. Tanks artillery in huge numbers concentrated at points of breakthrough. Everybody in the German side is completely mesmerized paralyzed. This has never happened before. The Germans have been duped on a grand scale.
Stalin’s deputy commander in chief generals who have been plotting the massive counter attack since mid September. While there was an order to keep fighting at all cost, the Russian army was planning a massive counter attack. They Reinforce the city with just enough force to keep the Germans occupied. Over a million soldiers were transported calmly without their enemies knowing.
Ability for Germans to resist is virtually gone. And they are now not much of a mop.
They were daily being Shelled on and shot at, casualties are mounting as enormous numbers of wounded pies. People are cold. They’re clinging to survival, realizing that they are expected to die in Stalingrad, direct orders from Hitler.
The Red Army squeezes the remaining German defenders into two small pockets that loses communication with each other.
Weeks past without food or relieve material, now the troops are stranded and without much to relieve them. Weeks into the the Harsh summers of Russia. It’s was really cold this period, over -12 degrees. And the trapped German soldiers were freezing cold, with an increased death rate for hunger, disease and so many cases of suicide was recorded.
At this time, Hitler has given them direct order not to surrender, he mandates that they all fight till the end. This order they respected until they got to a breaking point. They Trapped German soldiers Surrendered after a long fight. They were taken as prisoners there in Russia.
The Germans believed it was their allies Romania and other allie countries that caused the counter attack to be a success, they Germans believed the allies had fought poorly to protect the flanks. And these countries in their defence narrated how their soldier were poorly equipped and illy fed.