"ln the spring of 1942, with the German army still deep inside Soviet territory," "Stalin ordered a huge offensive over these fields near Kharkov in the Ukraine." "Stalin had overruled his high command, who had advised against the attack." "The Soviet dictator had demanded action." "But the result was disaster." "Even though they outnumbered the Germans, the Red Army was encircled yet again, and destroyed." "There seemed little prospect of the Soviet Union ever being able to mount a successful major offensive against the Germans." "Yet here, at the battle of Stalingrad, less than ten months later, the Soviets were to inflict on the Germans one of the greatest military defeats in their hist" "How did the Red Army finally learn how to win?" "ln June 1942," "Adolf Hitler traveled to the east of the Ukraine to congratulate his army on a devastating victory." "Hitler believed that during 1942 the Germans could finally win the war in the East." "He ordered his own hugely ambitious offensive, codenamed Operation Blue." "By July 1942 the final plan called for one thrust, Army Group A, to attack south towards the mountains of the Caucasus and secure a major source of the Soviet oil supply at Baku." "The second spearhead, Army Group B, was to push on to the city of Stalingrad on the Volga, the mighty river which carried vital Soviet supplies from the south." "That summer more than 700 German tanks advanced across the Soviet steppes." "The Germans advanced just as successfully as they had in the early stages of the invasion the previous year." "But this time there was one difference." "ln 1941 the Red Army had been bewildered by German tactics." "Now it looked like they were beginning to work out the Wehrmacht's routine." "The new Soviet tactic of a fighting retreat meant that relatively few Red Army prisoners were captured." "ln 1941 Red Army units had stayed where they were and become encircled." "But now Stalin allowed his military commanders to pull their men back." "All through the summer of 1942, German Army Group A advanced further south, reaching the mountains of the Caucasus, and even taking time out to climb the high peaks and claim them for their volk." "Despite this success, Hitler was still unhappy." "At his field headquarters here in the Ukraine he fretted in the summer heat." "He had hoped for even greater progress, and was furious that the German army had not managed to complete the same giant encirclements as in 1941 ." "ln particular, he felt that Army Group A, to the south, ought to have pushed on even further." "Angry with Field Marshal List, Commander of Army Group A, he sacked him and as an immediate replacement he chose the only German he felt was up to the task ahead - himself." "This created a bizarre chain of command, where Hitler, now in direct command of an Army Group one thousand miles away was answerable to himself as Commander-in-Chief of the army, then himself again as Supreme Commander of all the German armed forces" " and then finally to himself once more as Head of State and Fuhrer of the German people." "Hitler's desire to intervene at this detailed level in the army's decision making process resulted in growing disillusionment amongst his senior commanders." "Meanwhile, German Army Group B, including the German Sixth Army, had pressed on, and on August 23rd 1942, finally came to the river Volga." "The original German invasion plan had said that the Volga here would be the boundary between the Soviets and the new German empire." "But before that dream could be realised, there remained one last task for the Germans." "ln order to consolidate their defences along the West Bank of the Volga, the Germans needed to conquer a city that hugged the river for some 40 miles." "The Germans subjected Stalingrad to the biggest aerial and land bombardment yet seen on the Eastern Front." "During the final days of August 1942, they dropped more than a thousand tons of bombs on the city." "As the German army advanced on into the outskirts of the city," "Stalin decided that while it had been acceptable for the Red Army to stage a fighting retreat across the steppes, they must not lose this vital foothold on the west bank of the Volga." "Valentina Krutova, her brother and younger sister, lost contact with their parents and became three of the several thousand children now trapped in the city behind German lines." "During September 1942, the Germans managed to push the Red Army defenders of Stalingrad back almost into the Volga." "Soviet reinforcements had to make the harzardous journey across the river to join their comrades clinging on in the city." "Even if Soviet soldiers managed to get to the Stalingrad bank of the Volga, there remained horrific dangers for them, as these bones testify." "Almost daily around the city farmers still uncover human remains from their shallow makeshift graves." "Before the fall of Communism, it was forbidden to calculate the true Soviet death toll here, for fear the sacrifice would be shown to be too high." "Only recently have historians been able to estimate that on the Stalingrad front at least a million Soviet soldiers died, and that the average life expectancy for a Soviet private soldier in Stalingrad was 24 hours." "At this desperate moment" "Vasily Chuikov was the man chosen to command the Soviet 62nd army in the centre of Stalingrad." "He knew his task was to defend the city or die in the attempt." "Chuikov was merciless with the lives of his men." "Several hundred of them were executed during the battle for alleged cowardice." "lmmediately after their victory, the Soviets made newsreels which demonstrated Chuikov's ruthless tactics for fighting in the city itself." "Chief amongst them was the use of special assault groups to enter buildings and seize the most vital part, the stairwells." "The casualty rate amongst these groups was enormous." "Suren Mirzoyan was one of those who took part in these primitive encounters." "There wasn't just danger for the Germans inside the ruined buildings:" "out on the streets they faced further unexpected risks." "On the Stalingrad Front, the captured German prisoners were often taken across the Volga to interrogation centres on the eastern bank of the river, where they were questioned by specially trained Ministry of lnterior officers." "One of those who helped examine captured German prisoners during the war was" "Zinaida Pytkina, who subsequently became a member of SMERSH, one of the most infamous of all Stalin's secret organisations." "Only now does she feel able to talk openly about how these interrogations were conducted." "After their interrogation many of the captured Germans were simply taken outside and shot - a task Zinaida Pytkina was once asked to perform herself." "While the Red Army tried to resist the Germans in Stalingrad," "Soviet industry was out-producing the Germans in military equipment." "Thousands of factories had been dismantled in the face of the German advance and reconstructed further east." "But though the Soviets were showing they could make tanks, they hadn't yet shown they were able to use them to win decisively against the Germans." "That autumn, here at his dacha just outside Moscow," "Stalin discussed with his Generals the plans for an offensive against the Germans" "And how Stalin acted during these discussions was to be a crucial reason why the Red Army managed to turn their fortunes around." "For while Hitler was brow-beating and overriding his generals," "Stalin began to pursue a very different approach." "The offensive, code name Operation Uranus, began on the 19th November 1942." "Soviet commanders had been studying German armoured tactics, and now combined this knowledge with their own military theory." "The idea was to attack the German line 100 miles north-west of Stalingrad, at the point where the Germans' allies, the Romanians, made up much of the defensive formation." "Then another thrust was to attack from the south and catch the Germans in a giant encirclement." "As out on the steppes the Red Army advanced against the Germans and their allies, in Stalingrad Chuikov and his men still held on, dug into the banks of the Volga." "Red Army soldiers even took to living in sewers." "As the Germans tried to eliminate the last resistance in Stalingrad, a fearsome human weapon was being used by the Red Army as part of Operation Uranus." "That summer Stalin had issued an order calling for the formation of penal units." "Given dangerous, almost suicidal tasks, his orders said that these soldiers would have a chance to atone with their blood for the sins they had committed." "Vladimir Kantovski, sentenced to ten years in a labour camp for protesting at the arrest of his teacher, was one of those who served in a penal company." "Kantovski and his comrades were ordered to advance towards strongly held German positions directly ahead of them, in what was termed 'reconnaissance through combat'." "The idea was that as the Germans shot the penal company down, the watching Soviet commanders could assess the strength and position of the enemy's fire power." "Kantovski knew that if he returned to the Soviet line with only a minor wound he would be shot for cowardice." "Thanks to the sacrifice of men like Vladimir Kantovski, together with the power and surprise of the Red Army offensive, on 23rd November 1942 units of the Red Army met near the town of Kalach and encircled 250,000 Germans and their allies." "Pushed back by the Red Army," "German soldiers inside the encirclement withdrew towards Stalingrad." "Hitler called on Field Marshall Manstein to prepare an armoured column to push through the Soviet line and rescue the 6th Army, while the Luftwaffe attempted to keep the Germans in Stalingrad supplied from the air." "It was well known at the Fuhrer's headquarters that Hitler had previously overruled the Chief of the General Staff when he had said the German army couldn't take Stalingrad and advance to the Caucasus simultaneously without being vulnerable to attack." "The looming crisis at Stalingrad was of Hitler's own making." "Operation Winter Storm, Manstein's relief effort, began on 12th December." "It was the opposite of blitzkrieg, as the armoured column crawled towards the Red Army's defences." "The furthest German spearhead became bogged down still forty miles away from Stalingrad." "The Red Army had placed 60 divisions inside their defensive ring around Stalingrad, and Manstein's task was hopeless." "On Christmas Eve 1942," "Manstein's own force was threatened with encirclement and began to withdraw." "With Manstein defeated, together with the failure of the German Air Force to deliver sufficient food from the air, the 6th Army knew they were doomed." "As 1943 began," "German soldiers waited for the final Soviet assault." "And the commander of the 6th Army, Friedrich Paulus, considered personally what he should do." "A clue to his state of mind is given by a conversation he had with one of his other Generals, Richard Stempel, a conversation witnessed by General Stempel's own son," "Joachim, then a young German infantry officer." "A few days later Joachim Stempel had one last conversation with his father." "The prisoners the Red Army took were unrecognisable from the proud soldiers of the 6th Army that had entered Stalingrad five months before." "For weeks many of the German soldiers had been surviving on one side of bread a day." "As Soviet forces moved on into the city, they also came upon civilians who had been trapped since the arrival of the Germans the previous autumn." "For Valentina Krutova, her brother and small sister, the Red Army came only just in time." "Red Army soldiers pressed on towards the centre of the city, and by the 30th January 1943 were little more than a hundred metres away from Paulus' own headquarters, in a department store on the Square of the Fallen Fighters." "That same day, Hitler sent Paulus a message received at 6th Army headquarters by Gerhardt Hindenlang." "Everyone knew what the message really meant." "No German Field Marshal had ever been taken prisoner before." "It was obvious that Hitler wanted Paulus to commit suicide." "On 31st January, Paulus was captured alive by the Red Army." "Only days before, several of Paulus' senior officers, including General Stempel, had killed themselves." "When Hitler head of Paulus' capture, he too felt betrayed." "What hurts me so much is that the heroism of so many soldiers is cancelled out by one single characterless weakling." "What is life?" "The individual must die anyway." "He could have got out of this vale of tears and into eternity and been immortalised by the nation and he'd rather go to Moscow." "How can he even think of that as an alternative?" "It's crazy." "That's the last Field Marshal l promote in this war." "At Stalingrad the Red Army learnt that the Germans were not invincible." "A hundred and ten thousand German soldiers were taken prisoner, and 95 per cent of them were to die in Soviet captivity." "Now, as Soviet forces prepared to advance, they were ready to make the rest of the Germans pay for the suffering inflicted on their motherland."