The German offensive to capture Stalingrad had in August 1942, used its 6th Army and parts of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intense Luftwaffe bombing that reduced most of the city to rubble. The fighting devolved into house to house fighting as both sides poured reinforcements into the city. By the middle of November 1942, the Germans had pushed the Soviet defenders back at great cost into narrow zones along the west bank of the Volga River.
In late November of 1942, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, the two pronged attack targeting the weaker Romanian and Hungarian armies protecting the German 6th Army’s flanks. The Axis forces on the flanks were overrun and the 6th Army was cut off and surrounded. Adolf Hitler ordered that the army stay in Stalingrad and make no
