The destruction of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad has traditionally been considered the turning point of the war in Europe. In order to appreciate how this defeat came about, an understanding of a number of seemingly unrelated events that occurred in the period between the failure of the battle for Moscow in December 1941 and the opening of Operation Blue - the campaign that led to Stalingrad - in June 1942 is required. These developments provided the basis for the erroneous choices that eventually produced the decisive German defeat at Stalingrad.
During the winter of 1941-42, the German army on the Eastern Front panicked. Numerous senior German commanders were dismissed during this period because of it. Among them was Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, Commander in Chief of the Army, who was formally removed by Hitler on December 19th, 1941. Rather than replace Brauchitsch, Hitler assumed the position of Commander in Chief of the Army. He proceeded to ruthlessly enforce the order to stand and fight. By the spring of 1942, the German army recovered from the shock of the Soviet winter counteroffensive and the front was stabilized. There could be no doubt that Hitler deserved some of the credit for saving the army from collapse during the critical winter months, but the success of his inflexibility in this situation clouded his judgment in later crises which called for quite different responses from a commander in chief.
Read Full Article »