Wehrmacht's Fateful Decision on Road to Stalingrad

The plan for the 1942 offensive (Operation Blue) took no account whatsoever of the principles of the armoured idea. Indeed, steps were taken to guard against their use. On this point, Hitler's Directive #41 was quite specific. The Furher stated : "It must not happen that, by advancing too quickly and too far, the armoured and motorised formations lose connection with the infantry following them or that they lose the opportunity of supporting the hard-pressed, forward-fighting infantry by direct attacks on the rear of the encircled Russian armies." With this, OKH was in full agreement. Encirclement was to dominate, although, and here the Army leaders were more sceptical, not in the grand, classic manner. Hitler believed that "Experience has sufficietly shown that the Russians are not very vulnerable to large operational encircling movements. It is therefore of decisive importance that individual breaches of the front should take the form of close pincer movements. We must avoid closing the pincers too late, thus giving the enemy the possibility of avoiding destruction. Therefor, instead of there being one massive encirclement of all the Soviet troops within the bend of the Don, as might be attempted the previous year, Hitler envisaged, two, to be undertaken by three separate attacks."