Hitler's early decision to hold 6th Army in the Stalingrad pocket and liberate it with a
makeshift force may have been his worst possible option when he imposed it but it
soon became the only one, short of surrender, as the army's low stocks of food, fuel,
and ammunition dwindled sharply. There was a time in the last week of November when
he might have pulled Army Group A out of the Caucasus and gone for Paulus with everything
he could put together, although it would have been very, very difficult. There was also a time,
it is not likely but a possibility, when Paulus might have fought his way out with heavy loss
of life. By early December, however, no course of action lay open other than the one the
Fuehrer had chosen. It was too late to assemble a strong force, and Paulus was almost
immobile. In the circumstances, the Germans mounted an effort that for spectacular futility
is reminiscent of the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854, with this difference, that instead
of the 673 British cavalrymen who rode into the valley of death at Balaclava they had three
panzer divisions (which were new to the area) and supporting units (which were dazed from
recent combat). It was a strange piece of business. Whether anyone at the High Command
seriously thought 75,000 men and 500 tanks could break through to Stalingrad seventy-five
miles to the northeast or whether this was a sacrificial operation that one conception of military
honor seems to demand may never be known. It is certain, however, they never had a
chance. Everything was against them, time, weather, the terrain, manpower, firepower,
long lines of communication and supply. There were guns to the right of them, guns to the
left of them, and, as always since late July, more Russians out ahead than the generals
realized or would acknowledge.
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