As we know, the result of the Red Army’s counterattack outside Moscow in winter 1941-1942, the German ‘Operation Typhoon’ — aimed at seizing the Russian capital — fell through completely. As a result, the Wehrmacht was thrown back several hundred kilometers. However, despite widespread opinions to the contrary, this had not been the Third Reich’s first major loss on the Eastern Front. A week before the Moscow turnaround, another major city was liberated: Rostov-on-Don.
The industrial center with a population of half a million people was also a critical railway and highway hub. Rostov was taken by General Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist’s 1st Tank Army on November 21, 1941. Known in the USSR as “the jewel of the Don River”, Rostov was seen by the Germans as the “gateway to the Caucasus”, in other words — a direct path to the riches of the Soviet south’s oil fields.
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