But Russia could endure such losses, and even such clumsy, brutal warmaking. Stalin’s forces were now much larger than those of Hitler, and their superiority was growing steadily: some Soviet weapons systems were better than those of the Wehrmacht. Russian air power was increasingly formidable, as ever more of the Luftwaffe’s declining strength was diverted to defend the Reich from Allied bombers. For a time in the spring of 1943, the Germans looked incapable of holding any line east of the Dnieper, 400 miles from Stalingrad. Indeed, it seemed plausible that Hitler’s Army Groups A and Don
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