When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (Modern War Studies)

by David M. Glantz

Thus, from its inception Operation Barbarossa contained the danger of dissipating the German combat power in a vain effort to seize everything simultaneously. The German leaders had not clearly defined the desired end state, and their proposed way of achieving that end state—mechanized battles of encirclement—soon exceeded their logistical means.

Had Hitler attacked four years earlier or even one year later, the Soviet Armed Forces would have been more than a match for the Wehrmacht. Whether by coincidence or instinct, however, the German dictator struck at a time when his own armed forces were still close to their peak and his archenemy was most vulnerable.

In September and early October, the Stavka had already launched several major counteroffensives from the Kotluban’ region north of Stalingrad and from areas south of the city, but these had proved costly failures. Recoiling in horror over the prospect of repeating these bloodlettings, Eremenko suggested a far broader envelopment operation from the bridgeheads across the Don River at Serafimovich and Kletskaia and from the lake region south of Stalingrad; the attacking forces would link up at Kalach on the Don, deep in Sixth Army’s rear.4 This concept involved penetrating Romanian rather than German defenses and employing cavalry and armor to carry out the enveloping maneuver. Zhukov, in his capacity as Deputy Supreme Commander, accepted Eremenko’s proposal, strengthened it significantly with armor, and convinced Stalin of the plan’s feasibility.