Inexplicably, Paulus did not move. Harried by the suicidal Russian attempts to break his thin corridor to the Volga, he refused to rush troops south for a linkup. Crucial hours passed. Another urgent cable went out to Paulus. Again he failed to respond. And while the German High Command tried to move its pincers, Andrei Yeremenko pulled back more than twenty thousand Russian soldiers on the steppe between the Don and Stalingrad.
