Stalingrad: The German Sixth Army Shifts It's Focus to the Factory District

The Battle for the City of Stalingrad ranged across three large geographical areas divided into southern and central sectors as well as the Factory District in the north. By September 26, 1942 the German Sixth Army largely controlled the city's southern and central sectors following a brutal block by block fight that had lasted the entire month.

In southern Stalingrad the remnants from the Soviet 62nd Army's defenses (three rifle divisions, three rifle brigades, one tank brigade, and one rifle regiment - hardly equalling a fraction of their former size) had been pressed into a small strip of land along the Volga River. There they were held in place by the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps' 94th Infantry Division and 29th Motorized Division. These survivors, though brave and dogged fighters, were largely incapable of doing anything but holding on to a few city blocks even as German pressure diminished and the 94th Infantry Division prepared to redeploy further north in the city. Meanwhile, in the central/dowtown center of Stalingrad the German 71st Infantry Division had contained the 62nd Army's shattered 13th Guards Rifle Division and a single regiment from the 193rd Rifle Division in a corridor along the Volga no more than three blocks deep.

The northern part of Stalingrad represented Chuikov's only defensive position of any depth. That is where the bulk of the 62nd Army was firmly ensconsed in the imposing factory district, worker's villages to it's west, and Stalingrad's northwestern suburbs. Now, one could say that it had taken the Sixth Army a single month to take a big chunk of Stalingrad and such an accomplishment was commendable. Regardless, that would be missing the point that on September 26, 1942 the Sixth Army's units in Stalingrad carried nowhere near the fighting power they had held only a fortnight prior.

Remember, on the eve of the big September 13th offensive the Sixth Army's force in Stalingrad included the 24th Panzer, 29th Motorized, and 71st, 94th, 295th, 389th Infantry Divisions along with three assault gun battalions totalling 80,000 men and 100 tanks/assault guns. After two weeks of unrelenting combat these divisions had been badly weakened, fielding only 65,000 men and 25 tanks in the city. German regiments had dropped to around 1,000 men each, many battalions only had around 250 men, and the 24th Panzer Division's entire operational tank park equalled that of a reinforced tank company. On the other hand, the Germans had mauled the 62nd Army and taken most of the city. Nevertheless, in spite of the beating Chuikov's command had endured it still included 51,126 men in it's ranks on September 25th. This total represented a net loss of only around 3,000 men in comparison to the 62nd Army's personnel on hand two weeks earlier. Meaning that the German Sixth Army's relative manpower advantage in Stalingrad and over 62nd Army had been cut by around 12,000 men. How is this possible when the 62nd Army had been driven from most of Stalingrad while suffering enormous losses? The answer is simple: reinforcements.

During September of 1942 the Soviet 62nd Army received roughly 40,000 men as replacements for it's immense losses. These included the entire 13th Guards, 95th, and 284th Rifle Divisions as well as the 92nd Rifle and 137th Tank Brigades. In particular and as mentioned elsewhere, the timely deployment of the 13th Guards Rifle Division likely saved the then reeling 62nd Army from being flung into the Volga in mid-September. Moreover, the German refusal to match the Soviet timeliness in terms of providing reinforcements only represented part of the story. Though it was only late in September when Paulus finally was able to move the 100th Jager Division into Stalingrad the 100th Jager was no substitute for an infantry division; falling several battalions short of an infantry division's frontline manpower. This meant that though Paulus had added an entire division, because of it's smaller size this addition left his in-city force a few thousand men short of the 80,000 men they had begun with earlier in September.

From the German perspetive this is all the more galling considering that even one more infantry or panzer division arriving with the 100th Jager late in September might have allowed Paulus to break the back of 62nd Army's defenses while they were still consolidating and had not yet gelled following the staggering losses of the previous days. Events in October bear this contention out when the Germans once again came dangerously close to besting Chuikov's army while deploying additional infantry divisions (the 79th which was taken from Sixth Army's XVII Army Corps and the 305th, taken from Sixth Army's VIII Army Corps) and even though Chuikov had been given nearly two weeks to replenish his infantry and armored formations. To his credit Paulus also had been trying to redeploy the 113th Infantry Division into Stalingrad. Nontheless, the relentless Soviet assaults on Sixth Army's flanks meant that not only couldn't Paulus reassign the 113th Infantry, but that it was being badly denuded in it's own right; given the pounding it was taking from the Red Army. However, the 113th Infantry Division was far from the only available division that could have pushed Sixth Army over the hump late in September, and it's not like such facts on the ground were going unrecognized at that time.

The Luftwaffe's General Richtofen on October 3rd complained in his diary that "What we lack...is some clear thinking about a well defined primary objective. It's quite useless to muck about here, there and everywhere as we are doing...One thing at a time...we must finish off what we've started." Indeed. It is not a stretch at all to argue that one more division deployed into Stalingrad and restoring the Sixth Army's assault corps to their original hitting power on the eve of the push into the factory district would have been able to replicate what Sixth Army accomplished in September. Remember, in the span of just over two weeks six average to understrength German divisions took nearly all of southern and central Stalingrad even though they featured an armored force (24th Panzer, 29th Motorized, and three assault gun battalions) equivalent to half that fielded by either the 21st or 15th Panzer Divisions then parked in Egypt. Moreover, the key combat units in Rommel's vaunted command were also being continually replenished, while the 24th Panzer Division received not one tank to replace its losses regardless of trying to bring it up to even half-strength in comparison to the lavishly equipped panzer divisions in Africa.

There is no reason to believe that an equally sized German force to that fielded by Sixth Army on September 13th couldn't have cleared the northern factory district during the month of October had the Germans been able to build on the momentum granted by the September victories and maintain the pressure on the 62nd Army. Given the extant of Sixth Army's losses in September however that would have required Paulus restore his assault groupings in late September through reinforcing them with two more divisions that included with them a total of around 80 tanks and assault guns. Instead, the forces assembling to attack the factory district received a light division (100th Jager) deployed in late September. It was only well into October when Paulus received the two infantry divisions that might have granted the edge two weeks prior while in addition getting the weakened 14th Panzer Division that entered the factory district battle not only well after this crucial fight began but after the other German divisions had been weakened that much more. And as I have mentioned elsewhere this was part and parcel of German decision-making throughout the summer of 1942 whereby even though Army Group B as a whole was sustaining one third of the losses suffered by all of the German forces in Russia (including Army Groups North and Center) it was however only getting back on average around 12.5% of the replacements sent to the Ostheer. Moreover, when those replacements did reach Army Group B they were further diffused to such an extant that of the 68,100 men received as replacements for casualties during the months of September to November of 1942 nearly one third went to the Second Army and German forces fighting with the Italian Eighth Army (21,259) and not to the Sixth Army and Fourth Panzer Army.

For instance, even though Army Group North was a veritable backwater of the German Eastern Front in October of 1942 (notwithstanding the usual Soviet counterattacks which to be fair could be considerable given that as it was Army Group North and Center would fend off ten large-scale Soviet offensives between July and December of 1942) the German command saw fit to maintain its divisions in far better shape than those of Army Group B, no less the Sixth Army which on average was running personnel shortages of 1,659 more men per division than those deployed with Army Group North. Considering that the bulk of these shortages were in the combat ranks it was the rough equivalent of Army Group North's divisions enjoying an entire extra infantry regiment's worth of manpower over their peers in the Sixth Army then fighting one of the most important battles of the war. By the first weeks of November the 22 German divisions deployed in and around Stalingrad reported shortages of a staggering 143,414 men and the gap between the Sixth Army and Fourth Panzer Army's frontline strength in each division versus its peers in Army Group North had more than doubled from 1,659 to 3,782 men. Now, in the past this has often been portrayed as the product of a lack of German resources (in this case manpower) but that was simply not the case. It was a product of German decision-making and not just Hitler's. Though he often gets the blame in these situations (and it is hard not to blame a guy as genocidally criminal as Hitler for everything) ultimately the Organizational Department of the OKH was in charge of personnel decisions regarding the allocation of reinforcements.

That said, Hitler and the highest levels of political command were just as responsible as the German military establishment and its shockingly terrible staffwork during this critical phase of the war. That's becuase the men were available - they just weren't being sent to the right places. For instance, from July to November of 1942 the German forces in Russia endured 498,786 combat casualties (another 357,914 men also left the front due to circumstances like illness) and received in return 509,700 replacement personnnel. Obviously this means that even after those replacements had been provided German forces in the east were still short some 350,000 men. This is a seemingly insormountable number of just scrounge up - even if you liquidated the entire German military presence in North Africa it wouldn't equal 350,000 men (though that obviously would have alleviated a huge chunk of the shortfall). But even then the manpower was readily available. For instance, one must remember that it wasn't until the winter of 1941-1942 that the Germans finally cut back on the immense numbers of deferments to military service that had been granted to a staggering 5.5 million military age males. Now, the bulk of these men were needed in the factories however by all acounts the German economy could release up to one million of these men for military service in 1942 with no hit to the economy or productivity (assuming the rationalization and other such efficiency measures implemented by Todt and then Speer continued on their pace at that time). Instead, the German had only cut the number of deferments by 360,000 men during the late winter and early spring of 1942. Moreover, attempts to further dip into this otherwise readily available manpower pool were stymied by Nazi party officials concerned with civilian morale and consumer goods availability in their own little regional fiefdoms (Gau or Reichsgau). And this went right to the top. Speer, in spite of the increased output and productivity being wrought by his reforms, was loathe to reduce the manpower working for him. He would end up playing a key role in shooting down plans to release 100,000 armaments workers per month to the military in 1942 and get Hitler to back down to such an extant that only an additional 6,600 worker were provided for military duty in August of 1942 and those German military age males getting defferments was right back up to 5.4 million men and thus near its peak of the previous winter. Meanwhile the German authorities were still allowing tens of thousands of Soviet POW's to die and by November of 1942 Fritz Sauckel (leading the German labor force) had only brought 1.5 million Soviet workers into the German economy by November of 1942 in spite of the Germans having captured on the battlefield three times that number by that date (most of the rest had died of exposure or starvation). Furthermore, this ignores the millions of Jews being taken from the labor force via the Holocaust (running at full speed in 1942 and resulting in the deaths of a potential 4.8 million workers after the winter of 1941-1942).

As bad as all of this was, the German military did nothing to cover itself in glory in such matters. For instance, when the Germans decided to call up the 1924 class of recruits early in October of 1942 they only assigned 260,000 of the 654,057 men to the army. Though that's a self-inflicted wound that's really more for the conversation regarding what happened in 1943 there were other equally problematic decisions made by the Wehrmacht's highest ranking officers. For example and continuining its trend of head-scratching decisions when in August of 1942 OKW finally determined that 20,000 naval and 50,000 air force personnel in their respective and highly bloated branches could be transferred to the army Goring stepped in and insisted the Luftwaffe be allowed to expand its own burgeoning army (at that time mainly parachute troops, anti-aircraft artillery units, and several smaller "field" formations). In September of 1942 Hitler assented putting the Luftwaffe on path to create 22 divisions totalling 200,000 men (with five such divisions established in September). However, these Luftwaffe field divisions could hardly compare in terms of size, weaponry, or organization to a standard 1942 era German infantry division. The better comparison would be to a German army brigade. Nevertheless, they would be deployed as regular infantry and with disastrous results that could have been avoided had this otherwise above average well of skilled manpower been retrained and used to replenish the German army's ranks.

Moreover, the Luftwaffe field divisions would take way more time to stand up than by using more expedient and effective measures. Had the men available from the Luftwaffe for ground combat in August of 1942 instead been put through a modified basic training for army service the manpower used for the first twelve Luftwaffe field divisions formed in September and October would have been enough to have been retrained in an abbreviated form of basic training, redeployed, and subsequently brought nearly all of Sixth Army's formations within Stalingrad up to full strength by the time of the Sixth Army's renewed push in mid-October of 1942. Instead, these men became part of poorly led and unbalanced formations nowhere near commensurate with the weight of responsibilities that would be assigned to divisional named formations. The experiment would be a disaster with the Luftwaffe field divisions not only costing the German army the services of 250,000 men who properly led by veteran NCO's and junior officers in experienced infantry divsions but doing so during the most critical phase of the war and resulting in the bulk of the 22 field divisions having been destroyed or disbanded by the end of 1943 (or within one year of the first such division reaching the front). Futhermore, the Luftwaffe took so much time that mustering up the manpower for the first divisions didn't even start until September 19th and the first of the division's formed wouldn't be ordered to the front until November of 1942. In addition, OKW and the Luftwaffe were steadily reinforcing their Mediterranean commitment such that the sizeable force gathered in August of 1942 of 828 aircraft would grow to 1,158 aircraft by the spring of 1943.

Regardless of the Luftwaffe, the army could be its own worst enemy in other ways as well. For instance, even though the spearheads for Army Groups A and B were coming so close to achieving their objectives that any little push could get them over the hump the army had seen fit to continue to form new divisions in the fall of 1942 rather than taking that well of trained manpower and breathing new life into for instance the German Sixth Army and Fourth Panzer Army. In July and August of 1942 the German army formed six new infantry divisions in Western Europe. One, the 164th, was promptly sent to North Africa, one was a security division, one was for controlling a collection of smaller formations in Norway, and the other three would become the 38th, 39th, and 65th Infantry Divisions. Meanwhile, and admittedly mostly outside the army's control, the Waffen-SS had taken from Russia its three best units (Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, and Totenkopf) and were in the process of uprgrading them to panzer-grenadier divisions (albeit incredibly strong panzer divisions with two panzer battalions and a company of new heavy "Tiger" tanks in an entire panzer regiment). In fact had the Germans merely kept the German army at the same number of 203 divisions it could call upon in June of 1941 instead of raising new formations then the entire Ostheer in the fall of 1942 wouldn't just have been at full strength but at the level of 1941 tables of organization and equipment (meaning for instance nine infantry battalions per infantry division and not the six in practive during 1942). Instead 1.1 million men went into the 75 new divisions formed by the army, Waffen-SS, and Luftwaffe (who in addition to creating field divisions also raised the size of the Regiment Goring to divisional size during this period) by early in 1943 which in factoring in combat losses was almost the exact equivalent to the army's average shortfall of around three quarters of a million men in the fall of 1942 and winter of 1942-1943. But even that wasn't neccessary. The Germans had the manpower to maintain the army's strength at Barbarossa levels and raise new divisions but they choose not to and in contradiction to a conventional wisdom that says they could not. And doing so needn't have meant stripping the Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine bare. For instance during June 15th of 1941 and July 1st of 1943 they grew considerably. With the Luftwaffe going from an already healthy 1,545,000 men to 2,011,000 men (in spite of the German air force transitioning from maintaining a large number of manpower intensive attack aicraft to a far greater percentage of single-engine fighters during that period) and the Kriegsmarine growing from 404,000 to 650,000 men (in spite of the loss of much of the German surface fleet during that same period). This also means that the German economy need not have suffered either. Simply put the Wehrmacht had all the manpower reserves it needed to fully back Operation Blue, but it choose otherwise and poorly instead.

Thus as perhaps the most important battle of the war in Europe was being fought on a shoestring budget one can look across the board at German strategic, economic, and military decision-making ranging from deferrments, to the destruction of readibly available labor, to the expansion of elements of the Wehrmacht ill-suited for the roles they sought to assume, to the German divisions cooling their heels in Egypt while being richly reinforced as providing ample fuel to Richtofen's prescient lamentations mentioned earlier in this article regarding a German command neglecting the very operating principles that had otherwise brought it to the brink of inflicting a war altering defeat on its greatest foe.