Liveblogging World War II: September 2, 1942
David Glantz, To the Gates of Stalingrad, p. 393 ff:
The fighting in the last days of August was significant in several respects, and its course and outcome had major implications for how the subsequent battle of Stalingrad was to be fought. Certainly, Hitler and every German could justifiably conclude that this stage of Operation Blue had been a success simply because Paulus's and Hoth's armies had indeed linked up west of the city. This junction stranded 62nd and 64th armies on a narrow belt of land stretching southward along the western bank of the Volga River. In so doing the two German armies had destroyed one Soviet army outright (1st Tank) and had severely damaged three more (4th tank, 62nd, and 64th) and had killed, wounded, or captured thousands of Red Army troops and destroyed as many as 400 Soviet tanks. This brought the gruesome toll of Red Army losses since mid-July to a staggering total of well more than 300,000 soldiers and 1000 tanks. Now all that had to be done was to eliminate the remnants of 62nd and 64th Armies and seize Stalingrad itself or, in light of Hitler's decision to bomb the city into rubble, to capture its ruins.
However, thoughtful reflection on Sixth Army's and Fourth Panzer Army's performances during the second half of August leads to a somewhat more sober appraisal of what had actually occurred…. The triumphal dash by Wietersheim's XIV Panzer Corps from the Don to the Volga in the astonishingly brief period of just three days… [but] once Wietersheim's panzers reached the Volga… his corps proved too weak to penetrate into and hop the northern portion of Stalingrad… had to fight hard for their very survival….
The hard reality was that, as on many occasions before, a force of well under 200 tanks was too weak and too slender a reed to perform the ambitious mission assigned to it…. [U]ness and until Fourth Panzer Army brought its weight to bear on Soviet forces south of the city, Paulus[s forces to the north remained in a situation resembling title better than a stalemate. All the while losing up to 500 men per day, Wietersheim[s XIV Panzer Corps was in danger of bleeding to death. Fighting south of Stalingrad, Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army, a panzer army in name only with only one panzer corps, was also too weak to carry out its assigned mission in one bound….
[D]efiantly the Stavka raised two new armies (24th and 66th)… as well as a third (28th) to defend the Astrakhan axis Within days after Paulus and Hoth closed the gate on Stalingrad from the west, Zhukov would employ 24th and 66th Armies, together with 1st Guards Army, to remind Weichs and Paulus that capturing Stalingrad would require a major battle outside as well as inside the city.
Finally, as all Germans from Hitler down to the lowliest Wehrmacht private focused their attentions on the climatic advance on Stalingrad, the Hungarian, Italian, and German forces on Army Group B's and Sixth rays overextended left flank had to endure multiple assaults by Stalingrad Front's 63rd. 21st. and 1st Guards Armies against their defenses on the southern bank of the Don River. Although they did so successfully, they committed the cardinal error of leaving sizable Red Army bridgeheads on the Dons southern bank. If the names of strange and remote places like Serafimovich and Kletskaia meant little to Hitler, OKH, or Army Group B in August and September 1942, by year[s end they would become rallying cries to every Soviet and curses to envy German…. The reality was that Army Group B was stretched too thin--as early as August and September 1942--to liquidate these bridgeheads. Given Hitler' resolve to capture Stalingrad at all costs, this reality would become even grimmer still by November and ultimately prove fatal to Army Group B.
In short, as already indicated… Sixth Army's advance… showed that Paulus's army lacked sufficient strength to accomplish all of the missions assigned to it. While it was able to compensate for this shortcoming in the late summer by sheer willpower and persistence, the most important unanswered question was whether the army's will would continue to prevail in the fall. The battle inside Stalingrad would answer this question.
