Operation Koltso

Operation Ring Part of Battle of Stalingrad, Eastern Front, World War II Soviet flag over Stalingrad. February 1943 Date 10 January - 2 February 1943 Location Stalingrad Result Soviet victory Belligerents  Soviet Union  Germany Commanders and leaders Konstantin Rokossovsky Friedrich Paulus Strength 212,000 troops, 6,860 guns and mortars, 257 tanks and 300 aircraft [1] 250,000 soldiers, 4130 guns and mortars, 300 tanks, 100 aircraft [2]

v t e Eastern Front Naval warfare Baltic Sea Black Sea Arctic Ocean 1941 Barbarossa Białystok and Minsk Smolensk Uman 1st Kiev Leningrad Sevastopol Rostov Moscow Finland Chechnya 1942 Rzhev Toropets and Kholm Demyansk Velikiye Luki Mars 2nd Kharkov Case Blue Stalingrad Uranus Winter Storm 1943 3rd Kharkov Kursk 2nd Smolensk Lower Dnieper 2nd Kiev 1944 Dnieper and Carpathian Leningrad and Novgorod Narva Hube's Pocket Crimea Jassy-Kishinev Karelia Bagration Lvov and Sandomierz 2nd Jassy-Kishinev Baltics Debrecen Dukla Pass Belgrade Petsamo and Kirkenes Hungary 1945 Vistula and Oder East Prussia East Pomerania Solstice Silesia Vienna Berlin Czechoslovakia German capitulation v t e Case Blue to 3rd Kharkov Blue Voronezh Caucasus Drive towards Stalingrad Stalingrad 3rd Kharkov

Operation Koltso (Operation Ring) was the last part of the Battle of Stalingrad. It resulted in the capitulation of the remaining German forces encircled in the city.

The attack

The operation was launched on 10 January 1943 with a mass artillery bombardment of the German positions outside the city by the seven encircling Soviet armies. During the first three days of the operation, the Soviets lost 26,000 men and over half their tanks.^[3] The western half of the Stalingrad pocket had been lost by 17 January.

The fighting then paused for four days while the Soviet forces regrouped and redeployed for the next phase of the operation. The second phase of the offensive began on 20 January with a Soviet push toward the airfield at Gumrak. Two days later, the airfield was occupied by the Soviets. Its capture meant an end to the evacuation of the German wounded and that any further air supply would be by parachute.

Paulus on 22 January sent a radio message to OKH "Russians in action in 6 km wide on both sides Voroponovo, some with flags unfurled to the east. No way to close the gap. Withdrawal to neighboring fronts who are also without ammunition, useless and not feasible. Supply with ammunition from other fronts also no longer possible. Food at an end. More than 12,000 unprovided for wounded in the encirclement. What orders shall I give the troops who have no more ammunition and will be further attacked with heavy artillery, tanks and massed infantry? Fastest decision necessary because dissolution in some places already started. Confidence in the leadership still exists."

The Germans retreated back into the city itself. But resistance to the Soviet advance gradually diminished due to the exhaustion of all supplies on the German side. On 25 January, LI Corps commander Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach told his divisional commanders to decide for themselves on the matter of surrender. He was immediately relieved of his command by Paulus. Seydlitz later fled the German lines under German fire and personally surrendered to the Soviets.^[4]

On 26 January, detachments of 21st Army met up with the 13th Guards Division to the north of the Mamaev Kurgan which cut the German pocket in Stalingrad in two. Paulus and many of the senior German commanders were in the smaller southern pocket based in the city center of Stalingrad. The Northern pocket was led by XI Corps commander General Strecker and centered in the area around the Stalingrad tractor factory.

In bitter fighting, the Soviets gradually cleared the city center. By 31 January, German resistance in the southern pocket was confined to individual buildings. Soviet forces reached the headquarters of Paulus in the Univermag Department Store and the remaining German soldiers ceased resistance. Soviet Staff officers entered the building and negotiated terms with General Schmidt. Paulus refused to directly participate. In Soviet captivity, Paulus denied having surrendered. He claimed to have been taken by surprise. He refused to issue an order to the remaining Germans in the southern pocket to surrender. He denied having the authority to issue an order for the Northern pocket to surrender.^[5]

The entire Soviet force at Stalingrad now concentrated on the northern pocket. Dense artillery fire was used to reduce resistance. Soviet forces then followed up destroying any remaining bunkers often with direct fire at short range from tanks or artillery. General Strecker continued to resist based on the idea that tying down the multiple Soviet Armies at Stalingrad as long as possible would help the German situation elsewhere in Russia.

The battle ends

By the early morning of 2 February, Strecker was informed that one of his officers had gone to negotiate surrender terms with the Soviets. He then decided to put an end to the fighting. He issued a radio message back to Germany saying that his command had performed its duty to the last man and then surrendered to the Soviets. Organized German resistance in the city ended.

Disposition of forces in and around Stalingrad.

References

v t e Battle of Stalingrad Airfields Axis order of battle Red Army order of battle Bombing of Stalingrad in World War II German commanders German units   Operations  Nazi Germany Donnerschlag Winter Storm  Soviet Union Little Saturn Koltso Saturn Uranus   Formations Army groups and fronts B Centre Don Don Southwestern Stalingrad Voronezh Armies Axis German 4th Panzer German 6th Hungarian 2nd Italian 8th Romanian 3rd and 4th 1st Guards 2nd Guards 3rd Guards 21st 51st 62nd 64th 65th Corps XIV Panzer XL Panzer XLVIII Panzer IV VIII XI LI 8th Air Tank 1st 4th 13th 16th 24th 26th others 4th Mechanised 13th Mechanised 3rd Guards Cavalry 4th Cavalry 8th Cavalry Divisions Panzer 6th 14th 16th 17th 22nd 24th Infantry 3rd Motorised 29th Motorised 60th Motorised 5th 44th 71st 76th 79th 94th 100th 113th 295th 297th 305th 371st 376th 384th 389th Guards Rifle 13th 15th 33rd 35th 36th 37th 39th Rifle 38th 45th 62nd 64th 91st 93rd 95th 112th 138th 157th 169th 173rd 181st 193rd 196th 204th 214th 221st 248th 284th 302nd 308th 422nd others 414th Anti-Tank 149th Artillery 60th Cavalry 81st Cavalry   Notable participants Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler Alexander Edler von Daniels Hermann Göring Wilhelm Hoffman Hermann Hoth Hans-Valentin Hube Erwin König (apocryphal) Erich von Manstein Friedrich Paulus Wolfram von Richthofen Arthur Schmidt Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach Karl Strecker Romania Constantin Constantinescu-Claps Petre Dumitrescu Mihail Lascăr Other Axis members Viktor Pavičić (Croatia) Italo Gariboldi (Italy) Gusztáv Jány (Hungary) Soviet Union Joseph Stalin Hazi Aslanov Vasily Badanov Vasily Chuikov Nikolay Dyatlenko Sasha Filippov Peter Gitelman Vasily Grossman Nikita Khrushchev Dmitry Lelyushenko Rodion Malinovsky Yakov Pavlov Alexander Rodimtsev Konstantin Rokossovsky Alexander Shcherbakov Semyon Timoshenko Aleksandr Vasilevsky Nikolay Voronov Erich Weinert Andrei Yeremenko Vasily Zaytsev Georgy Zhukov   Significant locations Barmaley Fountain Barrikady Factory Grain Elevator Gumrak Kalach Mamayev Kurgan Pavlov's House Pitomnik Airfield Red October Steel Factory River Don River Volga Tatsinskaya Airfield Tsaritsa Gorge Stalingrad Tractor Factory   In memoriam The Motherland Calls Stalingrad Madonna Sword of Stalingrad Battle of Stalingrad in popular culture See also Battle of the Caucasus Battle of Kursk Battle of Nikolayevka Case Blue Operation Barbarossa Second Battle of Kharkov Third Battle of Kharkov Volgograd