Operation Donnerschlag

During World War II, the German military planned or undertook an operation named Donnerschlag ("Thunderclap" in German).

The December 1942 German Army plan called for a breakout from the besieged city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) by the German Sixth Army and there meet up with the relief Operation Wintergewitter. Donnerschlag was to be the code word for the commencement of Operation Wintergewitter. The operation was downgraded and converted into a defensive stance after Hermann Göring's boast that the Luftwaffe would resupply the surrounded troops at Stalingrad. This effort eventually failed totally, and the Sixth Army, encircled by the Red Army as a result of Operation Uranus, surrendered in early February 1943.^[1]

References

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