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    Operation Uranus

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    Claus Jørgen Petersen
    Operation Uranus was a Soviet operation during World War 2 that resulted in the successful encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad. The Soviets prepared thoroughly and launched surprise attacks from the north and south, trapping over 250,000 Axis soldiers in Stalingrad during the harsh winter. The Germans were defeated, suffering their largest loss yet in the war.

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    Operation Uranus

    Uploaded by

    Claus Jørgen Petersen
    6 views2 pages
    Operation Uranus was a Soviet operation during World War 2 that resulted in the successful encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad. The Soviets prepared thoroughly and launched surprise attacks from the north and south, trapping over 250,000 Axis soldiers in Stalingrad during the harsh winter. The Germans were defeated, suffering their largest loss yet in the war.

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    Operation Uranus was a Soviet operation during World War 2 that resulted in the successful encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad. The Soviets prepared thoroughly and launched surprise attacks from the north and south, trapping over 250,000 Axis soldiers in Stalingrad during the harsh winter. The Germans were defeated, suffering their largest loss yet in the war.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    6 views2 pages

    Operation Uranus

    Uploaded by

    Claus Jørgen Petersen
    Operation Uranus was a Soviet operation during World War 2 that resulted in the successful encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad. The Soviets prepared thoroughly and launched surprise attacks from the north and south, trapping over 250,000 Axis soldiers in Stalingrad during the harsh winter. The Germans were defeated, suffering their largest loss yet in the war.

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    Operation Uranus (the battle of Stalingrad 1942)

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    The eastern front at the time of Operation Uranus.


    [show]
    v•d•e
    Eastern Front

    [show]
    v•d•e
    Operation Blue to

    3rd Kharkov

    Operation Uranus was the Soviet encirclement of German forces in the Battle of Stalingrad during World
    War II . The double envelopment was launched on November 19, 1942, with twin attacks that met at Kalach
    four days later.

    [edit] The operation

    Preparations for the encirclement had been very thorough. Joseph Stalin was persuaded to allow Georgy
    Zhukov and Aleksandr Vasilevsky to receive all the resources they wanted. Zhukov's strategy was to supply
    besieged Stalingrad with just enough resources to draw in, hold and exhaust Friedrich Paulus' German 6th
    Army, while fresh Soviet troop intakes and new equipment were used to build five new tank armies. By this
    time, Soviet war production far outstripped German expectations. The new armies were then 'blooded'
    elsewhere on the frontline. Once German forces were concentrated on Stalingrad, the Soviets decided on a
    wide encirclement for two main reasons: to attack the weaker fronts held by poorly equipped Romanian
    armies and to avoid early intervention by the 6th Army units. Secrecy was surprisingly effective, partly due
    to Soviet deceptive actions and partly due to deep German skepticism about the Soviet ability to carry out
    such an ambitious operation.
    Once Romanian resistance had been crushed on the first day of the operation, Soviet forces continued
    quickly with the encirclement. No significant German forces were in place to resist and the northern and
    southern (including 4th Mechanized Corps) pincers met at Sovietskii-Marinovka area, near Kalach, just four
    days later.[1]

    More than a quarter of a million Axis soldiers were now cut off from supplies just as the harsh winter began
    to take hold. The situation for the German in Stalingrad was desperate and on November 22 General Paulus
    sent Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German Sixth Army was surrounded. Hitler forbade Paulus to
    break out from the encirclement. So the Sixth Army slowly fell to continuous Soviet ground attacks,
    starvation and the freezing Russian winter. Promises by Hermann Göring to resupply the encircled Army by
    the Luftwaffe were never fully met, and many of the planes used to sustain at least a low level of resupply
    were lost.

    On February 2, 1943, the remnants of the 6th Army—consisting of around 90,000 soldiers—surrendered to
    the Soviets. The operation was conducted in rough coordination with Operation Mars near Moscow.

    [edit] Outcome

    The Red Army had linked up so rapidly at Kalach that it had to be re-enacted for propaganda filming several
    days later. Soviet forces took bridges on the march as the German defenders could not believe that the
    advancing tanks, with lights fully on, could be anything but their own. (German units often used captured T-
    34 tanks as they were highly regarded by all sides.)

    The morale boost of the German defeat, particularly in Russia, was significant. Germany had suffered its
    largest defeat in the war so far.

    During the siege, Paulus had been promoted to field marshal. He thus became the first German field marshal
    to surrender. According to some sources Hitler ordered his promotion specifically in the hope that he would
    commit suicide to avoid surrendering his marshal's baton.

    [edit] References and See-Also's

    1. ^ John Erickson (historian), The Road to Stalingrad, Cassel Military Paperbacks, 2003, p.470

    ← Romanian Armies in the Battle of Stalingrad

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