On this day, December 23, 1945 all attempts to relieve the embattle German troops at Stalingrad were abandoned.
Soviet General Georgy Zhukov said of the action: "The military and political leadership of Nazi Germany sought not to relieve them, but to get them to fight on for as long possible so as to tie up the Soviet forces. The aim was to win as much time as possible to withdraw forces from the Caucasus (Army Group A) and to rush troops from other Fronts to form a new front that would be able in some measure to check our counter-offensive.”
It was all in vain the tactics and determination of the Red Army proved too strong for the Germans.
December 23 was a decisive moment on the Volga. In just over a month Stalingrad was liberated; the first major defeat for Germany.
In summer 1942 Hitler ordered the annihilation of Stalingrad's population, declaring that after its capture, all male citizens would be killed and women and children deported due to their "thoroughly communistic” nature.
Between one and three million people lost their lives at Stalingrad.
It must never happen again.
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