The Tide Turns 1091Leningrad’s fall could never be sent out. Further defeats in the north made
Germany’s drive to the Soviet oil fields of the Caucasus Mountains, and
the Donets Basin industrial region in the south, all the more critical. In
the south, the Red Army slowed the German advance toward Stalingrad, a
strategically located industrial city on the Volga River.
The battle of Stalingrad, which began in November 1942, was a great
turning point in the European war. The Soviets had begun concentrating a
huge force around the city, even as early German successes deluded Hitler
into thinking Stalingrad’s fall was inevitable. As Soviet troops held off the
German assault in house-to-house fighting, Hitler confidently began to
transfer some of his exhausted troops to the north. The Soviet army counter
attacked on November 19, trapping the weakened German armies as Soviet
tanks moved easily across the frozen ground. From Berlin, Hitler ordered
his troops to hold out until the last man. By the time German survivors sur
rendered on February 2, 1943, the German army had lost more than 300,000
soldiers.
Soviet troops fought their way into Leningrad. In July 1943, in a battle
involving more than 9,000 tanks, the Red Army lost many times more men
and tanks in a decisive battle in and around the city of Kursk, 500 miles
south of Moscow. In the greatest tank battle ever fought, the Soviets man
aged to repell a massive German attack against an exposed Soviet line of
defense and then pushed the Germans back, with a huge loss of life, a
Pyrrhic victory. This further depleted the German armored divisions that
had once seemed invincible. The Soviets were now battering the enemy on
three fronts, even as Hitler was forced to divert troops to Italy and the