The Red Army's Winter Offensive, 1942-1943 * Reassessment of events on the
Eastern Front * Thoroughly researched from both sides of the action * Over 100
operational maps. In the wake of the Red Army's signal victory at Stalingrad,
which began when its surprise counter-offensive encircled German Sixth Army in
Stalingrad region in mid-November 1942 and ended when its forces liquidated
beleaguered Sixth Army in early February 1943, the Soviet High Command (Stavka)
expanded its counter-offensive into a full-fledged winter offensive which nearly
collapsed German defences in southern Russia. History has recorded the many
dramatic triumphs the Red Army achieved during the initial phases of this winter
offensive, culminating with its rapid advance deep into the Donbas and Khar'kov
regions in February 1943. It has also described the subsequent feats of German
Field-Marshall Erich von Manstein, who, tasked by his Führer, Adolph Hitler, to
restore German fortunes in southern Russia, skillfully orchestrated a
counterstroke of his own that indeed restored stability to Germany's defences in
the East and paved the way for the climactic battle of Kursk in July 1943. As is
so often the case, however, history has misled its audience for several cogent
reasons. On the one hand, the Soviet Union and its historians, anxious to
conceal the ambitiousness of its offensive wilfully avoided describing the
offensive's true scope and the many failures and shortcomings of Red Army during
its conduct. On the other hand, German and other Western historians, frequently
basing their accounts on inaccurate Soviet sources, focused only on the most
dramatic aspects of the offensive, ignoring much of their adversary's actions.
AFTER STALINGRAD restores the lost and concealed to the historical record.
Exploiting newly-released Russian archival materials, it reveals the ambitions
that shaped the Stavka's winter offensive and the full scope and scale of the
Red Army's many offensive operations. For example, it reflects on
recently-rediscovered Operation Mars, Marshal Zhukov's companion-piece to the
more famous Operation Uranus at Stalingrad. It then reexamines the Red Army's
dramatic offensive into the Donbas and Khar'kov region during February,
demonstrating that this offensive was conducted by three rather than two Red
Army fronts. It also describes how the Stavka expanded the scale of its
offensive in mid-February 1943 by ordering major strategic efforts by multiple
Red Army fronts along the Western axis and, in Zhukov's forgotten operation
Polar Star, along the North-western axis as well. By restoring the full scope of
these failed or partially failed Red Army offensives to history, the book also
reassesses the impact of Manstein's dramatic counterstrokes in the Donbas and
Khar'kov regions, concluding that their impact was equivalent to that of a
full-fledged strategic counter-offensive. This new study includes over 100
operational maps to highlight key aspects of the offensives.
