On 16 January, infantrymen from the 51st Army overran Pitomnik airfield. After this, the battle began to slow down as Rokossovsky shifted toward more deliberate tactics, relying upon his superior artillery to decide the issue. The Don Front’s remaining 110 tanks were reduced to a secondary role by this point and the German armour was essentially out of the battle. From 18–21 January, Rokossovsky paused his offensive in order to bring up his artillery and replenish his combat units, knowing that he could afford this luxury since Paulus could not replace any of his losses. The Luftwaffe’s aerial resupply effort was reduced to a pitiful average of 86 tons per day; German soldiers were already starving to death and the last few German tanks were now immobilized by lack of fuel. On the morning of 22 January, Rokossovsky resumed his offensive and Gumrak fell the next day, which forced the Luftwaffe to resort to parachuting in a token amount of supplies each day. After that, the Don Front slowly pummelled the 6.Armee into submission, with Paulus surrendering on 31 January. The last German troops in Stalingrad surrendered on 2 February.
Stalingrad was a debacle for the German Panzertruppe and Sturmartillerie, removing three Panzer-Divisionen and three motorized infantry divisions with a total of 12 Panzer-Abteilungen, as well as four Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen from the Heer order of battle. Although the loss of hundreds of tanks and assault guns was serious, they could be replaced. However, the loss of more than 5,000 veteran tankers and Sturmartillerie crewmen was grievous. Some panzer crewmen, mostly wounded like Haen and Oberst Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz, had been flown out. Major Willy Langkeit, commander of the II./Panzer-Regiment 36, was one of the few able-bodied tankers flown out of the pocket and he would be instrumental in rebuilding Panzer-Regiment 36. Hitler also intervened to save a few select senior officers, such as General der Panzertruppe Hube and four infantry division commanders. However, Hitler did not order the evacuation of any of the three Panzer-Divisionen commanders; Lattman from 14.Panzer-Division and von Lenski from 24.Panzer-Division both went into Soviet captivity and later collaborated with the anti-Nazi League of German Officers (BDO). Generalleutnant Günther von Angern, commander of the 16.Panzer-Division, committed suicide on 2 February 1943.
Hoth’s Stand on the Manych River, 1–31 January 1943
At the start of January 1943, Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein’s Heeresgruppe Don was in retreat and barely able to hold a coherent front. Manstein’s strongest formation was Generaloberst Hermann Hoth’s 4.Panzerarmee (PzAOK 4), which consisted merely of the LVII Panzerkorps, part of a Luftwaffe field division and the remnants of the Romanian 4th Army. Nevertheless, General der Panzertruppe Friedrich Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps possessed the 17. and 23.Panzer-Divisionen, the 16.Infanterie-Division (mot.) and Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 203 and SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Wiking was just arriving from the Terek River front; altogether Kirchner’s corps had fewer than 100 tanks and assault guns still operational. Having abandoned the Stalingrad relief effort, Hoth’s Panzerarmee had retreated more than 100km down the Tikhoretsk-Stalingrad rail line toward the Manych River in the last half of December, pursued by General-polkovnik Andrei I. Eremenko’s Southern Front. Manstein’s other major formation was Gruppe Hollidt, which consisted of General der Panzertruppe Otto von Knobelsdorff’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps, the XVII and XXIX Armeekorps and Korps Mieth. General der Infanterie Karl A. Hollidt’s ramshackle command had the 6., 11. and 22.Panzer-Divisionen assigned, with roughly 90 operational tanks and assault guns, as well parts of four infantry and two Luftwaffe field divisions. Hollidt’s forces were in the process of retreating from the Chir River, pursued by General-polkovnik Nikolai F. Vatutin’s Southwest Front.
Manstein’s situation was grim, but he was about to receive some significant reinforcements in the shape of the rebuilt 7.Panzer-Division (156 tanks) just arriving from France and 2./s. Panzer-Abteilung 502 and 1., 2./s. Panzer-Abteilung 503 inbound with a total of 29 Tiger tanks and 35 Pz III Ausf N tanks. Obviously, German doctrine dictated that committing all these reinforcements in one sector would yield the most decisive results, but von Manstein was in a dilemma since he was facing crises in both Hollidt’s and Hoth’s sectors. He decided to split the reinforcements, sending all the Tigers to assist Hoth and 7.Panzer-Division to assist Hollidt.
By New Year’s day, the first Tiger tanks were unloading at the rail station at Proletarskaya, just north of the Manych River. At that point, Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps had established a thin screen with 17. and 23.Panzer-Divisionen and a Kampfgruppe from 16.Infanterie-Division (mot.) 75km to the northeast near Zimovniki, where 4.Panzerarmee quartermasters had established a supply dump. Although the rail line to Zimovniki was not really secure, some trains with replacement tanks and vehicles for Kirchner’s corps were allowed to proceed there. The SS-Wiking Division was also detraining at Proletarskaya after its transfer from Heeresgruppe A; a single motorized battalion from SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Westland was moving rapidly up the road to Zimovniki, but the rest of the division was lagging well to the rear. Kirchner’s forces were spread very thinly and their eastern flank was relatively open due to the disintegration of the Romanian 4th Army. Amazingly, only rear area troops were actually in Zimovniki when Soviet tanks appeared on the morning of 1 January.
Eremenko was advancing toward Proletarskaya with General-leytenant Rodion Ia. Malinovsky’s powerful 2nd Guards Army and General-major Nikolai I. Trufanov’s 51st Army, which altogether had two tank and three mechanized corps. Although Eremenko’s armour was depleted after the heavy fighting since the beginning of Operation Uranus on 19 November 1942, he likely still had at least 300–400 operational tanks. Out in front was General-major Trofim I. Tanaschishin’s 13th Tank Corps, approaching Zimovniki from the northeast. Tanaschishin was a veteran tanker who had been commanding armour units since the 1930s and he recognized that Hoth’s frontline was fluid, so he decided to launch an immediate assault upon Zimovniki. Around 0830 hours, six tanks and a battalion of motorized infantry pushed into the northeastern corner of the town, catching the Germans completely by surprise. In panic, staff officers believed this handful of tanks to be the vanguard of Eremenko’s host and ordered all stores and equipment at the rail station destroyed, including 47,000 winter uniforms and new tanks that had just arrived. All damaged vehicles in the repair units were also set on fire.{14} However, the Soviet incursion was just a raid and SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Westland arrived in time to prevent the fall of the entire town and evicted Tanaschishin’s raiding force. The SS panzergrenadiers quickly established a coherent defensive hedgehog in the town, but their tanks were well to the rear and 17.Panzer-Division was covering their western flank out to the Sal River. It is important to note that the German panzer units were forced to spread their tanks around to cover a large sector, depriving them of mass and violating their accepted doctrine of concentration.