TIMELINE

28 JUNE 1942

OPERATION BLUE

In the summer of 1942 Adolf Hitler renewed his onslaught on the Soviet Union. His plan of attack, codenamed Operation Blue, had two major objectives. The first was to reach Stalingrad and the Volga River, blocking the transport of vital raw materials for the Soviet war effort; the second was to strike south into the Caucasus, capturing its oil fields. Oil from Grozny and Baku provided more than 80 percent of the Red Army’s fuel, and the Führer believed that once these supplies were cut off its ability to resist would wither away. A full occupation of Stalingrad was not specified in Hitler’s original directive – it was deemed sufficient to destroy the industrial capacity of the city.

For the attack in the south Hitler committed more than one million German soldiers and some 300,000 troops of his allies: Romanians, Italians and Hungarians (although many of the latter were of unreliable quality). German forces were divided into two groups: ‘B’ – which included the Sixth Army commanded by General Friedrich Paulus and the Fourth Panzer Army – would first advance on Stalingrad; then ‘A’ would push