Hoth Commanded the Relief Force at Stalingrad. He Got Closer Than Anyone Admits

Get both copies of German Command Ebooks here: https://www.germancommand.com/ Hermann Hoth's Fifty-Seventh Panzer Corps reached the Myshkova River on December 19, 1942, holding a bridgehead just 35–48 kilometers from Stalingrad's pocket. The relief force was three panzer divisions under Friedrich Kirchner, not the army group the story became. Sixth Panzer Division attacked from Kotelnikovo on December 12, forced the Aksay after six days at Verkhne-Kumskiy, and took Vasilyevka on the nineteenth. The bridgehead held through December 23, but Sixth Army inside the pocket lacked fuel to cover even the shorter published distance. Four days before the Myshkova crossing, the Italian Eighth Army's front collapsed two hundred kilometers northwest, and by the twenty-third Manstein was choosing between Stalingrad and Rostov. He sent Sixth Panzer Division north to stop that breakthrough, the remaining divisions withdrew, and no breakout order ever reached Friedrich Paulus.