David Glantz
Second World War Books: Lost amid this depressing mosaic of abject Soviet defeat during summer 1942 were three far more positive aspects of the Red Army's defense that, although often keenly appreciated by many lower-level German combat commanders in the field, remained largely obscure to higher German commands and to most historians who have since described these operations. Masked by the Wehrmacht's many brilliant successes during that summer, ultimately these factors would foreshadow far greater difficulties that advancing German forces would encounter come autumn.
First, conventional wisdom maintains that, as early as the first week of Operation Blau, Stalin willfully ordered his forces in southern Russia to withdraw from harm's way, thereby avoiding the disastrous losses the Red Army had suffered in summer 1941. As proof, historians cite the lamentably small bag of prisoners the advancing Wehrmacht succeeded in taking during the summer. This is self-evidently incorrect....
Second, and as a corollary to the first factor, conventional wisdom would argue that the Stavka willfully abandoned the Donbas region and the Great Bend of the Don River so as to preserve its forces and contain the German onslaught along more defensible lines, principally the Don and Volga Rivers. It then chose to conduct a resolute defense only after 62nd and 64th Army's were pinned down inside and south of Stalingrad. This conclusion is also self-evidently wrong....
Third, conventional wisdom would also assert that, even though the Stavka indeed managed to mobilize fresh forces during summer 1942, most of the armies that slowed, halted, and ultimately defeated the German juggernaut in Operation Blau were the same ones that had escaped destruction by withdrawing time and again during the summer. This conclusion is also mistaken....
Although the Germans failed to recognize these three factors in early September 1942, and most historians have overlooked them since, collectively they decided the fate of Operation Blau. If they did not foreshadow the coming German defeat by early in September, they certainly confirmed it in two months.
