Stalingrad was now surrounded. Around 284,000 German troops were now isolated in the city - now known as the ‘cauldron’. Also cut off were around 10,000 civilians and several thousand Russian Prisoners of War. The weather could only be expected to get worse.

Outside Stalingrad, it was apparent that the Germans had already suffered terrible losses in the battle to encircle the city. Henry Shapiro1 was one the few western journalists reporting from within the Soviet Union. For once the Red Army had something to celebrate:

The closer I moved to Stalingrad, the more numerous were the German prisoners. The steppe was a fantastic sight; was full of dead horses, while some horses were only half­ dead, standing on three frozen legs, and shaking the remaining broken one. It was pathetic. Ten thousand horses had been killed during the Russian breakthrough.