If one is seeking to understand how and why the Second World War ended as it did it's instructive to take a look at Soviet planning during the fall of 1942. It represented everything German planning was not. First, unlike the chaos at OKH during the fall of 1942 (the third full year of war for the German high command and a time when you would have thought a competent leadership team would have been nailed down and in place), the Soviet Union had a stable military and political high command.
Since the Second World War ended it has been popular to present the Soviet Union as an overwhelming economic and military colossus that was essentially undefeatable by 1942 if not earlier in the war. The groundwork for this belief was laid by German officers who after the war sought to cast blame for their own failures of leadership. American military leaders then latched onto these aguments. Doubtlessly this occured in part as a response to the Cold War era Communist threat.
The Battle for the City of Stalingrad ranged across three large geographical areas divided into southern and central sectors as well as the Factory District in the north. By September 26, 1942 the German Sixth Army largely controlled the city's southern and central sectors following a brutal block by block fight that had lasted the entire month.
In southern Stalingrad the remnants from the Soviet 62nd Army's defenses (three rifle divisions, three rifle brigades, one tank brigade, and one rifle regiment - hardly equalling a fraction of their former size) had been pressed into a small strip of
