The Red Army established a bridgehead across the Don at Kalach-na-Donu, trapping 250,000 German and Romanian troops at Stalingrad.
The Germans, facing plenty of problems on the Don, formed Army Group Don with Erich von Manstein as its commander. The group was located between Group A, in the south, and Group B, in the north.
Von Manstein, who would lose a son in the war, was an excellent German general who was known to openly clash with Hitler. However, that fact and his post-war writings have glossed over his culpability for horrific German actions during the war, something that was not uncommon with surviving officers of the German army who operated to create the "clean army" myth. Von Manstein was one of those German figures who regarded Communism and Judaism as part and parcel of each other.
Von Manstein served a prison term post war for war crimes and did not rejoin the West German Army when it was formed, but did receive a secret veto over which German officers could be members of it. He died at age 85 in 1973.
Paul Ludwig von Kleist was made commander of Army Group A on this day as well.
Von Keist would not be as lucky as Von Manstein, post-war. He was turned over by the Western Allies to Yugoslavia and convicted of war crimes there. The Yugoslavians then turned him over to the Soviets, who also convicted him of war crimes. He died in Soviet captivity of a heart attack in 1954 at age 73.
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