Case Blue, the 1942 German summer offensive on the Eastern Front, came to an end having not achieved its goals, which had been to capture the oil fields of Baku, Grozny and Maikop.
The thought was that without oil, the Soviets couldn't fight, and the Germans would be able to. Indeed, taking Soviet oil production had been part of the original goal of Operation Barbarossa, with the thought being that the Germans needed it to wage war against the United Kingdom.
It's strategic aims, often criticized, were sound and grasped the importance of petroleum on the ability to wage modern war. Hitler had a major role in forming the campaign's development and direction and frankly, while the campaign is often criticized for redirecting German assets to southern Russia rather than the north, with the focus being Moscow, the plan demonstrated a good gasp on resources and modern warfare, and the protracted nature of the latter. Had the campaign succeeded in its goals, which were problematic in more ways than one, it would have at least deprived the Soviet Union of significant war fighting assets. It probably would not have succeeded in providing those to the Germans, however, as the Soviets would have destroyed oil production facilities prior to the Germans taking them. Whether the Germans had the capacity to restore production is doubtful.
The plan was, moreover, overambitious and its initial success caused the Germans to take actions which reduced its potential effectiveness.
In spite of its ultimate failure, the offensive was remarkably successful at first, which encouraged the Germans to overextend themselves. By November the offensive had lost steam, without succeeding in its goals, and Operation Uranus soon demonstrated that the Germans were now grossly overextended. The Soviets, additionally, managed to increase the size of their army throughout the campaign and by its end had over 1,000,000 more men in the field than the Germans did. The Germans, for their part, lost 200,000 men during the campaign and the Romanian army was effectively ground down to semi ineffective. By the campaign's end, moreover, the Germans were relying on Romanian, Hungarian and Italian troops to a dangerous extent.
The end of the campaign came with the Soviets launching a series of winter offensives.
Case Blue brought the Germans to their high water mark of World War Two. Its failure was followed by losing ground in the East in the winter of 1942, which they were also doing in North Africa at the same time. Indeed, due to its failure it should have been obvious to the Germans that wining the war was not impossible.
Rabbi Stephen Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, held a press conference in which he revealed information leaked from Europe of German atrocities against the Jews.
Rabbi Wise had the information for three months, but has been asked not to reveal it by the U.S. Government as it could not be confirmed, which of course it could not. At this point, however, he correctly felt that releasing the information was necessary.
Wise had been born in Hungary, but came to the US as an infant with his parents. His father and grandfather were also rabbis.
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Peadar Kearney, writer of the Irish National Anthem A Soldiers Song, "Amhrán na bhFiann" died at age 58.
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