ABSTRACT
Stalin and Timoshenko, the Russian southern front commander, had insisted on the offensive over opposition of both Zhukov and Shaposhnikov, the chief of staff. Hoth and Paulus would execute phase 2 by establishing a blocking position on the Volga near Stalingrad to protect the southern force, which would carry out phase, the drive to the Caucasus. General Vasili Chuikov was responsible for the actual defense of Stalingrad itself. Chuikov acted with extreme decisiveness. The Germans managed to escape the trap that the Soviets had tried to spring on their armies in the Caucasus, but Red Army forces pushed them back to the starting point of their 1942 offensive and for a time drove well beyond the line. The German plan, Operation Citadel, called for Field Marshal Gnther von Kluges Army Group Center to attack the salient from the north while Manstein's troops struck from the south. General Zeitzler, the chief of staff, and Kluge were the foremost advocates of Citadel.
