ABSTRACT
When Hitler returned to his headquarters in East Prussia, the Wolf ’s Lair (Wolfsschanze), on 29 November, he found awaiting him the rarest kind of news thus far in the war: German troops, SS and panzer troops at that, were retreating. By the 28th, Cherivichenko had massed 21 divisions against III Panzer Corps at Rostov. The corps commander, General Eberhard von Mackensen, had reported several weeks earlier, before the last advance began, that his two panzer divisions, the Leibstandarte and the Thirteenth Panzer, were worn out, short on everything from socks to antifreeze, and down to a half to two-thirds their normal strengths. When he arrived at the Wolf ’s Lair, Hitler learned that Kleist had allowed III Panzer Corps to evacuate Rostov.1
