![panzer corps stalingrad panzer corps stalingrad](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s6kC12zVPkA/maxresdefault.jpg)
It was all there-orders of battle, divisional operational plans, maps, and timetables. Reichel’s fate is not known, but less than an hour later the plans were sitting in front of the commander of the 76th Rifle Division. As he frantically tried to burn the briefcase, a Russian patrol appeared.
![panzer corps stalingrad panzer corps stalingrad](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/R3o_VnK42Gk/maxresdefault.jpg)
Against orders that forbade classified material being taken into the forward areas, Reichel had kept the operational orders for Blau in his briefcase when he took off on his inspection flight. Whatever the cause, the Storch went down, forced to land behind the Russian lines. His light aircraft, a Fiesler Storch, either developed engine problems or ran into turbulent weather. On June 19, nine days before Blau was scheduled to begin, Major Joachim Reichel, the chief of operations of the 23rd Panzer Division, was flying back to his divisional headquarters after an aerial inspection of the front. (Read more about the deadliest frontline conflicts in military history by subscribing to Military Heritage magazine.) Operation Blau’s Plans Fall into the Soviets’ Lapįor once, the Fates intervened on the side of the Soviets. Now it appeared that the Germans were grouping for a southern offensive of their own, and staff and intelligence officers in Moscow were working day and night trying to figure out where and when the Germans would strike. In southern Russia, the Kharkov offensive had failed and the Crimean port of Sevastopol was almost certain to fall within a few weeks. Leningrad was besieged and starving, and a German salient around Rzhev was only about 150 miles from the Kremlin. In the far north, the Germans were advancing on Murmansk. By mid-1942, the situation seemed like it would not improve in the foreseeable future. From Stalin downward, commanders had made mistakes costing millions of lives. For the Russians, the Kharkov offensive was another blow for an army still trying to find its way in the Blitzkrieg era.
![panzer corps stalingrad panzer corps stalingrad](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FeZawnEVGQk/maxresdefault.jpg)
As the Russians reeled from this latest defeat, preparations went forward for Blau, with orders being sent out to corps and division commanders detailing their part in the operation. The offensive was a disaster, costing the Russians almost 300,000 casualties and shattering five Soviet armies. In mid-May, he ordered the Red Army to recapture Kharkov, which had been under German control since the previous fall. Hungary and Slovakia also contributed to the cause. In response, Mussolini ordered his 8th Italian Army to participate while Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu offered the 3rd and 4th Romanian Armies. To bolster the German attack forces, Hitler called upon his Italian and Romanian allies to supply divisions for the offensive. It was an ambitious plan-one that would stretch German armies in southern Russian to their limit. The move would deprive the Russians of valuable oil and, at the same time, provide that much needed commodity to the German armed forces. Codenamed “Blau” (Blue), the offensive was aimed at seizing the oilfields in the northern Caucasus and establishing a defensive line running along the Don River from Stalingrad to Voronezh. As replacements and reinforcements rushed to the front, Adolf Hitler began planning a new offensive that he hoped would economically strangle his communist enemy. Overextended Soviet supply lines, coupled with the onset of the spring thaw, brought the offensive to a halt, allowing both sides to regroup. Hitler Takes Aim at the Oilfields in the Caucasus December brought the Soviet Winter Offensive, which sent the German Army reeling back at the cost of another million Russian dead. During the first six months of the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht had killed or captured almost three million Russian soldiers. In the fall of 1942, in a prelude to the now-famous Operation Uranus, the Red Army had its back to the wall once again.