Looking for a break in the Christmas season sweetness? Beyond Barbarossa returns you to the Eastern Front in December 1942. Hitler and Stalin's mutual stubbornness collide on the Russian steppe. 

For the Germans of the 6th Army, Christmas 1942 was a hungry Yule in the  freezing Cauldron.

Map 1: Operation Uranus, November and December 1942 

Map 2: Operation Winter Storm: The German relief attempt 

Map 3: Operation Winter Storm stalled 

Failure: Luftwaffe supplies the trapped 6th Army in the Kessel 

Failure: Operation Winter Storm 

German soldiers in the Kessel/Cauldron 

Red Army soldier writes home, December 1942 

By December, the Red Army soldiers' morale was very different from the Germans'.