Manstein’s attempted break-in to Stalingrad has ground to a halt. He needs Paulus to push back from the inside and the Sixth Army commander is like a bunny in the headlights – waiting for Adolf Hitler to give him permission.

But the Führer has long decided that its death or glory in Stalingrad, no retreat, despite the Sixth Army being surrounded by the Russians after the Operation Uranus success.

We concentrated last week on the push to try and dent the iron ring around Paulus and 249 000 Germans trapped in the Kessel. The other battle as historian and secret agent Ronald Seth noted, was the condition of the Germans in the city. They were more fortunate than their comrades in the steppes, at least they had the shelter of broken buildings and the luxury of snugger basements to protect them against the -35º Centigrade arctic winds, the plate-glass ice and the thick silent snow.

This was the only advantage however, except for the rats feeding on corpses.

The German comforts were two and a half ounces of bread and a pint of muddy water which was described as soup, a sliver of horse-meat if they were lucky. The rats were hunted for their own coarse rancid flesh despite they’d obviously been gorging on dead Germans and Russians.

A sick cycle of life based on the dead.

How they hung on even now, at Christmas 1942, none could say later. One thing had changed by Christmas, the Russians had slackened off on the pressure inside the city, but only slightly.

The Red Army sometimes based in the same house had thick woolen underwear, fleecy-lined felt boots, skin caps with ear muffs, sheepskin lined coats and white camouflage capes with hoods. They merged with the snow and ate their two hot meals a day where ever they were, enough food to keep them warm and quiet and comfortable.

They also had their shots of vodka every day to help dissolve depression and chase away the cold. As a military ops paramedic instructor I know that alcohol given to folks who are suffering the effects of exposure is tantamount to shooting them in the head – but it’s a great additive if you’re already warm.

The soviet High Command had only reinforced General Chuikov’s 62nd Army in the city in sufficient numbers to prevent the Germans from taking Stalingrad centre. The Sixth Army had been driven back so many times from the shores of the Volga by the Russians it was so superhuman it was supernatural.

And by now it was known by the Soviet top brass that Hitler had developed a Stalingrad-complex and that even if his armies on the steppe were destroyed he’d still demand that General Paulus and his troops should fight until the last man dropped dead. That greatly assisted Yeremenko and Zhukov in their strategy and once the vast mass of the Sixth Army was surrounded, both turned their attentions back to the city once more.