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Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, episode 525, alone, isolated, and about to die.

When we last left off, General Rewoff's 17th Army, having been peeled away from Klyss's Army Group A, was heading west to make for the Taman Peninsula opposite the Kerch Peninsula. The idea being to regroup there, let the Soviets smash and weaken

themselves against the defensive lines here, and Ed Rostov reinforced the German units in both places,

and then come out swinging, which today

seems absurd. But the invaders had to think this way. Faith in one's self first, actions based on

that faith, second. But what the Germans could not know was that the situation of Army Group South, now broken into three, Army Groups A, B, and Don, had almost been worse.

When the Soviets smashed through the Italian 8th Army to the west of Stalingrad in Operation Saturn, their objective had been to take Rostov as well, thereby trapping the whole of Army Group A completely.

Fortunately for them, the Russians had misread how large the German pocket was and had to scale back their objectives.

Now, Operation Little Saturn. Still, what they had achieved would set up their ultimate goal if the

Axis forces could be kept on the defensive, i.e. reacting to Soviet moves. Either way,

...