Battle of Stalingrad but Paulus – ordered not to surrender by Hitler – did not respond. The German High Command informed Paulus, "Every day that the army holds out longer helps the whole front and draws away the Russian divisions from it." The Germans inside the pocket retreated from the suburbs of Stalingrad to the city itself. The loss of the two airfields, at Pitomnik on 16 January 1943 and Gumrak on the night of 21/22 January, meant an end to air supplies and to the evacuation of the wounded. The third and last serviceable runway was at the Stalingradskaya flight school, which
Stopped at Stalingrad the Luftwaffe during this battle ultimately led to the German loss at the Battle of Stalingrad, the turning point against the Germans in World War II. "Stopped at Stalingrad" was published by University Press of Kansas in 1998. "... an original and formidably researched study ... Stopped at Stalingrad is an absolutely indispensable work not only for its revelations about Stalingrad, but equally for a more complete understanding of the nature of Soviet-German operations in a critical year." — Professor John Erickson, RUSI Journal, June 1998, p. 80. Charles Messenger, ed., Readers Guide to Military History (Chicago, Il: Fitzroy Dearborn,