Battle of Stalingrad issued on 5 February 1943, 22:00 said, The condition of the troops that surrendered was pitiful. British war correspondent Alexander Werth described the following scene in his "Russia at War" book, based on a first-hand account of his visit to Stalingrad from 3–5 February 1943, Out of the nearly 91,000 German prisoners captured in Stalingrad, only about 5,000 returned. Weakened by disease, starvation and lack of medical care during the encirclement, they were sent on foot marches to prisoner camps and later to labour camps all over the Soviet Union. Some 35,000 were eventually sent on transports, of which 17,000
Bombing of Stalingrad flank of the German advance to the Caucasus oilfields. Fiebig's superior's, "Generaloberst" Wolfram von Richthofen’s "Luftflotte 4" held a 1,600 kilometer eastern frontage in July and concentrated its efforts on Stalingrad, with the air support missions in the Caucasus under Kurt Pflugbeil's "Fliegerkorps IV" and at the Voronezh battle being given a lower priority. Logistics for "Fliegerkorps VIII" received the highest preference, as Richthofen saw the capture of Stalingrad as the key to German success on the entire Eastern Front. Richthofen requested additional Junkers Ju 52 transport groups from "Oberkommando der Luftwaffe" and transferred Pflugbeil's groups, as well as his