Romanian armies in the Battle of Stalingrad and 635 tanks, the German 57th Panzer Corps and the Romanian Fourth Army and on 29 December, the 57th Panzer had to abandon Kotelnikovo, which sealed the fate of the Axis troops in Stalingrad. On 15 January 1943, came another devastating blow: The Hungarian 2nd Army was encircled and eventually destroyed, with 147,971 casualties. On 2 February 1943, the resistance of Axis troops in Stalingrad ceased. Out of the 91,000 prisoners taken by the Soviets, 3,000 were Romanian. These were the survivors of the 20th Infantry Division, 1st Cavalry Division and "Colonel Voicu" Detachment. The Romanian Army lost 158,854 men
Battle of Stalingrad Army. The American historians Williamson Murray and Alan Millet wrote that it was Manstein's message to Hitler on 24 November advising him that the 6th Army should not break out, along with Göring's statements that the Luftwaffe could supply Stalingrad that "... sealed the fate of the Sixth Army." After 1945, Manstein claimed that he told Hitler that the 6th Army must break out. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that Manstein distorted his record on the matter. Manstein was tasked to conduct a relief operation, named Operation Winter Storm ("Unternehmen Wintergewitter") against Stalingrad, which he thought was feasible if