From July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943, Nazi Germany fought the famous Battle of Stalingrad with the Soviet Union, and Khrushchev, who was then the political commissar of the Soviet Front, also took command of the Battle of Stalingrad. Interestingly, according to Khrushchev's recollection, he never understood why the Germans refused to break through, and many years later felt that the Germans were abnormal. Why?
In November 1942, the Soviet High Command decided to carry out Operation Uranus, with the goal of encircling and annihilating the Germans and their vassals around Stalingrad. However, just before the "Uranus Operation" began, Volsky, the commander of the 4th Mechanized Army of the Soviet Union, asked Stalin to cancel the "Operation Uranus", and also guaranteed his personality and political reputation, which made Stalin and the high command look confused.
It turned out that for various reasons, the Soviet High Command underestimated the number of German troops in the Stalingrad area when formulating Operation Uranus. According to the soviet high command's vision, Operation Uranus surrounded up to 80,000 to 90,000 German troops, thus planning the soviet troops to be invested. However, operation Uranus surrounded more than 300,000 German troops, and the Soviets did not invest enough troops.
That's why Wolsky asked Stalin to cancel Operation Uranus, because it was dangerous to encircle the enemy's elite main force when there were not enough troops. However, Wolsky requested that Operation Uranus be cancelled on November 18, and operation Uranus begin on November 19. At this time, Stalin could not cancel the "Uranus Operation", and could only grit his teeth and eat "sandwich rice".
After the "Uranus Operation" began, the Soviet army did have the problem of insufficient troops. When inspecting the front line, Khrushchev, who participated in the command of Operation Uranus, found that many areas on the Soviet encirclement were not defended at all, and that the encircled German army was "unimpeded" once it broke through. At this time, Khrushchev felt that the "Uranus Operation" was bound to fail, and he was going to report to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
However, until the Soviets filled in the gaps in the encirclement one by one, the encircled Germans never broke through. Khrushchev was puzzled by this, and many years later complained about the decision of the German army at that time. One of the main reasons why the German army did not choose to break through was that while the Soviet Union misjudged the Strength of the German Army, the German Army also misjudged the Strength of the Soviet Army of Operation Uranus, so that it thought it could hold out.