ake Moscow in the autumn of 1941, the Germans were left with a large salient bulging into the Russian lines, extending to the town of Rzhev.

The battles around Rzhev were some of the bloodiest battles of the war for the Russians. Though millions of men would fight and die in the vast tract of forests and swamps, the Rzhev Salient does not have the name recognition of Leningrad or Moscow.

I'm Joined by Prit Buttar, author of Meat Grinder: The Battles for the Rzhev Salient, 1942–43.

Prit was last with us discussing the defeat of Army Group South in 1944 in episode 136.

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The German offensive to capture Stalingrad began in August 1942, using Friedrich Paulus's 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intense bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble. The battle quickly degenerated into house-to-house fighting, as both sides fought for the city on the Volga.

By mid-November, the Germans were on the brink of victory as the Soviet defenders clung to a final few slivers of land along the west bank of the river. Then, on 19 November, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, targeting the weaker Romanian armies protecting the 6th Army's flank and the Germans in Stalingrad were surrounded and cut off.

Hitler was determined to hold the city insisting that Paulus hold

Episode 154-The Spires of Moscow