This Date in History: December 28

 

West of Stalingrad, on December 28, 1942, the 376th Infantry Division defended in sector west and southwest of Dmitriyevka, along a line Hill 103.4-Hill 103.6-Marianowskij against the 4th Tank Corps.  The enemy attacked the division sector and made a small penetration.  To the north was the 44th Infantry Division; to the south was the 3rd Infantry Division (Motorized.)  The division lost 50 NCOs/enlisted killed in action; 80 NCOs/enlisted were wounded in action.  The division reported that of its three infantry battalions, one was average, one was weak and one was exhausted in combat power, while the combat engineer battalion posted a rating of weak in combat power.  (Stalingrad: The Death of the German Sixth Army on the Volga, 1942-1943)

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Viktor Lutze, SA-Obergruppenführer and Chief of Staff of the SA, born December 28, 1890 in Bevergen, winner of the Nazi Golden Party Badge, survivor of the purge against the SA in 1934, killed in an automobile accident May 2, 1943, on Adolf Hitler: “Hitler is a traitor.  We’ll have to send him on a long vacation.”  (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1,000-Year Reich)