![panzer corps stalingrad panzer corps stalingrad](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oux_j2pAwR4/maxresdefault.jpg)
Nevertheless the defending Soviet 244th Rifle Division could not hold up to such a concentrated assault. This river, because of its position in a deep ravine, helped shield the southern part of the city center from direct attack. However, during these weeks the 24th Panzer was able to work closely with the 14th Panzer Division (also able to field 35-40 tanks) and the 29th Motorized Division (with roughly 25 tanks in running condition and all together with these three divisions forming XXXXVIII Panzer Corps) and pound the 62nd Army's positions south of the eastward flowing Tsaritsa River. Then, after a temporary commander led the division for the better part of a week, Major General Arno Lenski took over as the 24th Panzer's commanding officer on September 14th. Such was the intensity of the fighting that the 24th Panzer Division's commader had been badly wounded, and his replacement killed. Though this was in part because the division had been so depleted that most of the time it could put no more than three dozen tanks onto the battlefield, the reality was that the Soviet defensive effort also had been extremely stout. Nevertheless, the first week of September had proven tough going for the 24th Panzer Division (pictured with this article advancing in Stalingrad's suburbs). For that matter the linchpin of the German assault into the southern part of Stalingrad early in September of 1942 revolved around the efforts of the understrength but capably led 24th Panzer Division. In fact, rather than the German Sixth Army spearheading the initial assault into Stalingrad proper, the Fourth Panzer Army played an equally significant role during much of September. When resumed LI Army Corps subsequent attack ended up being more to the northeast than east, further providing breathing space for a 62nd Army suffering heavily under the hammer blows being delivered by the Fourth Panzer Army's XXXXVIII Panzer Corps (the southern prong of the German advance into Stalingrad). Paulus redirected significant air assets north to the corridor battle and on September 5th ordered LI Army Corps to temporarily halt it's advance into Stalingrad. In particular, the Stalingrad Front's 1st Guards and 66th Armies had forced XIV Panzer Corps to shift assets away from Stalingrad's northern suburbs. This alteration came at a critical point in the battle when the Soviet 62nd Army was a reeling, beaten force anything but the veteran formation it would become under Chuikov's subsequent command. Nevertheless, Soviet pressure on XIV Panzer Corps caused Paulus to modify his planned assault. Finally, Fourth Panzer Army's XXXXVIII Panzer Corps would penetrate the city from the southeast.
![panzer corps stalingrad panzer corps stalingrad](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-kIMTFNkGQ4/maxresdefault.jpg)
Meanwhile the LI Army Corps would strike from the west, driving the Soviet 62nd Army before it.
![panzer corps stalingrad panzer corps stalingrad](https://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/832412-panzer-corps-soviet-corps-windows-screenshot-stalingrad.jpg)
The initial German plan for taking Stalingrad had been for the XIV Panzer Corps to penetrate south along the Volga from where it had reached Stalingrad's northern suburbs late in the day on August 23rd. General of Panzer Troops Friedrich Paulus's Sixth Army and Colonel General Hermann Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army spent September of 1942 battering the Soviet Southeastern Front's 62nd Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Anton Ivanovich Lopatin until relieved in mid-September by Lieutenant General Vasilii Ivanovich Chuikov) back into Stalingrad and to toward the Volga River.