Hitler was still optimistic that the situation could be redeemed. On 31 December 1942, he ordered I SS Panzer Corps to move from France to Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine to set up a base for a new relief effort towards Stalingrad. But on 24 January 1943, the Russians began their final offensive against Stalingrad. Within a week they had overrun what was left of the Sixth Army. Despite being ordered to fight to the last man, Paulus emerged with his staff from his bunker under a bombed-out department store and surrendered on 31 January. A day later the last pocket of German resistance in the city surrendered. Some 91,000 Germans were marched into Soviet captivity. Fewer than 5000 survived more than a few months as prisoners of Stalin.

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