Kotelnikovo

Kotel’nikovo 

a city (until 1955, a settlement), the administrative center of Kotel’nikovo Raion, Volgograd Oblast, RSFSR. A railroad station on the Volgograd-Sal’sk line, 190 km southwest of Volgograd. Population, 19,000 (1970). The city’s industries include machine-building and fittings factories, a cannery, a dairy, a brickyard, and railroad transport enterprises.

During the Battle of Stalingrad of 1942–43, the fascist German command at the end of November 1942 concentrated Group Hoth (part of Army Group Don under Field Marshal E. von Manstein) in the vicinity of Kotel’nikovo. On December 12, Group Hoth took the offensive with the aim of breaking through the blockade to reach the German troops that had been surrounded at Stalingrad. In the bitter defensive battles, which continued until December 23, the Soviet forces defeated the enemy’s shock group and launched a counteroffensive. After stubborn fighting that lasted until the morning of December 29, KotePnikovo was liberated.