By the end of December 1943, with Kiev retaken by the Soviets, Hitler ordered the German Army in the bend of the Dnepr to hold at all costs. The front has stabilized somewhat and the German Army is clinging to its last toe hold on the Dnepr River that forms the Korsun Salient when the Soviets strike. Even Mother Nature gets into the act with a February thaw that turns the ground to gumbo and makes mobility the Germans rely on an impossible feat. Among the units given these desperate orders to hold are the 11th and 42nd Corps whose positions formed the large bulge in the front line. Attacking on January 24th, 1944 on both sides of the bulge, Soviet forces encircled over 60,000 German in the Korsun Pocket, - the little Stalingrad on the Dnepr.