With the advance stopped, the Soviets began to encircle the German army and slowly choke it off from supplies and reinforcements. Hermann Göring, second in command of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe, tried to resupply the trapped German army from the air, but could not muster enough aircraft to deliver a fraction of what was needed. Hitler refused to allow the army to retreat from Stalingrad, sealing the fate of 100,000 men. The Russian noose slowly tightened. Field Marshall Frederich Paulus, unable to breakout, surrendered what was left of his army on January 31, 1943.
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