 That year, Hitler shifted his primary goal from an overall victory on the Eastern Front, to the goal of securing the oil fields in the southern Soviet Union crucial to a long-term German war effort.While Red Army generals saw evidence that Hitler would shift efforts south, Stalin considered this to be a flanking move in a renewed effort to take Moscow.In June 1942, the German Army began a major offensive in Southern Russia, threatening Stalingrad; Stalin ordered the Red Army to hold the city at all costs.