Montagu selected the code name Mincemeat from a list of centrally held available possibilities. On 4 February 1943 Montagu and Cholmondeley filed their plan for the operation with the Twenty Committee; it was a re-working of Cholmondeley's Trojan Horse plan.
Goebbels's next speech, the Sportpalast speech of 18 February 1943, was a passionate demand for his audience to commit to total war, which he presented as the only way to stop the Bolshevik onslaught and save the German people from destruction. The speech also had a strong antisemitic element and hinted at the extermination of the Jewish people that was already underway.
The Third Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles on the Eastern Front undertaken by the German Army Group South against the Red Army, between 19 February and 15 March 1943. The German counter strike led to the recapture of the cities of Kharkov and Belgorod.
On 22 February 1943, Zaytsev was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. He returned to the front and finished the war at the Battle of the Seelow Heights in Germany, with the military rank of captain. He became a member of the Communist Party in 1943.