The Battle of Stalingrad, fought between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union from August 1942 to February 1943, was a turning point for the war in the Eastern Front. The battle was marked by intense urban warfare and direct assaults on civilians in air raids. It was the bloodiest battle of the Second World War, with both sides suffering enormous casualties. Devastated by the Nazi invasion, the Soviet Union was determined to defend Stalingrad, a strategically important industrial and transport hub on the Volga River. Not only was control of Stalingrad vital for access to the oil fields of the Caucasus but also for control of the entire Volga.

The Germans launched an offensive on 4 August 1942, using the 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intense air raids by the Luftwaffe, which reduced much of the city to rubble. The battle degenerated into house-to-house fighting as both sides poured reinforcements into the city. By mid-November, the Germans had pushed the Soviet defenders back into narrow zones along the west bank of the river, but their progress was at great cost.

On 19 November, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, a two-pronged attack targeting the Romanian armies protecting the 6th Army's flanks. The Axis flanks were overrun, and the 6th Army was cut off and surrounded in the Stalingrad area. Adolf Hitler was determined to hold the city at all costs and forbade the 6th Army from trying a breakout. Instead, attempts were made to supply it by air and to break the encirclement from the outside. The Soviets were successful in preventing the Germans from delivering enough supplies through the air to the trapped Axis forces. Nevertheless, heavy fighting continued for another two months.

The fighting was fierce and brutal, as both sides suffered heavy casualties. However, the German Sixth Army, under the command of General Friedrich Paulus, advanced deep into the city and took control of most of its industrial and residential areas. The Soviet Red Army, however, launched a powerful counteroffensive, slowly surrounding and ultimately encircling the German forces in the city. Despite being vastly outnumbered and outgunned, the German Sixth Army refused to surrender, hoping desperately for reinforcements and supplies to break the Soviet encirclement. The harsh winter only made their situation worse, as they suffered from frostbite, starvation, and disease.

On the morning of 31 January 1943, however, General Paulus and his staff finally realized that all hope was lost. They surrendered to the Soviet forces, becoming the largest German army to ever surrender in battle. More than 100,000 soldiers were taken captive, with only a fraction ever returning home. The response by Hitler was one of shock and anger. He had counted on the Sixth Army to be his ace in the hole, a decisive force that could turn the tide of the war in Germany's favor. He refused to believe that they had surrendered, and instead blamed Paulus and his staff for their defeat.

Top photo: Stalingrad, Soviet Union, 15 December 1942. German soldiers of the 24th Panzer Division in action during the fighting for the southern station of Stalingrad. Source: Wikimedia. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer.

MIddle photo: Stalingrad, Soviet Union, December, 1942. Hero of the Soviet Union: Vasily Zaytsev, left, and other Soviet snipers equipped with Mosin–Nagant M1891/30 during the Battle of Stalingrad. Zaytsev has a 3.87×30 PE(M) telescopic sight mounted on his Mosin–Nagant M1891/30 rifle. Source: Wikimedia and Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation and mil.ru.

Bottom photo: Red Army soldiers moving through the rubble of the city of Stalingrad. In the Public Domain.

On 2 February 1943, the German 6th Army, having exhausted their ammunition and food, finally capitulated after over five months of fighting, making it the first of Hitler's field armies to surrender in World War II. The Soviet victory energized the Red Army and shifted the balance of power in the favour of the Soviets. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (German High Command) had to withdraw significant military forces from other areas in occupied Europe to replace German losses on the Eastern Front, ending with the rout of the six field armies of Army Group B, including the destruction of Nazi Germany's 6th Army and an entire corps of its 4th Panzer Army.

The impact of the Battle of Stalingrad went beyond just the struggle for control of the city. This prolonged and brutal battle demonstrated important lessons in urban warfare that would be applicable to the war in Europe and beyond. The tactics employed by both sides in the battle were decisive, with the Soviets relying on flanking movements, sniper fire, and close-quarters combat, while the Germans employed conventional warfare methods focused primarily on air raids. Legendary Red Army sniper Vasily Zaytsev--future Hero of Soviet Union--trained and led a small group of 48 snipers whose combined maksmanship killed 1.278 Germans in Stalingrad and on Mamayev Kurgan (height overlooking the city of Stalingrad). Zaytsev recorded 265 kills during the War and 225 in the Battle of Stalingrad. (Hellbeck 2015, 338)

Moreover, the Battle of Stalingrad broke the myth of the invincibility of the German Wehrmacht. It became clear after the battle that the Red Army could withstand the might of the Wehrmacht, ultimately shifting the momentum of the war in the Soviets' favour. The destruction of Hitler's 6th Army was a turning point for the Nazi regime, with the German army suffering over irrevocable casualties. Historians David Glantz and Jonathan House write that "the Red Army fronts suffered a total of 1,212,189 casualties" while down to the Caucasus the "toll rose to 1,586,100 casualties." Their research into Soviet sources shows Axis losses in the 800,000 range. (Glantz and House 2017, 497)

The Battle of Stalingrad in Literature

History has chronicled the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the most significant military confrontations of World War II, in a wide array of books. Among the latest additions is Iain MacGregor's The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II, published in 2022 by Simon and Schuster. Revered historian and author Andrew Nagorski reviews the work in the Wall Street Journal.

For a more profound understanding of the order of battle and strategies, historians David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House's single-volume Stalingrad, which the University Press of Kansas published in 2017, is the most in-depth and detailed account on the Battle of Stalingrad. Their Stalingrad trilogy, a comprehensive three-volume saga exploring the battle's complexities, is an epic contribution on this topic. Glantz and House are the preeminent experts on Stalingrad.

In 2015, Professor of History at Rutgers University Jochen Hellbeck's Stalingrad: The City That Defeated the Third Reich came out. PublicAffairs published the work in New York. This book, "prepared as part of a joint agreement between the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the German Historical Institute of Moscow," provides a fresh perspective on the conflict.

Michael K. Jones's Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed, released by Pen & Sword in 2007, is another significant work that delves into the Russian triumphs that culminated in the battle's outcome. Antony Beevor's Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943, published by Penguin Books in 1998, remains a classic in the genre. Yale University Press published The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin's War with Germany by John Erickson in 1975, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the events that led up to the conflict.

Finally, Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad by William Craig was released in 1973 by Konecky & Konecky. However, according to Jochen Hellbeck's research, the 2001 film adaptation that starred Jude Law and Ed Harris took considerable creative license with the truth. Sniper Vasily Zaytsev, for example, did not learn to shoot by hunting wolves; instead, he sought squirrels to make a fur coat for his sister. It was his supreme skill that earned him a position of prominence and not a commissar's discovery, as many have claimed. Additionally, there was no German sniper sent to eliminate Zaytsev. He was officially credited with killing 242 German soldiers, the most of any 62nd Army sniper. At the war's conclusion, he held the rank of captain and was present in Berlin. Zaytsev later managed a sewing machine factory in Kiev, Ukraine, where he passed away in 1991.

Bibliography

Beevor, Antony. Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943. London: Penguin, 1998.

Boog, Horst, Werner Rahn, Reinhard Stumpf, and Bernd Wegner. Germany and the Second World War: Volume 6: The Global War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Craig, William J. Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad. New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1973.

Erickson, John. The Road To Stalingrad: Stalin's War With Germany. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.

Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich at War. New York: Penguin, 2009.

Glantz, David M., and Jonathan M. House. Stalingrad. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017.

Hellbeck, Jochen. Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich. New York: Public Affairs, 2015.

Jones, Michael K. Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed. Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2007.