Battle of Stalingrad

Overview

The Battle of Stalingrad — fought from 17 July 1942 to February 1943 in and around the Soviet city on the Volga that bore Joseph Stalin’s name — was the bloodiest battle of the Second World War and its Eastern Front turning point (IWM). For Adolf Hitler, it was a campaign for oil: the Caucasus oilfields were, in his judgment, “the key to victory — without them the war could not be won” (IWM). It ended with an entire German army encircled and destroyed: the Sixth Army’s starved, frozen remnants surrendered at the end of January 1943, with 91,000 taken prisoner (IWM).

The Imperial War Museums’ verdict is unsparing: Stalingrad “marked the high tide of [Hitler’s] ambitions in the East, after which retreat and defeat were irreversible” — and, in the IWM curator’s phrase, the battle may have been “doomed from the start,” its outcome decided before the Germans even reached the city (IWM).

The oil gamble

By 1942 Germany’s position was deteriorating. It had previously relied on the Soviet Union itself for raw materials; now at war with its former ally after Operation Barbarossa, those supplies were running short — and since December 1941 the United States had entered the war, so Hitler feared a two-front war against American industrial power and felt his window closing (IWM). The 1941 invasion force had been the largest ever assembled; a year later it was stretched over a 2,500km front, with the Leningrad siege consuming the north and Rzhev the center — so for the supposedly war-winning 1942 offensive, Army Group South could pull together only 72 German divisions, about a million men (IWM).

The plan, Fall Blau (Case Blue), launched 28 June 1942: break through, take Voronezh, encircle Soviet forces in eastern Ukraine, then split — Army Group B racing to a Don–Volga blocking line at Astrakhan while Army Group A turned south for the oilfields at Maikop and Grozny (IWM). Hitler had to supplement his forces with Romanian and Italian allies — “relatively poorly equipped” — and had, once again, underestimated the Soviets, who could field over a million more fighting troops and were creating new air and tank armies (IWM). Then, on 23 July 1942, with the Red Army disintegrating before him, Hitler changed the plan: both army groups would pursue their objectives simultaneously, and Friedrich Paulus’s Sixth Army was ordered to take Stalingrad first, to intercept Soviet oil shipments moving up the Volga (IWM).

The meatgrinder

Army Group A reached the Maikop oilfields on 10 August — and found the wells destroyed by Soviet engineers (IWM). The Sixth Army had it worse: slowed by logistics and stiffening Soviet resistance, its men were reduced to eating their horses before they even reached the city (IWM). Crossing the Don on 23 August, they entered Stalingrad’s northern suburbs the next day — “the fight of their lives” (IWM).

The city’s defense fell to General Vasily Chuikov’s 62nd Army, with much of the civilian population still in the ruins (IWM). The Luftwaffe’s bombing reduced Stalingrad to rubble — which “failed to destroy the city’s defences and caused more problems than it solved,” since rubble hindered the attackers and favored the defenders (IWM). It was the Germans’ first real taste of urban warfare, and the Red Army proved the superior practitioner; snipers competed to inflict casualties, and “perhaps even more than its actual toll, sniperism’s most effective impact was the fear it created” (IWM). By mid-November the Germans held 90% of the city, but the Soviets clung to thin strips along the Volga, ferried reinforcements across the river all winter — while the Sixth Army starved on the end of just three single railway lines, not fully converted to German gauge, short of ammunition, food, fuel, and spares (IWM).

Uranus and the Kessel

On 19–20 November 1942, Georgy Zhukov struck. Operation Uranus sent over a million men, 1,500 aircraft, and 800 tanks against the thinly-spread Romanian and Italian forces guarding the Sixth Army’s flanks; on 23 November the pincers met at Kalach, and the Sixth Army was encircled (IWM). Many German commanders wanted a breakout; Hitler forbade it, promised a Luftwaffe airlift, and organized a relief force under Erich von Manstein — “but neither had the strength or resources to succeed” (IWM). When the Soviets broke through the Italian lines in Operation Little Saturn, the relief was abandoned and Army Group A withdrew from the Caucasus, leaving the Sixth Army alone (IWM).

The end came at the close of January 1943. In a final irony, “at the very moment he was preparing to surrender his forces to the Soviets, Hitler promoted Paulus to Field Marshal” — expecting him to commit suicide, since no German Field Marshal had ever been captured alive — “but Paulus refused” (IWM). Britannica records the surrender on 31 January 1943, against Hitler’s orders (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Side	Losses (attributed)
Axis	~800,000 casualties incl. missing/captured (Britannica); ~500,000 killed, wounded, or taken prisoner in/around the city Aug 1942–Jan 1943, 91,000 taken prisoner at the surrender (IWM)
Soviet	~1,100,000 casualties (Britannica); well over a million, about half of them dead (IWM)
Civilians	~40,000 dead in the city (Britannica); 40–45,000 (IWM)

The IWM adds one figure rarely quoted: some 14,000 Red Army soldiers — two to three divisions — “were deliberately killed by their own side, shot by special units of the Security Police for ‘cowardice’ or other un-Soviet behaviour” (IWM).

Frequently asked questions

Who won the Battle of Stalingrad?

The Soviet Union. A strategic counteroffensive flanked and surrounded the German Sixth Army, which surrendered against Hitler’s orders on 31 January 1943 (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Why was Stalingrad the turning point?

It destroyed two entire German armies, used up precious reserves, and humiliated the German war machine — “the high tide of [Hitler’s] ambitions in the East, after which retreat and defeat were irreversible” (IWM). It also marked “the coming of age of the USSR as a military power” and the emergence of Zhukov.

Why did Hitler want the city?

Oil. Germany’s raw-material supplies were running short, the US had entered the war, and the Caucasus oilfields were “the key to victory — without them the war could not be won” (IWM). Stalingrad itself mattered as the Volga chokepoint for Soviet oil shipments — and as the city bearing Stalin’s name.

How many died at Stalingrad?

Britannica estimates ~800,000 Axis casualties (including missing and captured), ~1,100,000 Soviet casualties, and ~40,000 civilian dead — “one of the deadliest battles in World War II” (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not merge the casualty figures into a single total: Britannica and the IWM count different scopes, and each figure is attributed to its source. It does not claim Stalingrad alone decided the war — the IWM notes that El Alamein and the North Africa landings were dealing Germany fatal setbacks simultaneously. It attributes the 14,000 shot-by-their-own-side figure to the IWM transcript alone. And it treats the 1943–45 Eastern Front as outside its scope — the Barbarossa profile covers the invasion that opened the front.