By early 1942, Adolf Hitler鈥檚 dream of destroying the Soviet Union seemed closer to fulfillment. Jackbooted German soldiers had marched victoriously through the streets of the communist nation鈥檚 major cities while their comrades laid siege to Leningrad and threatened the capital of Moscow. Then, late that summer, the Nazi leader attacked Stalingrad. That decision led to Germany鈥檚 first major Eastern Front defeat and became the turning point of World War II.
鈥淚f you look at the whole operation, the Soviets essentially wiped out the German Sixth Army and a Panzer army鈥eaving a massive hole in the Eastern Front,鈥 says Stalingrad historian , author of five books on the battle. 鈥淭he Germans never fully recovered from it.鈥
With nearly 4 million combatants, the Battle of Stalingrad鈥攆ought August 23, 1942-February 2, 1943鈥攄warfed battles on the Western Front. The Nazis and their Hungarian, Romanian and Italian allies suffered more than . More Red Army soldiers (nearly 480,000) of Stalingrad than Americans (416,800) in the entire war.
For Soviet citizens, the Red Army鈥檚 ferocious defense of Stalingrad鈥攏amed for Hitler鈥檚 archenemy Joseph Stalin, the country鈥檚 leader鈥攂ecame a source of enormous national pride. Even German soldiers acknowledged the Soviets鈥 ability to withstand massive losses and endure fighting in brutal winter conditions in the city鈥檚 defense.
鈥淭he dogs fight like lions,鈥 Nazi soldiers often .
鈥淓veryone in Stalingrad who still possesses a head and hands, women as well as men, carries on fighting,鈥 a German corporal in October 1942.
How the Battle of Stalingrad Began
Hitler鈥檚 campaign in the southern Soviet Union began as a major offensive into the Caucasus to secure oil for the Nazi war machine. Against the advice of senior commanders, who urged the mercurial leader to focus on one target, Hitler diverted Army Group South鈥檚 Sixth Army under General Friedrich Paulus to Stalingrad, a major industrial, communications and transportation hub along the Volga River.
After the Luftwaffe pummeled the city from the air, the Sixth Army nearly pushed the entire Red Army to the Volga鈥檚 east bank. But the Germans soon became bogged down in brutal, urban warfare amidst the city鈥檚 rubble.
鈥淪talingrad is no longer a city,鈥 a German soldier. 鈥淏y day it is a cloud of burning, blinding smoke. When night arrives, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to the other bank. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure.鈥
The Soviets, meanwhile, relished bleeding the Sixth Army dry: 鈥淸I]f we had not had any weapons, we would still have killed the people who had come to take our Volga from us with our bare hands,鈥 a Red Army sergeant .
On November 19, 1942, the Soviets launched 鈥淥peration Uranus,鈥 a counteroffensive to encircle the already beleaguered Sixth Army and its allies. Three days later, the ring snapped shut, trapping 250,000 soldiers within an area roughly 30 miles wide by 20 miles deep.
Unable to get adequate supplies from the air from the Luftwaffe, the Sixth Army withered under incessant attacks. The temperature dipped so low that machines became inoperable. Thousands of Axis soldiers suffered from . Paulus requested permission to break out from the Kessel鈥攖he German word for cauldron鈥攂ut Hitler refused. A German army rescue effort from outside the encirclement failed.
In late January 1942, Paulus appealed to Hitler for permission to surrender rather than risk annihilation. 鈥淪ixth Army will hold their position to the last man and the last round,鈥 the Nazi leader , 鈥渁nd by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution toward the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western World.鈥
On January 31, 1943, Paulus the waist-high excrement in his battered headquarters in the heart of Stalingrad and surrendered to the Soviets. When Hitler heard news, the often-volatile F眉hrer stared silently into his soup.
US Lend-Lease Program Aids Soviet Victory
The German public was not officially told of the catastrophic defeat until the end of January 1943. Hitler was so rocked by the disaster that on the 10th anniversary of the Nazis鈥 assumption of power in Germany on January 30, he didn鈥檛 deliver his usual radio speech. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels instead.
Besides the mind-numbing human toll of Stalingrad, the 900 aircraft, 500 tanks and 6,000 artillery pieces. With Soviet factories outproducing the Germans, the losses were impossible for the Nazis to make up.
As the tide turned, the Soviets benefited from Lend-Lease aid from America. 鈥淚f the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," future Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who aided in the defense of Stalingrad (Volgograd today). "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war.鈥
At the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, the Soviets suffered at least 800,000 casualties to the Germans鈥 200,000. But the Red Army鈥檚 costly victory put the Nazis on the defensive for the remainder of the war.
Meanwhile, in North Africa in late 1942, combined British, American and French forces also took the offensive against the Nazis. The Allies鈥 June 1944 invasion at Normandy pushed the Germans from France and eventually from Western Europe.
On November 9, 1944, with the Soviets on the doorstep of the Reich in Eastern Europe, Stalingrad for Nazi鈥檚 Germany's impending demise.
As the Red Army marched across Eastern Europe, Soviet soldiers to lay waste to Berlin as the Germans had Stalingrad.
By May 1945, they had.