Stalingrad was the biggest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. After their victory, the Soviets built this massive memorial in Stalingrad. On 31 January 1943 Red Army soldiers captured Field Marshal Paulus of the German Sixth Army at his headquarters in the centre of Stalingrad. Von Paulus later joined a pro-Soviet group of German POWs and made broadcasts that urged German troops to surrender.
It symbolized the end of German resistance in the city. Surrender of Stalingrad. The Battle of Stalingrad is widely seen as the beginning of the end of the German army on the Eastern Front. … The battle saw rapid advances in street-fighting technology, such as a German machin… Inflicted huge losses. Beginning in late August, continuing in September and into October, the Soviets committed between two and four armies in hastily coordinated and poorly controlled attacks against the Germans' northern flank. The battle ended in disaster for the Wehrmacht when Soviet forces encircled the Germans within the city, leading to the ultimate defeat and capture of about 265,000 German … David Glantzindicated that four hard-fought battles – collectively known as the Kotluban Operations – north of Stalingrad, where the Soviets made their greatest stand, decided Germany's fate before the Nazis ever set foot in the city itself, and were a turning point in the war. In a method of fighting the Germans began to call the Rattenkrieg, or Rats War, the opposing forces broke into squads eight or 10 strong and fought each other for every house and yard of territory.
The actions resulted in … Cut off by a Soviet counteroffensive and denied the option of retreat by German leader Adolf Hitler, Paulus was Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 – 1 February 1957) was a German field marshal during World War II who commanded the 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). Friedrich Paulus, German field marshal whose advance on Stalingrad (now Volgograd, Russia) in the summer and fall of 1942 represented the high-water mark of Nazi military expansion. In their attempt to take Stalingrad, the German Sixth Army faced a bitter Red Army under General Vasily Zhukov employing the ruined city to their advantage, transforming destroyed buildings and rubble into natural defensive fortifications.