Where was the Battle of Stalingrad?
The Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 – February 1943) was fought in and around the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southern Russia, along the Volga River. It was the bloodiest battle of World War II — with nearly 2 million total casualties — and marked the turning point of the Eastern Front, where Germany's defeat became inevitable.
The Battle of Stalingrad was fought in the city of Stalingrad — now renamed Volgograd — a major industrial center on the western bank of the Volga River in southern Russia. The city's location made it strategically critical: it controlled access to the Volga, Russia's most important waterway, and to the oil fields of the Caucasus that Germany desperately needed to fuel its war machine.
The battle began in August 1942 when Germany's 6th Army, commanded by General Friedrich Paulus, attacked the city as part of Operation Blue — Hitler's summer offensive aimed at capturing the Caucasus oil fields and cutting Soviet supply lines along the Volga. Hitler's obsession with the city that bore Stalin's name added a psychological dimension to what was already a vital strategic objective.
The fighting within Stalingrad was among the most brutal in military history. Soviet defenders, following Stalin's Order No. 227 ('Not One Step Back'), fought for every building, every floor, every room. German military superiority in mobile warfare was neutralized in the rubble of the destroyed city, where combat devolved into close-quarters fighting that the Soviets called 'rattenkrieg' (rat war). Snipers, hand-to-hand combat, and the constant threat of death characterized a battle where the average life expectancy of a Soviet soldier was 24 hours.
The turning point came on November 19, 1942, when the Soviet Union launched Operation Uranus — a massive counteroffensive that encircled the German 6th Army. Over one million Soviet troops attacked the weaker Romanian and Italian forces protecting the German flanks, closing a ring around approximately 300,000 German soldiers. Hitler refused to allow Paulus to attempt a breakout, insisting the 6th Army hold its position. A relief attempt by General Manstein failed to break through. Starving, freezing, and out of ammunition, Paulus surrendered on February 2, 1943 — the first time a German field marshal had ever surrendered.
The battle's scale was staggering. Total casualties on both sides approached 2 million — roughly 800,000 Axis and 1.1 million Soviet military casualties, plus tens of thousands of civilians. The German 6th Army was annihilated. The battle shattered the myth of German military invincibility and marked the strategic turning point of the Eastern Front. From Stalingrad onward, Germany was on the defensive in the East, retreating steadily westward until the fall of Berlin in 1945.