The Battle of Stalingrad, also known as the Battle of Stalingrad, was a major turning point in the Soviet Union's patriotic war before World War II, and it was also one of the bloodiest and largest battles in human history. The main armies participating in the war were the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The battle lasted six and a half months from1July, 942 to1February, 943. Because of heavy casualties on both sides and indifference to civilian sacrifice, the battle has become a famous battle in the history of human war. The Battle of Stalin was the fiercest of the Soviet-German War. It is generally believed that this battle includes the following parts: the German army attacked the southern Soviet city of Stalingrad (formerly known as "tsaritsyn"); Now called "Volgograd"); The Germans invaded the city; Street fighting in urban areas; Soviet red army camp; Finally, the Germans and the Axis allies were wiped out. The total number of casualties in this war is estimated to be over 2 million. The Soviet government refused to provide detailed casualty data at that time because it was afraid that too many casualty statistics would affect the people. Axis lost a quarter of its troops on the eastern front in this battle, and it didn't recover until the final defeat. For the Soviet side, the victory of this battle marked the beginning of recovering occupied territory, and finally ushered in the final victory of 1945 against Nazi Germany in May. Campaign background1941On June 22nd, Nazi Germany and its Axis allies launched the "Barbarossa Plan" and brazenly invaded the Soviet Union, and the Soviet-German war broke out. The Germans occupied a large area of the western Soviet Union like lightning. The Soviet army, which suffered a series of blows in the summer and autumn of 194 1, won the first victory in Moscow in February of that year. Due to the lack of war equipment and stable supply lines to cope with winter, the over-consumed Germans suffered a serious blow at the gates of Moscow and were counterattacked in some areas. By the spring of 1942, the long Soviet-German front was relatively stable, but both sides were gearing up for a larger-scale campaign to seize the strategic initiative. In view of the inability of the Germans to launch a full-scale attack, the German high command hoped that the Soviet attack would take an unexpected strategic direction in order to make a quick decision. General Hald, the army chief of staff, suggested that if we want to launch another attack, we should aim at Moscow. But Hitler thought that the goal of attacking Moscow was too obvious, the central army group had been greatly weakened, and the Germans should give up their plan to attack Moscow again. Therefore, Germany began to plan to concentrate its forces on the northern and southern fronts to launch a new round of local offensive. In addition, because the United States declared war on Japan after being attacked by Pearl Harbor, Germany realized that time was quite urgent. Hitler hoped to end the Eastern War or weaken the Soviet Union as much as possible before the American army had a chance to join the European battlefield. Because there are Caucasian oil fields in the south of the Soviet Union supporting the Soviet war machine, connecting the Volga River and large areas of farmland in Central Asia, Germany hopes to advance into this area and weaken the Soviet Union's economic and war potential as much as possible. Results: German Sixth Army 1, 943, 1. 10, the Soviet red army launched the offensive codenamed "Operation Jupiter" again, trying to break through the Italian defense line in the Don River area and capture Rostov. If this operation is successful, the rest of the German southern army will be completely besieged in the Caucasus. Although the Soviets never approached Rostov, this action forced the Germans to be more than 250 kilometers away from the Germans in the encirclement of Stalingrad. In fact, the Sixth Corps has completely lost its reinforcements. 6543810.8, Lieutenant General rokossovsky, commander of the Sutton River Army, issued an ultimatum to General paulus, commander of the Sixth German Army, urging him to surrender. Paulus telegraphed Hitler and asked for permission to act in front of the camera, but Hitler refused his request. On June 5438+00, rokossovsky's Tangjun launched an attack codenamed "Ring" on the besieged German Sixth Army, and the besieged Germans began to shrink their defense lines from the suburbs of Stalingrad to the urban area. On October 22nd, 65438/KLOC-0, Soviet troops occupied the ancient Mrak airport in Gu Men, and the air transport and evacuation of the wounded of the 6th Army were completely interrupted. Germans are desperately short of food and ammunition. Despite this, the Germans still stubbornly resisted because they believed that the Soviet army would execute the surrendered soldiers. Fierce street fighting broke out again in Stalingrad. On the contrary, the Soviet army was also surprised by the huge number of Germans in the encirclement, so it continued to consolidate the encirclement. Paulus reported to Hitler: "The troops have been unable to support, and it is meaningless to continue to resist. Please allow us to surrender. " The answer he got was: "Surrender is impossible, and the Sixth Army should do its heroic duty in Stalingrad until the last man." Manstein urged Hitler to approve the surrender of the remnants of the Sixth Army. He said, "It's time to end this heroic battle, my Fuhrer! I think that the Sixth Army has made a final effort to contain the Russian army, and it is meaningless to continue to resist. " Hitler explained to Manstein that surrender was not allowed. "First, the Germans in the encirclement can resist for a long time even if they are divided into several smaller units; Secondly, the Russians will never keep the promise they made after surrendering to the Sixth Army. " On October 30th, 65438/KLOC-0, Hitler awarded the scepter to German Marshal paulus, encouraging him to continue to resist. He said to Jodl, "In German history, no marshal has ever been captured alive." Hitler also hoped that paulus would fight to the end or commit suicide. 65438+1October 3 1 day, paulus sent the last telegram to the headquarters: "The Sixth Army is loyal to the oath and recognizes its extremely important mission. For the head of state and the motherland, stick to your post and fight to the last soldier, one shot and one bullet. " However, when the Soviets invaded castle wolfenstein, a department store, paulus chose to surrender. On the same day, the 38th Mobu Brigade of the 64th Army of the Soviet Union hit the headquarters in paulus. "The sixth army radio station will be closed! Russian troops have occupied it! Long live the Bolsheviks and God bless Germany! " On February 1943 and 1 day, the telegrapher of the besieged Sixth Army Command decided to send the last famous telegram to Berlin, and finally wrote "CL" in international code, indicating that "this station stopped sending". Outside the basement, the Soviet army told the officers of the Sixth Army Command to surrender, and General Schmidt, the Chief of Staff of the Sixth Army, accepted the request. Schmidt asked paulus, "Excuse me, Marshal, do you have anything to say?" Paulus had nothing to say, so he had to surrender. On February 2nd, 1943, the remnants of the 1 1 army besieged in the north of Stalingrad also surrendered. At this point, the Battle of Stalingrad ended. Marshal Paulus, commander of the German Sixth Army, Lieutenant General Feifer, commander of the Fourth Infantry Army, Lieutenant General Kurzbach, commander of the 5th1Army, Major General Colfis, commander of the 295th Division, and other 23 general officers, officers below the school level of 2000 and 9 1000 German soldiers who were extremely hungry and tired were captured, and about 140 people died. To the great surprise of the Soviet Union and the great disappointment of the Germans, the prisoners of war included 22 generals. Hitler was extremely disappointed with the new marshal and publicly stated that "paulus was only one step away from entering the glorious hall, but he still chose to retreat." Most of the more than 90,000 people captured died in Soviet prison camps, but only a few thousand people survived the war. Due to the serious natural disasters in the Soviet Union in 1946, agricultural production was reduced in a large area, resulting in insufficient food for prisoners of war, and a large number of Japanese and German prisoners of war starved to death. It is said that in the prison camp at that time, prisoners of war and responsible Red Army soldiers were only given three potatoes a day. At present, there is no clear evidence that Japanese and German prisoners of war were severely abused and caused mass deaths. But according to statistics, of the 965,438+0,000 prisoners of war, only 6,000 survived and returned to their homeland. Because most of the soldiers themselves were malnourished, lacking medical care and medicine, and the Red Army sent them to prison camps all over the Soviet Union for forced labor, most of them died of overwork and malnutrition. A dozen senior officers were taken to Moscow to be used as political propaganda tools of the Soviet Union. Officers, including paulus, issued an anti-Hitler manifesto and publicized it to the Germans. Walter. 6? 1 feng? 6? 1 Cedritz? 6? General Kurzbach even proposed to form an anti-Hitler army from German prisoners of war, but the Soviet Union did not accept this proposal. It was not until 1955 that these senior prisoners of war were repatriated. Although the official German media stopped reporting the good news several weeks before the end of the battle, the German people didn't know about the Stalingrad tragedy 1943+0 until the end of June. This is not the first blow to the Germans, but this defeat is incomparable in scale and strategic significance. February 18, German Propaganda Minister Joseph? 6? 1 Goebbels made a famous Sportpalast speech in Berlin, encouraging German nationals to accept the concept of total war, that is, to use all the resources and forces of the whole country to fight to the end.