At first his armies (which included also huge numbers of Romanians as well as Italians and Hungarians) were very successful in destroying everything the Russians could throw against them.  At Sevastopol the Germans left the city in utter ruins.  At Voronezh on the Don River however the Germans encountered such stiff resistance that they were forced to turn their drive southward.  They were able then to take Voroshilovgrad and Rostov before the end of July.  At this point they divided their army, Army Group A continuing south under General Kleist toward the old fields of Baku (which however they failed to reach before winter set in) and the Army Group B under General Paulus heading east toward the city of Stalingrad (today’s Volgograd) located strategically on the Volga River.

The critical nature of Stalingrad. For both Stalin and Hitler this battle took on huge strategic significance.  Stalin knew that if Russia could not stop the Germans there ... and allowed them to cross the Volga River (which ran at the back of the Russian position along the Eastern side of the city), Russia would likely be lost completely ... for once the Germans were across the river there would be no other place with such a strong defensive position where the Russians could dig in to stop a German offensive.  A Russian comeback would thus be almost impossible.  Consequently, the Russians were determined to take even a suicidal stand at Stalingrad.

On the other hand, Hitler knew that if he did not take Stalingrad from the Russians, his entire objective of seizing the oil-rich and fertile fields of southern Russia would be threatened.  Thus each side poured millions of men into the battle against the other. At first it looked as if things would soon favor the Germans ... who in October pushed the fighting even into the city of Stalingrad itself.

The German 6th Army finds itself trapped inside Stalingrad.  But then in November another Russian winter set in with full force ... and the Germans found themselves in trouble. In their long reach across the Ukraine and southern Russia up to the city of Stalingrad the Germans were reinforced only by a greatly exposed and poorly defended line of supply behind them.  And their troops were exhausted.

This weakness in the German position thus offered the Russians a grand opportunity to swing north and south around the Germans, close off that line of supply – and encircle the entire German 6th Army.  Consequently, on November 19 the Russians launched a counteroffensive around both the northern and southern flanks of the over-extended Germans.  Within a mere few days (by the 23rd) the Russians had completely encircled the entire 14 divisions of Paulus’ 6th German Army.

Worse … Hitler, blinded with pride, refused to allow his army to retreat from Stalingrad but ordered them instead to wait for reinforcements – which never came because the Russians were able to hold them off.  On December 12th German units located further to the West attempted a breakthrough to the trapped army, but failed.  Still the insanely proud Hitler would not let his army pull back from this encirclement ... even though it was immediately apparent that the German situation was hopeless as long as the Germans remained where they were.

By the beginning of February (1943) the German 6th Army was frozen (it was another terrible winter), hungry, sick and dying.  Thus (much to Hitler’s great fury) the German 6th Army (or what was left of it) finally surrendered.  Consequently, all the German expansion achieved since the previous summer was lost.

The battle for Stalingrad was not a heroic event – but a hugely murderous struggle.   Of the original nearly a million German, Romanian, Italian and Hungarians soldiers, only 90,000 were still alive to be able to surrender (only about 5,000 of those would ever make it back to Germany ten years later, the vast majority dying within a few months of their capture) and another 10,000 chose to fight on until there were only small groups of starving soldiers left when the fighting drew to a close. But the Russians had also lost big, with nearly a half a million soldiers killed and 650,000 wounded or sick – and countless numbers of Russian civilians also killed.  But the Russians could absorb those losses.  Germany could not.