The Battle of Stalingrad: Hell on Earth

There's never been a battle like Stalingrad. From August 1942 to February 1943, two armies fought to the death in a city on the Volga. The Germans wanted Stalingrad for its strategic position and its name. Stalin wanted it for the same reasons. Neither would back down. The German Luftwaffe bombed the city to rubble. But rubble favored the defenders. Soviet soldiers fought from basements, factories, sewers. Pavlov's House became famous. A squad of soldiers held a building for 60 days, surrounded by Germans. The fighting was so close that enemies were sometimes in the same room. The Germans called it Rattenkrieg, rat war. Winter came. The Germans, unprepared for the cold, froze. Their supplies ran low. Then the Soviets launched a massive counterattack, encircling the German Sixth Army. Hitler refused to let them break out. Goering promised to supply them by air, but it was impossible. The German soldiers starved and froze while the Soviets tightened the ring. Finally, in February, the survivors surrendered. Ninety-one thousand German soldiers went into captivity. Only 5,000 ever returned home. Stalingrad broke the German army. They never recovered.