On July 17, 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad broke out, which changed the situation in the Soviet-German battlefield and also sounded the clarion call of the Allies to fight back against fascism, a war that lasted for 200 days, both in terms of the scale of the war and the number of casualties, which can be said to be one of the most brutal wars during World War II.
The number of casualties between the Soviets and Germans exceeded 2 million, but it was precisely because of this battle that Germany's advantage in the Eastern Front was slowly exhausted, so that the Red Army could later invade Berlin. So how did this fierce battle, which indirectly affected the world pattern, happen? How did the Soviet Union triumph?
On June 22, 1941, the Soviet-German War broke out in full swing. In the early days of the war, Germany relied on the advantages of mechanized tank warfare and advanced all the way. However, with the victory of the defense of Moscow, the myth of the german army's invincibility was officially broken. At the same time, the long winter and the vastness of the land completely shattered Hitler's dream of occupying the Soviet Union in a short period of time.
So Germany turned to attack Stalingrad, stalingrad is an important city in the Soviet Union after Moscow, the Stalingrad area is not only rich in oil, coal, grain and other strategic resources, but also the main production place of Soviet tanks. Faced with such a large piece of fat, Hitler could not find any reason to give up. In his view, once Stalingrad was taken, the defeat at the Battle of Moscow would be erased and Germany's superiority over the Soviet Union would continue.
So under Hitler's orders, the original Army Group South was abolished, and two army groups A and B were reorganized, after which the German army launched a new round of offensive. Facing the heavily fortified Stalingrad, Hitler mobilized 60 divisions.
Looking at this situation, some people may think that the Soviet Union has no chance to turn over. In fact, the Soviet Union was still extremely powerful, because of the "wartime economy" system, the Soviet Union had more than 5 million Red Army and more than 4,000 tanks. Hitler wanted to take Stalingrad, and it was really not an easy task.
Before the Battle of Stalingrad broke out, the Germans, under Hitler's command, implemented a battle plan called "Operation Blue". After Stalin learned of this plan, he established a strategy for attacking the Kharkov region, and to Stalin's surprise, the Soviet army was beaten by the German army in the Battle of Kharkov. The death of 3 lieutenant generals and the capture of more than 250,000 soldiers made Stalin, who had been confident before the war, angry, but Hitler's face was full of smiles.
The victory at the Battle of Kharkov proved the correctness of the attack on the southwestern part of the Soviet Union. From 28 June 1942 onwards, the two armies exceeded one million German troops and began to march towards the Stalingrad region. Under the onslaught of the German mechanized troops, the Soviet army collapsed all the way. Seeing that the German army was about to attack Stalingrad, Hitler did not know what was wrong, but ordered Paulus's 6th Army to continue to attack Stalingrad, and the other German troops swung south.
Unexpectedly, Hitler's decision gave the Soviet army a chance to rest. The Soviet High Command also understood the Germans' intentions and was determined to hold Stalingrad. It wasn't long before the Soviets and Germans engaged in fierce street fighting in the city.
As the war intensified, casualties began to surge, and a plan to counter-attack the Germans quietly unfolded. In mid-November 1942, under the unified command of General Zhukov, more than 1.1 million Soviet troops were secretly assembled near the Stalingrad area, and then a million Soviet troops, supported by artillery fire, launched a counterattack against the Germans, which was called "Operation Uranus". In the face of the fierce counterattack of the Soviet army, Hitler actually let Paulus's Sixth Army hold the front line and engage the Soviet army.
Soon after, Manstein became the supreme commander of the German army in the Stalingrad region. In response to the Soviet "iron pincer offensive", Manstein used the Fourth Panzer Army to open up a bloody road. In fact, the defeat of the German army was already doomed, and on January 8, 1943, the Soviet army issued an ultimatum to the commander of the German 6th Army, General Paulus, urging it to surrender. On February 1, 1943, The commander of the German 6th Army, General Paulus, officially declared his surrender. On day 2, the remnants of the German 11th Army, trapped north of Stalingrad, surrendered, and the Battle of Stalingrad was officially over.
After this battle, the German superiority in the eastern front gradually disappeared, and the Subsequent Battle of Kursk made the German army turn to defense in an all-round way. According to post-war statistics, Nazi Germany suffered more than 1.5 million casualties in this battle, and the Soviet front suffered nearly 2 million casualties. In the most intense stage of the campaign, the two sides invested more than 2 million troops, more than 2,000 tanks, more than 2,300 fighters, and a total of 25,000 artillery pieces.