"A gift of justice."
Today is the second day of the New Year of the Tiger, we are all wishing our relatives and friends a great fortune in the Year of the Tiger, and on this day 79 years ago, the anti-fascist allies, including China, also received a big gift: the victory of the Battle of Stalingrad ended, and a big gift was given to the Allies!
On February 2, 1943, after more than half a year of unprecedented bloodshed, the remnants of the German Northern Cluster outside Stalingrad surrendered, and the German Southern Cluster had surrendered inside Stalingrad two days earlier. On this day the Soviets declared themselves victorious and the Battle of Stalingrad ended.
The result of the battle was that Marshal Zhukov annihilated 1.5 million Axis troops led by the German army in the Stalingrad area, Manstein and other famous generals were defeated by the Soviet Red Army, of which the german elite Sixth Army was all annihilated, the Soviet army captured prisoners of war included 22 generals, and the commander Paulus became the first marshal to be captured since the founding of the German army, which was an unprecedented shame in German history. The war also completely reversed the unfavorable situation in the early days of the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union, and since then Germany's defeat on the Eastern Front has become a foregone conclusion.
Historians generally agree that the Battle of Stalingrad was the worst strategic defeat suffered by Nazi Germany, not only ending the offensive situation that the German army had maintained since 1941, but also directly contributing to a fundamental change in the overall balance of power between the Soviet Union and Germany. Worldwide, the Battle of Stalingrad, together with the Battle of Midway between the United States and Japan and the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa, constituted a landmark event in the anti-fascist war at the end of 1942, which can be called a turning point in the entire World War II.
From this day in 1943, the Allied forces, including the Soviet Army, were victorious one after another, while the Axis powers such as Germany, Italy, and Japan were defeated one after another until they were completely destroyed in 1945, and Germany and Japan were finally invaded by the Allies and declared unconditional surrender, thus China also won the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, washing away a century of national shame.
The New Year of 1943 became the opening point for anti-fascist forces around the world.