The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, beginning when Nazi Germany and its Axis allies attacked and became locked in a protracted struggle with the Soviet Union for control over the Soviet city of Stalingrad in southern Russia. The battle was characterized by fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in aerial raids; the battle epitomized urban warfare, being the single largest and costliest urban battle in military history. It was the bloodiest and fiercest battle of the entirety of World War II—and arguably in all of human history—as both sides suffered tremendous casualties amidst ferocious fighting in and around the city. The battle is commonly regarded as the turning point in the European theatre of World War II, as Germany's Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was forced to withdraw a considerable amount of military forces from other regions to replace losses on the Eastern Front. By the time the hostilities ended, the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army had been destroyed and Army Group B was routed. The Soviets' victory at Stalingrad shifted the Eastern Front's balance of power in their favour, while also boosting the morale of the Red Army.
Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev was a Soviet sniper during World War II.
Urban warfare is warfare in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat differs from combat in the open at both operational and the tactical levels. Complicating factors in urban warfare include the presence of civilians and the complexity of the urban terrain. Urban combat operations may be conducted to capitalize on strategic or tactical advantages associated with the possession or the control of a particular urban area or to deny these advantages to the enemy. It is considered to be arguably the most difficult form of warfare.
Hiwi, the German abbreviation of the word Hilfswilliger or, in English, auxiliary volunteer, designated, during World War II, a member of different kinds of voluntary auxiliary forces made up of recruits indigenous to the territories of Eastern Europe occupied by Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler reluctantly agreed to allow recruitment of Soviet citizens in the Rear Areas during Operation Barbarossa. In a short period of time, many of them were moved to combat units.
Georg Ludwig Heinrich Nicolaus von Below was an officer in the German Luftwaffe and an adjutant to Adolf Hitler.
David M. Glantz is an American military historian known for his books on the Red Army during World War II and as the chief editor of The Journal of Slavic Military Studies.
Stalingrad is a narrative history written by Antony Beevor of the battle fought in and around the city of Stalingrad during World War II, as well as the events leading up to it. It was first published by Viking Press in 1998. The book won the first Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature in 1999.
Werner Haase was a professor of medicine and SS member during the Nazi era. He was one of Adolf Hitler's personal physicians. After the war ended, Haase was made a Soviet prisoner of war. He died while in captivity in 1950.
Bruno Bräuer was a general in the paratroop forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. He served as a commander on Crete and then commanded the 9th Paratroop Division. After the war, he was convicted of war crimes and executed, along with Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, on the anniversary of the Axis invasion of Crete.
Peter Högl was a German officer holding the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer who was a member of one of Adolf Hitler's bodyguard units. He spent time in the Führerbunker in Berlin at the end of World War II. Högl died from wounds received during the break-out on 2 May 1945 while crossing the Weidendammer Bridge under heavy fire in Berlin.
Ernst Kaether was a German officer, who rose to the rank of general in the Wehrmacht during World War II.
Theoderich Heinrich August Wilhelm von Dufving (1907–2001), known as Theodor von Dufving, was a German officer of the Wehrmacht during the Second World War.
Hans Refior was an officer in the German Army during World War II. Refior was on the staff of the last two German commanders of the "Berlin Defense Area" during the final assault by Soviet forces on the city of Berlin.
Else Krüger was Martin Bormann's secretary from the end of 1942 until 1 May 1945. She was born in Hamburg-Altona.
The Führer Headquarters, abbreviated FHQ, were a number of official headquarters used by the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and various other German commanders and officials throughout Europe during World War II. The last one used, the Führerbunker in Berlin, where Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945, is the most widely known headquarter. Other notable headquarters are the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, where Claus Graf von Stauffenberg in league with other conspirators attempted to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944, and Hitler's private home, the Berghof, at Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden, where he frequently met with prominent foreign and domestic officials.
Berlin: The Downfall 1945 is a narrative history by Antony Beevor of the Battle of Berlin during World War II. It was published by Viking Press in 2002, then later by Penguin Books in 2003. The book achieved both critical and commercial success. It has been a number-one best seller in seven countries apart from Britain, and in the top five in another nine countries. Together this book and Beevor's Stalingrad, first published in 1998, have sold nearly three million copies.
As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of World War II, mass rapes of women took place both in connection with combat operations and during the subsequent occupation of Germany by soldiers from all advancing Allied armies, although a majority of scholars agree that the records show that a majority of the rapes were committed by Soviet occupation troops. The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence.
Rudolf Weiß was a German officer appointed personal adjutant for the Army's Personnel Department Chief, a position he held until the end of World War II. Further, he was stationed in the Führerbunker in April 1945.
Charlotten Bridge in Spandau links the old town of Spandau on the west bank of the Havel with the east bank.
The 79th Guards Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army during World War II.
United Kingdom 
British Army 
