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. Today, the Battle of Stalingrad 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.
Sir Antony James Beevor, is a British military historian. He has published several popular historical works, mainly on the Second World War, the Spanish Civil War, and most recently the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
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.
Vasily Semyonovich Grossman was a Soviet writer and journalist. Born to a Jewish family in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, Grossman trained as a chemical engineer at Moscow State University, earning the nickname Vasya-khimik because of his diligence as a student. Upon graduation, he took a job in Stalino in the Donets Basin. In the 1930s he changed careers and began writing full-time, publishing a number of short stories and several novels.
The 6th Army was a field army of the German Army during World War II. It is widely known for its defeat by and subsequent surrender to the Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad on 2 February 1943. It committed war crimes at Babi Yar while under the command of Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau during Operation Barbarossa.
Tomas Venclova is a Lithuanian poet, prose writer, scholar, philologist and translator of literature. He is one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. In 1977, following his dissident activities, he was forced to emigrate and was deprived of his Soviet citizenship. Since 1980, he has taught Russian and Polish literature at Yale University. Considered a major figure in world literature, he has received many awards, including the Prize of Two Nations, and The Person of Tolerance of the Year Award from the Sugihara Foundation, among other honors.
Yunna Petrovna Morits (Moritz), is a Soviet and Russian poet, poetry translator and activist. She was a recipient of the Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage and the Golden Rose (Italy).
Walther Kurt von Seydlitz-Kurzbach was a German general during World War II who commanded the LI Army Corps during the Battle of Stalingrad. At the end of the battle, he gave his officers freedom of action and was relieved of command. He assisted the Soviet Union as a prisoner-of-war. After the war, he was convicted by the Soviets of war crimes. In 1996, he was posthumously pardoned by Russia.
Mykola Platonovych Bazhan was a Soviet Ukrainian writer, poet, highly decorated political and public figure. He was an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1951), Distinguished Figure in Science and Technology of Ukrainian SSR (1966), Distinguished Figure in Arts of Georgian SSR (1964), People's Poet of Uzbek SSR.
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.
The Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943), a battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, often regarded as the single largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare, and one of the most decisive battles of World War II, has inspired a number of media works.
Russian military deception, sometimes known as maskirovka, is a military doctrine developed from the start of the 20th century. The doctrine covers a broad range of measures for military deception, from camouflage to denial and deception.
James E. Mace was an American historian, professor, and researcher of the Holodomor.
Nikolay Dmitrevich Dyatlenko was a Ukrainian Soviet officer, interrogator and translator who was part of a team that attempted to deliver a message of truce to the German Sixth Army at the Battle of Stalingrad in January 1943. He also acted as the translator at the interrogation of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus a few weeks later.
Arthur Schmidt was an officer in the German military from 1914 to 1943. He attained the rank of Generalleutnant during World War II, and is best known for his role as the Sixth Army's chief of staff in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–43, during the final stages of which he became its de facto commander, playing a large role in executing Hitler's order that it stand firm despite being encircled by the Red Army. He was a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union for twelve years, and was released following West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer's visit to Moscow in 1955.
Stalingrad is a 2013 Russian war film directed by Fedor Bondarchuk. It was the first Russian movie released in IMAX. The film was released in September 2013 in Volgograd and October in Russia before its international release in subsequent months. The film was selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. Stalingrad received the I3DS Jury Award for Russia in 2014.
The Second World War is a 2012 narrative history of World War II by the British historian Antony Beevor. The book starts with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and covers the entire Second World War. It ends with the final surrender of Axis forces.
Tania Chernova was a Russian-American woman known for serving in the Red Army as a sniper during World War II. She traveled to Belarus to get her grandparents out of Russia, but upon arriving learned that German invaders had already killed them. After that, she joined the Soviet resistance on the Eastern Front, becoming an effective sniper.
Dan Healey is a Canadian and English historian and Slavist. He is a pioneer of the study of the history of homosexuality in Russia.
