As German Sixth Army units fought street by street into Stalingrad, Luftwaffe bombing raids reduced much of the industrial city to rubble. What began as a battle for a strategic Volga River city devolved into one of history's deadliest urban engagements, ultimately claiming nearly two million casualties and marking the turning point of the Eastern Front.
By early September 1942, General Friedrich Paulus's Sixth Army had fought its way to the outskirts of Stalingrad, and Luftwaffe squadrons pounded the city relentlessly, turning apartment blocks and factories into moonscapes of broken concrete. Soviet civilians who hadn't evacuated sheltered in basements and sewer systems as bombs fell day after day.
Hitler had personally fixated on capturing the city that bore Stalin's name, partly for its symbolic value and partly to secure the Volga as a transport artery and protect the flank of his push toward the Caucasus oil fields. Stalin, in turn, ordered the city held at any cost, issuing his infamous 'Not one step back' directive.
What followed was months of brutal close-quarters fighting where soldiers fought over single rooms and stairwells—a form of combat German troops grimly nicknamed 'Rattenkrieg,' or rat war. By the battle's end in February 1943, the encircled and starving German Sixth Army would surrender, marking the first major defeat of Hitler's forces and a psychological turning point in World War II.
Key people: Friedrich Paulus, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler