- 12/06/2025
The German defeat at Stalingrad was a defining moment in Hitler's dream of world domination. For the first time in World War 2, a German Field Marshal, Friedrich Paulus, was forced to surrender with his devastated army. Under the savage leadership of Vasili Chuikov, the Red Army had clung on to prove that it cou!d defeat its implacable enemy and that ultimate victory was possible. Unique footage from both sides and detailed computer graphics show how both armies were drawn into an horrific and titanic struggle.
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00:00In the city of Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad, a colossal 200-foot-high war memorial stands.
00:29It honors the half a million Soviet soldiers and civilians killed defending the city in 1942.
00:39Stalingrad saw one of the most titanic battles of World War II.
00:43Russian and German soldiers were sucked into the endless brutal chaos of close-quarter fighting among the ruins of the city.
00:59The German assault and siege of Stalingrad would be a defining moment in the war on the Eastern Front.
01:15This bloody conflict would pit two very different commanders, German General Friedrich Paulus and Russian General Vasily Chukov, in a desperate clash of warriors.
01:33By May 1942, Germany had been at war with the Soviet Union for almost a year, and 70% of Hitler's forces were concentrated on the Eastern Front.
01:49The casualties on both sides were horrendous, with over one million German soldiers dead, missing or wounded.
02:04But the Red Army losses were far higher. No less than three and a half million men had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
02:20Russian civilians had also suffered in the wake of German atrocities and reprisals.
02:24Millions had already been killed, brutalized and treated savagely by the advancing Germans.
02:30Hitler was frustrated by his failure to take Moscow by the end of 1941, and insisted that a decisive assault in the East was still within the German army's grasp in 1942.
02:49He was obsessed with destroying Stalin and the communist regime.
02:53Hitler believed that in defending Moscow, the Red Army suffered high costs and were all but finished.
03:16He concentrated his efforts toward the South.
03:19The campaign plan, codenamed Operation Blue, would aim toward the industry-rich area between the Donets and Fulga rivers.
03:30And then the Caucasus, which had extensive oil fields.
03:36Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, who was commanding Army Group South, was to oversee the entire operation.
03:42Army Group South was split into two Army Groups, A and B.
03:53Army Group B, which included Paulus' 6th Army, would advance east to Stalingrad and the Volga,
04:01to protect the open flank of Army Group A's main thrust into the oil-rich Caucasus.
04:06Army Group A opened the offensive on June 28th, 1942.
04:23Ten days later, Army Group B launched its attack.
04:26Though both assaults started well, the bulk of the Russian forces withdrew to avoid being trapped.
04:32Furthermore, the Soviet High Command was convinced that the German assault in the South was merely a diversion to mask a major offensive on Moscow.
04:48In mid-July, an impatient Hitler mistakenly believed that large numbers of Russian troops remained west of the River Don.
04:59He halted the 6th Army, which was spearheading the advance to the Volga, and switched most of its armor to Army Group A.
05:06He dismissed von Bock for being too cautious and took over personal command of Operation Blue.
05:14Within days, Hitler ordered Paulus' 6th Army to renew its advance, specifically telling him to capture Stalingrad.
05:22The 4th Panzer Army was brought up from the south to support Paulus, slowing Army Group A's advance into the Caucasus.
05:33Paulus pressed on again, and by August 23rd, his advance units had reached the Volga River just north of Stalingrad.
05:41Paulus was initially confident that Stalingrad would quickly fall, but he would soon face a new opponent.
05:57Vassily Chukov would take command of the 62nd Army to defend Stalingrad and frustrate Paulus.
06:13As the Germans pushed closer to the city, both commanders would be forced to draw hard on their very different past military experiences to decide the fate of Stalingrad.
06:29Friedrich Paulus was born in 1890.
06:40The son of an accountant, he developed a manner that suggested nobility and was later inaccurately titled von Paulus.
06:50He joined the German Army at age 20, and by 1912 was a lieutenant in his local infantry regiment.
06:59Paulus served in World War I as an infantry officer and then in the elite Alpine Corps, but at heart, he was a staff officer.
07:16After the war, he did command an infantry battalion, but later returned to the staff.
07:20During the 1920s, as the Nazi Party's influence rose, Paulus embraced Hitler's commitment to rearmament.
07:39When Hitler came to power in January 1933, Paulus was a major on the general staff in Berlin, where he was noticed by the Fuhrer.
07:46In 1935, he was appointed as chief of staff to the newly established Panzer Headquarters.
07:59At the outbreak of World War II, Paulus was a major general and chief of staff of the 10th Army, which served with distinction during the Polish campaign.
08:07The 10th Army continued its success during the fall of France in 1940, after which it was renamed the Sixth Army.
08:17For the next 18 months, Paulus played a key role in the planning of invading the Soviet Union, while serving on the staff of the German Army's overall headquarters in Berlin.
08:31Much to his surprise, Hitler appointed him head of the Sixth Army on the Eastern Front.
08:42Paulus, who had no experience of high command in war, was given the direct responsibility for an army of over 300,000 men and a difficult task of holding the city of Kharkov against fierce Russian attacks.
08:59But he succeeded and was awarded the Knights Cross.
09:08Paulus would now have to prove that he had the necessary drive and determination to capture Stalingrad.
09:13Paulus was born in 1900 into a peasant family in Tsarist Russia.
09:32Too young to fight in World War I, he volunteered for the newly formed Red Army and proved himself during the Russian Civil War.
09:39At only 24, Chukov attended and excelled at the Frunza Military Academy in Moscow.
09:52He was posted to Chongqing as an advisor to the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek in 1926.
10:03He would remain in China for nearly a decade.
10:05In 1937, and now a colonel, Chukov returned to the Soviet Union to work on the staff of the Soviet War Ministry.
10:20He was noticed by Josef Stalin and rapidly promoted.
10:23After the German invasion in June 1941, Chukov distinguished himself as an Army Chief of Staff on the Don Front.
10:41He was then appointed to command the Soviet 64th Army.
10:50Chukov was one of the youngest generals in the Red Army.
10:54He was thick-set and typical of the new breed of tough, ruthless commanders rising to the top of the Soviet military.
11:00His successes in the harsh realities of war gained his transfer to the 62nd Army on September 12, 1942 at Stalingrad's darkest hour.
11:13Chukov was volatile, abrasive and prepared to sacrifice his men for the greater good, the defeat of Nazism.
11:21By September 1942, Paulus prepared to take Stalingrad.
11:31Soviet fortunes hung on Chukov's ability to defend.
11:39Stalingrad was originally known as Tsaritsyn, but Stalin changed its name in 1924.
11:45He justified this by a key role he had played in the city's defense during the Civil War.
11:55By 1940, Stalingrad was a flourishing communist community and a major industrial center.
12:01Its base was a huge tractor factory, which after the German invasion switched to the production of T-34 tanks, one of the Red Army's greatest assets.
12:09Stalingrad's importance was underlined by its position on the Volga River.
12:29It was a community stretching for 30 miles in a thin strip just over three miles wide on the west bank of the river.
12:35By late August 1942, Hitler had become mesmerized by the desire to take Stalingrad.
12:55Stalin was equally obsessed and gave personal orders that it was to be held at all costs.
13:04He feared that its capture would threaten the whole of southern Russia.
13:14Stalingrad was subjected to massive airstrikes as Paulus' 6th Army prepared to take the city.
13:20On some days, Luftwaffe aircraft flew almost 2,000 bombing sorties.
13:24The city was also blasted by a continuous artillery bombardment.
13:33A few days after Paulus reached the Volga north of Stalingrad, 4th Panzer Army diverted from the Caucasus arrived at the river to the south.
13:38By September 3rd, the western approaches to the city had been sealed.
13:52The main assault would begin on September 13th.
13:58Paulus had devised a plan that he believed was simple, swift and decisive.
14:0219 divisions totaling 250,000 men and 600 tanks would attack in a pincer movement from the north and south of Stalingrad.
14:15But on September 12th, Vasily Chukov arrived to take command of the 62nd Army and declared that he would hold the city or die there.
14:28Overall, Paulus had a total of half a million men at his disposal.
14:37Some 1,000 aircraft and over 2,000 artillery pieces would support the assault.
14:42These included the formidable Navalwehr for multiple launch rocket system.
14:45To counter this, Chukov's 62nd Army had only six weak divisions totaling 75,000 men and less than 150 tanks.
15:04Although most were the reliable and potent T-34.
15:15Chukov's most important asset was his artillery.
15:25It included 24 mobile 152-millimeter multi-barreled rocket launchers, or Katyushas, which Chukov would keep on the West Bank for as long as possible.
15:38Also, he would have support from the Stalingrad Front Artillery Group with 300 heavy guns.
15:45Despite the support of Stalin's chief troubleshooter, Georgi Zhukov, there were serious doubts whether Russian resistance would hold up under relentless German pressure.
15:58Believing that the major assault on Moscow was yet to come, Stalin and the Soviet High Command spared a few immediate reinforcements for Chukov.
16:16Chukov would have to somehow hold Stalingrad on his own.
16:28Russian soldiers and civilians were already hastily preparing defenses.
16:32Vassily Zhukov had studied German military strategy and tactics carefully to identify strengths and weaknesses in them.
16:47Believing that the German infantry and tanks had little experience of fighting in urban areas, he determined, quote, to get as close to the enemy as possible and strangle him at only an arm's length.
17:02Chuukov intended to force Paulus' men to fight for every foot of Stalingrad.
17:11He would lure the German tanks and infantry into fighting at such short range that his troops could isolate and then destroy them.
17:18Everything depended on the determination, courage, and skill of Paulus' and Chuukov's soldiers.
17:35After failing to capture Moscow in 1941, the following summer saw a renewed optimism as the German 6th Army swept forward.
17:52But as autumn approached, the Germans knew they had to strike quickly to prevent the nightmare of another notorious Russian winter.
18:09Up to now, the German infantrymen's experience had been in fighting in open country using blitzkrieg tactics.
18:16Cities like Stalingrad had always been bypassed and cut off.
18:22Their garrisons had usually surrendered quickly.
18:29Stalingrad was to prove a challenge as the German troops would be sucked into a battle for every yard of ruined street in the city.
18:37They quickly learned the cost of fighting in built-up areas.
18:41Fighting at close quarters was exhausting, brutal, and mentally straining.
18:52Despite the enormous sacrifice of over 3 million men by the summer of 1942, the Red Army had grown to over 10 million strong, and its soldiers, battle-hardened and better led, were a different prospect.
19:11They could draw on excellent weapons such as the T-34 tank, which had proved itself in the battle for Moscow the previous winter.
19:21Though their losses were high, their universal hatred for the Germans sustained the Russian troops.
19:31Despite the setbacks, Yosef Stalin had instilled a sense of purpose in his followers.
19:44Commanders like Georgi Zhukov and Vasily Zhukov enhanced the growing confidence that the Russian troops could beat the German army.
19:52Zhukov's men were better suited to the demands of urban fighting.
20:01Their natural toughness equipped them for close quarter fighting in rubble-strewn streets.
20:06Zhukov would exploit these qualities with the formation of highly mobile storm groups, each containing a small number of men with a mix of anti-tank weapons, machine guns, grenades, and the deadly flamethrower.
20:18They would carry out lightning raids on German troops and tanks in the houses and streets, and then disappear back into the rubble of the city.
20:33On the evening of September 12th, 1942, the men of Zhukov's 62nd Army knew that it would be only a matter of hours before further bombardments would give way to an all-out ground attack.
20:50As the sun set over the Volga River, both Russian and German troops felt that they were about to take part in a battle to the death.
21:03The loyal Friedrich Paulus and ruthless Vasily Zhukov knew that Stalingrad's fate would be decided by their imminent showdown.
21:11In the early hours of Sunday, September 13th, 1942, Aulis's 6th Army and units of the 4th Panzer Army attacked Stalingrad, supported by a massive aerial and artillery bombardment.
21:31At first, the assault went very well.
21:49Within 24 hours, Stalingrad's Central Railway Station was under threat, and Zhukov's resupply route across the Volga River was under German siege.
22:11In addition, a major landmark in the city, a giant grain elevator was in danger of capture as Paulus's men grappled with its defenders in a grim and bloody battle.
22:31Zhukov ordered his men into the city center during the night to retake some of the lost territory.
22:36Amid murderous German gunfire, the Central Railway Station changed hands four times on one day alone.
22:49Much of the outer part of the city was soon in German hands.
22:52Zhukov's 62nd Army was suffering heavy casualties.
23:14Some of his infantry divisions were reduced to less than 2,000 men.
23:17Much of Stalingrad lay in ruins.
23:30But as Zhukov predicted, every demolished building and every pile of rubble became a stronghold,
23:35which Paulus's troops had to assault and overcome one after the other.
23:39Using all weapons at hand, Zhukov's men fought to the last man in every street and building.
23:52German air superiority made the daytime particularly dangerous for the Russian troops.
23:57But at night, they often recovered any lost ground.
24:10Rubble slowed down or blocked German tanks.
24:13They were then destroyed by frequent Russian anti-tank ambushes.
24:17The German tank crews were then machine gunned as they attempted to escape.
24:21The skills of Russian snipers and assault groups began to outmatch those of the Germans.
24:30Chuukov's headquarters on the Mamayev Kurgan was also under fire as German troops,
24:36fighting with equal savagery and determination, hacked their way through the city.
24:40Stalingrad had become a blazing furnace of burned-out buildings and small, savage actions.
24:52Chuukov was forced to move his headquarters close to the Red October factory at the edge of the Volga.
24:58Small boats ferried ammunition and reinforcements across the river.
25:10But many Russians drowned or were shot in the water.
25:17The attacks and counterattacks continued,
25:20with whole buildings disappearing within the white heat of battle.
25:23By October 5th,
25:29Paulus's men were poised to seize Chuukov's vital ferry landing stages.
25:33But he called in his artillery to annihilate the German attackers.
25:37A huge bombardment lasting 40 minutes smashed the German assault.
25:46Slowly, Chuukov's men seemed to be grasping the initiative,
25:49and German morale was beginning to dip badly.
25:57By now, both German and Russian troops were using cellars and sewers in their attempts to advance or hold their ground.
26:04These became the scenes of desperate clashes between the patrols of each side.
26:08On October 14th, Paulus launched an attack of even greater ferocity.
26:21Assisted by tanks, 2,500 German troops smashed through the tractor plant and were on the verge of eradicating the final Russian pockets on the west bank of the Volga.
26:30By October 23rd, Paulus appeared to be on the verge of victory.
26:48But he began to receive disturbing intelligence that the Russians were preparing a counteroffensive.
26:53Hitler and his staff dismissed this and urged Paulus to finally bring Stalingrad to its knees.
27:07On November 11th, the last great German attempt to smash Russian resistance in Stalingrad split Chuukov's defenses for the third time.
27:17Fighting heroically, most of Chuukov's units were down to about 10% of their original strength.
27:24A few small islands of Russian resistance remained on the west side of the Volga.
27:41By November 17th, the Russian situation was desperate and the Volga was beginning to freeze.
27:52The next day, snow lay deep across the tortured ground. Visibility was zero.
27:59Paulus's offensive ground to a halt.
28:02German supplies were hindered by the weather as another gruesome Russian winter opened.
28:08The harsh conditions and heavy losses compelled the Germans to turn to the Romanians for reinforcement.
28:22The Soviets took note and planned a counteroffensive to cut Paulus off by attacking his weak flanks.
28:27At 7.30 a.m. on Thursday, November 19th, 13,000 Russian guns opened fire, completely bewildering and then pulverizing the startled Romanian troops.
28:43Eighty minutes later, the main attack was launched.
28:47This opened Operation Uranus, a counteroffensive by over a million Russian soldiers with almost 900 tanks and 1,200 aircraft.
29:04The aim was to trap the German 6th Army.
29:17In the north, the Soviet Southwest and Don Fronts attacked the Romanian 3rd Army, while the Stalingrad Front struck against the Romanian 4th Army in the south.
29:30The Russian Southwest Front and 65th Army of the Don Front attacked first, advancing up to 20 miles by the end of day one.
29:45The next day, the southern arm of the offensive struck and both Russian attacks quickly sliced through the Romanians.
29:51On November 23rd, Red Army units of the two fronts met.
30:03The Soviet pincers had closed in around the 6th Army.
30:07Paulus was trapped inside the Stalingrad pocket.
30:10He believed that there was only one possible course of action, to withdraw from Stalingrad to a more defensible line on the River Don.
30:26The shock of the Russian success could be overcome by a quick breakout through the ring around Stalingrad.
30:31Everything now depended on Hitler's response to the news of 6th Army's plight.
30:43The last week of November 1942 saw the German 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad by the sudden Russian counteroffensive.
30:50Though the news was bad, Hitler was advised that 6th Army could still break out before the Russians could consolidate the success, provided they act swiftly.
31:09Hitler would not hear of it, refusing to give up.
31:12Paulus and his men were ordered to, quote,
31:14stand on the Volga and retain Stalingrad at all costs.
31:22It seemed that 6th Army was doomed, unless some bold plan could be found to save it.
31:37Hitler was assured by Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, that his planes could keep Paulus resupply.
31:42Goering's boast was empty.
31:47Their forces required a minimum of 750 tons of supplies a day to survive, and the Luftwaffe's air bridge was inadequate from the start.
31:58Its daily deliveries into the Stalingrad pocket were a third of what Paulus needed.
32:02The more practical option was to relieve Paulus.
32:11On November 25th, Hitler put Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, the most gifted of his field commanders, in charge of Army Group Don.
32:19Von Manstein was ordered to link up with Paulus, but argued that the only chance of success lay in 6th Army conducting a breakout.
32:26Hitler insisted that Paulus stay put.
32:33Von Manstein reluctantly made plans for this relief attempt, codenamed Operation Winter Storm.
32:40Von Manstein's armored columns crept toward the Red Army's defenses.
32:53Forty miles from Stalingrad, his spearhead became bogged down by bitter Russian resistance.
32:58It soon became clear that von Manstein's bid to relieve the hapless Paulus and his men was a hopeless one.
33:09Worse, the Russians launched another offensive, Operation Saturn, from the northeast against the Italian Eighth Army.
33:15This attack presented a threat to von Manstein's lines of communication.
33:20Additionally, on December 24th, the Russians attacked again, this time against the Romanians in the south.
33:28Now, even Hitler recognized that Army Group Don was also in danger of being encircled.
33:34So, he conceded a withdrawal that would pull the main German forces 135 miles from Stalingrad.
33:40Paulus was now even more isolated and facing greater problems in resupplying his depleted 6th Army.
33:54Meanwhile, the Red Army concentrated on reducing the Stalingrad pocket even more,
34:00planning to attack from the west to drive Paulus into the city.
34:03On January 8th, 1943, the Soviet High Command sent emissaries with surrender terms to Paulus.
34:14He rejected them.
34:18Two days later, the final Soviet offensive began against the German Stalingrad pocket.
34:23The Luftwaffe continued to do its best to keep Paulus resupplied, then taking out the wounded on the return flight.
34:38But Soviet fighters shot down even more German planes, compounding the supply problem.
34:45In desperation, the Luftwaffe was reduced to dropping supplies.
34:56Fortress Stalingrad crumbled as each day of January 1943 passed.
35:00Temperatures dropped to minus 31 degrees, and thousands of Paulus' weary men froze to death.
35:17Paulus began to accept that defeat was inevitable.
35:20Food, fuel, medical supplies, and ammunition became scarce as the Russians constantly bombarded them by air and artillery.
35:41The Soviet pressure on the German 6th Army was now merciless.
35:45Though exhausted, Chuukhov's men of 62nd Army in Stalingrad also renewed their attacks,
36:03as the Russian offensive squeezed the German 6th Army even tighter.
36:16Paulus' men were abandoned, starving, and demoralized.
36:22By mid-January, they were fighting for their lives against the Russians and against the unrelenting winter weather.
36:34By the third week of January 1943, the Soviet pressure on Paulus was becoming intolerable.
36:40The Russians captured the two remaining German airfields in Stalingrad.
36:54The Russians captured the two remaining German airfields in Stalingrad.
36:58Paulus and his men were now totally cut off from the outside world.
37:13By the end of January, the German hold on Stalingrad had been reduced to just two small pockets.
37:20The end was in sight.
37:21In a last-ditch effort to induce the 6th Army to hold on,
37:30Hitler promoted Paulus to field marshal on January 30th.
37:34Paulus vowed that he would never surrender.
37:36But the next day, the southern faction and the newly promoted field marshal gave up the fight.
37:52On February 2nd, the northern unit followed suit.
37:55The battle for Stalingrad was over.
38:20More than 25 German generals had surrendered.
38:23An additional 93,000 officers and men also went into captivity.
38:32The dejected Paulus was by now a ghost of a man.
38:33As he sat surrounded by his opponents, he presented the epitome of a once proud, but now
39:01defeated, commander.
39:06Only 6,000 of his men would survive captivity to return to their homeland long after the war was over.
39:17The 1942 battles cost the Germans almost one and a half million men in casualties.
39:22Nearly a quarter of their strength on the Eastern Front.
39:26Over 100,000 Germans were killed in the struggle for Stalingrad alone.
39:31The Russian casualties were almost double of the Germans during the campaign.
39:36But the Red Army could continue to sustain huge losses and replace its manpower and weapons.
39:40The German army could not.
39:41The German army could not.
39:52Chukov's 62nd Army had been virtually destroyed.
39:55But it had done its heroic and vital duty in holding Stalingrad.
40:00For the Russians, the battle was a triumph of resilience and determination against all the odds.
40:06For the first time, the German Wehrmacht was fully beaten and would soon be forced onto the defensive on the Eastern Front.
40:12At first, Hitler refused to believe that Stalingrad was lost.
40:23When he realized the full extent of the disaster, he declared three days of national mourning.
40:28He would brood over Stalingrad for months, unable to come to terms with the magnitude of the disaster.
40:50Paulus was held by the Russians for 11 years and used for anti-Nazi propaganda as he languished in Moscow.
40:59He became a member of the anti-Nazi Free Officers Committee and never forgave Hitler's betrayal.
41:07After his release in 1953, Paulus went to live in Dresden in East Germany.
41:19He died a deeply embittered man in 1957.
41:23Vasily Chuukov's heroic and inspirational leadership in the defense of Stalingrad led to his appointment as commander of the newly formed Eighth Guards Army in the great offensive that swept the Germans from Russian soil.
41:38from Russian soil.
41:39Chuukov played an instrumental part in the capture of Berlin in April 1945.
41:53He accepted the German garrison's surrender on behalf of the Soviet Union.
41:56He accepted the German garrison's surrender on behalf of the Soviet Union.
41:59In 1946, Chuukov was elevated to marshal of the Soviet Union.
42:00He led the celebrations to mark the first anniversary of the fall of Berlin.
42:02In 1946, Chuukov was elevated to marshal of the Soviet Union.
42:03He led the celebrations to mark the first anniversary of the fall of Berlin.
42:05Between 1946 and 1953, he was first deputy and then the first anniversary of the fall of Berlin.
42:08He was elected to marshal of the Soviet Union.
42:09In 1946, Chuukov was elevated to marshal of the Soviet Union.
42:11In 1946, Chuukov was elevated to marshal of the Soviet Union.
42:12He led the celebrations to mark the first anniversary of the fall of Berlin.
42:18Between 1946 and 1953, he was first deputy and then commander-in-chief of the Soviet forces in occupied East Germany.
42:38Vasily Chuukov was commander-in-chief of the Soviet ground forces from 1960 to 1965.
42:48He remained a revered hero of the Soviet Union to Russian veterans and died in 1982.
43:02The Battle of Stalingrad was the major turning point in the war on the Eastern Front.
43:07It was the greatest catastrophe ever to befall the German army in its history.
43:12A decisive blow to both its power and its prestige.
43:16It provided a major boost to the Russian soldier's belief in his ability to match and overcome his German opponent.
43:27For Adolf Hitler, it had been a shattering military blow and had a cataclysmic psychological effect on him.
43:33Germany would never recover from the defeat at Stalingrad.
43:42For Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, it was both a military and a personal humiliation.
43:47But for General Vasily Chuukov, the clash at Stalingrad marked the first step on the Red Army's road to victory.
43:56The U.S.
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