The most desperate battle in history: Stalingrad 1942-1943
I am currently reading the 600-page book “The Storm Of War”, an account of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts. He writes: “The battle of Stalingrad is deservedly considered to be one of the most desperate in human history.”
The ferocity of the fighting and the scale of the casualties almost defy comprehension. Roberts gives a combined figure of 1.1 million for the deaths on both the German and the Soviet sides.
The Soviet Union alone lost 479,000 killed or captured and a further 651,000 sick or wounded, a total of 1.13 million. During the battle, the Russian secret service shot around 13,500 of their own soldiers for cowardice or desertion.
The Axis suffered 850,000 total casualties (killed, wounded or captured) among all branches of the German armed forces and its allies; 400,000 Germans, 200,000 Romanians, 130,000 Italians, and 120,000 Hungarians were killed, wounded or captured. Some 91,000 surrendered at the end of the battle, but less than 10,000 of them survived as prisoners of war.
You can read more about the battle here.
An excellent film about the battle of Stalingrad is “Enemy At The Gates” which I have reviewed here.