How Germany Lost a Whole Army at Stalingrad

In the winter of 1942–43 Germany lost an entire army in and around Stalingrad, the city on the Volga that is Volgograd today. Around 300,000 men were trapped (estimates range from 250,000 to 330,000), 91,000 marched into captivity, and only about 5,000 ever came home. In November 1942 the Germans held nine-tenths of the city. So how did the attackers end up surrounded? This video tells the whole battle on one map: Case Blue and the oil of the Caucasus, the one-day dash to the Volga, Chuikov's 62nd Army fighting with the river at its back, the grain elevator, Mamayev Kurgan, Pavlov's House and the factories, then Operation Uranus striking the Romanian armies on the open steppe, the failed airlift, Manstein's relief attempt, and the surrender in a department-store basement. A note on numbers and myths: casualty and prisoner figures for Stalingrad are disputed, so they are shown as ranges or attributed (Soviet losses after Krivosheev's official figures; German and allied losses as estimates; civilian deaths are still unknown). Not in this video because the evidence doesn't hold: the "one rifle for two men" scene from Enemy at the Gates and the Zaitsev–König sniper duel. Chuikov's line that the Germans lost more men at Pavlov's House than taking Paris was a joke, and is shown as one. Chapters (v6 timeline, 7:26) 0:00 How Germany lost an entire army 0:25 01 The stakes 0:40 02 The plans: the drive for the oil and Stalin's city 1:44 03 The city: across the Volga by night 2:46 The grain elevator, Mamayev Kurgan and Pavlov's House 3:17 The factories and the last strip of riverbank 3:46 04 The trap: Operation Uranus 4:55 05 The airlift and Manstein's rescue 5:52 06 The cost: the surrender 6:25 The cost in lives 6:57 Volgograd today Sources: Earl F. Ziemke, "Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East" (US Army Center of Military History, 1968); David M. Glantz & Jonathan M. House, "When Titans Clashed" (1995) and "The Stalingrad Trilogy" (2009–2014); Antony Beevor, "Stalingrad" (1998); Jochen Hellbeck, "Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich" (2015); G. F. Krivosheev (ed.), "Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century" (1997); Joel S. A. Hayward, "Stopped at Stalingrad" (1998); Aaron Bates, "For Want of the Means: A Logistical Appraisal of the Stalingrad Airlift", Journal of Slavic Military Studies (2016); Erich von Manstein, "Lost Victories" (1958); Order of the People's Commissar of Defence No. 227 (28 July 1942); V. I. Chuikov, "The Battle of the Century" (1975); Scott W. Palmer, "How Memory Was Made", Russian Review (2009). Map and imagery: Borders of 1942: OpenHistoricalMap (CC0), partly derived from © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Satellite: Sentinel-2 cloudless – https://s2maps.eu by EOX IT Services GmbH (Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016 & 2017), CC BY 4.0. Base map: NASA Blue Marble (public domain). Period map: "Stalingrad-Süd", German Army sketch map 1:25,000, October 1942, Library of Congress Geography and Map Division (public domain); drawn by the attacking side, Soviet positions as German intelligence saw them. Front lines, territories and arrows are simplified reconstructions after Glantz & House and Ziemke. Photos: Friedrich Paulus by Johannes Hähle (National Museum of Denmark, public domain); Vasily Chuikov, Stalingrad, November 1942 (Glavarchiv Moskvy / mos.ru, CC BY 4.0); Georgy Zhukov, 1941, and Aleksandr Vasilevsky, 1943 (Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, mil.ru, CC BY 4.0). Battle photos: Sergey Strunnikov, 1943: Stalingrad from the air and the grain elevator (Glavarchiv Moskvy / mos.ru, CC BY 4.0); the Barmaley fountain, the Tractor Factory from the air, the Univermag (Paulus's HQ) and German prisoners (public domain); Pavel Troshkin, 1942: Soviet submachine gunners in Stalingrad (public domain). Illustrations: original. Music: "Prelude and Action", "Undaunted", "Gathering Darkness", "Stormfront", "Clash Defiant", "Oppressive Gloom", "Volatile Reaction", "Lightless Dawn", "Anguish" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... · Vivaldi, "Winter" RV 297, I. Allegro non molto, The Modena Chamber Orchestra (public domain mark) · J. S. Bach, Air, Air Force Strings, United States Air Force Band (public domain). #history #stalingrad #ww2 #easternfront #volgograd #militaryhistory #maps #battle