The Battle of Stalingrad Lasted Longer Than You Think

The Battle of Stalingrad, 1942 to 1943: the army with the river at its back, and why the famous numbers (the dead, the days, the pocket, the airlift) still don't agree. In September 1942 a Soviet general reached a command post on the Volga with a division of about ten thousand men. This episode follows the battle from that afternoon to the last shot, and checks the famous numbers as it goes: the civilians killed in the first air raid, how long Pavlov's House held, the size of the pocket, the tons the airlift delivered against the eight hundred the army needed, and the final count of dead. Several of those figures trace back to a single book, or to none, so the video gives the ranges and says whose figure is whose. CHAPTERS 00:00 Rodimtsev reports to Chuikov 01:24 The air raid and the forty thousand 02:53 Order 227 and the Volga crossings 04:29 Pavlov's House: how long did it hold? 06:27 Operation Uranus: the trap closes 08:07 The airlift: eight hundred tons a day 09:36 Operation Winter Storm 11:07 Paulus and the field marshal's baton 12:48 The end, and the count 14:38 Volgograd today WAR BY INCHES is a history channel. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. CREDITS AND SOURCES Archive film: "The Battle of Russia" (Why We Fight, 1943), U.S. War Department; National Archives (NARA ARC 36071), via the Internet Archive, CC0 on its record. Picture only, sound removed. It is a compilation of Soviet and other footage, not date-stamped and not of any named street or day; it is shown as period film of the fighting, not as film of the events the narration names. Maps: base data © OpenStreetMap contributors (openstreetmap.org/copyright); river courses from Natural Earth (public domain), shown as today's courses. The Romanian bands, the arrows, the pocket outline, the Sovetsky position and the relief-drive line are drawn from written descriptions and are approximate; the maps say so on screen. Photographs: "The remains of Pavlov's House" and "Individual Graves, Rossoschka" by Rob, CC BY 2.0; "Cemetery of Reconciliation at Rossoshka" by Gonzo Gooner, CC BY 3.0; "Родина-мать (Волгоград, 2026)" by GennadyL, CC0; all via Wikimedia Commons. Written sources: Chuikov's memoir; Beevor; Hayward; Overy; Glantz and House; McCarthy and Syron; Joly; Mason; Murray and Millett; Keegan; Adam and Ruhle; Krivosheev; Pereslegin; Pirnie; Mathews; the Warspot article of 2021; Wikipedia on the battle and the Order No. 227. Where they disagree, the video says so. AI DISCLOSURE: the drawn scenes are AI-generated images (GPT Image 2 via Krea) in a pastel and charcoal style, made to illustrate the narration; two of them carry short generated motion in the smoke and flames only (Hailuo via Krea). No drawn figure is a likeness of a real person; uniform, vehicle and equipment detail is approximate. The sound effects are synthesised. #BattleOfStalingrad #Stalingrad #WW2 #MilitaryHistory #WarByInches