The Presidential Library’s materials illustrate the Battle of Stalingrad: "one of the most signal victories of Soviet weapons"

February 2, 1943, one of the largest battles of the Great Patriotic War, the Battle of Stalingrad, finally accomplished. According to the collection The Great Battle of Stalingrad (1943), it was "one of the most signal victories of Soviet weapons over the Nazi hordes". 

The Presidential Library has been forming a major electronic collection Memory of the Great Victory for more than 10 years. It includes a separate collection Combat operations during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. One of its sections - 1942 - includes materials dedicated to the Battle of Stalingrad - these are video chronicle, memoirs of event participants, collections of documents, issues of the newspaper Stalingradskaya Pravda for 1942-1943, rare publications of that time, unique photographs of the wartime city.

The Presidential Library's portal also features the documentary The Next Target is Stalingrad (2013). Its author, military historian Alexei Isaev, reports: “The Battle of Stalingrad... ...lasted 199 days and nights. The losses in it only by the armed forces of the parties amounted to more than 800 thousand people".

On July 20, 1942, the document signed by the German military leader Colonel General Maximilian von Weichs, says: "After the capture of Stalingrad, the goal of the 6th Army will be to maintain long-term positions between the Volga and the Don", and in the order of General Friedrich Paulus from the same number of troops were ordered "...as soon as possible to occupy Stalingrad, including firmly holding the Morozovskaya - Stalingrad railway line". The capture of the city was considered by the German command a matter of a short time.

“In the summer of 1942, when the Nazi hordes approached the walls of Stalingrad. They had enormous advantages on their side both in terms of manpower and technology. To storm Stalingrad, Hitler threw hundreds of thousands of his soldiers and officers, his elite units. The Sixth German Army...was considered one of the best armies of Nazi Germany", - the publication The Great Battle of Stalingrad says. The film The Next Target is Stalingrad, reports: "According to the documents of the Third Reich, as of July 20, 1942, the 6th German Army numbered 420 thousand" eaters ". <...> For comparison - on the same date, the Soviet Stalingrad front...numbered about 390 thousand people, including rear units and institutions". 

The fighting on the Don continued until mid-August 1942, and the plan of the German command to quickly capture Stalingrad failed. But Paulus's army managed to maintain its strike potential, first of all, heavy artillery, which allowed the Germans on August 23 to break through to the Volga and isolate Stalingrad. The city was subjected to fierce air bombardment. Soviet troops were pushed back to the near approaches to Stalingrad. On October 14, Paulus managed to break the heroic resistance of the defenders of the city and seize the territory of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.

“Only after an intense four-hour battle the Germans managed to break through our defenses. In the resulting breakthrough, they threw a large tank group with an assault force, followed by the enemy infantry. <...> ... By the end of the day, the enemy, using his numerical superiority in this area, took possession of the plant and went to the Volga, "Major General Nikolai Zamyatin described this battle in his essay The Battle of Stalingrad (1944).

According to the military historian Alexei Isaev, a problem for the Soviet command in October 1942 “what to do?” was perhaps the most difficult one. The solution to the problem was suggested by the Soviet commanders Alexander Vasilevsky and Georgy Zhukov: “They decided to rely on tanks...A strike to the deep rear was conceived. <…> The operation was codenamed “Uranus”.

Non-flying weather and the fog that hid the Soviet tanks favored the operation. “The meeting of two fronts in the area of ​​Kalach and Sovetsky led to the complete encirclement of Paulus's army and the interception of all lines of communication with the rear. <...> The "Cauldron" was shrinking...while the Soviet Don Front of Konstantin Rokossovsky in January 1943 had almost three hundred heavy guns...This allowed Rokossovsky's troops to smash the encircled Germans, pushing them into the ruins of Stalingrad. <...> By the end of January 1943, everything was over..." - Alexei Isaev concludes his story about the history of the Battle of Stalingrad.

The editorial of the Pravda newspaper of February 4, 1943, included in the book The Great Battle of Stalingrad (1943), reported: "...On February 2, the troops of the Don Front completely completed the elimination of the German Nazi troops surrounded in Stalingrad Region. <…> The last center of enemy resistance in Stalingrad Region was crushed. On February 2, the historic battle of Stalingrad ended with the complete victory of the Soviet troops".