Battle of Stalingrad 1942
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 23 August 1942 – 2 February 1943 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1942 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | Russia | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Eastern Front | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Francoist Spain, German Reich, Independent State of Croatia, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Italy, Kingdom of Romania, Soviet Union | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 48.7150, 44.5325 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its Axis allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southern Russia. Marked by intense close-quarters combat and heavy civilian losses during aerial bombardment, the battle is considered the largest and deadliest urban battle in military history and the deadliest battle in World War II. By the end of the fighting, the German 6th Army had been destroyed, the 4th Panzer Army had suffered severe losses, and Army Group B was routed. The defeat ended Germany’s 1942 summer offensive and passed the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front to the Soviet Union. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad is generally regarded as the pivotal turning point of the European theatre of the war.
Both sides placed great strategic importance on the city of Stalingrad, as it was one of the largest industrial centres of the Soviet Union and an important transport hub on the Volga River. After more than a year of intense fighting along a vast front, Germany's fuel supplies had dwindled, creating a strategic need to advance into the Caucasus to capture the Soviet oil fields.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Stalingrad (revision 1379747042), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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All 33 battles of the Eastern Front →
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