39 Fun Facts About Battle of Stalingrad

What name has the city of Stalingrad borne since 1961?

Volgograd: Stalingrad was renamed in 1961 as part of the Soviet effort to dismantle the personality cult around Stalin.

What was the code name of the German summer offensive of 1942 that led to Stalingrad?

Case Blue: when Hitler changed the plan to seize two objectives at once, splitting his forces badly strained German supply lines.

Which German student resistance group's final leaflet, written after the surrender at Stalingrad, invoked the dead of Stalingrad?

The White Rose: within weeks, Hans and Sophie Scholl were caught spreading leaflets at Munich University and beheaded.

Captured at Stalingrad, Friedrich Paulus later testified at the Nuremberg trials as a witness for which side?

The Soviet prosecution: he described how the invasion of the USSR had been planned since 1940, work he had carried out himself.

Weeks after the German surrender at Stalingrad, which Nazi leader called for 'total war' at the Sportpalast?

Joseph Goebbels: only after the July 1944 bomb plot against Hitler was he finally put in charge of total war.

Besides its industry and river traffic, why did Stalingrad hold special symbolic importance?

It bore Stalin's name, so taking it promised Hitler a propaganda triumph, and he vowed that its male citizens would be killed once it fell.

Besides Stalingrad, what did Hitler's 1942 summer offensive drive toward?

The Caucasus oil fields: taking Stalingrad was meant to shield the northern flank of that bigger push.

Stalin's Order No. 227 of July 1942 became known by which slogan?

Not one step back!: under the order, troops who retreated or surrendered without permission could be sent before a military tribunal.

What destroyed most of Stalingrad's housing in late August 1942, before German troops fought their way into the city?

German bombing raids: the death toll is disputed, but some estimates of the dead run as high as 70,000.

Who served in large numbers in the 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment, which fought German tanks at Stalingrad in August 1942?

Young women volunteers: they turned their anti-aircraft guns on the advancing panzers and fired at them directly.

Which Stalingrad works had been converted to building T-34 tanks by the time the German army arrived?

The Stalingrad Tractor Factory: German troops captured it in mid-October 1942 and pushed on to the Volga beside it.

Soviet loudspeakers told German troops that one of them died every seven seconds, and that Stalingrad was what?

A mass grave: blared again and again through the night, the broadcasts were meant to wear down already starving, exhausted troops.

Which giant structure in southern Stalingrad saw several days of ferocious fighting in September 1942?

The grain elevator: it finally fell in late September, as the Germans took the southern part of the city.

Which sergeant gave his name to the Stalingrad building that held out for nearly two months?

Yakov Pavlov: Chuikov wrote that the house's small garrison killed more Germans than the Germans lost taking Paris.

Which Soviet war correspondent who reported from Stalingrad later wrote the novel Life and Fate?

Vasily Grossman: the KGB confiscated the manuscript, and the novel reached print only after a copy was smuggled to the West.

Which hill overlooking Stalingrad changed hands repeatedly and now holds the battle's main war memorial?

Mamayev Kurgan: both sides fought so hard for it because whoever held the hill could dominate the city below.

Which department store on Stalingrad's Red Square housed Paulus's headquarters in the battle's final days?

The Univermag: Paulus was promoted to field marshal one day and captured in its basement the next.

How did the Soviet defenders inside Stalingrad receive supplies and fresh troops in autumn 1942?

By boat across the river: German aircraft kept bombing the crossings, sinking ferries and the barges towed over by tugs.

Why did Chuikov keep Soviet front lines as close as possible to the German lines?

To avoid German bombs and shells: small Soviet assault groups of just a few men then struck through the rubble.

What name did the Germans give to the unseen close-quarters urban fighting at Stalingrad?

Rattenkrieg: German troops trained for tank warfare in open country had to clear the ruins room by room.

Where did Stalingrad sniper Vasily Zaitsev first learn to shoot?

Hunting in the Urals: his sniping career at Stalingrad ended when an explosion badly damaged his eyes.

Which 2001 film dramatised a snipers' duel between Zaitsev and a German major named König?

Enemy at the Gates: historian Antony Beevor found no record of the duel in the Soviet defence ministry archives.

Which units held the German flanks that Operation Uranus targeted on 19 November 1942?

Romanian armies: the Soviets avoided the strong German forces in the city and struck the weaker, poorly equipped allied troops on the flanks.

At which town did the two Soviet pincers meet on 23 November 1942, sealing the ring around Stalingrad?

About 330,000 Axis troops were trapped, including tens of thousands of Hiwi auxiliaries recruited from Soviet prisoners and civilians.

Which two Soviet commanders were responsible for the strategic planning of Operation Uranus?

Zhukov and Vasilevsky: their counteroffensive took the Germans by surprise, since German intelligence expected the main blow far to the north.

Why is Stalingrad seen as a turning point of World War II?

It halted Germany's advance east: it was also the first defeat that the Nazi government publicly admitted to Germans.

What overran Tatsinskaya, a key airfield of the Stalingrad airlift, on Christmas Eve 1942?

A Soviet tank corps: it destroyed many aircraft on the ground, but was soon cut off and had to fight its way out.

Which field marshal was put in charge of the new Army Group Don and the attempt to relieve the pocket?

Erich von Manstein: his relief force came close, but Hitler would not let the trapped army break out at the same time to meet it.

What was the code name of the German attempt to break through to the encircled army at Stalingrad?

Winter Storm: it was called off before Christmas when a fresh Soviet offensive threatened the relief force's rear.

Operation Little Saturn punched through the Axis line on the Don held mainly by which army?

The Italian: Soviet armies met behind their line and destroyed the bulk of Italy's 8th Army.

In his 30 January 1943 broadcast, what did Göring compare the trapped 6th Army to?

The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae: RAF Mosquito bombers timed an attack to disrupt his speech, delaying the broadcast.

Who were the 'Hiwis' serving with the German army trapped at Stalingrad?

Soviet auxiliaries: recruited mostly among Soviet prisoners of war, they took over supply and service jobs for the Germans.

What did Hitler's last-minute promotion of Paulus to field marshal implicitly urge him to do?

Commit suicide: Hitler noted that no German field marshal had ever surrendered, but Paulus let himself be taken alive.

Which Soviet weapon, used to devastating effect at Stalingrad, did German soldiers nickname 'Stalin's organ'?

The Katyusha rocket launcher: its rockets made a howling sound that terrified German troops.

Which title was Stalingrad awarded in 1945 in recognition of its defenders?

Hero City: in 2013 the city council let the title 'Hero City Stalingrad' be used again on its commemorative days.

Who handed the ceremonial Sword of Stalingrad to Stalin at the 1943 Tehran Conference?

Winston Churchill: King George VI had ordered the sword forged in honour of the city's defenders.

Where did Paulus, released by the Soviets, spend his final years?

Dresden, East Germany: he was released from Soviet captivity two years before the last survivors of his army came home.

Which famous drawing did Kurt Reuber make in the Stalingrad pocket at Christmas 1942?

A Madonna and child: his commander carried it out on one of the last planes to leave the pocket.

Which Soviet commissar was tasked alongside General Yeryomenko with planning the defence of Stalingrad?

Nikita Khrushchev: after Stalin's death he rose to lead the Soviet Union and launched the policy of de-Stalinization.