50 free Battle of Stalingrad trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Battle of Stalingrad trivia quiz covers the largest and deadliest urban battle in history, from Hitler's summer offensive of 1942 to the surrender of the 6th Army on 2 February 1943. The early questions deal with why the city mattered, the splitting of Army Group South, Stalin's Order No. 227, the Luftwaffe raid of 23 August, and the women of the 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment who fought the first German tanks with their guns levelled. The middle of the quiz is the fight for the city itself: Chuikov's 62nd Army and its 'hugging' tactics, the grain elevator, Mamayev Kurgan, the Univermag department store, Pavlov's House, the tractor, Barrikady and Red October factories, the sniper Vasily Zaitsev, and the 'Rat War' the Germans came to dread. Then comes the turn: Operation Uranus and the Romanian flanks, the ring closed at Kalach, Göring's impossible airlift, Manstein's Winter Storm, Little Saturn, Operation Ring, the promotion Hitler meant as an invitation to suicide, and the two pockets that gave up on 31 January and 2 February. The last questions cover the cost, the fate of the 91,000 prisoners, Paulus's later life, Chuikov's grave, The Motherland Calls and how the battle is remembered. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the battle, its operations, commanders and memorials.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What name has the city of Stalingrad borne since 1961?
Volgograd
It sits on the Volga in southern Russia; the city hosted a military parade on 2 February 2013 for the 70th anniversary of the victory.
Q 02What was the code name of the German summer offensive of 1942 that led to Stalingrad?
Case Blue
Fall Blau aimed at the Caucasus oil fields; Hitler said that without the oil of Maykop and Grozny he must 'finish this war'.
Q 03Which German army was destroyed at Stalingrad, the first of Hitler's field armies to surrender?
The 6th
The 4th Panzer Army was also badly mauled and Army Group B routed.
Q 04Who commanded the German 6th Army at Stalingrad?
Friedrich Paulus
Hitler promoted him to field marshal on 30 January 1943, expecting him to kill himself rather than surrender; he gave up the next day.
Q 05Which Soviet general commanded the 62nd Army that held the city, vowing to defend it or die?
Vasily Chuikov
He was appointed on 11 September 1942, and in 1945 he personally accepted the surrender of Berlin.
Q 06Besides its industry and river traffic, why did Stalingrad hold special symbolic importance?
It bore Stalin's name
Hitler expanded his objectives on 23 July 1942 to include the city partly for its propaganda value, and ordered its population annihilated.
Q 07Hitler split Army Group South in two. Which army group, under Wilhelm List, headed for the Caucasus oil?
A
Army Group B, under Maximilian von Weichs, took Paulus's 6th Army and Hoth's 4th Panzer Army east to the Volga.
Q 08Stalin's Order No. 227 of 27 July 1942 became known by which slogan?
Not one step back!
Blocking detachments stood behind Red Army units; those of the Stalingrad and Don Fronts detained 51,758 men by mid-October, most of whom were returned to their units.
Q 09Which Luftwaffe air fleet dropped some 1,000 tons of bombs on the city on 23 August 1942?
Luftflotte 4
Wolfram von Richthofen's fleet destroyed at least 90 per cent of the city's housing in the heaviest raid yet seen on the Eastern Front.
Q 10What was notable about the 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment that resisted the 16th Panzer Division on 23 August?
Its rangefinding crews and headquarters were made up of women
Its 6th Battery claimed 28 German tanks in the Sukhaya Mechatka ravine; the panzer division's history recorded its surprise at fighting women.
Q 11Which works in the city kept turning out T-34 tanks until German troops burst onto the shop floor?
The Stalingrad Tractor Factory
Students from the technical university drove unpainted tanks without gun-sights straight from the factory floor to the front.
Q 12What did Chuikov say newly arrived soldiers concluded after a day or two in the city?
'This isn't hell, this is ten times worse than hell'
They arrived saying 'We are entering hell'; a German officer's letter complained that 'the whole war for France was shorter than the fight for one Volga factory'.
Q 13Which structure in the city's south did about fifty Red Army defenders hold for five days?
Q 21What name did the Germans give to the unseen close-quarters urban fighting at Stalingrad?
Rattenkrieg
It means 'Rat War'; blocks and staircases changed hands dozens of times, and soldiers often preferred knives and grenades to rifles.
Q 22How many kills was the sniper Vasily Zaitsev credited with during the battle in late 1942?
225
He learned marksmanship hunting deer and wolves in the Urals with his grandfather, and Jude Law played him in the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates.
Q 23Which 2001 film dramatised a snipers' duel between Zaitsev and a German major named König?
Enemy at the Gates
Jude Law played the Soviet marksman; historians doubt the duel took place.
The grain elevator
Paulus chose the silos as the emblem for a victory patch he was having designed; the Germans found only forty dead defenders.
Q 14Which sergeant gave his name to the building that held out for two months near the Volga?
Yakov Pavlov
German maps labelled the building Festung ('Fortress'); Chuikov said its defenders killed more Germans than the Germans lost taking Paris.
Q 15Which lieutenant, rather than Pavlov, actually commanded Pavlov's House for most of the siege?
Afanasiev
He ordered mines on every approach, barbed wire around the block and machine guns and an anti-tank rifle at the windows.
Q 16Which hill overlooking the city changed hands repeatedly and holds the main war memorial?
Mamayev Kurgan
Bones and rusty splinters can still be found there, and hundreds of soldiers' remains are reburied at its cemeteries every year.
Q 17Which Red Square department store served as a Soviet battalion HQ and later as Paulus's own headquarters?
The Univermag
Soviet troops reached its filthy basement on 31 January 1943, when the southern pocket collapsed.
Q 18Which day did Chuikov consider the worst of Stalingrad, when the Germans stormed the factory district?
14 October
The 14th Panzer and 305th Infantry Divisions drove to the tractor factory and reached the Volga, splitting the 62nd Army in two.
Q 19What did Soviet papers call the ground behind the Barrikady factory held by the 138th Rifle Division?
Lyudnikov's Island
Colonel Ivan Lyudnikov's remnants resisted every assault and became a symbol of the defence.
Q 20What tactic did Chuikov describe as 'hugging' the enemy?
Keeping Soviet lines as close as possible to the German ones
It kept German infantry pinned between Soviet fire and their own artillery and air support, negating the German advantage in combined arms.
Q 24Which units held the German flanks that Operation Uranus targeted on 19 November 1942?
Romanian armies
The Romanian 3rd and 4th Armies were overrun in open steppe positions, and the pincers met four days later.
Q 25At which town did the two Soviet pincers meet on 23 November 1942, sealing the ring around Stalingrad?
Kalach
About 330,000 Axis troops were trapped, including tens of thousands of Hiwi auxiliaries recruited from Soviet prisoners and civilians.
Q 26Which two Soviet commanders were responsible for the strategic planning of Operation Uranus?
Zhukov and Vasilevsky
Zhukov visited the front, found the preparations poor and insisted on a one-week delay; the attack was launched with Operation Mars far to the north-west.
Q 27Which operation, launched alongside Uranus, struck Army Group Centre about 1,000 km to the north-west?
Mars
Uranus itself was led on the northern axis by Nikolay Vatutin's three armies.
Q 28The airlift to the encircled 6th Army delivered on average how many tons a day, against a need of 750?
105
The loss of the airfields at Pitomnik and then Gumrak in January ended even that trickle.
Q 29Which field marshal was put in charge of the new Army Group Don and the attempt to relieve the pocket?
Erich von Manstein
He recommended a breakout, but Hitler insisted the city be held and relied on the airlift instead.
Q 30What was the code name of Manstein's December 1942 relief attempt, which came within 48 km of the pocket?
Winter Storm
Operation Thunderclap was the planned breakout to meet it, but the starving 6th Army never tried; the relief was abandoned on 23 December.