Stalingrad, Battle of (1942–1943)

Abstract

Abstract The Battle of Stalingrad, fought from August 21, 1942, to February 2, 1943, on Germany's Eastern Front during World War II, proved to be the climactic struggle determining the fate of German Operation Blau (Blue), the strategic offensive Adolf Hitler's Third Reich conducted against Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union (USSR) in the summer and fall of 1942. Operation Blau, the second strategic offensive Germany conducted in the war, began on June 28, 1942, when the German Wehrmacht's (Armed Forces) Army Group South, soon split into Army Groups A and B, supported by forces from Germany's Axis allies, Italy and Romania, launched an offensive eastward across the southern Soviet Union to reach and conquer the oil‐rich Caucasus region and create favorable conditions for winning the war. After Axis forces successfully defeated the Red Army's forces in the Donbas region and captured the city of Rostov in late July, Hitler expanded Operation Blau's objectives to include the seizure of Stalin's namesake city, Stalingrad, on the Volga River. The Führer assigned Army Group A the task of securing the Caucasus region and Army Group B the mission to seize Stalingrad.