The Battle of Stalingrad is widely considered the bloodiest single battle of World War II. It was fought between the Red Army and Axis forces—specifically the Wehrmacht—on the Eastern Front from August 1942 to February 1943. The battle arose from the Wehrmacht's execution of the plan codenamed "Fall Blau" (Case Blue), which aimed to capture the southern regions of the USSR and reach the Caucasus and the oil fields at Maykop and Baku. However, during the operation—partly due to the intervention of Adolf Hitler—the capture of the city of Stalingrad became a primary objective. For Nazi Germany, this decision proved to be one of the worst of the war. The battle devolved into horrific, grueling urban warfare; fighting raged for every house and street, with the front line often running through the rooms or stairwells of apartment buildings. Ultimately, the Wehrmacht suffered a crushing defeat, and the entire 6th Army—including Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus—was taken prisoner by Soviet forces. It is estimated that Axis forces lost approximately 850,000 soldiers—killed, wounded, or captured—during the course of the battle. The Battle of Stalingrad also marked a turning point in the war on the Eastern Front, which from that time onward began to shift in favor of the USSR.
