Stalingrad: Deadly Battle of WWII

Hitler launched a plan ("Operation Barbarossa") to conquer the Soviet Union and to control its vast oil deposits. He thought he would be successful. Indeed, his troops penetrated deeper into Russian territory than any other invader, including Napoleon.

But Hitler failed to consider the will of his opponent, Joseph Stalin.  A ruthless modern leader, Stalin ordered "show trials" which purged his former colleagues.  He ordered millions of forced laborers to industrialize the Soviet Union and ended the lives of farmers who opposed his plan for collectivized agriculture. 

To this day, people in the Ukraine remember the great famine of 1932-33.  Referred to as Holodomor ("death by starvation"), that Ukrainian catastrophe resulted in the deaths of millions of people.  Likened to the Great Hunger of Ireland, Holodomor has been condemned as a completely preventable event.  Some historians believe Stalin engineered it.

Beyond Stalin, Hitler also failed to consider the psychological impact of a German invasion.  He did not count on the will of the Soviet people to resist him and his military might. He did not count on the misery of his own soldiers as they endured the brutal Russian winters.

Contemporary Soviet posters depict how much Hitler and his Third Reich were hated. Without understanding a word of Russian, it's easy to grasp the message:

• "Kill the German Beast"
  
  
• "That's Enough, Fascist Beast!"
  
  
• "Death to the Fascist Monster"
  

The battle for Stalin's city was originally code-named "Operation Blue." It wasn't long before German soldiers called it Rattenkrieg (translated: War of the Rats). Doing what they (and Hitler) never wanted, German troops were forced to fight man-to-man where rats lived: in the streets, in the cellars, in the ditches.