Editing Battle of Stalingrad (section)

==Aftermath==
[[File:stalingrad aftermath.jpg|thumb|The aftermath of the Battle of Stalingrad]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-E0406-0022-011, Russland, deutscher Kriegsgefangener.jpg|thumb|A Soviet soldier marches a German soldier into captivity.]]
[[File:Field Marshal Paulus, General Heitz and other German officers of the 6th Army after its surrender.jpg|thumb|''Generalfeldmarschall'' Paulus meets with ''Generaloberst'' [[Walter Heitz]], then the two highest ranking German officers captured by the Allies, 4 February 1943]]

The German public was not officially told of the impending disaster until the end of January 1943, though positive media reports had stopped in the weeks before the announcement.<ref name=Lose/> Stalingrad marked the first time that the Nazi government publicly acknowledged a failure in its war effort. On 31 January, regular programmes on German state radio were replaced by a broadcast of the sombre Adagio movement from [[Anton Bruckner]]'s [[Symphony No. 7 (Bruckner)|Seventh Symphony]], followed by the announcement of the defeat at Stalingrad.<ref name=Lose>Sandlin, Lee (1997). [http://www.leesandlin.com/articles/LosingTheWar.htm "Losing the War"]. Originally published in ''[[Chicago Reader]]'', 7 and 14 March 1997. Retrieved 4 December 2009.</ref> On 18 February, [[Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda|Minister of Propaganda]] [[Joseph Goebbels]] gave the famous [[Sportpalast speech|''Sportpalast'' speech]] in Berlin, encouraging the Germans to accept a [[total war]] that would claim all resources and efforts from the entire population.

Based on Soviet records, over 11,000 German soldiers continued to resist in isolated groups within the city for the next month. Some have presumed that they were motivated by a belief that fighting on was better than a slow death in Soviet captivity. Historian [[Omer Bartov]] claims they were motivated by belief in Hitler and National Socialism. He studied 11,237 letters sent by soldiers inside of Stalingrad between 20 December 1942 and 16 January 1943 to their families in Germany. Generally, the letters expressed belief in Germany's ultimate victory and the soldiers' willingness to fight and die at Stalingrad to achieve that victory.{{sfn|Bartov|1991|pp=166–167|ps= . "As the fortunes of the ''Ostheer'' rapidly deteriorated, the troops' 'belief' in Hitler did not falter, but rather increased in direct proportion to the hopelessness of the situation. While at a time of great victories praise of the Führer was accompanied by a confidence in the Wehrmacht's own invincibility, the growing sense of the army's inability to overcome the military crisis created a need to rely on an irrational faith in the only man who was perceived as Germany's destiny, for better or for worse. Like all gods, Hitler's ability to mold the course of history was derived from the faith of his followers."}} Bartov reported that a great many of the soldiers were well aware that they would not be able to escape from Stalingrad, but in their letters to their families stated that they were proud to "sacrifice themselves for the Führer".{{sfn|Bartov|1991}}

A Soviet officer interviewed months after the battle, Nikolai Nikitich Aksyonov, described the scale of devastation and conflict at Stalingrad, stating that "As a historian, I tried to draw comparisons to battles I know from history: [[Battle of Borodino|Borodino]], [[Battle of Verdun|Verdun]] during the [[World War I|Imperialist War]], but none of that was right because the scale of conflict in Stalingrad makes it hard to compare it to anything. It seemed as if Stalingrad was breathing fire for days on end."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hellbeck |first=Jochen |url=https://archive.org/details/stalingradcityth0000hell/mode/1up |title=Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich |publisher=PublicAffairs |year=2015 |pages=335 |isbn=9781610394963 |language=en}}</ref> Some German soldiers expressed in their letters that they were trapped in a "second Verdun", while Soviet defenders described the battle as their "Red Verdun", in which they would refuse to surrender to the enemy.<ref name="Hellbeck-2015a" /> German captain Wilhelm Hosenfeld wrote in early October 1942 that, "The fight for Stalingrad now surpasses all our previous struggles — it has rightly been compared to Verdun. We must hope that the outcome is different. For I believe that the city holds a similar power for the Bolsheviks as Verdun did for the French in the First World War. It has become a symbol. This is a decisive moment. The French would say; Whoever holds Verdun will win the war.’ The [[Führer]] has spoken in similar fashion of Stalingrad — and the city still has not fallen to us."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Michael K. |url=https://archive.org/details/totalwarfromstal0000jone |title=Total War: From Stalingrad to Berlin |publisher=Hachette UK |year=2012 |isbn=978-1848542310 |pages=51 |language=en}}</ref> In October 1942, a Soviet war correspondent remarked that "A city of peace has become a city of war. The laws of warfare have placed it on the front line, at the epicenter of a battle that will shape the outcome of the entire war. After sixty days of fighting the Germans now know what this means. 'Verdun!' they scoff. 'This is no Verdun. This is something new in the history of warfare. This is Stalingrad."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hellbeck |first=Jochen |url=https://archive.org/details/stalingradcityth0000hell/mode/1up |title=Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich |publisher=PublicAffairs |year=2015 |pages=1–2 |isbn=9781610394963 |language=en}}</ref> The world press commonly referred to it as the "Verdun on the Volga" during the battle.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Geoffrey |first=Roberts |title=Victory at Stalingrad |publisher=Routledge |year=2002 |isbn=978-0582771857 |edition=1st |pages=86 |language=en}}</ref>

Historian David Glantz stated that Stalingrad was "the most brutal clash of arms in the most terrible of twentieth-century wars".<ref name="Jones-2007">{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Michael K. |url=https://archive.org/details/stalingradhowred0000jone/mode/1up |title=Stalingrad: How the Red Army Survived the German Onslaught |publisher=Casemate |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-932033-72-4 |pages=xv |language=en}}</ref> Further, French historian [[François Kersaudy]] stated that "Stalingrad was unique in the Second World War, in terms of duration, the number of soldiers killed, the relentlessness, the significance" and that "It was terrifying on both sides. They both had to carry on fighting until the very end. The people present there would have preferred hell itself".<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Trouillard |first1=Stéphanie |last2=Wheeldon |first2=Tom |date=2022-08-23 |title='They would have preferred hell': The Battle of Stalingrad, 80 years on |url=https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220823-they-would-have-preferred-hell-the-battle-of-stalingrad-80-years-on |access-date=2024-03-01 |website=France 24 |language=en}}</ref> Historian [[Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia|Andrew Roberts]] stated that "The battle of Stalingrad is deservedly considered to be the most desperate in human history. The German Sixth Army was sucked into a house-by-house, street-by-street, factory-by-factory struggle often even more attritional than the [[trench warfare]] of the [[World War I|Great War]]."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia |title=The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War |publisher=HarperCollins |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-06-122860-5 |pages=320 |language=en}}</ref>

The battle is not only infamous for being a military bloodbath, but also for its disregard for civilians by both sides. When German forces reached the hospital for mentally handicapped children in the city, they promptly shot all the ten to fourteen year old patients.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia |title=The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War |publisher=HarperCollins |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-06-122860-5 |pages=319 |language=en}}</ref> Soviet sniper Vasily Zaytsev took note of atrocities that took place during the battle, stating that, "another time you see young girls, children hanging from trees in the park. . .It has tremendous impact."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hellbeck |first=Jochen |url=https://archive.org/details/stalingradcityth0000hell/mode/1up |title=Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich |publisher=PublicMedia |year=2015 |pages=371 |isbn=9781610394963 |language=en}}</ref> A Soviet sergeant in the 389th Infantry Division noted that Russian women coming out of houses during the fighting for the Barrikady workers' settlement to take shelter from German firing, ended up being killed by Russian machine-gun fire.<ref>{{harvnb|Beevor|1998|pp=161–162|p=}}</ref> 

The bombing campaign and over five months of ferocious fighting had utterly destroyed 99% of the city, with the city being nothing more than a heap of rubble.{{sfn|Craig|1973|p=385}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tarrant |first=V.E. |url=https://archive.org/details/stalingradanatom0000tarr/page/230/mode/2up |title=Stalingrad: Anatomy of an Agony |publisher=Leo Cooper |year=1992 |isbn=978-0850523423 |location=London |pages=228 |language=en}}</ref> Of the population of well over half a million before the battle, a quick census revealed only 1,515 people remained following the battle's conclusion.<ref name="Craig 1973" /> However, Beevor notes that a census revealed that 9,796 civilians were in the city at the battle's conclusion, including 994 children.<ref>{{harvnb|Beevor|1998|pp=|p=407}}</ref> 

The remaining forces continued to resist, hiding in cellars and sewers, but by early March 1943 the last small and isolated pockets of resistance had surrendered. According to Soviet intelligence documents shown in the documentary, a remarkable NKVD report from March 1943 is available showing the tenacity of some of these German groups:

{{blockquote|The mopping-up of counter-revolutionary elements in the city of Stalingrad proceeded. The German soldiers{{snd}}who had hidden themselves in huts and trenches{{snd}}offered armed resistance after combat actions had already ended. This armed resistance continued until 15 February and in a few areas until 20 February. Most of the armed groups were liquidated by March&nbsp;... During this period of armed conflict with the Germans, the brigade's units killed 2,418 soldiers and officers and captured 8,646 soldiers and officers, escorting them to POW camps and handing them over.}}

The operative report of the Don Front's staff issued on 5 February 1943, 22:00 said,

{{blockquote|The 64th Army was putting itself in order, being in previously occupied regions. Location of army's units is as it was previously. In the region of location of the 38th Motorised Rifle Brigade in a basement eighteen armed SS-men {{sic}} were found, who refused to surrender, the Germans found were destroyed.<ref>Google Video: {{cite video|title=Stalingrad – OSA III – Stalingradin taistelu päättyy (Stalingrad, Part 3: Battle of Stalingrad ends) |url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8717261858113724758 |format=Adobe Flash |medium=Television documentary. German original: "Stalingrad" Episode 3: ''"Der Untergang'', 53 min, Sebastian Dehnhardt, Manfred Oldenburg (directors) |language=fi, de, ru |publisher=broadview.tv GmbH, Germany 2003 |access-date=16 July 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090407100052/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8717261858113724758 |archive-date=7 April 2009}}</ref>}}

The condition of the troops that surrendered was pitiful. British war correspondent [[Alexander Werth]] described the following scene in his ''Russia at War'' book, based on a first-hand account of his visit to Stalingrad on 3–5 February 1943,

{{blockquote|We&nbsp;[...] went into the yard of the large burnt out building of the Red Army House; and here one realised particularly clearly what the last days of Stalingrad had been to so many of the Germans. In the porch lay the skeleton of a horse, with only a few scraps of meat still clinging to its ribs. Then we came into the yard. Here lay more {{sic|?|more}} horses' skeletons, and to the right, there was an enormous horrible [[cesspool]]{{snd}}fortunately, frozen solid. And then, suddenly, at the far end of the yard I caught sight of a human figure. He had been crouching over another cesspool, and now, noticing us, he was hastily pulling up his pants, and then he slunk away into the door of the basement. But as he passed, I caught a glimpse of the wretch's face{{snd}}with its mixture of suffering and idiot-like incomprehension. For a moment, I wished that the whole of Germany were there to see it. The man was probably already dying. In that basement&nbsp;[...] there were still two hundred Germans—dying of hunger and frostbite. "We haven't had time to deal with them yet," one of the Russians said. "They'll be taken away tomorrow, I suppose." And, at the far end of the yard, besides the other cesspool, behind a low stone wall, the yellow corpses of skinny Germans were piled up{{snd}}men who had died in that basement—about a dozen wax-like dummies. We did not go into the basement itself{{snd}}what was the use? There was nothing we could do for them.{{sfn|Werth|1964|p=562}} }}

Most of the nearly 91,000 German prisoners captured in Stalingrad perished.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3664526/How-three-million-Germans-died-after-VE-Day.html How three million Germans died after VE Day.] Nigel Jones reviews ''After the Reich: From the Liberation of Vienna to the Berlin Airlift'' by [[Giles MacDonogh]]. ''[[Telegraph Media Group|The Telegraph]]'', 18 April 2007.</ref> Weakened by disease, starvation and lack of medical care during the encirclement, they were sent on forced marches to prisoner camps and later to [[labour camp]]s all over the Soviet Union. Some 35,000 were eventually sent on transports, of which 17,000 did not survive. Most died of wounds, disease (particularly [[typhus]]), cold, overwork, mistreatment and malnutrition. Some were kept in the city to help rebuild it.

A handful of senior officers were taken to Moscow and used for propaganda purposes, and some of them joined the [[National Committee for a Free Germany]]. Some, including Paulus, signed anti-Hitler statements that were broadcast to German troops. Paulus testified for the prosecution during the Nuremberg Trials and assured families in Germany that those soldiers taken prisoner at Stalingrad were safe.{{sfn|Craig|1973|p=401}} He remained in the Soviet Union until 1952, then moved to Dresden in East Germany, where he spent the remainder of his days defending his actions at Stalingrad and was quoted as saying that Communism was the best hope for postwar Europe.{{sfn|Craig|1973|p=280}} General [[Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach]] offered to raise an anti-Hitler army from the Stalingrad survivors, but the Soviets did not accept the offer. It was not until 1955 that the last of the 5,000–6,000 survivors were repatriated (to [[West Germany]]) after a plea to the [[Politburo]] by [[Konrad Adenauer]].