Battle of Stalingrad (1942-43)

From August 1942 to February 1943, German and Soviet forces fought in the ruins of Stalingrad in a battle that produced approximately two million total casualties — soldiers and civilians — over six months of urban combat so savage that life expectancy for a newly arrived Soviet soldier was under 24 hours. The German 6th Army's surrender on 2 February 1943 was the first mass surrender of a German field army in history and marked the absolute turning point of World War II. Nazi Germany was now permanently on the defensive on the Eastern Front. The battle validated Soviet industrial capacity and Stalin's authority, reshaping global geopolitics for the next 45 years.