The document summarizes key events of the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. It describes how in September 1942, German forces under General Paulus advanced on the city of Stalingrad, but they were eventually surrounded by Soviet forces. After intense street-to-street fighting over the following months, the Germans were trapped in Stalingrad with no possibility of resupply or retreat. By the end of January 1943, over 90,000 German troops surrendered, marking a major defeat. The failure at Stalingrad depleted German forces and halted their advance in Russia, shifting the tide of the war.

1. PRESENTATION
BY
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2. The Battle of Stalingrad
 The Battle for Stalingrad was fought during the winter of
1942 to 1943.
 In September 1942, the German commander of the Sixth
Army, General Paulus, assisted by the Fourth Panzer Army,
advanced on the city of Stalingrad.

3. The battle at Stalingrad bled the German army dry
in Russia and after this defeat, the Germany Army was in full
retreat.
Hitler ordered the taking of Stalingrad simply because of the
name of the city and Hitler's hatred of Joseph Stalin.
Stalingrad was an
important target as
it was Russia’s centre
of communications
in the south as well
as being a centre for
manufacturing.

4.  Areas captured by the Germans during the day, were re-taken
by the Russians at night.
 The battle for the city descended into one of the most brutal
in World War Two. Individual streets were fought over using
hand-to-hand combat.

5.  On November 19th, the Russians were in a position whereby
they could launch a counter-offensive.
 Marshal Zhukov used six
armies of one million men to
surround the city.
 The 5th tank regiment led by
Romanenko attacked from the
north as did the 21st Army (led
by Chistyakov), the 65th Army
(led by Chuikov) and the 24th
Army (led by Galinin). The
64th, 57th and 521st armies
attacked from the south.
 The attacking armies met up on
November 23rd at Kalach with
Stalingrad to the east.

6.  The bulk of the Sixth Army – some 250,000 to 300,000 men -
was in the city and Zhukov, having used his resources to go
around the city, north and south, had trapped the
Germans in Stalingrad.
 Hitler ordered that Paulus should fight to the last bullet, and
to encourage Paulus, he promoted him to field marshal.
 By the end of
January 1943,
the Germans
could do
nothing else
but surrender.

7. Importance Of Battle
 The failure of the German Army was nothing short of a
disaster.
 A complete army group was lost at Stalingrad and 91,000
Germans were taken prisoner.
 With such a massive loss of manpower and equipment, the
Germans simply did not have enough manpower to cope with
the Russian advance to Germany when it came.
 Hitler ordered a day’s national mourning in Germany, not for
the men lost at the battle, but for the shame von Paulus had
brought on the Wehrmacht and Germany.

8. About Battle Of Kursk
 Battle of Kursk, (July 5–August 23, 1943), unsuccessful German assault
on the Soviet salient around the city of Kursk, in western Russia,
during World War II.
 The salient was a bulge in the
Soviet lines that stretched 150
miles (240 km) from north to
south and protruded 100
miles (160 km) westward into
the German lines.
Germans
Sovietians

9. In an attempt to recover
the offensive on
the Eastern Front, the
Germans planned a
surprise attack on the
salient from both north
and south, hoping to
surround and destroy the
Soviet forces within the
bulge.

10. The German assault forces consisted of almost 50 divisions
containing 900,000 troops, including 17 motorized or
armoured divisions having 2,700 tanks and mobile assault
guns.
Kurks Gallery

11.  At the height of the battle on July 12, the
Soviets began to counterattack, having
built up by then a marked
preponderance of both troops and tanks.
 Their subsequent
successes
encouraged them to
develop a broad
offensive that
recovered the nearby
city of Orel
(now Oryol) on
August 5 and that
of Kharkov
(now Kharkiv) on
August 23.
Soviet PTRD anti-
tank rifle team,
during the fighting

12. The Battle of Kursk was the largest tank battle in history,
involving some 6,000 tanks, 2,000,000 troops, and 4,000
aircraft.

13. THE NAZI OCCUPATION OF SOVIET UKRAINE
 The surprise German invasion of the U.S.S.R. began on
June 22, 1941.
 They conducted a scorched-earth policy—blowing up
buildings and installations, destroying crops and food
reserves, and flooding mines.

14.  In the occupied territories, the Nazis sought to implement
their “racial” policies
 In the fall of 1941 began
the mass killings of Jews that
continued through 1944.
 An estimated 1.5 million
Ukrainian Jews perished, and
over 800,000 were displaced
to the east; at Baby
Yar (Ukrainian: Babyn Yar)
in Kiev, nearly 34,000 were
killed in just the first two
days of massacre in the city.

15. UKRAINE REUNITED UNDER SOVIET RULE
 After their victory over the Germans at the Battle of
Stalingrad in early 1943, the Soviets launched a
counteroffensive westward.  In spring 1944 the Red
Army began to
penetrate into Galicia,
and by the end of
October all of Ukraine
was again under Soviet
control.

16.  Northern Bukovina was reoccupied in 1944 and recognized as
part of Ukraine in the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947.
 Transcarpathia, which had reverted from Hungary to
Czechoslovakia in 1944, was ceded to Ukraine in 1945 by a
Czech-Soviet government agreement.
 In 1945 Ukraine became a charter member of the United
Nations and subsequently became a signatory of peace
treaties with Germany’s wartime allies—Italy, Finland,
Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria.
 Ukraine’s human and material losses during World War
II were enormous. Some 5 to 7 million people perished.

17. Paris
Peace
Treaty

19.  Ukraine’s estimated population of 36 million in 1947 was
almost 5 million less than before the war.
 More than 700 cities and towns and 28,000 villages had been
destroyed, 10 million people were left homeless.
 Only 20 percent of the industrial enterprises and 15 percent
of agricultural equipment and machinery remained intact,
and the transportation network was severely damaged.
 The material losses constituted an estimated 40 percent of
Ukraine’s national wealth.

20. THE LAST YEARS OF STALIN’S RULE
 Economic reconstruction
was undertaken
immediately as Soviet
authorities re-established
control over the recovered
territories.
 The fourth five-year plan,
as in the prewar years,
stressed heavy industry to
the detriment of consumer
needs.
 The Sovietization of
western Ukraine was a
prolonged and violent
process.
 By analogous means, the
Greek Catholic church in
Transcarpathia was
abolished in 1949.