The Battle of Stalingrad (film) counter-offensive. The Wehrmacht launches a last, massive assault, intended to overwhelm the defenders of Stalingrad. As the Red Army is pushed back to the Volga, Stalin orders to commence Operation Uranus. The Germans are encircled, and efforts to relieve the Stalingrad pocket fail. Paulus, ordered by Hitler to hold to the end, refuses to surrender while his soldiers starve. The Soviets close on the city, destroying the Sixth Army. After Red Army soldiers enter his command post, Paulus orders his remaining troops to surrender. The Soviets hold a victory rally in liberated Stalingrad; In Moscow, Stalin looks at a map,
The Motherland Calls which calls on its sons and daughters to repulse the enemy and continue their further attack. "The Motherland Calls" is highly complex from an engineering point of view, due to its characteristic posture with a sword raised high in the right hand and the left hand extended in a calling gesture. The technology behind the hollow statue is based on a combination of prestressed concrete with wire ropes, a solution which can also be found in another work of Nikitin's, the Ostankino Tower in Moscow. The sculpture is hollow. Inside, the entire statue consists of separate cells or chambers, like