Battle of Stalingrad but Paulus – ordered not to surrender by Hitler – did not respond. The German High Command informed Paulus, "Every day that the army holds out longer helps the whole front and draws away the Russian divisions from it." The Germans inside the pocket retreated from the suburbs of Stalingrad to the city itself. The loss of the two airfields, at Pitomnik on 16 January 1943 and Gumrak on the night of 21/22 January, meant an end to air supplies and to the evacuation of the wounded. The third and last serviceable runway was at the Stalingradskaya flight school, which
The Motherland Monument The Motherland Monument The Motherland Monument (, ) is a monumental statue in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The sculpture is a part of the Museum of The History of Ukraine in World War II, Kiev. The stainless steel statue stands tall upon the museum main building with the overall structure measuring including its base and weighing 560 tons. The sword in the statue's right hand is long weighing 9 tons, with the left hand holding up a shield with the State Emblem of the Soviet Union. Initially the image of the statue was drawn by Vutchetich from Ukrainian painter