Battle of Stalingrad on Soviet records, over 10,000 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. Brown University historian Omer Bartov claims they were motivated by 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. Almost every letter expressed belief in Germany's ultimate victory and their willingness to fight and die at Stalingrad to achieve that victory. Bartov
Battle of Stalingrad as they destroyed the capacity for supply of the trapped 6th Army. The destruction of 72 aircraft when the airfield at Tatsinskaya was overrun meant the loss of about 10 percent of the Luftwaffe transport fleet. These losses amounted to about 50 percent of the aircraft committed and the Luftwaffe training program was stopped and sorties in other theaters of war were significantly reduced to save fuel for use at Stalingrad. The events of the Battle for Stalingrad have been covered in numerous media works of British, American, German, and Russian origin, for its significance as a turning point in