Battle of Stalingrad Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 1942 – 2 February 1943) was the largest confrontation of World War II, in which Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in Southern Russia. Marked by fierce close quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in air raids, it was the largest (nearly 2.2 million personnel) and bloodiest (1.8–2 million killed, wounded or captured) battle in the history of warfare. After their defeat at Stalingrad, the German High Command had to withdraw vast military forces from the Western Front to
Romanian armies in the Battle of Stalingrad in action in the Battle of Crimea and the Battle of the Caucasus. By the fall of 1942, the two armies were poised to join the attack on Stalingrad. In September 1942, the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies took up their positions around Stalingrad together with the first elements of the Romanian Air Corps: on September 16, the 7th Fighter Group, on September 25, the 5th Bomber Group and, on October 4, the 1st Bomber, 8th Fighter, 6 Fighter-Bomber and 3rd Bomber Group arrived with the mission of providing air support for the Third Romanian and 6th German Armies. The