![]() The offensive was short-lived military fatigue coupled with the spring rains reduced mobility and ground both armies to a halt by mid-March. The Germans re-organised and launched a counteroffensive under the command of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein. In early 1943, the Soviets looked to capitalise on their morale-boosting win at Stalingrad and began an offensive against the Germans in the south, retaking territory including the city of Kursk. However, the mechanised Battle of Kursk witnessed the world’s largest armoured confrontation, as two sides equipped with a combined 8,000 tanks squared off. When it came to bloodshed, nothing on the Eastern Front could quite top the meat grinder that was Stalingrad, a bloody urban conflict that caused 2 million casualties and included the total annihilation of the German 6th Army. Many of which occurred on the Eastern Front, as Hitler’s Wehrmacht clashed with Stalin’s Red Army during Operation Barbarossa. In 1946, a Russian filmmaker made a three-hour film depicting a fictionalized version of the Battle of Stalingrad.WWII, the greatest conflict in human history, had more than its fair share of significant battles. Eventually the German forces surrendered. They attacked from the front and rear, surrounding the German army in the city, leaving them cut off from reinforcements. The Soviet army responded with a two-pronged attack. Their attack began using air raids and continued on the ground. Germany believed it was important to take the city. Stalingrad was an important industrial city in construction of armaments and transport down the Volga River. Nearly 2.2 million in personnel combined of both sides fought in the battle and nearly half were lost (there were significant civilian casualties in the battle). This was the largest confrontation in World War II and the largest battle of all time. Source: Bundesarchiv via Wikimedia Commons ![]()
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