Stalingrad WWII 1943

The decisive battle between Germany and Russia.  The Russians took horrendous losses but won the battle.  And went on to win all the future battles with the Germans.  Turning point in WWII.  Stalingrad was a medium duty Russia city on the Volga River.  Not the size or importance of Moscow or Leningrad, but a serious city with some serious industry.  Paulus, the German commander completely blew it.  To take a city or a castle you have to encircle it, cut it off from supplies and reinforcements and starve it out.  Paulus didn’t bother, he didn’t cross the Volga river to get on the far side of Stalingrad and surround it.  He called on the Luftwaffe and artillery to blow the place up and ordered his infantry to assault it.  The Russians dug in and shot down the attacking Germans in droves.   
   Georgy Zukov, Stalin’s top general, the man who had clobbered the Japanese in 1939, talked Stalin into fixing the Germans at Stalingrad.  The local commander was told to hang on, help was coming.  Two huge Russian armies of 250,000 men each were launched against the German supply lines and cut them.  Suddenly Paulus found himself cut off in Stalingrad with no rations or ammunition.  The German’s “fireman” Walter Model organized a rescue mission.  Paulus should have ordered all his troops to pull out of Stalingrad and head for a roundez vous with Model.  Paulus failed to do so, partly because Hitler was against the idea, and partly thru who knows what personal failings.   
    The Russians captured or killed all of Paulus’s 250,000 men.  The German army never recovered from this terrible loss.