The historian spoke about the decisive contribution of Stalingrad to the victory over Germany

The victory of the Red Army in the Battle of Stalingrad became a turning point not only of the Great Patriotic War, but of the entire Second World War, depriving Nazi Germany of the strategic initiative and showing the inevitability of its defeat. This was announced on February 2 in a conversation with Izvestia by the scientific director of the RVIO, MGIMO professor, historian Mikhail Myagkov.

According to him, it was at Stalingrad that the Wehrmacht and its allies suffered a blow from which they could not recover. The historian noted that the scale of the fighting on the Soviet-German front significantly exceeded the Allied operations.

"If we compare the achievements of the Red Army in late 1942 and early 1943 with the successes of the Allies, the forces deployed against Germany and its satellites could not be compared with the forces of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht on the Soviet-German front," he stressed.

The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted 200 days and nights from July 1942 to February 2, 1943, became the largest battle of the war. According to the historian, the losses of the Wehrmacht and its allies — Romanian, Hungarian, Italian and Croatian units — reached about 1.5 million people, while the Red Army lost about 1.1 million.

"In fact, the entire southern flank of the German group was drained of blood and forced to retreat," Myagkov said.

He added that this victory changed the course of the war and strengthened people's faith in the final defeat of Nazism. After the difficult events of 1942, when German troops reached the Caucasus and the banks of the Volga, the situation at the front was critical, but thanks to the decisive actions and courage of Soviet soldiers, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus' 6th army was surrounded and defeated.

The historian recalled that foreign countries highly appreciated the importance of the Stalingrad victory. In particular, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave Soviet leader Joseph Stalin a sword for the residents of Stalingrad, and US President Franklin Roosevelt sent a special letter to the townspeople.

"Roosevelt stated in the US Congress that the greatest victories of 1942 occurred precisely on the Soviet-German front, and Churchill noted that the successes of the Western allies were small compared to the achievements of the Red Army," Myagkov concluded.

Read more in the Izvestia article:

The Stalingrad turning point: how the defeat of the Nazi troops in 1943 changed the course of the war

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.