The German Sixth Army Surrenders at Stalingrad
On this day · 2 February 1943
After months trapped in a frozen city, Hitler's encircled Sixth Army laid down its arms — and the tide of the war turned for good.
On 2 February 1943, the last starving, frostbitten remnants of Germany’s Sixth Army capitulated in the ruins of Stalingrad, ending one of the deadliest battles in human history. Encircled since November 1942 by a massive Soviet counteroffensive, the trapped Germans had run out of ammunition, fuel and food while temperatures plunged far below freezing.
Adolf Hitler had forbidden any breakout or surrender, even promoting commander Friedrich Paulus to field marshal as a hint that he should fight to the death — no German officer of that rank had ever been captured. Paulus surrendered anyway on 31 January; two days later the northern pocket gave up too.
The defeat shattered the myth of German invincibility on the Eastern Front.
Roughly 91,000 soldiers were taken prisoner, the bulk of an army that once numbered over a quarter of a million. Few would ever see home again. Widely regarded as the turning point of World War II, Stalingrad began the long Soviet drive westward toward Berlin.
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