Total casualties
About 1.7-2 million.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale48
Intensity96
Duration22
Tech shift38
Political impact72
Cultural memory86
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
How many casualties?
About 1.7-2 million killed, wounded and captured on both sides is a common published band. Precise killed-only figures vary by method.
Why did Germany lose the 6th Army?
Overextended flanks, a successful Soviet encirclement, a failed relief, an inadequate airlift, and a political no-retreat order.
Was it the turning point of the world war?
It was the Eastern Front's great turn. Midway, Alamein and later Kursk and Overlord are other turns. Serious histories keep several hinges.
Who commanded?
Paulus (6th Army); Chuikov (62nd Army) in the city; Zhukov and Vasilevsky at the Stavka level; Manstein on the relief attempt; Hitler and Stalin as political commanders.
What was Uranus?
A double envelopment of the German urban force by attacking the weaker armies on the Don flanks.
The 1.7-2 million casualty band includes wounded and captured. Killed-only numbers are lower and still enormous.
Civilians who remained in the city died under bombs and winter.
Bands
6th Army lost
The formation as a tool -- dead, wounded, captured.
Soviet military
Also enormous; not a cheap victory.
Civilians
Prewar city emptied by death and flight.
POWs after
German prisoners' high death rate in 1943 camps.
Regions
Stalingrad city
The rubble object.
Don bend
The encirclement country.
Caucasus (related)
The oil aim that Blue also sought.
Germany
Mourning and later myth of the 6th.
Britain/US (news)
A distant turn they celebrated.
Volgograd today
The memory city.
Key numbers
End2 Feb 1943
Uranus19 Nov 1942
Casualtiesabout 1.7-2 million
City name nowVolgograd
Makers
Stavka
The planning maker of Uranus.
Luftwaffe transport
The failed maker of an airlift.
Tractor/factory ruins
Industrial plants as forts.
Soviet propaganda
The victory-maker in film and stone.
German memoir industry
The postwar story-maker in the West.
Mamaev sculptors
Vuchetich's monument machine.
German memoir culture long centred the 6th Army's suffering and under-weighted Soviet civilian and POW costs.
The rebuilt city is itself a cost account in concrete.