With nearly 2 million civilian and military casualties, the Battle of Stalingrad was certainly one, if not the bloodiest battles during World War II. It has been reported that more civilians died in the Battle of Stalingrad than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
After the Luftwaffe reduced the city to nothing but debris with air strikes, Germans and Russians engaged in hand to hand combat “from street to street, house to house, and room to room.” The Battle of Stalingrad was also the first major surrender of the German army, it stopped the German’s march into Russia, and it marked a turning point of the war.