On this day, July 28, 1942 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issued Order Number 227.
In response to alarming German advances, all those who retreated or left their positions without orders were to be tried in a military court, with punishment ranging from duty in a penal battalion, imprisonment in a Gulag, or execution.
The following month, on August 23, the Germans began the battle at Stalingrad. And it was there that Order 227 played a pivotal but cruel role.
No Russian was to cross the River Volga. There would be no further retreat eastwards. That was the final stop.
The following February a badly defeated German Army retreated from Stalingrad.
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