Eighty three years ago today the 

Marshal Georgy Zhukov

battle at Stalingrad came to an end. On February 2, 1943 the last of the organised German troops surrendered. 

The previous autumn Hitler sent German troops to take Stalingrad. It was expected that the city on the Volga would be captured in two weeks.

German General Friedrich Paulus was in charge of the Sixth Army.

The Red Army under the command of Marshal General George Zhukov outgunned the Germans.

Stalingrad was the first major battle in which the Germans were beaten.

Hitler made Paulus a field marshal hoping he would take his life rather than surrender; Paulus was the first German field marshal to suffer defeat. He later went on to advise the NVA, the National People’s Army of the German Democratic Republic.

After Stalingrad the Red Army raced to Berlin, en route they tore open the gates at German death camp, Auschwitz occupied Poland.

In the Berlin suburb of Karls Horst on May 8, 1945 Field Marshal Zhukov accepted the surrender on behalf of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the final instrument of unconditional surrender on behalf of Germany.

Zhukov went on to take up many high positions in the Soviet Union but Stalin was always nervous of him, afraid of his popularity; he was jealous of the great man. He was defence minister between 1955 and 1957 in the Khruschev era.

He died in Moscow on June 18, 1974 at the age of 77.

Maybe if the West had better appreciated what the Soviet Union did in World War II, they lost 27 million people, the Russian Bear might be showing a different aspect to its character.