Stalingrad held the original name of Tsaritsyn until the year of 1925. It was renamed for Joseph Stalin, the leader of the country. After the Russian civil war (1917-1922), the Bolsheviks took over the country, turning it into a red state. The city is famously known for its resistance in the second world war. It suffered severe losses and catastrophic …show more content…
The German army had been practically unstoppable. They had suffered only minor losses, until the battle of Stalingrad. On August 29 1942, the Germans launched an offensive attack with her allies against the soviet union. This went on until February 2 1943. Joseph Stalin put Gregory Zhukov in charge of the defense of the city. General Zhukov was one of Stalin’s most trusted and most decorated officers.Throughout the course of the campaign Stalingrad was continuously won and lost by both the Germans and the Russians. Russian civilians were even out to work. “180,000 civilians were put to work digging trenches, building fortifications,and barricading streets” (Bell 2011). Stalin refused to evacuate the entire city, due to his belief that evacuation would intend them never coming back. This decision essentially invested the Red Army into Stalingrad. I mid November 1942, the first battle of stalingrad came to a draw through sheer exhaustion.The Germans prepared to the best of their ability to spend a winter their dug-outs and cellars. The Germans had not won stalingrad, but they had not yet lost either. General Zhukov conceived a plan to