The fighting reached its peak on July 12, 1943 when both forces were very close to each other. The air forces and artillery guns stopped firing so that they would not hit their own men. Hundreds of tanks were lost that day and Hitler realized that defeat was inevitable; so on July 13, 1943 he ordered a withdrawal. This was not only because of the situation at Kursk, but also because the Soviets were advancing elsewhere. Also, at the same time the British and Americans had just landed in Sicily. The Battle of Kursk was the biggest tank battle in history. The defeat there, in addition to the defeat at Stalingrad, crippled the German military. This, as well as the fact that Soviet production overtook German production, led to the success of the Russian counter offensive, which led to Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad, and as a result, their successful defense against the German Operation Barbarossa, was definitely the decisive factor in the outcome of World War II. Because the Battle of Stalingrad gave the Soviets the initiative, the Red Army regained Russia’s lost land and afterwards invaded Germany’s land in a relatively short time. Russia gained more than just its former territory; it also gave the Soviet Union control of virtually every Eastern European country (with the notable exception of Greece).
The victory at Stalingrad was celebrated with the construction of a statue of Mother Russia. The fifty-two meter statue was built to remember the more than one million Soviet troops that died defending the city. The great success of the Russian counter offensive gave the rest of the world fear of the Soviet Union and its leader-Stalin. This was due to the fact that Soviet forces had fought against impossible odds and had won in the end. Stalin and the Soviets faced Hitler more boldly than the Western allies had. This was shown by how the Soviets sacrificed nearly everything in the war while Britain and the United States were very hesitant about opening up a second front-which happened nearly two years after Germany invaded Russia when the allies invaded Italy. The delaying in opening up the second front in Europe led Stalin to believe that his Western allies wanted Russia to win, but that they wanted the victory to be as costly for the Soviets as possible.
When the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain-Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met in Yalta in February of 1945 there was a great deal of rivalry and resentment between the western allies. Stalin refused to give up any of the territory that the Soviet Union had conquered from Germany. The three allies did agree on how Germany was to be split up. The Soviet Union would receive the eastern half while Britain, France, and the U.S. would split up the west. The allies agreed to have a trial for Nazi war criminals as well as determine what reparation Germany owed and to what countries. The meeting at Yalta was the last meeting between the leaders of the three major allies; and its outcome was the Cold War, which lasted for over 40 years. During this time the former allies were split, and instead of in World War II where fascism was seen as the common enemy, capitalism and communism became enemies.
The Battle of Stalingrad was fought from August 1942 to February of 1943. Over two million soldiers died in this battle, most of who were Soviets. The battle ended the German invasion of the Soviet Union-this began the Soviet counter offensive, which would eventually capture Berlin in 1945. The early part of World War II focused on Western Europe, but by 1941 Hitler was ready to invade the Soviet Union. Though the blitzkrieg tactic worked at first, it failed when the Germans attacked Stalingrad. Here, the German army had to enter the city and fight a long and vicious battle with the Soviets. The intense cold, stubborn Soviet resistance, and eventually the lack of supplies all contributed to the eventual defeat of the German army. The Soviets responded with their own offensive, which eventually led to Germany’s defeat in World War II. The Soviets won by using the same tactic that the Germans had successfully used against them: they attacked the flanks and surrounded them. The victory at Stalingrad proved to be the end of Nazi Germany’s peak and the beginning of its rapid decline until its final destruction in 1945. Hitler and his short-lived empire collapsed as a result of the Battle of Stalingrad because it destroyed much of the German forces and also ended the offensive in Russia. This eventually turned the tide and led to not only the destruction of Germany but also ushered in a new era of global politics. Never again would a war of such magnitude ever be forced upon the world.