On 31 January 1943, German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus and his Sixth Army surrendered to the Red Army (the army of the Soviet Union). The Sixth army had been virtually annihilated. After five months of fighting, Germany was defeated.
In late August 1942, the German army had begun a major attack to gain control of the Russian city of Stalingrad. The conquest would not only serve a strategic goal, it would be of great symbolic value, since the city bore the name of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
The shellings and and bombardments damaged Stalingrad badly, but in order to conquer the city, the German soldiers had to fight the soldiers of Red Army in the streets. They were shot at by snipers, hiding among the ruins. When the harsh Russian winter began, the situation grew even worse.
For the Red Army, the winter had its advantages. The ice was now thick enough for tanks to cross the rivers. While the fighting in the streets continued, the Soviets managed to surround the city with their tanks in late November 1942. The German army was trapped but did not surrender straight away. It took another six weeks for the battle to be over. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers had died on both sides.
The Battle of Stalingrad was an important turning point in the war. The German army was not unbeatable after all. The Soviet Union regained hope, as did the people in the occupied territories.