Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad was a defining battle fought on the Eastern Front of World War II between Autumn 1942 (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad) and 1943. (PROSE: Happy Endings)

Long and bloody, and lasting many months, (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad) the struggle between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for control of the Russian city of Stalingrad constituted a turning point in the war. The tactics and strategies which ultimately helped the Soviet Union defeat the Third Reich were developed during the experience of Stalingrad. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)

Into the 21st century, Stalingrad remained etched in memory for its scale and brutality. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad, AUDIO: Scorched Earth) The Seventh Doctor even named it as one of the horrors of the war. (PROSE: Just War)

Setbacks of Barbarossa
In July 1941, (PROSE: Just War, Losing the Audience) Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The attacked opened the Eastern Front of World War II. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)

On the day the invasion began, Lev Zemanova, a schoolteacher, warned his wife Isabella. Lev joined the Red Army as a Captain and urged Isabella to flee with their two infant sons to the relative safety of Stalingrad. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)

The Germans made stunning progress but by December, the attack had stalled outside Moscow as a result of the dreadful winter conditions and the Russians were able to push the invaders back from the capital. (PROSE: Just War)

The Germans reorganise
The setbacks in Russia were a large blow to the Germans, and their efforts at stabilising the situation required aborting Operation Sealion and the Blitz against Britain. (PROSE: Just War) Yet as the winter went on and 1942 began, the Germans amassed a huge force of tanks, which started heading in the direction of Stalingrad, (AUDIO: The Night Witches) a city on the Volga river. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)

The all-female 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Force, better known as the Night Witches, noted the German build-up and concluded that Stalingrad was a future German target. Under the command of Tatiana Kregki, the Night Witches prepared to fight off the tank force as the Germans overran their air base. (AUDIO: The Night Witches)

Mikhail Popov was a resident of Stalingrad during the war but in 1942, he left the city for London, at the insistence of the Doctor. (PROSE: Happy Endings)

In August 1942, as the Third Reich reached the peak of its power, the Sixth Doctor, under the alias Major Johann Schmidt, met Adolf Hitler at a ball in Berlin. Hitler's armies were advancing on Stalingrad as they spoke. When the Führer asked his guests for their opinions on the military situation, the Doctor answered that Stalingrad was "key" and that the victor of the coming battle would "win the war." (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)

Stalingrad surrounded
In the autumn of 1942, a huge German army reached the walls of Stalingrad. They succeeded in surrounding the city and subjected the inhabitants to fierce artillery bombardments. Panicking civilians attempted to escape the city by crossing the Volga. However, relatively few were able to escape before Joseph Stalin and his army generals ordered civilians to stay put, reasoning that the Red Army would fight even harder to defend the city if they were aware that their families and loved ones were in immediate danger. Lev Zemonova's family were three such civilians, and Lev himself one of the defenders.

Living conditions inside Stalingrad plummeted as the bombardment destroyed entire buildings and streets. As the next winter set in, heavy blizzards covered the city in snow and temperatures dropped to freezing, food and fuel began to run out. Soldiers and trapped civilians faced starvation or death from the cold and many people were forced out into the streets to find precious wood among the wreckage to use for to build lifesaving fires. The food shortages led some people to resort to cannibalism.

For all the deprivations, the Russians held out, in no small part aided by the shortcomings of the Germans. It became clear that the attackers were not prepared for a long winter siege. Their own supply situation was poor and, just like the defenders, they lacked sufficient food and duel supplies. They joined enemy soldiers and civilians alike in the act of scavenging for resources in the debris. Ammunition also began to run low and their uniforms deteriorated down to rags and tatters. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)

One German officer named Alois was killed at Stalingrad. His lover, a French woman named Clementine, was overcome with grief, This resulted in her relationship with him becoming exposed and she was accused of collaboration. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth)

The Drofen Horde
The scale of the siege caught the attention of the Drofen Horde, a species which travelled to war-ravaged worlds to feast on the bodies of the dead. Stalingrad provided no shortage and the Drofen kept to the shadows while harvesting the corpses. However, they also began to prey upon the living, a practice forbidden by several galactic laws and treaties to which the Drofen were held. Lev Zemonova was one of their living victims. He managed to war Isabella about demons stalking the city but disappeared shortly thereafter. The Drofen returned him to their ship and started consuming his flesh, but they kept him alive to keep the meat fresh.

Using their own time rings, Erimem and Andy Hansen came to Stalingrad from 2015. Escaping a bombardment, they encountered Isabella Zemonova who was out looking for Lev, as well as firewood. They provided Isabella with some of their own food and she warned them about what Lev had told her about the Drofen. Andy and Erimem conducted their own search and encountered a Drofen, but it was fought off by Yuri Kurkov, a friends of the Zemonovas, and the soldiers under his command.

Erimem briefly sent Andy home to bring back any relevant information about the Drofen held on their database. When Andy returned, along with Tom Niven, Erimem determined that the Drofen were in violation of galactic law. After forming a plan with Yuri and his men, Erimem allowed herself to be captured by playing dead. She was taken to the Drofen ship, as was Isabella, who had been captured while out looking for Lev.

Erimem was granted an audience with the Horde Prime, who was aware of the galactic violation but saw it as of no consequence. Failing to achieve a peaceful solution by convincing the Drofen to leave the planet, Erimem signalled for Yuri to bombard the ship. As planned, the bombardment also provoked a second German bombardment on the same area. Erimem's party led the surviving prisoners to safety, and Isabella mercy-killed Lev and three other men who had been partially eaten but left alive. The German and Russian bombardment soon ruptured the ship's engine, blowing it apart and killing the Drofen within. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)

Breaking of the siege
Seeking to honour Lev's last wished, Isabella prepared to take her sons and flee Stalingrad. Erimem provided her with a long but effective route. Isabella followed the Volga to Saratov and from there, set out on a journey which lasted many weeks. She eventually made it to Murmansk, where William Dunn and his Captain in the Royal Navy provided her with transport to Great Britain. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)

The Battle of Stalingrad continued into the New Year of 1943. Soviet resistance persisted. One million soldiers died defending the city. (PROSE: Happy Endings) Eventually, the German onslaught buckled and the Russians broke the siege. All the surviving Germans who had tried to captured the city were ultimately captured themselves. The city remained in Russian hands. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)

Lessons learned
In the years of war following the Russian victory at Stalingrad, the Germans were ejected from Soviet territory and the Red Army made its way into Germany. The battle made its mark, teaching the Russians much about close-quarter city fighting. These lessons were learned well and put to use most notably in the Battle of Berlin in April 1945. The fighting there was highly evocative of Stalingrad, with artillery tearing apart buildings and streets, and civilians caught up in the titanic clash. The Russians suffered many casualties themselves but the German forces were spent, leading Hitler to commit suicide in his Bunker beneath the Reichschancellery on 30 April. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)

Legacy of Stalingrad
Colonel Katayev was one of the veterans of Stalingrad. During the Cold War, Captain Valentina Shuskin, who had experienced some front-line combat herself, recognised the importance of impressing people like him. (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune)

The Seventh Doctor compared the suffering of Stalingrad to that experienced at Auschwitz, Pearl Harbor, Dresden, Coventry, Hiroshima and Kwai during the same war. He claimed these terrible events could be considered "crimes against the universe itself." (PROSE: Just War)

Into the 21st century, numerous people instantly recognised the horror of Stalingrad. Before they embarked on their mission to Stalingrad against the Drofen Horde, Ibrahim Hadmani said of the battle, "Stalingrad in 1942 is just about the most dangerous place you could ever go." Andy Hansen described the battle to Erimem: "Imagine Hell and then freeze it." (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad) When Flip Ramon heard mention of Stalingrad, she knew enough to know that it was bad. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth)

Prior to 2010, Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd, but its former name was still commonly used (PROSE: Happy Endings) and became synonymous with the battle that was fought there. (PROSE: Just War, The Shadow in the Glass, The Beast of Stalingrad, AUDIO: Scorched Earth)

Isabella's story
In 1956, Isabella Zemonova still remembered Erimem and her experiences in Stalingrad whenever she felt the cold, although sometimes she wondered if any of these experiences had truly happened.

Decades later, Isabella had long since settled into married like with William Dunn and grew her family.

In 2015, just before her ninety-fifth birthday, she met Erimem again, although from Erimem's perspective, she had not yet travelled to wartime Stalingrad. Isabella told Erimem her story and invited her and her friends to her birthday party, which they all accepted.

Hearing Isabella's story was what gave Erimem the drive to visit Stalingrad in the first place, after hearing evidence that she was present there at some point. By hearing this story, she knew what route to give Isabella to lead her out of Stalingrad and to safety.

Despite the horrors she experienced at Stalingrad, Isabella found peace. Whenever she thought of Stalingrad, she was instead reminded of the life she had been able to live despite it all. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)

Parallel universes
In Germania LXVIII, one of the Known Worlds, in which Adolf Hitler was a communist, Germany became a strong ally of Russia. When the Greater German Reich deposed the communist Hitler, the Nazis destroyed Stalingrad with an atomic bomb, despite the standing alliance between the two nations. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)

Behind the scenes

 * No in-universe source has yet used the exact term "Battle of Stalingrad". The battle is usually referred to simply after the name of the city, "Stalingrad". Even so, it is clear enough based on in-universe sources that a battle took place there.
 * The casualty figure of one million defenders dead given in Happy Endings is not necessarily accurate. Russian figures number over one million casualties, just under half a million of which died.