Scenes like those of the Thirteenth Guards Division and Helmut Walz were repeated a thousand times over during the six months of the battle for Stalingrad. I fought in high intensity combat during my twenty-one-year military career, as well as participating in counterinsurgency operations against guerrilla foes. Yet without equivocation I confess that I cannot fathom, cannot even truly imagine, what the living hell of Stalingrad combat must have been like. It is frightening to consider how remorseless and vicious men can become when stripped of their humanity.

The carnage of the Battle of Stalingrad finally came to an end in February 1943, when the German Sixth Army Commander, Gen. Friedrich Paulus, surrendered the remaining ninety thousand troops of his army to the Soviet Forces. After the Red Army stopped the Nazis at the Volga, they would push the Germans back, relentlessly, for the next two years, culminating with the destruction of Berlin, the death of Adolf Hitler and the end of the war.

Of the ninety thousand Germans that went into Soviet captivity, fewer than six thousand would live to see their homeland again, and those didn’t come until the mid-1950s. However bad and inhumane we believe the wars in the Middle East have been for the past five years—and they have been horrific, especially for the poor civilians caught in the middle—they are a mere shadow of wars past.

May those shadows never return.

Daniel L. Davis is a retired U.S. Army colonel who served multiple tours in Afghanistan. He is a senior fellow with Defense Priorities. Follow him on Twitter @DanielLDavis1.

This first appeared in November 2016 and is being reposted due to reader interest. 

Image Credit: Creative Commons.