Fantasy Stalingrad has no relation to history

Rating: 3/10 (18 August 2001)

Enemy at the Gates completely misrepresents the history of the battle and slanders the brave sacrifice of the Soviet people to defeat Nazism. I strongly recommend reading the book 'Enemy at the Gates' to see how little of the movie is true.
The story of the sniper is one small story in the book that was complied from hundreds of interviews with veterans from both sides. The story of the sniper was significantly changed for the film from the true story which is much more compelling.
All the Generals who actually led the battle are ignored in the film except Kruschev. Kruschev was Political Commissar at the Front level and was involved in the overall planning of the defensive battle and the encirclement of the German 6th army at Stalingrad. He did not command the 62th army in Stalingrad, this was General Chuikov, a true hero. The entire battle was commanded by Marshal Zhukov ( the general who never lost a battle ) in close collaboration with Stalin. After the death of Stalin, Kruschev had his role inflated and Zhukov, Stalin and Chuikov ignored.
There is no sense of the battle in the film either at the unit level or overall. The Red Army used firegroups of 25 men armed with bags of grenades and sub machine guns to fight the Germans house to house in the rubble. There was little of the human wave tactics portrayed in the film. Building were fought over room by room and floor by floor. No one went in the open as this was certain death to either side.
The battle consisted of the Red army holding on to a tiny corner of the city while the German forces were ground down. When the Germans were weakened, Soviet reserves north and south of the city broke through the weakened flanks off the Nazi forces and surrounded the entire 6th Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army.
The 6th Army was Germany's greatest strike force, the same one that conquered France so quickly. At least 330,000 German soldiers from its elite force were killed or captured. Only about 10,000 survived to return to German after the war.
Germany never recovered from this loss and it marked to start of their defeat.
Please read the book Enemy at the Gates and forget this terrible film