Best Described as an Insult. Used better as firewood.

Rating: 1/10 (2 July 2005)

When my American friends told me about this Movie I thought I might enjoy it. After 5 minutes I did not know whether to be angry or disgusted. The battle of Stalingrad(Leningrad is modern St. Petersburg up north, Stalingrad is Volgograd in Russia's south) has never before been so knowingly destroyed and revised to demonize and smear the country that won the war in Europe, and helped to fight and defeat Japan before it attacked the US in 1938-39.
My family, hometown, and countrymen have never been so insulted in their fight for survival.
The movie better describes a WW1 situation on the Eastern Front, not WW2, the USSR had become the largest industrialized entity on the planet by 1941. Blockaded Leningrad managed to produce its own version of an SMG even though it was mostly cut off.
Germany invaded on June 22nd 1941, not 1942 as some who saw the film think. They 1st lost at Moscow and were pushed back. Hitler intended to cut off the South from the North by taking the Volga, and capture the oil rich Caucasus.
He failed in all objectives, and not just in Stalingrad.
True up to October 1941 Germans only suffered 1/3 the casualties of the USSR, about 300,000 compared to 850,000(plus up to 1 million people taken prisoner for their ties to the Communist Party and Army), still the greatest loss of German life since WW1. At Moscow all the Axis Nations suffered a humiliating defeat that over 4 months caused 500,000 dead/wounded/captured on the Axis Allies.
"Enemy at the Gates" was not interested in history.
I never knew General Chuikov committed suicide, I was under the impression he lead the 62nd Army to victory. And it was not the Bureaucrat, Khruschev, who took command of the Soviet Army, but Veteran General Giorgi Zhukov, who employed massed ARTILLERY and AIRCRAFT on enemy positions. Actual Frontal Assaults never took place in the city.
It was not human waves that won the battle. But Assault Squads organized for best efficiency in House to House fighting.
The Germans had company. At the end of the battle an Army Group(B) of some 6 different Armies of Germans, Italians, Romanians, Hungarians, and Bulgarians surrendered.
If young Russians take this movie seriously, then it is true that the Russian Educational System has fallen behind. Considering the footage of WW2 and the documentaries of it on Russian TV.