[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
Volgagrad may now span both sides of the river, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Stalingrad was on the eastern side. I haven't looked at an old map, but the old film footage showed most of the land west of the Volga to be fields with the city burning on the other side. And I know some of the footage was later staged, but when the Red Army pincers surrounded the Germans and Romanians and met up, it looked like they were out in the middle of nowhere.

BTW, if you ever want to see the German version of Saving Private Ryan, shown from a German perspective, rent Stalingrad. IIRC, the Germas actually executed some of their own for self-inflicted wounds to get on one of the evacuation planes. I knew a German guy who was there, was shot in the collar bone and made it out on the very last plane. I also knew a German who wasn't so lucky and didn't make it home from Siberia until 1952.

The Discovery channel has some good shows called "Battlefield diary's" and one discusses the Stalingrad battle very well. Anyone wanting to learn more about this should watch this one.

Tabs, yep got caught on that one. Typing late at night and tired does that!

My ex-wifes family in Berlin has a gent who was in a tank on the Eastern Front. Forget where he was captured but he was 19 or 20 when his war ended. He was interred in Siberia for 7 years by the Russians. He returned weighing around 60 kilos, skin and bone and with totally white hair... at age 27. He would not talk about it and you could tell that he was deeply effected by his time in their hands.