The latter has become the most tragic day in the history of the Stalingrad battle. At 4:18 p.m. Moscow time sixty-two years ago, the 4th Luftwaffe air fleet followed the instructions of their commanders and began the mass bombing of Stalingrad, which caused enormous damage. Several hundred aircraft made 2,000 flights and dropped 50,000 bombs on Stalingrad. The mass air strikes left 43,000 civilians dead and over 50,000 wounded.
On Monday, a mourning procession went to the monument to all the victims of the air strikes. Great Patriotic War veterans, veterans of the Stalingrad battle, Volgograd residents and representatives of the city's administration laid flowers and wreaths to the monument. They honoured the victims of the bombings with a minute of silence.
The Stalingrad battle ended with a victory on February 2, 1943. Twenty-two Nazi divisions (330,000 people) were encircled and eliminated near Stalingrad (now Volgograd). The remains of the 6th German army headed by Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus (91,000 people) surrendered. The Stalingrad battle entirely changed the course of WWII.
