On June 1942, Germany\u2019s Army Group South started an offensive called Case Blue or Plan Blue.\xa0 The idea was to sprint out off eastern Ukraine, across the Russian steppe, and into the Caucasus to capture the oil fields there.\xa0 As part of this big effort, the German Sixth Army attempted to capture the city of Stalingrad on the Volga River.\xa0 The Sixth Army reached Stalingrad in August.\xa0 The fighting was ferocious.\xa0 In November the Soviets launched offensives of their own north and south of Stalingrad.\xa0 Those two pincers linked up and trapped the Germans in a cauldron.\xa0 Fighting continued in Stalingrad but now winter was closing in.\xa0 Starvation and the cold exacted a toll as harsh as the Soviets.\xa0 Despite Hitler\u2019s attempts to resupply the Sixth Army by air and his exhortations to fight to the last, what was left of the German Sixth Army surrendered in late January 1943.\xa0 There was no way for Hitler and his propagandists to spin this crushing defeat.\xa0 Antony Beevor tells the story of history\u2019s largest land battle and arguably the turning point of World War Two in \u201cStalingrad.\u201d