On 2 February 1943 the last German troops in Stalingrad, the northern pocket of the encircled 6th Army under General Karl Strecker, surrendered, ending a battle fought in the city since August 1942. About 91,000 Germans went into Soviet captivity. Also on this day in 1461, Edward of York won the Battle of Mortimer's Cross.
The last pocket surrenders
Two days after Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus gave up with the southern pocket on 31 January, told on 31 January in military history, the Germans still held out in the north of the city, around the tractor works. There the remnants of XI Corps under General Karl Strecker kept fighting until 2 February, when the northern pocket surrendered too. The Battle of Stalingrad, fought in and around the city since the German 6th Army reached it in late August 1942, was over.1
About 91,000 German soldiers went into Soviet captivity, among them more than twenty generals. Starving and sick, most of them died in captivity: only about 6,000 ever came home.2
The toll
German losses can only be estimated. Germany's national history museum estimates that about 150,000 German soldiers died in the pocket from fighting, cold and hunger, while the U.S. Army historian Earl Ziemke put the German loss in the pocket at somewhat over 200,000 men in all. Soviet losses were far higher. The Russian General Staff study led by Grigory Krivosheev counts 1,129,619 men lost in the Stalingrad defensive and offensive operations, 478,741 of them killed, missing or captured.3
Stalingrad was the turning point of the war on the Eastern Front. Our article on the Battle of Stalingrad follows the whole campaign.4
Battle of Lincoln, 1141: the day King Stephen was taken prisoner
2 February 1141 · 885 years ago
King Stephen of England was besieging Lincoln Castle when a relief army loyal to Empress Matilda, led by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, attacked him in the civil war known as the Anarchy. Stephen was captured, imprisoned and effectively deposed, and Matilda briefly held power.
Read the full story of Battle of Lincoln, 1141: the day King Stephen was taken prisoner ›Battle of Mortimer's Cross, 1461: three suns and a new king
2 February 1461 · 565 years ago
A Yorkist army under the young Edward met a Lancastrian force that included Jasper Tudor and his father Owen near the River Lugg in Herefordshire, in the Wars of the Roses. The Yorkists won, Owen Tudor was captured and executed, and Edward took the throne a month later.
Read the full story of Battle of Mortimer's Cross, 1461: three suns and a new king ›
