Battle of Stalingrad:
- Photos from the Battle of Stalingrad have been brought to life in colour to mark the milestone anniversary
- The colourised pictures show a soviet soldier victoriously hoisting a flag over the battered city of Stalingrad
- Also brought to life in colour are the soldiers and officers who helped make the victory against Hitler possible
Striking images of the Battle of Stalingrad 75 years have revealed in colour the first female fighter pilot to strike down an enemy plane and two Soviet snipers who killed 500 Nazis between them.
The photographs from the Battle of Stalingrad have been brought to life to mark the milestone anniversary of the critical defeat of Hitler's Nazi's during World War Two.
The colourised pictures show a soviet soldier victoriously hoisting a flag over the city of Stalingrad and the soldiers who helped make the victory possible.
They include Vasily Grigoryevich Zaytsev - a Soviet sniper who killed more than 250 Nazi-supporting soldiers and officers with a standard-issue rifle.
Also among the pictures is Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak - a fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force during World War Two and the first female pilot to shoot down an enemy plane, the first of two female fighters to earn the title 'fighter ace' and the holder of the record for the greatest number of kills for a female fighter.
Soviet sniper Maxim Passar who killed more than 230 Nazis during World War Two before he was killed in the battle for the village of Peschanka in the Gorodishchenskoye district is also featured.
The colourised pictures show a soviet soldier victoriously hoisting a flag over the city of Stalingrad, German troops of the 6th Army making their move into the suburbs of Stalingrad, in 1942. The 6th Army was a field army unit of the German Wehrmacht during World War Two. The 6th Army is still widely remembered for its destruction by the Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942 and 43. It is also infamous for the war crimes, such as the massacre of more than 30,000 Jews at Babi Yar, it committed under the command of Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau during Operation Barbarossa in 1941
Vasily Grigoryevich Zaytsev, pictured left here, was a Soviet sniper who killed more than 250 Nazi-supporting soldiers and officers with a standard-issue rifle. He lived long after World War Two ended and died at the age of 75 in 1991. During the war up until November 10, 1942, he killed 32 Axis soldiers. Between 10 November 1942 and 17 December 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, he killed 225 soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht and other Axis armies, including 11 enemy snipers. In 2001, Jude Law starred in Enemy at the Gates - a feature length film with Zaytsev as the main character
A Messerschmitt Bf 109 - a German World War Two fighter aircraft that was the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force - nosedives during the Battle of Stalingrad. A total of 160 German aircraft were destroyed and 328 were heavily damaged beyond repair during the bloody battle. The Luftwaffe also lost close to 1,000 highly experienced bomber crew personnel and as a result of the pounding they took, four of the Nazi's transport units were formally dissolved
Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak died at the age of just 21 on August 1, 1943 in Krasnyi Luch. Also known as Lilya, she was a fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force during World War Two. She was the first female pilot to shoot down an enemy plane, the first of two female fighters to earn the title 'fighter ace' and the holder of the record for the greatest number of kills for a female fighter. With twelve solo victories and four shared kills over a total of 66 combat missions, she was immortalised despite being shot down near Orel during the Battle of Kursk as she attacked a formation of German planes
The war on the Eastern Front, known to Russians as the "Great Patriotic War"
The scene of the largest military confrontation in history. Over the course of four years, more than 400 Red Army and German divisions clashed in a series of operations along a front that extended more than 1,000 miles. Some 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians and nearly 4 million German troops lost their lives along the Eastern Front during those years of brutality. The warfare there was total and ferocious, encompassing the largest armored clash in history (Battle of Kursk) and the most costly siege on a modern city (nearly 900 days in Leningrad), as well as scorched earth policies, utter devastation of thousands of villages, mass deportations, mass executions, and countless atrocities attributed to both sides. To make things even more complex, forces within the Soviet Union were often fractured among themselves -- early in the war, some groups had even welcomed the Germans and fought against the Red Army, in the hopes that Hitler's troops would liberate them from Stalin. Later, as battles became desperate, Stalin issued Order No. 227 -- "Not a Step Back!" -- which forbid Soviet forces from retreating without direct orders. Commanders who sought to pull back faced tribunals, and foot soldiers faced "blocking detachments" of their own fellow soldiers, ready to gun down any who fled. The photos gathered here cover much of 1942-1943, from the siege of Leningrad to the decisive Soviet victories in Stalingrad and Kursk. The vast scale of the warfare is nearly unimaginable, and nearly impossible to capture in a handful of images, so take these as a mere glimpse of the horrors of the Eastern Front.
Sometime in the Autumn of 1942, Soviet soldiers advance through the rubble of Stalingrad. (Georgy Zelma/Waralbum.ru)
 
The commander of a Cossack unit on active service in the Kharkov region, Ukraine, on June 21, 1942, watching the progress of his troops. (AP Photo) #
 
The crew of a German anti-tank gun, ready for action at the Russian front in late 1942. (AP Photo) #
 
This photo, taken in the winter months of 1942, shows citizens of Leningrad as they dip for water from a broken main, during the nearly 900-day siege of the Russian city by German invaders. Unable to capture the Leningrad (today known as Saint Petersburg), the Germans cut it off from the world, disrupting utilities and shelling the city heavily for more than two years. (AP Photo) #
 
A farewell in Leningrad, in the spring of 1942. The German Siege of Leningrad caused widespread starvation among citizens, and lack of medical supplies and facilities made illnesses and injuries far more deadly. Some 1.5 million soldiers and civilians died in Leningrad during the siege - nearly the same number were evacuated, and many of them did not survive the trip due to starvation, illness, or bombing. (Vsevolod Tarasevich/Waralbum.ru) #
 
Evidence of the bitter street fighting which took place during the occupation of Rostov, Russia by German forces in August of 1942. (AP Photo) #
 
A German motorized artillery column crossing the Don river by means of a pontoon bridge on July 31, 1942. Wrecked equipment and materiel of all kinds lies strewn around as the crossing is made. (AP Photo) #
 
A Russian woman watches building burn sometime in 1942. (NARA) #
 
An execution of Jews in Kiev, carried out by German soldiers near Ivangorod, Ukraine, sometime in 1942. This photo was mailed from the Eastern Front to Germany and intercepted at a Warsaw post office by a member of the Polish resistance collecting documentation on Nazi war crimes. The original print was owned by Tadeusz Mazur and Jerzy Tomaszewski and now resides in Historical Archives in Warsaw. The original German inscription on the back of the photograph reads, "Ukraine 1942, Jewish Action [operation], Ivangorod." #
 
A German soldier with a machine gun during the Battle of Stalingrad, in Spring of 1942.(Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive) #
 
German soldiers crossing a Russian River on their tank on August 3, 1942. (AP Photo) #
 
After having occupied a village on the Leningrad sector in 1942, Soviet forces discovered 38 bodies of Soviet soldiers that had been taken prisoner by the Germans and apparently tortured to death. (AP Photo) #
 
This picture, received by the Associated Press on September 25, 1942 through a neutral source, shows a bomb falling after it has just left the plane on its descent to Stalingrad below. (AP Photo) #
 
Three Russian war orphans stand amid the remains of what was once their home, in late 1942. After German forces destroyed the family's house, they took the parents as prisoners, leaving the children abandoned. (AP Photo) #
 
A German armored car amidst the debris of the Soviet fortress Sevastopol in Ukraine on August 4, 1942. (AP Photo) #
 
Stalingrad in October of 1942, Soviet soldiers fighting in the ruins of the factory "Red October".(Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive) #
 
Antitank gun crews of the Red Army prepare to fire against approaching German tank units, on an unknown battlefield, on October 13, 1942, during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. (AP Photo) #
 
In October of 1942, a German Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bomber attacks during the Battle of Stalingrad.(Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive) #
 
A German tank rolls up to its defeated enemy tank which burns near the edge of a patch of woods, somewhere in Russia, on October 20, 1942. (AP Photo) #
 
German soldiers advance outside Stalingrad late in 1942. (NARA) #
 
Sometime in the Autumn 1942, a German soldier hangs a Nazi flag from a building in downtown Stalingrad. (NARA) #
 
While Russian forces drive around behind them, threatening encirclement, the Germans continue their attempt to take Stalingrad. A Stuka raid on the factory district of Stalingrad is seen in this photo, taken on November 24, 1942.(AP Photo) #
 
A scene of devastation as an abandoned horse stands among the ruins of Stalingrad in December of 1942. (AP Photo) #
 
A tank cemetery which the Germans are stated to have established at Rzhev on December 21, 1942. Some 2,000 tanks were said to be in this cemetery in various stages of disrepair. (AP Photo) #
 
German troops pass through a wrecked generating station in the factory district of Stalingrad, on December 28, 1942.(AP Photo) #
 
Ruins of part of the city of Stalingrad, on November 5, 1942, following huge battles, with wrecked shells of buildings on either side. (AP Photo) #
 
Standing in the backyard of an abandoned house in the outskirts of the besieged city of Leningrad, a rifleman of the Red Army aims and fires his machine gun at German positions on December 16, 1942. (AP Photo) #
 
In January of 1943, a Soviet T-34 tank roars through the Square of Fallen Fighters in Stalingrad.(Georgy Zelma/Waralbum.ru) #
 
Soviet soldiers in camouflage winter uniforms line up along the roof of a house in Stalingrad, in January of 1943.(Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive) #
 
Soviet soldiers find cover in piles of rubble from blasted buildings while engaging German forces in street fighting on the outskirts of Stalingrad in early 1943. (AP Photo) #
 
German troops involved in street fighting in the destroyed streets of Stalingrad in early 1943. (AP Photo) #
 
Red Army soldiers in camouflage gear on a snow-covered battlefield, somewhere along the German-Russian war front, as they advance against German positions on March 3, 1943. (AP Photo) #
 
Soviet infantrymen move across snow-covered hills around Stalingrad, on their advance to lift the German siege of the city in early 1943. The Red Army eventually encircled the German Sixth Army, trapping nearly 300,000 German and Romanian soldiers in a narrow pocket. (AP Photo) #
 
In February of 1943, a Soviet soldier stands guard behind a captured German soldier. Months after being encircled by the Soviets in Stalingrad, the remnants of the German Sixth Army surrendered, after fierce fighting and starvation had already claimed the lives of some 200,000. (Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive) #
 
Germany's Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus at Red Army Headquarters for interrogation at Stalingrad, Russia, on March 1, 1943. Paulus was the first German Field Marshal taken prisoner in the war, defying Hitler's expectations that he fight until death (or take his own life in defeat). Paulus eventually became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime while in Soviet captivity, and later acted as a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials. (AP Photo) #
 
Red Army soldiers in a trench as a Russian T-34 tank passes over them in 1943, during the Battle of Kursk.(Mark Markov-Grinberg/Waralbum.ru) #
 
Bodies of dead German soldiers lie sprawled across a roadside southwest of Stalingrad, on April 14, 1943. (AP Photo) #
 
Soviet soldiers, on their backs, launch a volley of bullets at enemy aircraft in June of 1943. (Waralbum.ru) #
 
In mid-July of 1943, "Tiger" tanks of the German Army during the heavy fighting south of Orel, during the Battle of Kursk. From July until August of 1943, the region around Kursk would see the largest series of armored battles in history, as Germans brought some 3,000 of their tanks to engage more than 5,000 Soviet tanks.(Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive) #
 
Huge numbers of German tanks concentrate for a new attack on Soviet fortifications on July 28, 1943, during the Battle of Kursk. After taking months to prepare for the offensive, German forces fell far short of their objectives - the Soviets, having been aware of their plans, had built massive defenses. After the German defeat at Kursk, the Red Army would effectively have the upper hand for the rest of the war. (AP Photo) #
 
German soldiers march before a "Tiger" tank during the Battle of Kursk in June or July of 1943.(Deutsches Bundesarchiv/German Federal Archive) #
 
A Russian anti-tank gun crew advances towards the German positions under cover of a smoke screen, somewhere in Russia, on July 23, 1943. (AP Photo) #
 
Captured German tanks southwest of Stalingrad, shown on April 14, 1943. (AP Photo) #
 
A Soviet lieutenant hands cigarettes to German prisoners somewhere near Kursk, in July of 1943.(Michael Savin/Waralbum.ru) #
 
The ruins of Stalingrad -- nearly completely destroyed after some six months of brutal warfare -- seen from an aircraft after the end of hostilities, in late 1943. (Michael Savin/Waralbum.ru)
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Soviet sniper Maxim Passar killed more than 230 Nazis during World War Two before he was killed in the battle for the village of Peschanka in the Gorodishchenskoye district. Back in February 2010, he was awarded with the Hero of the Russian Federation award by Vladimir Putin for his heroics in the 71st Guards Rifle Division
Yavorska Yulia - a nurse who brought 56 wounded from the battlefield in battles for Stalingrad. The battle is often considered as one of the largest and bloodiest in warfare history with nearly 2.2million personnel involved in the fighting and with somewhere between 1.7million and 2million wounded, killed or captured
A Russian soldier waves a flag while standing on a balcony overlooking a square, where military trucks gather, during the Battle of Stalingrad, World War Two, Stalingrad (now Volgograd), USSR (now Russia). The soldier has a rifle strapped to his back. It has become one of the most iconic photographs of the bloody battle which claimed
This photograph reveals the more heart-breaking truth about the consequence of the battle. This is an Italian driver of a FIAT truck lying dead on the snowy ground in Stalingrad
A Soviet T-34 Rodina tank with the name 'Motherland' emblazoned on the side ploughs through the snow in the area many fighters fell in Stalingrad. To the left of the tank is a famous building used as a central department store which was badly damaged during the fighting
The War did not consider age. Here, another colourised photograph shows the portrait of Ivanov Alexei - a young scout who participated in the defence of Stalingrad and was awarded the medal for the Defence of Stalingrad in 1943
The Battle of Stalingrad commenced on August 23, 1942 then lasted until February 2, 1943, and was one of the major battles of World War Two. It is pictured here after being liberated in 1943. Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now known as Volgograd) in Southern Russia
Alexander Ilich Rodimtsev was a Colonel-General in the Soviet Red Army during World War Two and twice won the Hero of the Soviet Union award - both in 1937 and 1945). Rodimtsev, who survived the war and lived to be 72, joined the Red Army in the 1920s. After fighting in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Republicans to earn his first decoration as a Hero of the Soviet Union, he went down in history for his actions during the Battle of Stalingrad. Here, he brilliantly commanded the 13th Guards Rifle Division which earned him his second order of Hero of the Soviet Union. The division was charged to hold the Germans between Mamayev Kurgan and Tsaritsa Gorge, which his outnumbered and outgunned force managed manfully German forces retreat as the allies close in on Berlin
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus, pictured centre, was an officer in the German military from 1910 to 1945. He was promoted by Adolf Hitler to the rank of field marshal two hours before surrender in World War Two, but was best known for commanding the Sixth Army in the Battle of Stalingrad from August 1942 to February 1943. He led the successful advance toward the city before it ended in disaster for Nazi Germany when Soviet forces encircled and defeated about 265,000 personnel of the Wehrmacht, their Axis allies, and the anti-Soviet volunteers. Paulus was captured by the Soviets on the same day he got the promotion from Hitler, who expected his field marshall to commit suicide. Instead, while in Soviet captivity, Paulus became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Soviet-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany
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