Between July 17th , 1942 and February 2nd, 1943 The Battle of Stalingrad raged on in the heart of Russia. The Germans had broken the non-aggression pact between the two nations and invaded Russia. The German Army led by General Friedrich Paulus was outnumbered but had the Arial advantage compared to the Russian Army and their weak air force. The area was heavily industrialized and Hitler believed it would help him capture more regions thus, making it a suitable target. Hitler also had a great desire to take Stalingrad for it was named after the Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. If successful, it would deal a great blow to the Russian morale. Over 1 thousand tons of bombs were dropped on the City and the Germans had captured almost 90% of Stalingrad. Unfortunately, the Russians had gained all of it back over the cold Russian Winter and defeated them during Operation Uranus, a counterattack on the German forces which resulted in them becoming surrounded by the 1-million strong Russian army. Over 750,000 were killed in the course of the battle; to place that into perspective , the Americans only lost about 416,000 men over the course of all of World War 2. Understanding defeat Hitler made his general a General Field Marshall as encouragement to not surrender or be captured because "no General Field Marshall has ever surrendered" yet, Rather than killing himself as Hitler suggested, Paulus emerged from the basement of a convenience store that served as his headquarters and surrendered, thus breaking the tradition.