As the enemy approaches Stalingrad, the Red Army and the local population rally to defend it in bitter house-to-house combat, stalling the German advance.

General Friedrich Paulus, ordered by Hitler to hold to the end, refuses to surrender while his soldiers starve.

After Red Army soldiers enter his command post, Paulus orders his remaining troops to surrender.

The Soviets hold a victory rally in liberated Stalingrad; in Moscow, Stalin looks at a map, setting his eyes on Berlin.

The film is the last of the 'Artistic Documentaries',[1] a series of propaganda epics that recreated the history of the Second World War with a Stalinist interpretation of the events.