At the Battle of Stalingrad a new ruthless stavka order was enforced, where if soldiers retreated they would be shot (it was a bit more extensive than my condensed version) but how many were actually killed by their own soldiers at the Battle of Stanlingrad only?

gtho4

The number of dead is unknown: How many people ultimately died at Stalingrad? Nobody really knows. Right up until its final collapse the Soviet Government never did release accurate casualty figures from the war . Some post-Soviet Russians have stated that Chuikov spent over one million soldiers lives to hold the city, but that claim is almost certainly exaggerated. Also exaggerated is the claim that Stalingrad was the bloodiest "battle" in world history. When you consider the size and scope of military operations as well as the time frame, Stalingrad could more accurately be described as a "campaign". But the blood-letting was appalling, no matter what kind of label is attached to it. When you tally the figures for the German 6th Army and its allied auxiliaries which supported the march to the Volga, the numbers are both impressive and distressing. The Germans lost about 350,000 men, the Italians, Hungarians and Romanians about 100,000 men apiece. The Red Army also must have lost at least 500,000 men in Stalingrad and the surrounding areas which were adjunct to the battle. But the most horrendous toll must have been on the innocent civilians who formerly lived in the city. Stalingrad was estimated to have had 850,000 residents in 1940. It isn't known how many of them may have escaped the carnage and vanished into the interior of Russia. But after 1945, a census showed only 1500 of these people remained in the pile of rubble that had once been Stalingrad. http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/stalingrad/annihilation.aspx Jun 07 05, 11:19 PM

gtho4

250,000 were shot for disobeying the stavka order: The Red Army’s abortive spring offensives had cost it more than a half-million casualties, which were suffered primarily among its best formations. Stavka’s officers argued that, temporarily at least, space must be exchanged for time. Stalin reluctantly concurred. Even after he authorized a strategic retreat on July 6, some Soviet formations were cut off by the successive German pincers. While some of the trapped Russians fought on, others surrendered with only token resistance. Enraged, Stalin issued Order Number 227 on July 28. Distributed to all fighting units, it called for an end to retreat and demanded that each yard of Soviet territory be defended. The penalty for failure to comply ranged from summary execution to service in a penal unit. During the course of the war, more than 400,000 Russians were sentenced to penal battalions and another 250,000 were sentenced to be shot for failure to obey 227. http://history1900s.about.com/library/prm/blstalingrad2.htm Jun 07 05, 11:21 PM