Battle of Stalingrad in colour, 75 years on

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

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

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

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 

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