In the closing months of 1942, only a few yards of bitterly contested ground stood between Hitler and the prize which he valued above all others: Stalingrad, the city on the Volga which carried the name of his greatest enemy. The terrible ferocity of the fighting in the ruined city plumbed the depths of human suffering the iron grip of a Russian winter. After the battle the wretched survivors of a beaten German army emerged from their hiding places and surrendered to the Red army. They had once been 350,000 strong but only 90,000 of these frost-bitten, starving scarecrows remained to make the painful forced march into Russian captivity.