h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So did 600,000 soldiers in the 6th army surrender in Stalingrad? And then what happened? Where they shipped to Siberia?

According to the book "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor (Appendix B) official statistics vary between 232,000 and 294,000 men in the "Kessel", of various nationalities (including estimations of up to 52,000 Russian Hiwi's).

Based on this source, 600,000 is far too much as an estimation of the total number caught in the encirclement.

Reasons for the inaccuracy: the chaos, divisional quartermasters overstated the number of men so as to receive more rations, and the moment you choose to "count" the men (the Germans evacuated at least 25,000 wounded and specialists by air; between 22 Nov and the capitulation approx 60,000 died).

Not many of these men survived the winter of 1942, most survivors were shipped to Siberia, though the Soviets used the prisoners also as a cheap workforce to clean up the city.

Wow, that's really nuts. This article was great to read, thanks! I was telling my co-workers all day about the story of the tanks rolling out of the factory, directly into battle.

I'm afraid you got me on the numbers taken prisoner (a typo that got through the edit), it was supposed to be 90,000 officers and men taken prisoner.

It was a very sad fact when you consider how many were finally released after the war. Especially sad was the fact that 45,000 of them died on the march to the Siberian camps.