Chronicle of the Battle of Stalingrad about how events developed in the largest battle of the twentieth century, says Oleg Rzhevsky, head of the department of the History of Wars and Geopolitics of the Universal History of the Russian Academy of Sciences The Battle of Stalingrad began on July 17, 1942. On this day, the Germans went on the offensive on Stalingrad. By July 1942, a new front was created to the west of the city.