"Our units were tired. There were many whining pessimists in the army. I threw these panicky people out of the army right away and set to work. I told our men we could not retreat beyond the Volga... I believe that nowhere else in this war was there such bloody hand-to-hand combat. Nowhere else were bayonets and hand grenades used so widely as in Stalingrad...Lieutenant General Rodimtzev's division was first to arrive there and received the fierce German blow. Rodimtzev told me: 'We will fight to the last man, but we shall not leave the city.' ...Our soldiers had only one idea. Stalin had ordered us not to retreat."
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Quoted in "They Shall Not Sleep" - Page 318 - by Leland Stowe - 1944
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vasily_Chuikov
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Vasily Chuikov
Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov (February 12, 1900 – March 18, 1982) was a Soviet lieutenant general in the Red Army during World War II, commander of the 62nd Army during the Battle of Stalingrad, twice Hero of the Soviet Union (1944, 1945), and after the war a Marshal of the Soviet Union.
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