Sorry, but “Enemy at the Gates” is only a middling movie that does NOT even come close to the full story about Stalingrad. In fact, its a cartoon-like simplification of that battle based on one small facet of it.
Instead, read the book “Enemy at the Gates”. Its pretty stunning. As much as I hate the Nazis, you can’t help but feel what the Germans in Stalingrad were going through as they were becoming ever more isolated and desperate. You know things are bad when you start bashing open the heads of your horses to eat their brains [yeah, that happened]. You know things are truly hopeless when soldiers don’t even bother to unload the few supply planes getting through.
Very few of the Germans who surrendered at Stalingrad ever made it home, but Paulus was treated quite well.
IIRC, only 5,000 of the 100,000 Axis troops were ever seen again (and that was years later). Italians and Eastern European allies were involved alongside German troops.
In hindsight, people mocked Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union but they forget that Hitler was a soldier 25 years earlier when Russia surrendered to Germany. If Japan hadn’t maintained their ceasefire with the USSR, the Soviets wouldn’t have been able to send their eastern troops westward to save Moscow (and the whole western half of the USSR) and it might have ended differently...
I would also recommend reading “The Beginning of the Road” by Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Chuikov. Gives very good insight into His handling of the meager resources to fight the German army in the city. This the only written account of Zaytsev’s duel with Col Konig. Side Note, Marshal Chuikov is the only MSU not buried in the Kremlin wall. He lies near his soldiers at Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd. The main weakness in the book is that it was released in 1963 and Chuikov had to give due deference to the Communist Party in the book.
“...but Paulus was treated quite well.”
Only after he became a converted Communist and started cooperating with his Soviet slave masters.
Not being critical, just saying.