The city was practically totally destroyed. Without infrastructure wouldn’t it have just been some pile of rocks on the Volga? Why did the axis not just set up shop a few miles down the river after destroying the city?
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Both leaders were making decisions for ideological not rational reasons.
Hitler invaded the Soviet Union as a ‘Vernichtungskrieg’, a war of annihilation. Stalin was fighting an existential war to defend the motherland and prevent the destruction of communist ideology. In a speech shortly after the invasion, Stalin said “if the Germans want a Vernichtungskrieg, they will get it”.
It was a war led by two dictators with absolute power and unquestionable authority. It was inevitable that they’d go all-in against each other somewhere, and that place ending up being Stalingrad.
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