The Stalingrad Madonna

http://www.feldgrau.com/articles.php?ID=74

In August 1983, a charcoal sketch titled the Madonna of Stalingrad was donated in a public ceremony to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche), the central tourist site in the heart of West Berlin. Drawn in a German bunker by Lieutenant Kurt Reuber, a staff physician and Protestant pastor, during the Battle of Stalingrad in December 1942, the Madonna was flown out of Stalingrad on the last transport plane to leave the surrounded German Sixth Army. Now on permanent display in the Memorial Church, the Madonna of Stalingrad evokes troubling memories of wartime Christmas and the Nazi past while simultaneously offering Germans a way to manage those recollections.
The organizers of the 1983 dedication ceremony positioned the Madonna as a symbol of peace and security (Geborgenheit), and the links between Stalingrad, German victimhood, and the tragedy of world war forged in their rhetoric resonated with Berliners. Observers of the ceremony wrote to the Berliner Morgenpost, a popular daily, to describe the "deep impression" the drawing made and the "deeply distressing" memories of Stalingrad it recalled. Just as the United States was stationing nuclear missiles on West German territory, one woman from Berlin drew connections between the escalation of the Cold War and the trauma of World War II, writing that "when I think back full of horror on the terrible years of the war, I wish that [End Page 7] all the ruling statesmen in the world, who stand again on the edge of the abyss, would have to stand in front of the Stalingrad Madonna and memorize the words 'light, life, love,' so that the insane arms race would end and the world would get true peace and liberty." 1 Even after the official dedication ceremony, the Madonna continued to prompt expressions of popular memory. According to Ruth Niebuhr, who worked in the souvenir stand in the anteroom of the church, repeat visitors to the Madonna included...

http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/03/28/stalingrad/index.html



Father, there is a God in your masses, there is a God in Germany, there is a God for the Generrals; but father, there is no God in Stalingrad!

asta era fraza cu c re incepea scrisoarea soldatului german trimisa tatalui sau, pastor luteran. Stiam ca au fost confiscate de sovietici si publicate de ei dupa 20de ani - imi aminteam de articolul care le orezenta prin anii 60 in revista Orizonturi. Intre timp am descoperit ca exista o carte, 'The Last Letters of Stalingrad' - ca ea cuprinde scrisorile. Am gasit-o pe Amazon.

Insa cartea prezinta scrisorile ca fiind plecate din Stalingrad cu unul din ultimele avioane germane - insa odata ajunse in Germania au fost oprite de cenzura. Este contestata autenticitatea scrisorilor - se spune ca un reporter aflat la Stalingrad (si care a reusit sa scape) le-ar fi compus sub forma de roman.

Stalingrad -Madonna - un desen facut de un soldat german aflat in incercuire la Stalingrad, de Craciun. O a doua imagine este de o frumusete intre straniu si sinistru - un grup de soldati sovietici dansand in cerc in jurul unui crocodil infrant de ei.

Ma tot gandesc sa incerc sa scriu ceva mai mult despre Staligrad, ca expresie a ceea ce ramane dupa ce orice speranta este pierduta - dar cred ca e un subiect mult prea challenging pentru mine.

Although the letters in this book are forgeries, that doesn't mean they aren't true. The man who wrote these letters was a German war correspondent, named Heinz Schroeter, who reported from the Stalingrad pocket. He also wrote the greatest book about that battle, called Stalingrad; To The Last Bullet. Schroeter wrote the letters from the point of view of the German soldiers he had come to know during the siege. He was intimately acquainted with how the soldiers thought and felt in Stalingrad and I believe he accurately portrayed how the "Last Letters from Stalingrad" would have actually sounded, had they been written. For sheer depth of human emotion, nothing comes close to this book. It will personally move you, and isn't that what all great books have in common?