Stalingrad rises anew from the rubble

Pate

Seven years after

GEV EN years ago this month
the turning / ‘point came in
the Battle of Stalingrad, the
greatest single battle in history
and the key, cut by the heroism
of the Soviet people, that un-

locked: the gates to victory in
the Second World War.

The battle itself did not end
until three months later, on Feb-
ruary 2, 1943,

On the -morning of that day,

in the basement of a destroyed.

. building which had once been a
- department store, Field. Marshal

be Friedrich von Paulus’ assembled :

the generals who had led the
“invincible’. German 6th Army.
and ordered one of them to con-
tact the high command of the
Red Army and convey a sur-
render message. .
After a while a group of Rus-
sian infantrymen, led by a 21
year ‘old lieutenant, strode into
the basement with rifles at the
ready. / With perhaps a little less
than his normal Prussion arro-
gance, von Paulus introduced
himself and asked to be led to
the Russian commander-in-chief.
The Red Army lieutenant pointed
“to the exit with a nod of his
head and von Paulus, followed
by his coterie of 15 generals,
marched out of the basement and
across the
of what once had been a beauti-
ful city.
A short while later the surren-
der was down in writing, the
-Wehrmacht’s 6th Army ceased to
exist as a fighting force officially
as well as in fact, and an eerie,
strange and almost painful sil-
ence fell upon the mountains of

ruins on the banks ‘of the Volga.

e
* The Battle of Stelitigrad was
not only the turning point of the
war in Russia but, perhaps, the
turning point of world history.

For had the German plan of con- —
quest been successful all Europe

and Asia would have come under
the control of the Axis, and Ger-
many and Japan, with the econ-
omic and material resources of a
major_part of the globe in their
possession, then could have con-
centrated all their might upon
an isolated and as yet peEropares|
United States. -
What was the or Plan of
the Nazis?
It was this.
“3942 the German armies in Rus-

snow-covered ruins”

In the summer of |

Stalingrad

4

sia’ held a line some 200 miles

west of Moscow from the Baltic

south to the Black.Sea. When
the Wehrmacht _ started
mighy offensive in July of 1942
the aim was to smash through
and take Stalingrad, then send
one column further south into
the Caucases to capture the rich

oilfields there, and another- wing

north to take Moscow from the
“rear.

of Thus, the Nazis envisioned a
gigantic encirclement of all the
Red Army forces in Fuyopean
Russia and the breakup “ of organ-
ized Soviet resistance. With

Russia on its genees, the Nazis-

then planned to head east
through Persia’ and India to effect
a junction with their Japanese

allies plunging west through de-.:

moralized China-and chaotic and
defenseless Burma,

It ‘was a grandiose but very
real plan for the conquest of the
world—a conquest that would

have set all humanity back for —

countless’ generations,
e i ; sis
' The plan started auspiciously

enough. In _the second week of
July the German 6th Army,

which had been building up for.

this assault all during the win-
ter and spring, concentrated an

enormously superior force in the

Ukraine, broke through the
Southern front on a large = scale

_and pouréd east over the Don
Cossack land toward Stalingrad.

es Ean think ‘enough. can be said sé praise of

the Red Army.”—President, Harry S. Truman.
“The defense of Stalingrad will be something
for the whole world to remember as an extraordinary
-test_ met by human beings with a devotion saga

seen.!’—Eleanor Roosevelt.

“The struggle and victory of this army has
‘best’ an. inspiration to those who do not know the
spirit of the Russian ia gabe OSs Senator (now
. Barkley.

Vice-President) Alben W.

its

over his

the hellish and

Although they failed to broaden '
the base of their offensive, their
spearheads made rapid progress
in the drive to the bend of the
Volga, where Stalingrad was sit-
uated on the west bank.

On August 8 the first contin-

gents of the Nazi Army reached |

Adolf PELen shrieked ©
radio that
in the world ‘will ever dislodge
us from here,’ and the mon-
strous struggle began.

the city.

For four long, bitter months
titanic battle
raged in the city. In an area of
comparatively few square miles,
with little space for maneuver,
close to a million men locked in
the most fearful kind of war-
fare—bayonet, grenade and hand-
to-hand fighting. The people of
Russia and of the whole demo-
cratic world watched the
struggle with bated breath and

_ the word Stalingrad took on new
‘meaning and became
-mous with everything brave, fine

Synono-

and decent in human life.)

Few expected the men of Stal- j

ingrad to win for, after all, how
could mere blood and_ flesh
stand up under this relentless
pounding of steel and fire? The
city became a holacaust;
gan to burn on the fifth day of
the siege and continued to burn

for the duration, Not a single .
‘building remained standing and

even soldiers: who had been born
and raised in the city could not

‘from day.
“no force |

it be-—

identify |
borhoods.
Men fought for 30 we 40, suc-
cessive hours, fell asleep on their
feet for two, and then went
on again until
all sense of reality and night
could hardly be distinguished
Companies, battalions

its streets and neight-

and sometimes
fought for one city street and,
later, for one house on that one
street; and later still, for one

room in that ome house on that

one street.

Russian officers pleaded with
Moscow for reinforcements, In-
variably the reply was,

backwards,” —

It was a bitter and cruel reply
but it was dictated by the mas-
ter plan then shaping up in
Moscow. You had but to glance
at the war map ‘of the time to
see the outlines of the plan. The

long tongue ‘of the German 6th

Army was dangerously  over-
extended from its base in the
Ukraine to, its tip in Stalingrad.
It practically invited being chop-
ped off. It was.

The Soviet high command or-
dered the men of Stalingrad to
fight against such overwhelming

German superiority because they _

wanted to bleed the’ Nazis white

‘in a defensive battle while hus-

banding their owh forces for the
dit ‘assault to come later,

HA cE

What they said Stout Russia -- then

Feorsin Minister and a leader. ef the Conservative

ms ‘The triumph of the Red Amy is (hele Roh
of all peace-loving humanity and heralds a new day
in world affairs as well. as the emergence of a

the world lost |

even divisions |

“Fight |
with what you have. Not a ph)

¢

_ bank of the river.

when the relation of for
tween the two armies

By November it became aP
parent the Nazis! had spent th
selves and the Red Army com-
mand began to move up tWe
enormous armies on the - east —
The deadline

closer and

for revenge drew

closer.

Finally, on the dawn of No
vember 13, 1942, the men of Stal-
ingrad awoke to the glorious
symphony of ‘Russian artillery
barrages. The artillery thunder
ed_its victory chords for more
than five hours and then two
mighty armor-led armies proke
through north and south of the
city. They tore jagged : choles in
the German. lines. and swept
triumphantly westward, :

It was as if the pent-up and
sacred wrath of all the 200 mil-
lion Russian people was in those
‘twin offensives, seeking retribu-
tion for all the suffering, death ~
and destruction the Nazis had _
caused. In November 23 the two:
Russian armies joined at a spot.
mere than 150 miles west of
‘Stalingrad and closed the trap
on= 830,000 of Adolf Hitler's i —
vincible “Aryan supermen.

It was the beginning of th¢
énd for Nazi Germany, 2 mere ,
decade after the rise to power -
ofa system Hitler had boasted —
would endure a thousand years:
What followed after was simply —
an epilogue. ;
@

Why is it necessary to veoaneh « ‘
in 1949—the story of Stalin:
‘grad? a i

| Why go into it in such detail |
at this moment?

It is necessary because che

+ monopolists of. the U.S. and their

counterparts in Canada and Brit
ain, their accomplices in west:
ern Europe, aré planning 9%
other war—this time against the.
Soviet Union—and in order . to.
lay. the groundwork for this wath
and trap the people into fight-
ing it, they must first tear the
memory of Stalingrad from thé
hearts and minds of the people:
They must besmirch and PY
fane the nobility, grandeur, 2?
unsurpassed heroism of. tee
battle and the ‘people who fought
it. They must slander the na
‘tion which produced such peopl?
and they must slander the mer :
who led such a nation. .
They? must, in other words)
tear Stalingrad out of history”
and pretend it never happene™
But they can never do thle
because Stalingrad did happen
and Stalingrad is history, an
the people and the nation 27°
the leaders who made it pos
sible are essentially the same ae
day as they were back in thos? —
grim, tight-lipped yet glorious
‘days of 1942-43.
And if changes
have taken place .
taken place in Stalingrad °F
elsewhere in the Soviet Unio™
but in Washington and ottaw®

for the worse a
they have 2°

and London. “i

/ _ great new democratic power in the es ‘—New

York Times.

and inde

dence. ~

* “The heroic city is a legend for all freedom- of gratitude to the Red Army and’its leader es
Joving people.’ seers, Eats: Lacie British shall Stalin." —St. Louis Post Dispatch =

4.

“Stalingrad will remain Sieve: is a Peevrbal
of the. imperishable will of a free people for liberty —
The world owes a lasting debt —

_ What, secbntlath was the sie
nificance of Stalingrad? bite

Why did the péople of we ;
world so instinctively realize th@
Stalingrad’ ws one of the ae :
important events of the ae
century?

Why does it tower so ‘Above, eh

the other mighty battles fough

in the Second World War? t
Stripped of all extraneous | mat
ter, ‘the Battle of Stalingrad ¥’
in its essence, a struggle n
so much of guns and er.
“but of men. It was @ strugele

oe

- between . the _ men produced

two wholly | different social ay
economic systems — ~capitalis
‘grown to fascism, and ee &

“And in this” “struggle OF
sSoHAlaS « duration , cand

"(Concluded | on next, -pauge)

"ACTEIO TRIBUNE — "NOVEMBER 4, 1949 — “page | se