Battle of Stalingrad is presented in the Presidential Library’s collections: from ordinary heroes to the city reborn by the whole world

February 2, 2019 marks 76 years since the complete defeat of the Nazi troops in the Battle of Stalingrad. Thanks to this victory in the winter of 1943, a turning point came in the war, and after Stalingrad the enemy could no longer recover.

Since 2010, the Presidential Library has been creating an electronic collection dedicated to the Great Patriotic War. It includes official documents, photographs and newsreels, war newspapers, books, propaganda publications, testimonies of participants in battles and home front workers.

A separate collection devoted to the combat operations of the period 1941-1945 is given to the Battle of Stalingrad. Moreover, the feat of the Soviet people, who did not let the enemy go beyond the Volga, can be traced at once in two dimensions: private and general.

You can read about the feat of individuals who gave their lives for the common cause in the Kochetkovtsy publication of 1942, that is, it was published when the Battle of Stalingrad (July 1942 - February 1943) was still in full swing.

“Reader, you should know about the immortal feat of 16 guards at Stalingrad. It was accomplished in the name of the Motherland by 16 patriots, ordinary Soviet people headed by their commander, the guard, Junior Lieutenant Vasily Kochetkov”, - the book says.

Guardsmen took up a position on one of the strategically important heights and at the cost of their lives did not miss 80 enemy machine gunners and 12 tanks. Four times the Nazis tried “to take the height”, and every time failed.

One of the Kochetkovtsy wrapped himself in grenades and rushed under the tracks of a German tank. It was followed by the second, third, fourth and others ...

The 1943 edition of the The Great Battle of Stalingrad says that at Stalingrad the Germans pulled together a gigantic mass of combat and the most modern technology at the time: airplanes, tanks, guns, mortars. This can be judged at least by what got to the Red Army as a result of the liquidation of the German group there. Only from January 10 to February 2, the Soviet military captured 750 aircraft, 1,550 tanks, 6,700 weapons, 1,462 mortars, 8,135 machine guns, 90,000 rifles, 61,102 cars, 7,369 motorcycles.

After heavy defensive battles in July - November 1942, on November 19, the Red Army seized the initiative and defeated 36 divisions on the approaches to Stalingrad only in the first six weeks of the offensive and surrounded 22 enemy divisions. 330 thousand German soldiers and officers were captured, 24 generals led by Field Marshal Paulus.

The book The Great Battle of Stalingrad (1943) reflects an editorial of Pravda on February 4, 1943, that is, two days after the end of the battle: They were confident that they would be able to seize Stalingrad, and more than once declared that Stalingrad was in their hands. On September 30, 1942, Hitler boastfully stated: "The occupation of Stalingrad is a tremendous success, and if we borrowed something, we cannot be moved from there". Goebbels in August 1942 told Turkish journalists that even before the onset of winter, the Red Army would be finished. German soldiers and officers in their letters to their relatives repeated these boastful statements ... ”

The book of Y. Berkovich and A. Lebedev-Morskoy “It was at the Stalingrad ferries” (1944) on the Presidential Library’s portal tells about the great feat of rivermen in Stalingrad.

Finally, the Presidential Library’s portal provides access to the book called Stalingrad Reborn (1944), especially valuable because it was written by A. S. Chuyanov, the then head of the city and the first secretary of the Stalingrad regional committee of the CPSU (B).

“On February 1, the Don Front troops completed the liquidation of a group of German fascist troops surrounded west of the central part of Stalingrad ... The city council held population counts. Only 33 people are registered in Yermansky district: 20 adults and 13 children. In the entire central part of Stalingrad - 751 people, in the southern part - 764 people. Thus, 1515 people remained in six districts of the city. About 450 thousand inhabitants used to live here”, - he cites terrifying statistics.

“However, the population grew rapidly”, - Chuyanov continues. - On all types of transport - on carts, skids, on passing cars - residents return to the city through the frozen Volga. On February 4, a citywide rally of workers of the city was held under the slogan “We will revive our native Stalingrad!”. All the present population went for cleaning ... Up to 150 kilometers of roads were cleared, 22 bridges and four dams were built”.

Among other books devoted to the Battle of Stalingrad on the Presidential Library’s portal one can highlight the essay by N. Zamyatin "From the experience of the battles of the Patriotic War" (1942) and "Stalingrad: Essays" (1944) by V. Grossman.

This three-minute clip depicts Stalingrad in 1942–1943 with such words: “The soldiers took an oath in Stalingrad: “Fight to the bitter end. There is no land for us beyond the Volga!" They fulfilled their oath".