STALINGRAD By Ilya Ehrenburg Published in Red Star Septermber 6, 1942
This is not the first week of the battle for Stalingrad. A hard battle. The Germans have decided to cut through the Volga, to strangle Russia to death. Tens of German divisions have been thrown at Stalingrad. Here Germany is raving on the scorching steppe before an unrestrained city. Here there are SS-men, Prussians, Bavarians, fieldmarshals, tank crewmen, and soldiers transfered from France, gendarmes from Holland, pilots from Egypt, veterans and recruits. Here they are promising Iron Crosses and handing out wooden ones.
When Russians give up a city, the hearts of everyone weep blood. A city is a forest, and many years are needed for it to grow. In every city, there are centers of human lives, factories, steets complicated as a brain with their ebbs and flows, big squares where the will of the people is formed and small cozy apartments where lovers trade burning oathes. Eevery city is a wise book, it is a country, it is an enormous family. A city cannot be fiven up. A city cannot be thrown away. A city is not a name or a circle on a map, a city is a living body, a loved one.
Defenders of Stalingrad, Russia is watching you with hope. Remember -- the enemy was by Moscow. The enemy burned homes in Moscow region. The enemy was strong, and the enemy was in haste. The enemy was not allowed to enter Moscow. Who didn't allow it? Soldiers. A year go, the enemy was by Leningrad. He was breathing like a raging beast, and the Leningraders felt its fiery breath on the face of the city. The enemy did not come into Leningrad: the enemy was not allowed to enter. Tula is not Moscow, and it is not Leningrad, but Tula stood fast. The enemy enveloped it and squeezed, but Tula withstood. Defenders of Stalingrad, the country is breathing with your valor. The enemy is close, but the enemy has come close to its goal many times without achieving it. The Germans know how to calculate well, but they often miss the score, they forget in their qwuations that a brave Russian is ten and he is a hundred soldiers, that every little home can be made a fortress and that every hour may change the situation.
Stalingrad -- is the Volga. Who can say what the Volga means for Russia? There is no such a river in Europe. It cuts across Russia; it cuts across the heart of every Russian. The people has composed hundreds of songs about "Volga-Mother." It sings the Volga and it lives through the Volga. Noisy cities and enormous factories have grown up on the Volga, an on the Volga, gazing on the mysterious fires of steamers, young people talked about freedom, about struggle, about love, about inspiration. On the upper reaches of the Volga, harsch battles with the Germans are taking place. The river will tell the heroes of Stalingrad about the heroes fighting for Rzhev. The Colga is the wealthm the glories, the pride of Russia. Will the vile Hermans really wash their horses in it, in the Volga, in this great Russian river?...
In an old song, it is sung:
"You have stretched yourself, o steppe, as far as Tsaritsyn. "With what are you, o steppe, adorned?"
Now, the steppe is adorned with German graves, and the Germans fear to look back. "We have a peculiar disease -- fear of space": thus speaks a captive lieutenant. Behind them is ash. Before them is flame. Before them is a city that is not giving up.
The Germans now have many words with which they can frighten one another to death. And one more has been added: Stalingrad. A German soldiers writes to his mother: "In the fatherland, only a person with a diabolical imagination could imagine that we are surviving. There are four people left in the division. I ask you: how many German cities must be emptied, for us finally to control Stalingrad?" They have already been emptied, all these hateful Stralzunds and Schneidemuls, but Stalingrad the Germans have not taken.
Hitler send newer and newer divisions into battle. The fanatic will not stop no matter what: "More soldiers! More airplanes!" When they tell him, "Sentember is at the gate. What will happen to us in winter?", he waves them aside. He needs Stalingrad at any price. And the Germans are tearing into the city. Battles take place day and night. It is unspeakably hard for the defenders of Stalingrad, but they hold the line.
How to forget about the 33rd? Seventy German tanks attacked them. The 33rd did not waiver. They destroyed the tanks with bullets, with grenades, with Molotov cocktails. The Russian heart once again proved itself stronger than iron. If a foreigner tells else that only a miracle can save Stalingrad, we will answer: was the heroism of the 33rd not a miracle? The enemy still does not know what a Russian person is capable of when he is defending his earth.
You can choose your friend. You can choose your wife. No one can choose his mother. There is only one mother. She is loved, because she is -- mother. At Stalingrad, we are defending our mother, Russia.
We are defending our earth. The people has long called "mother earth" its provider and ??? (CD -- "poilitsaya" -- don't know this word). The earth is a man's first joy and the place of his eternal rest. It is washed with sweat, tears, and blood. They ??? (CD -- "another word I don't know, Ehrenburg is using some pretty high-falutin' vocab in this final paragraph) kiss it the earth. Soldier, the earth beneath your feet is holy. Don't give it up! Don't let the German onto it. In olden days, when a Russian crossed himself, it was possible not to believe him, but when he swallowed a pinch of earth, everyone knew: he isn't lying. They swore by the earth. We swear by the earth, by a pinch and by an immense country. For Stalingrad, for the Volga, for Russian earth!
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