AM - Russia remembers the Battle of Stalingrad
[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2152793.htm]
AM - Saturday, 2 February , 2008 08:25:00 Reporter: Scott Bevan ELIZABETH JACKSON: 65 years ago today, one of the bloodiest battles in the Second World War came to an end. The Battle of Stalingrad in Russia saw more than two million Soviet and German soldiers desperately fighting in the snow and mud for six months.
The Germans eventually surrendered in a battle that not only changed the course of the war but helped forge Russians' sense of who they were and who they continue to be.
Our Moscow correspondent, Scott Bevan, reports.
SCOTT BEVAN: The name Stalingrad may have disappeared off the maps of Russia, but it's been seared into the history books and into the hearts and memories of a nation. For it was in this southern Russian city from September 1942 that the attacking German army of one million met a force of equal numbers on the Russian side.
For both armies, the city represented so much. The Germans saw Stalingrad as a key to the Russian oil fields in the Caucasus. For the Soviets, it was about saving their city and perhaps their nation from the advancing Germans. As Joseph Stalin ordered the Russian troops - "not a step backwards".
SERGEI MARKEDONOV: Stalingrad battle is great event of the Great Patriotic War.
SCOTT BEVAN: Sergei Markedonov is from the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow. He says the battle was not only huge in scale but also in time. The fighting raged for almost six months, and soldiers confronted not only each other but also the weather, as the Russian winter proved every bit as brutal as men and their machines.
Yet by the second of February 1943, the Germans had lost with more than 90,000 being taken prisoner. Sergei Markedonov says this was more than a military victory to the Russians in what many here still call the Great Patriotic War.
SERGEI MARKEDONOV: Stalingrad battle demonstrated our possibilities to win victories. It was psychological event, first of all.
SCOTT BEVAN: Yet the human cost for both armies was atrocious. There were about 1.5- million casualties. And according to Veronika Zaitzeva, a guide at the Battle of Stalingrad Museum, it's a figure that stuns visitors more than six decades later.
VERONIKA ZAITZEVA: No indeed when we tell about how many were lost during the Stalingrad battle, it is a shock for everyone. Victory was given by the hard price.
SCOTT BEVAN: Many historians believe the Battle of Stalingrad changed the course of the Second World War. The Germans began their long retreat towards defeat.
VERONIKA ZAITZEVA: The victory of our Soviet troops here in Stalingrad became the main turning point, not only in the Great Patriotic War, but also in the Second World War, in the whole.
SCOTT BEVAN: The power of remembrance will be evident today in Volgograd, as Stalingrad is now called. To commemorate the 65th anniversary of the end of the battle, there will be a military parade, concerts, and a memorial service.
Veterans, like Boris Koshechkin, are returning to the city they fought so hard for.
(Sound of Boris Koshechkin speaking)
"It's a historic moment", he says, "We had it in our blood that we would destroy the enemy". And to this day, the battle shapes how the Russian people see themselves, as Sergei Markedonov explains.
SERGEI MARKEDONOV: This historical event nowadays is the basic element of contemporary Russian identity. No historical event of such importance as Great Patriotic War because other events divided our society, for example, October Revolution or events of 1991 or another events.
Great Patriotic War unites all Russians in their attitude to independence of our Motherland.
SCOTT BEVAN: This is Scott Bevan in Moscow for Saturday AM.
http://www.iww.org.au/node/10 "Would you have freedom from wage-slavery.." Joe Hill http://www.iww.org/en/join
Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email address. www.yahoo7.com.au/y7mail