The Battle of Stalingrad in the Presidential Library fund: memories, newsreels, photographs, rare editions

On February 2, 1943, the Soviet Army defeated the German fascist troops in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Presidential Library portal features the collection "Memory of the Great Victory", where a large number of electronic materials dedicated to this battle was collected: video chronicles, memoirs of participants of events, issues of the "Stalingradskaya Pravda" for 1942-1943; here are also presented rare books, wartime posters, photos of the memorial on the Malakhov kurgan and much more.

In the winter of 1941, the fascist invaders were thrown back from Moscow. But then the Soviet army was again defeated, and the enemy managed to advance deep into the country, which opened the way to the Volga and the Caucasus. Oil fields, developed industrial cities in these regions were connected by water and land communications, in the center of which Stalingrad was. Hitler's words about the importance of capturing Stalingrad and the water connecting artery - the Volga - are given in N. Zamyatin's essay "From the experience of the battles of the Patriotic War" (1942): "Stalingrad is of decisive importance for us; the fact that we opposed the expectation to attack on the Central Front, but in Stalingrad, is due to the fact that I wanted to reach the Volga in a certain place, at a certain city. This is a gigantic way, and we want to have it". 

"The Germans began an offensive from the Kharkov-Kursk area", - writes M. Vodolagin in the book “The Great Battle of Stalingrad” (1944), an electronic copy of which is presented on the portal of the Presidential Library. - Stopped by the troops of the Voronezh Front, German troops turned down the Don in the direction of Stalingrad. The city was attacked by Hitler's 6th Army. Soldiers and officers of this army were notorious thugs".

Since the summer of 1942, more than half a year the military confrontation at Stalingrad lasted. At certain stages in the battle, more than two thousand tanks and about the same number of aircraft, more than twenty thousand guns and mortars, participated simultaneously.

The newspaper “Stalingradskaya Pravda” of January 9, 1942 says: "The working people of Stalingrad will give the front everything necessary to defeat the enemy", next to the reports from factories and collective farm fields that dispatch shells and provisions to army units. In the same issue, in the note "The Word of the Soviet Intelligentsia" we read: ""The German invaders", - says Associate Professor A. A. Rukhelman, - want our land. We will give it to them - just as much as necessary to bury the damned German horde". Comrade Rukhelman dismissed his two-day earnings for sewing warm clothes and linens for fighters and commanders of the Red Army and made a proposal to follow his example to the entire faculty".

"Flipping through" electronic pages of newspapers of those years, you can see how the attitude towards the Soviet people in the West has changed, bringing the opening of the Second Front closer.

In the issue "Stalingradskaya Pravda" for June 21, 1942, under the heading "Telegrams from abroad" we read: "New York, June 19, (TASS): The Mayor of the City of New York, La Gardia announced that in New York from 20 On June 25, a week of rendering assistance to Russia in the war will be held. "The Russian people", said La Guardia, - who inspired the whole world with his stubborn struggle, is now our ally in this titanic struggle against aggression. The Russian people dispelled the myth of the invincibility of the Axis powers".

A three-minute video the Presidential Library portal shows Stalingrad of 1942-1943, the voiceover text is heard: "In Stalingrad, soldiers swore: "Stand to the death. There is no land beyond the Volga for us!" And they carried out their oath". In the presented newsreel - the true heroes of this battle: Soviet soldiers, protecting every inch of their native land. 

200 days and nights the confrontation on the Volga continued. On February 2, 1943, at 16 o'clock, the fighting for the liquidation of the German-fascist troops, surrounded in the Stalingrad area, was over.

The victory of the Soviet troops was highly appreciated by the Allies. According to Marshal Chuikov, the word "Stalingrad" was included in the dictionary fund of all languages ​​of the world. On the historical footage of the video chronicle mentioned above, Tehran was captured in 1943, where the famous "Big Three" conference was held - the meeting of J. Stalin, F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill, on which the final strategy of the struggle against Germany and its allies was developed. A unique moment in the course of the meeting is the solemn transfer of the sword to the Soviet leadership from King George VI, admired by the feat of Russian troops. The sword engraved a message in Russian and English "Citizens of Stalingrad, strong as steel, from King George VI as a sign of deep admiration of the British people". Winston Churchill reads the message and hands the sword to Joseph Stalin.

The Presidential Library portal also features a photograph of another unique gift - a banner embroidered by Norwegian women for the defenders of Stalingrad. It was transferred to the USSR on the day of the first anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad.

The Presidential Library fund has collected thousands of electronic documents dedicated to the Great Patriotic War and, in particular, the Battle of Stalingrad. All of them are united in the collection "Memory of the Great Victory", presented on the portal.