The sources historians have largely drawn from are the testimonies of those who fought in the battle as well as civilian who witnessed their city turn into a warzone. This includes both testaments of soldiers and officers who had survived as well as surviving artifacts of those who died in the battle including diaries and letters. Both Gregory Zhukov and Vasili I. Chuikov wrote memoirs about the battle and provides researchers deep insight on the Soviet perspective of the events which occurred within Stalingrad. Film footage and photography demonstrate visually the warfare conducted in the battle. From the accounts of survivors, amazing stories arise of perseverance and horror. However, one of the most powerful and important source which emerged from Stalingrad were the Last Letters from Stalingrad.

 

The Last Letters from Stalingrad, is a collection of letters written by the German soldiers trapped within Stalingrad in January of 1943 to loved ones in Germany (Figure 1).1 The letters were first published in West Germany in 1954 by C. Bertelsmann Verlag.2 Not only do the letters tell the story of the German soldiers trapped at Stalingrad, but also censorship within the Nazi Germany. After the letters first arrived in Germany, they traveled through multiple bureaus where they were analyzed and were statistically categorized based on the outlook of the message into 5 categories: 3

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2.1% Positive Attitude towards the Leadership

 

4.4% Doubtful

 

57.4% Negative

 

3.4% Actively Opposed

 

33% Indifferent

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It was disgusting bureaucracy where messages of condemned men writing home were intercepted to evaluate troop morale. The letters were then sent to the Army Press Corps who were to document the events in Stalingrad, however the hopelessness among the writers was clear.4 Copies of the letters were mailed to an Army archive where they were to remain until the fall of Berlin.5

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 Figure 1: A German soldier's letter from the

compilation of the Last Letters from Stalingrad

 

 

The letters themselves tell the personal tragedies of the German soldiers who were entrapped in Stalingrad.  Many of the men writing the letters speak with a complete loss of hope as they recognize their fate. One man writes:

 

You were supposed to die heroically, inspiringly, movingly, from inner conviction and for a great cause. But what is death in reality here? Here they croak, starve to death, freeze to death it's nothing but a biological fact like eating and drinking. They drop like flies; nobody cares, and nobody buries them. Without arms or legs and without eyes, with bellies torn open, they lie around everywhere.

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A Voyant Tools links analysis demonstrates this complete lack of hope which demonstrates most of the words used in these letters were negative.

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Figure 2: Voyant Tools Analysis of Last Letters from Stalingrad

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Religion had also been the topic of many letters. Some still clung to the belief in God, however most had forsaken the faith through their horrific experiences. One man makes this abundantly clear to his father who is a pastor.6

 

I have searched for God in every crater, in every destroyed house, on every comer, in every friend, in my fox hole, and in the sky. God did not show Himself, even though my heart cried for Him. The houses were destroyed, the men as brave or as cowardly as myself, on earth there was hunger and murder, from the sky came bombs and fire, only God was not there. No, Father, there is no God.

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These primary sources are essential to historians so that they can fully understand the causes of how and why this battle unfolded the way it did so to prevent warfare to ever become this savage again. World War II despite being among developed nations is one of the most brutal conflicts ever in history, not only in body count but also in rape, civilian targeting, use of atomic bombs, and savage warfare techniques. Of the battles in the Second World War, Stalingrad trumps all in its abundance of savagery and death which occurred.

 

  

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