What is Stalingrad Madonna?
Stalingrad Madonna is a famous coal drawing created by a German officer in 1942 during the siege of Stalingrad. Today, the original drawing hangs in the Cathedral of Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial in Berlin and after the war the German government sent copies to the United Kingdom and Russia as symbols of reconciliation. These copies of Stalingrad Madonna are displayed in Coventry and Volgograd. Man who painted work, Dr. Kurt Reuber, was imprisoned in Stalingrad, along with a large number of German troops during Christmas 1942. The morale of the soldiers was extremely low because the rations were minimal and the men were well aware that they did not have enough supplies to siege. Dr. Reuber decided to create a drawing for the sick and injured men in his care and try to finish it in his cramped dark neighborhoods. Because he had no paper, there was a procedure to use the back of the Russia map and described the screwing on his pencils every time he dropped them into the mud.
Because Dr. Reuber was spiritual and it was Christmas, made a drawing of Madonna and a child. The drawing depicts the baby Christ in the arms of Mary and both are wrapped in a large cloak. The edges of the drawing have the inscription " Licht, Leben, Liebe, Weihnachten im Kessel 1942. Festung Stalingrad ," or "Light, Life, Love, Christmas in the cauldron 1942. The German word Kessel , which is often translated into English, because the "boiler" or "boilers" concerns a situation surrounded by enemy forces.
Dr. Reuber described Stalingrad Madonn in a letter that wrote a home, and Madonn managed to get it from Stalingrad, now known as Volgograd, on one of the last German air trails outside the city. Dr. Reuber ended up in a Russian war camp, where he eventually died, while Madonna and his letters went home to his family in Germany.
Reuber's family briefly maintained Stalingrad Madonn, but when his letters and reproductions were published after the warStalingrad Madonna, donated drawing to the German government. Stalingrad Madonna attracted great attention in post -war Germany and came to be considered a symbol of hope and peace. In 1946, the German poet Arno Pötzsch published a collection of poetry inspired by a drawing and called Madonna of Stalingrad .