Stalingrad revisited

Today the Russian city of Volgograd — Tsaritsyn until 1925 — will be known again as Stalingrad, the name it lost in 1961 when the USSR tried to purge the memory of one of the greatest, most murderous tyrants and leaders of the last century.

The temporary reversion is to mark today’s 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany’s Sixth Army at the Volga after 200 days of some of the most savage, inhuman fighting recorded by modern history. Almost 1m soldiers died; no one really knows how many civilians were lost.

It was in every sense a battle to the death because defeat for Zhukov’s defenders would have made the ultimate annihilation of all Russians inevitable. That catastrophe had already been visited on all of the peoples that once — and again today — stood between the borders of Hitler’s Germany and the Russian redoubt.

Today’s ceremonies will centre on the Tatar burial mound called Mamayev Kurgan. It was a pivotal site and was fought over bitterly. Tens of thousands of bodies still lie entombed in it. It is not hard to argue that this victory represents one of the moments when modern Europe was created.

Do we appreciate it enough and how certain can we be that there will never be another Stalingrad?