My Birthday and Stalingrad

My birthday and Stalingrad

I happen to be born on 31 January 1943, which I now celebrate 70 years later. The truth is, I was born under an omen of unending war. Perhaps it was the most devastating battle that ever was fought, that between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet. Already in August the previous year Hitler had decided that Stalingrad (presently Volgograd, c. 1000 km southeast of Moscow) must be captured long before winter arrived; but despite untold suffering that the local population in this city had to endure, and German supremacy in the battle field, the decisive moment of victory did not arrive for the Germans but the winter did. In the end up to one million local civilians and soldiers on both sides died a gruesome death in the severe cold. The suffering was too great to be told ever. Both sides of the battle line plus the local population suffered. Food became so scarce that for months people lived on other human corps or rats. The actual battle lasted until 2 February 1943, but two days before, on 31 January it was all over in effect, because of the surrender of the German Field Marshal Paulus on that day. The other allied forces had little if anything to contribute further.

The German troupes had to pay dearly for this surrender. Of the 110 000 soldiers who were taken as POWs, only 5000 eventually returned to Germany, but only more than ten years later, in 1953. The others had succumbed to the inhospitable climate, severe marches and work camps or similar fate.

What nobody knew then was that this Stalingrad was the turning point of WW2, but also in world history. Hitler was not the indomitable one, but it seemed that Stalin, with acute assistance of the West, perhaps was.

Stalingrad was the peak in world history of the ultimate violation of human life and dignity under two of the worst leaders the world has ever seen, Hitler and Stalin.

The aftermath, that is the time after the end of WW2, is also remarkable. The tragedy somehow was too great to be comprehended in rational terms. A situation of bewilderment occurred, and emptiness and questions about the ultimate meaning of life became the order of the day.

The problem is, we have not yet come to terms with the disasters of the 20^th century and the preparations for these; we merely behave as if they have not taken place. While the west has clung to modernity and the quest for the rational as the only way forward a host of unanswered questions have been left behind. Unless we see the linkages between long-term colonialism, the endemic slave trade (Arab and Western), slavery in the Americas, and continued contestations between various nation states in Europe, all these phenomena play together into that tragedy that has become ours.

I am thus born under the sign of a cross, not the cross of Christ, but the cross of meaningless death and violence produced by two of the worst regimes and offenders that ever existed, those of Hitler and Stalin.

It is clear to me that the only redemption that the world will ever see is the cross of Christ, which is enough to cover even the agonies of Stalingrad, Russian and Soviet as well as German. Having been born under this sign of meaningless violence and suffering, made effective by two leaders obsessed by power and evil with total disregard for other human beings, the interpretation of my own birthday must be: I have to cling to another sign, an opposing sign, which is the cross of Christ; a sign that effects peace, that has regard for each individual human being, especially those who are vulnerable. That sign I have found and I thank God for it every day, just as Luther did every morning, 70 years hence.