Last Letters from Stalingrad

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Last Letters from Stalingrad was the title of an anthology first published in West Germany, which was translated into many languages. The book contained supposedly authentic war letters of German soldiers of the battle around Stalingrad.

[edit] Contents

By the personal tragedies whose expression these last letters from Stalingrad are the reader gets a more tangible impression of the frights of war. The stupefying book which also is, in a way, of literary quality, tells about the "single human being (...) in the face of the death " (Ferber) and contradicts in reporting and historiography usual reports of anonymous-armies-sacrifice. Numerous translations and new editions followed the first publishing in 1950.

[edit] A human document

Abroad the letters were read mainly as a "human document which bares the soul of the man at his worst hour". Thus the anthology has contributed in the post-war period also to the reconciliation of the foreign country with the Germans and to the dismantling of the enemy's picture of Germany as a " land of the Nazis ". It's said, that French president François Mitterrand had carried during his last life months the French issue of the Last Letters from Stalingrad constantly on himself and took some inspiration from them, which he used, e.g., in his famous speech at the 50-th anniversary of the end of the war on the 8th May, 1995.

[edit] Inspiration

The book Last Letters from Stalingrad has inspired in younger time also two big works of the contemporary music theater: a chamber music work of Elias Tanenbaum (New York) and the 10-th symphony of French composer Aubert Lemeland, a collage from music and recitation.