On this day ...

[Alex_Serbanescu]

1943 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army captured 91,000 tired and starving Germansoldiers, ending the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles in human history.

 

(source : Wikipedia)

 

I call for a celebration

 

[Finkeren]

Comemoration rather than celebration was what I'd think of. Stalingrad was such an important victory for humanity, but it came at such a tremendous cost, that it was hardly cause for festivities. Even at the time there was the realization just how far there still was to go, and how much blood had yet to be spilled, while the nazis continued their campaigns of ethnic cleansing and mass murder on an industrial scale behind the front lines, and you knew, that there was just no way to make it end quickly.

[-NW-ChiefRedCloud]

[Mastermariner]

The Sword of Stalingrad is a bejewelled ceremonial longsword specially forged and inscribed by command of George VI of the United Kingdom as a token of homage from the British people to the Soviet defenders of the city during the Battle of Stalingrad.^[1] On 29 November 1943 it was presented to Marshal Joseph Stalin by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at an afternoon ceremony during the Tehran Conference in the presence of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and an honour guard.

 

 

At that time west was thankful to CCCP to keep the world free from fascism.