Stalingrad Madonna The Stalingrad Madonna is an image of the Virgin Mary drawn by a German soldier , Kurt Reuber , in 1942 in Stalingrad ( now Volgograd ) , Russia , during the Battle of Stalingrad . The original is displayed in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church , Berlin , whilst copies now hang in the cathedrals of Berlin , Coventry and Volgograd as a sign of the reconciliation between Germany and the United Kingdom and Russia , which were enemies during the Second World War . Design . The piece is a simple charcoal sketch , measuring three feet by four feet . Mary is depicted wrapped in a large shawl , holding the infant Jesus close to her cheek . On the right border are the words " Licht , Leben , Liebe " ( " Light , Life , Love " ) , from the Gospel of John . On the left , Reuber wrote " Weihnachten im Kessel 1942 " ( " Christmas at the Seige 1942 " ) and at the bottom " Festung Stalingrad " ( " Fortress Stalingrad " ) . " Kessel " ( " Cauldron " ) , is the German term for an encircled military area , and Fortress Stalingrad was the label for the encircled army promoted in the Nazi press . History . The picture was drawn by Lieutenant Kurt Reuber , a German staff physician and Protestant pastor , in December 1942 during the Battle of Stalingrad . Reuber wrote : I wondered for a long while what I should paint , and in the end I decided on a Madonna , or mother and child . I have turned my hole in the frozen mud into a studio . The space is too small for me to be able to see the picture properly , so I climb on to a stool and look down at it from above , to get the perspective right . Everything is repeatedly knocked over , and my pencils vanish into the mud . There is nothing to lean my big picture of the madonna against , except a sloping , home - made table past which I can just manage to squeeze . There are no proper materials and I have used a Russian map for paper . But I wish I could tell you how absorbed I have been painting my madonna , and how much it means to me . " < br > " The picture looks like this : the mother ' s head and the child ' s lean toward each other , and a large cloak enfolds them both . It is intended to symbolize ' security ' and ' mother love . ' I remembered the words of St . John : light , life , and love . What more can I add ? I wanted to suggest these three things in the homely and common vision of a mother with her child and the security that they represent . He added that he : went to all the bunkers , brought my drawing to the men , and chatted with them . How they sat there ! Like being in their dear homes with mother for the holiday . Later , Reuber hung the drawing in his bunker for his unit celebration , which he described as a moment of Christian devotion shared by all the soldiers in his command . When according to ancient custom I opened the Christmas door , the slatted door of our bunker , and the comrades went in , they stood as if entranced , devout and too moved to speak in front of the picture on the clay wall . . . The entire celebration took place under the influence of the picture , and they thoughtfully read the words : light , life , love . . . Whether commander or simple soldier , the Madonna was always an object of outward and inward contemplation . The Madonna was flown out of Stalingrad by a battalion commander of the 16th Panzer division on the last transport plane to leave the encircled German 6th Army . Reuber was taken captive after the surrender of the 6th Army , and died in a Soviet prisoner of war camp in 1944 . The Madonna and a number of letters from Reuber were delivered to his family . There they remained , until German federal president Karl Carstens encouraged Reuber ' s surviving children to donate the work to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin . Springer , Reuber ' s three children and Prince Louis Ferdinand ( in his role as chair of the Memorial Church board of trustees ) attended the dedication ceremony in August 1983 . Influence . The drawing and Reuber ' s letters were published shortly after the war , and Navy chaplain Arno Pötzsch wrote an apologetic book of poetry entitled " The Madonna of Stalingrad " in 1946 . The work became a powerful symbol of peace in the Cold War era , as well as part of the mythologising of Stalingrad and the events of the Second World War in German society . Copies were presented , and are displayed , in the cathedrals of Volgograd ( formerly Stalingrad ) , Berlin , and Coventry as a symbol of reconciliation . Similarly a ' Cross of Nails ' from Coventry is displayed with the Madonna in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church . The Prisoners ' Madonna . Reuber painted a second similar picture in captivity around Christmas 1943 . He was by this time in a prisoner of war camp in Yelabuga , some 1 , 000 kilometres north - east of Stalingrad , and the painting was made for the prisoners ' newspaper . He titled it ' The Prisoners ' Madonna ' . Reuber did not live to see another Christmas , dying of illness a few weeks later on 20 January 1944 .