Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943
by Antony Beevor
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Book Reviews of Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943
Book Review: Stalingrad: The beginning of the end for Hitler
Summary: 5 Stars
I decided to purchase this book due to the facts that I am a huge World War II history buff, fan, etc, and the fact that while I have read numerous books on the Normandy Campaign and D-Day, and the drive to the Rhine, etc, of the European Campaign in World War II, that I have never honestly read a book about Operation Barbarossa and the siege at Stalingrad. I knew this needed to change so I purchased this book mainly as a result of hundreds of good reviews on here and the fact I respected Antony Beevor after reading his account of D-Day and the Normandy Campaign, a very well done book in its own right. I have also purchased Beevor's "The Fall of Berlin" so stay posted for a review on that. Anyways, on to the book review itself.
Stalingrad is horribly...truthful, honest, and shows what World War II was really like for most of the brave men and women who found themselves caught up in the horrific conflict of the war in the early 1940s. Beevor brilliantly captures the essence of the situation in Stalingrad and in Russia as a whole throughout. He discusses the shock and surprise that the Russians felt when the Germans decided to attack Russia, and the crushing defeats that Hitler's facist Third Reicht handed out in Operation Barbarossa in 1941, and almost even capturing the city of Moscow. The next year saw a stalemate of sorts as the Germans controlled most of Stalingrad, named after Joseph Stalin, but the surprise offensive by the Russians in November of 1942 quickly surrounded and devastated the German army, ending Stalingrad siege in late January 1943. The Russians had the Germans on the run after this and the rest is history with the Russians capturing Berlin a couple of years later.
The true aspect of Beevor's work is how he conveys the horrors of the situation for all the soliders and citizens of Stalingrad throughout. Vivid, horrific accounts of how people died, and how soldiers starves, lost limbs, crushed by tanks, had frostbite, etc, are all discusssed. Beevor also discusses the fanatical ways of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin throughout, and how propoganda played a huge role in the way each country's people viewed the whole Russian campaign for both sides. Beevor's account of the fateful siege of Stalingrad is a gripping account and will keep the reader rivoted throughout the book. I would definitely reccomend this book to anyone who has an interest in history and World War II history especially.
Book Review: Worth Reading-But Still Lacking Something
Summary: 4 Stars
Antony Beevor has written an important book because there is an appalling lack of knowledge in the Western World about what happened in the Soviet-German theater during World War II so anything that contributes to alleviating this problem is welcome. Therefore, I think the fact that a significant fraction of the book is devoted to describing what happened in the war before the German's began their offensive towards Stalingrad and the Caucasus is worthwhile.I do agree with other reviewers who state that the actual fighting inside Stalingrad is not described adequately. Two legendary engagements within the city (the Battle of the Grain Elevator and "Pavlov's House") are just given a few lines each. A more detailed description of what the fighters on each side went through would have given a real taste of how the campaign has fought.
On the other hand, Beevor does make some important points that have have been glossed over in other accounts of the battle. First, unlike other writers, Beevor does not portray German Sixth Army commander Paulus as just a simple-minded lackey of [dictator] who led his men into disaster and then refused to try to save them after they were cut off inside the "Kessel". Beevor points out that the Sixth Army was in very poor condition at the time of Manstein's attempt to reach the Kessel and so it would not have been possible for the Sixth Army to punch through the Soviet ring. Similarly, he also points out that not all the Rumanian troops fighting on the side of the Germans were incompetant bunglers as they are often portrayed.
Beevor also makes clear that Goebbels' infamous "Total War" campaign, begun just at the time the Sixth Army surrendered, was a thinly disguised attempt to create another "stab-in-the back" legend (as in the 1918 armistice), i.e. to shift the blame for the disaster from [dictator] and the [German] leadership onto the traditional aristocracy and the Army high command which was an important component of the German (or really, Prussian) ruling elite.
Finally, Beevor makes clear that the German prisoners could not expect to receive treatment much better than that which they gave to the Soviet prisoners they had previously captured and who were starved and brutalized in the millions. This explains why half of the 91,000 prisoners taken died within 3 months and why only 5,000 survived to return to Germany in the 1950's.
Book Review: A typical eastern front book
Summary: 1 Stars
Mr. Beevor may well have traveled to lots of places, to meet lots of people and to analyze countless world war II documents and archives to write his book. However, the final product can easily be added to a huge list of typical books related to the military operations in the eastern front in WWII.The book has a wide variety of weaknesses, as a matter of fact from the very beggining of the book:
"'Russia', observed the poet Tyuchev, 'cannot be understood with the mind'" (Preface!!!)...
Again, i find myself before an author who gladly provides me with his own words to strike and to possibly shatter his own arguments. Need examples?
He insists the one of the greates mistakes, out of thousands, the Germans made was to underestimate the red army. So let's quote Mr. Beevor: "Japanese military intelligence took rather a different view. It was about the only foreign service which did not underestimate the red army at this time." (page 24).
...
Again, we find a book, where the infinite boldness and bravery of the ordinary soviet soldier is highly praised. This pattern can be easily found everywhere in Mr. Beevor's book. Even when he focus in the moments where the 6th Army gave the red army a heavy battering. It's very simple, basic perhaps, if the defenders were bold, the attackers were bolder, however Mr. Beevor appears to have had no idea about that. "The russians always fought to the very last moment and never surrendered". (I think the Germans took more the 5 million soviet prisoners)...
He calls Zhukov "an agressive young commander". Perhaps he was agressive. But a tactician, i am not so sure.
Part Four "Zhukov's trap", is another weak link in Beevor's chain. I agree that Zhukov had much better tactical ideas compared to the rest of the soviet commanders, however, i am firmly convinced that soviet generals were more "meat for the enemy guns administrators" rather than tacticians.
He dedicates a huge amount of lines to describe the utterly depressed letters allegedly wrote by German soldiers, that never reached their relatives, and sadly for them, were found in their corpses by soviet soldiers and commissars...
I am of the belief that the Wehrmacht had everything to bring the Soviet Union down on its knees. Now we know about the german mistakes, which the soviets -in some cases- knew how to exploit in their war effort.
Book Review: Inside the Apocalypse
Summary: 5 Stars
In this book Beever unfolds the horror story behind one of military histories most symbolic battles. A crucial turning point of the Second World War, Hitler's foolhardy invasion of Russia, known as operation Barbarossa, set the seal on Germany's collapse; Stalingrad became the pitiless vortex in which these two proud and indomitable peoples were sacrificed to a sickening degree.
Unexpectedly, Beever brings out the circus humour to this tragic saga making us laugh and groan at the irony of what we read. Stalin, within the `repressed hysteria' of the Kremlin, remains in denial over the vast amounts of intelligence concerning German build up of troops. Warned by the German, through the Soviet ambassador, Stalin `exploded to the Politburo: `Disinformation has now reached ambassadorial level!' The farcical interplay between the Nazi and Communist regimes . . . `Stalin remained terrified of provoking Hitler. Goebbels, with some justification, compared him to a rabbit mesmerised by a snake' . . . has an apocalyptic reality on the ground.
The city of Stalingrad became the `Fateful City' that was to form a bridgehead across the Volga for German General Paulus and the Sixth army; due to insufficient air cover and dogged Russian resistance on the other side of the river they never got across, but the Russian soldiers, after colossal losses, did. Caught between two armies like in a mesh, thousands of civilians became indistinguishably pulverised into the `City of the Dead.' Stalingrad was as far as the Germans reached and the Sixth Army became isolated from the ever receding German line behind them, soon to be enveloped by sweeping Russian encirclements under the direction of Zhukov. Throughout all the mayhem, German and Russian soldiers desert to each others side, hoping to find some way out of their respective nightmares, not realising that changing sides didn't matter, Hitler and Stalin had already consigned them as dead men walking. The 'Air-Bridge', an air lift evacuation for some of the wounded, was too little, too late. What was left of this sacrificed German Army stumbled eastward towards the prolonged hell of Russian camps. Beevor rose to the challenge of Stalingrad and left us an intimate, harrowing account of human frailty, courage and madness that will be difficult to surpass.
Book Review: Strange book
Summary: 2 Stars
I gave two stars only because of the subject - I am sure it takes a lot of effort and guts to research and write about Stalingrad. Otherwise I feel it deserves only one star if any at all. I was bored and I rarely get bored reading these kinds of books. I had the impression the author didn't really care much about the subject, as if his heart was somewhere else. Also I thought his open cynicism about Soviet Union and its leadership went a little bit too far. It looks to me like Mr. Beevor is still fighting the `Cold War'.Alan Clark's "Barbarossa" offers a stark contact to Mr. Beevor book. May be "Barbarossa" is a little bit dated and not as focused on Stalingrad, but Alan Clark (another well-informed Brit) writes about the subject with wit, insight, and passion. Mr. Beevor is cynical and methodical, but he writes without spark, and, most importantly, with remarkable lack of insight. He had written about what happened, but not why it happened. In the book technicalities had dimmed the bigger picture of the German onslaught and encirclement.
To his credit Mr. Beevor had shown realistically and in detail everyday life, fighting, and suffering of the German (and allied) soldiers in Stalingrad. He has also shown the fate of the Germans from the unusual humanitarian point of view. But as far as the fate of Russian soldiers, it is hard to tell because he is reticent about their everyday life. The author offers no more than physical description of the Russian commanders. For example, Vasilii Chuikov had `gold-crowned teeth' (page 89). Unfortunately there is very little about his qualities as General and personal qualities of this key Russian defender of Stalingrad.
The civilians in Stalingrad suffered a lot, beginning August 1942 when the German `super'-bombing of the city took place. 40,000 of them had died, but the author had only a cursory mentioning of their struggle to survive during the bombing and five-month long fighting. I think the American author William Craig in his "Enemy at the Gates" did better job in brining the human drama of Stalingrad to life. To my opinion, this book is a strange and unsuccessful attempt to recreate the famous battle. I think that truly balanced and complete account about `Verdun on Volga' is still waiting to be written.