Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943
by Antony Beevor
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Book Reviews of Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943
Book Review: A beautifully written account of man's greatest struggle
Summary: 5 Stars
Antony Beevor's account of Hitler's biggest mistake and (possibly) World War Two's greatest battle is a riveting read. Rarely have I come across a text which has gripped my imagination and haunted me with equal vigour. The scale of the struggle and the blunders - on each side - was immense. Russia's mistreatment of its own soldiers was almost unfathomable. Almost 13,000 Russians were shot by their own side for desertion or for showing signs of cowardice (whatever that might have meant). The extent of Hitler's megalomania comes to light right at the beginning and shines ever more brightly as the battle progresses. By the end, you realise he was little more than uneducated fool who didn't give a stuff for the armies of volunteers and conscripts that fought on his behalf. Hitler's generals, Von Paulus in particular, seem to have been totally hamstrung by their leader's ever changing battle plans. Their Russian counterparts suffered the same difficulties at the hands of their great leader - although in the end the battle appears to have been won by theatre generals who decided to take matters into their own hands. One wonders how things would have ended if Stalin had been on the ground and not many miles away in snowbound Moscow.
Beevor does a wonderful job relaying all the information to a generalist reader. Some have slighted him because it is written in a journalistic style. I think this is big strong point since his easy prose makes Stalingrad a much more enjoyable readable. You'll need sleeping pills, for you won't forget this book in a hurry. Five Stars.
Book Review: The Soviet Union stops its retreat
Summary: 4 Stars
Stalingrad was a battle in the Second World War that involved millions of soldiers in the German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army, but ultimately it was the battle between two men and their wills and vanities: Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany and absolute ruler of most of Europe, and Joseph Stalin, the undisputed chief of the USSR. Hitler, impatient to enforce his will on Europe and eager to show the General Staff how he was better at strategy than they were, hurled the Sixth Army, the largest formation in the Wehrmacht, at the Volga River. Stalin, rarely leaving his capital and trapped in the grip of paranoia, ordered the retreating Red Army to halt in its tracks and hold on to the city bearing his name. For six months the armies blasted at one another, while their leaders hurled misguided encouragements, threats and exhortions at them, until finally the Soviets trapped the Sixth Army in a pocket and reduced it to ruin.
That's the story that is presented in Beevor's book, and he does a top-notch job in sharing the hopes and fears of multitudes of German, Russian, Hungarian and other soldiers, facing each other in the wrecked ruins of a city and with firing squads at their back. He also does a good job of portraying Hitler as a leader losing his grip on reality over a thousand miles from the front line, while Stalin is forced to resort to extreme measures to keep the Soviet Union in World War II. By the end of the book, the Wehrmacht had run into a brick wall and the USSR is ready to begin the long march to Berlin, which is a story for another book by Beevor.
Book Review: Excellent Account of a Titanic Struggle
Summary: 4 Stars
If you are at all interested in the Battle of Stalingrad, I would highly recommend this book. Whether you are new to the battle, or you have read other accounts, I think you will enjoy this book. The one thing I really appreciated was the author's objectivity. Many accounts either have a pro-German (valiant German warriors beaten by ineffective strategy) or pro-Soviet (valiant Soviet warriors defeating the fascist monsters) bias. Beevor detailed the horror that this battle truly was, the ruthlessness and inhumanity on both sides. In the beginning, he shows how the Russian soldier was ruthlessly sacrificed by the Soviets, and Stalin, and how this changed at the end where the German soldier was ruthlessly sacrificed by the Nazis and Hitler. One of the most refreshing aspects of the book, however, was the author's treatment of the German allies, particularly the Italian's and Rumanian's. Rather than portraying them as the scapegoats for German defeat, he detailed the criminal way these soldiers were treated, from the lack of modern weaponry to the way they were stretched so thin as to make it impossible for them to offer any kind of organized resistance. The battle was not lost by these soldiers, rather by the arrogance of the German High Command in thinking they could continue to suffer horrendous losses in futile street fighting in the City of Stalingrad itself. Also invaluable is the author's portrayal of conditions in the "Kessel" after the Russian encirclement of the Sixth Army. This is an excellent addition to the history of this historic and titanic struggle.Book Review: "THE BATTLE" REVISITED FROM THE FRONT
Summary: 5 Stars
When we thougth that everything had already been said and written about Stalingrad's Krieg, here cames Beevor with an outstanding description of the battle that caused the German defeat on the eastern front. This book is very well written and reads like a novel, but contains a truthful and accurate account of the man to man, wall to wall combat, in the besieged Stalingrad. Drawing on material not available before to other historians Beevor's tale is new in many aspects and reveals some accurate information based on the records of the Soviet Army. The russians serving in the Wehrmacht outnumbered the italian and rumanian allies involved in the battle. More than 13,000 russians soldiers were executed by their own people on grounds of desertion. Russian snipers in Stalingrad greatly contributed to the demoralization of the enemy and their deeds were fully exploited by the soviets propaganda machine (This is why the movie Enemy at the Gate is an interesting rendition of this aspect of the battle). The sheer numbers of the dead and dispersed has to qualify this event as an enormous military tragedy and a confirmation of Hitler's stubborness and lack of contact with the reality of the Eastern Front. If war must be fougth, soldiers and not politicians are the ones best suited to do it. To anyone seriously interested in history and WWII I would strongly recommend this book, because is a real depiction, day by day, of the incredible hardships that common soldiers had to endure during this battle and a poem about the utter stupidity and futility of man's war effort....MUST BUYBook Review: A Journalistic Account That Lacks Historical Depth
Summary: 2 Stars
For readers interested in an introduction to the Battle of Stalingrad, this book will probably suffice but for readers familiar with the subject and looking for greater historical depth, this book is a major disappointment. Amazingly, the first 50 of 431 pages are wasted recounting the lead-up to Operation Barbarossa and the 1941 campaign, with very little relevant to ArmeeGruppe South. Beevor's coverage of the early phase of Case Blue is pathetic; filled with random anecdotes and both the fight for Voronezh and the drive into the Caucasus are virtually ignored. The book gets a little better once the city fighting into Stalingrad begins, but Beevor breaks no new ground here. Maps are few and barely adequate. A detailed city map would have been nice. The best part of the book is the coverage of Operation "Uranus" and the kesselschlact. This is essentially a journalistic account enhanced by some Soviet archival materiel, not military history. Nor does Beevor attempt to put the Soviet victory at Stalingrad into a strategic context - did Germany lose the war here? For example, Germany lost 3 panzer divisions at Stalingrad with about 500 tanks - heavy losses but not catastrophic in itself; most sources claim over 1,000 German tanks lost. The book also sustains out-worn generalizations, such as the portrayal of the German 6th Army as a highly experienced, veteran formation. In fact, of the 17 infantry divisions in 6th Army, 6 had no combat experience and 4 had been raised only in the 12 months prior to Stalingrad.