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Many believe Stalingrad to be the turning point of the war. The Nazi war machine proved to be fallible as it spread itself too thin for a cause that was born more from arrogance than practicality. The Germans never recovered, and its weakened defences were no match for the Allied invasion of 1944. We know little of what took place in Stalingrad or its overall significance, leading Beevor to humbly admit that "[t]he Battle of Stalingrad remains such an ideologically charged and symbolically important subject that the last word will not be heard for many years". This is true. But this gripping account should become the standard work against which all others should measure themselves. --Jeremy Storey --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Saturday, 21 June 1941, produced a perfect summer's morning. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
All trees, no forest. Buy Montefiore and Manstein,
By physics student "visviva" (St. John's, Newfoundland Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 (Paperback)
I would like to say that I like this book, but I can't. It is difficult to figure out what is going on. Beevor proves that the Germans were beastly, and the Russianswere ruthless (the Eastern Front has been described as a competition between Hitler and Stalin to see who could kill the most Russians, with Stalin winning easily); but the overall movement does not emerge. It is better to read von Manstein's Lost Battles for the large movements, and von Manstein was a far better writer than Beevor. However, what I find inexcusable about this book, which appeared in 2007, is that its discussions of the thinking and doings of the Soviet High Command are little better than informed speculation. And yet we have Simon Sebag Montefiore's amazing "The Court of the Red Czar", which appeared in 2004. Montefiore, working on interviews with survivors, children of the leaders etc., and archival information, tells us exactly what Stalin, Molotov, Zhukov, etc. said, and did, day by day and minute by minute, and a dramatic and savage account it is, too, as when Stalin upbraids Zhukov for misplacing an army or two, and Zhukov runs out of the room crying, followed by Molotov to console him - the hardest of the hard men, nearly broken by the Nazi onslaught.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
The horror permeates the blur of detail,
By
This review is from: Stalingrad (Paperback)
What remains in my mind are the incidental points: German soldiers drowning in latrines, too weak from dysentary to rescue themselves or be rescued by starving comrades. Russians incinerated as they try to flee across the Volga. Mass cruelty mixed with a German clergyman painting a "Fortress Madonna" on the only available paper, the back of a military map. Soviet propagandists blaring "death tango" music across the front. The Russian truce seekers meeting with Germans after Christmas. Those on both sides who desert. Soviet POWs worked to death as human oxen. German letters home from the "kessel." Hitler's gambling with half a million lives and Goebbels' media manipulation. Stalin's NKVD and Hitler's Feldgendarmerie both shooting those terrified to fight. Everywhere, mud, ice, blood.These poignant and infuriating vignettes rise above the sheer mass of often primary-source material trawled by Beevor. Too often, this army formation goes here and this general goes there, especially in the middle of the narrative, and this weakens the "human" touch which I favor, although to be fair other readers may relish these strategic accounts. I certainly needed the maps to follow the action. When I was a child, a "Reader's Digest" condensation described Stalingraders eating library paste and boiling leather goods to survive. Surprisingly, the civilian plight gains very little attention; the focus here mixes wide-scale accounts of troop movements with accounts drawn from letters and documents. This is a difficult balancing act to carry off for simplifying a complicated story over a couple of years in four hundred pages, and I commend Beevor's skill while wishing nonetheless that the book was even longer, to allow more space between these two extremes, and more time to relate the dazzling or dreadful individual's story that illuminates the fog of war. A good companion to his "The Fall of Berlin," and those curious about the punishment batallions of the Soviets, the effect of the loss of the Sixth Army on the Nazi psyche, and the fate of those receiving Russian revenge for Nazi terror will find a logical continuation in his more recent work.
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the four best works on Stalingrad ever written,
By Mr Craig Meech (Oxford) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 (Paperback)
This book by noted writer Antony Beevor joins three others that are essential English language "classics" on Stalingrad. These important books are John Erickson's "The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin's War with Germany" and Joel Hayward's "Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East 1942-1943" and Earl Ziemke and Magna Bauer's "Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East".Beevor has used all three and produced a work that is the least academic but arguably most exciting of all. He has also used Manfred Kehrig's "Stalingrad: Analyse und Dokumentation einer Schlacht"which is not available in English --- sadly. Beevor also uses the latest research on the Soviets, including the books by David Glantz. He paid researchers to translate unpublished Soviet documents, which also enrich his text. The book is clearly an excellent overview of the efforts put into winning at Stalingrad by both sides. As scholars have noted in learned articles, Beevor ignores airpower and only deals sketchily with strategy, but his narrative of the human experience of warfare is more than compensatory.
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