Stalingrad - Antony Beevor (Stalingrad - Anthony Beevor)

Member Name: Belgian999

Product:	Stalingrad - Anthony Beevor
Date:	13/11/00 (90 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gripping, very well-written, all the information you could ever need about the battle

Disadvantages: Daunting at first... but it's worth the effort

Although a daunting read at first sight, this book is so much more than a dry and factual account of a long and drawn-out battle, and is a very rewarding read. Whether you consider yourself to be fairly knowledgeable on the subject of Hitler's campaigns in Russia or whether you are new to the subject, this book provides all the information you could ask for, presented in a surprisingly easy to understand fashion (quite unlike the dour textbooks most of us remember from school). The reader is given an overview of the events leading up to the horrendous fighting at Stalingrad and is given an insight into the minds of the military leaders on the two sides, and why this town assumed such immense significance for both Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.

Perhaps most moving of all though is the realisation of the almost unimaginable hardships suffered by Russian civilians and the soldiers on both sides, be they Russian, German, Romanian or whatever. The battle dragged on for months, with combatants subjected to almost inhuman conditions in the sub-zero temperatures, fighting hand to hand in the rubble of the city.

This was war fought with such ferocity as to be almost incomprehensible, but this account of the battle for Stalingrad furnishes the reader with a sense of dread as the trapped 6th Army realises their number is up and that they have been abandoned.

There was one factor that probably drew me closer to this book as well, which was the fact that, for a year, I worked as a teacher in Hannover alongside the daughter of General von Zitzewitz, who was one of the lucky men to be evacuated from the 'Kessel' before the Red Army cut the Sixth Army off altogether. She did mention that her father was a 'Prussian officer from the old school' but reading his name in the appendices made me sit up and take notice!

This is as close to being there as you can get, and does not read like a military history. This does not mean it is
any less useful, rather that it must be just about the most complete and accessible resource for this horrendous battle. At the end you can but marvel at how human life was sustained even in the midst of the carnage and rubble that was Stalingrad. To be recommended.

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