Synopsis
A narrative history of the decisive battle of World War II. In June 1941 Hitler overruled the advice of his general staff and ordered the German army to invade the Soviet Union. After meeting with phenomenal early success--which brought them within 25 miles of Moscow by the summer of 1942--the German forces became bogged down in an extended siege of the Russian city of Stalingrad. Stalling for time, the Russians held out through the winter. The heavy snow cut off the German lines of supply, and more than half of the German forces succumbed to starvation and the elements before finally retreating months later.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1998-07-01 | | Edition Description: | Illustrated |
| Size | | Length: | 493 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 30.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
Drawn from sources never-before-seen by Western scholars, this compulsive narrative chronicles the harrowing siege that was the psychological turning point of World War II.
In June 1941, German forces swept across Soviet territory in an offensive that finally brought them within twenty-five miles of Moscow. But in August 1942, the overconfident Hitler chose the wrong target, Stalin's namesake city on the Volga. The battle of Stalingrad is extraordinary in every way: the triumphant invader fought to a standstill; then the Soviet trap sprung, surrounding their attackers; and the terrible siege, with Germans starving and freezing, forced to fight on by a disbelieving Hitler. The story has never been told as Antony Beevor tells it here. He writes of the great Manichaean clash between Stalin and Hitler, and the strategic brilliance and fatal flaws of their generals. Stalingrad is first and foremost the story of the man on the ground, a soldier's-eye view of fighting house-to-house on an urban battlefield, with helpless civilians caught in the crossfire. Beevor has gained access to Russian reports on desertions and executions that have never been seen by Western scholars, German transcripts of prisoner interrogations, and private letters and diaries. These help re-create the compelling human drama of the most terrible battle in modern warfare.
Industry Reviews
"Beevor, a former British army officer and the author of several other studies of war, provides a vivid and detailed account of the Stalingrad conflagration, beginning with Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, and ending with the surrender of German generals on the Volga River a year and a half later....Stalingrad is, in short, a fantastic and sobering story, and it has been fully and authoritatively told in Beevor's book."
New York Times - Richard Bernstein (08/26/1998)
"Beevor maps out the the strategic scheme as seen from above, but also gives the view from ground level, with the help of voluminous accounts from the people involved. He has done his research on both sides, in the archives and with survivors."
London Review of Books - Thomas De Waal (07/15/1999)
"A painstakingly thorough study that will become a standard work on the battle of Stalingrad."
Thorn
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