Stalingrad

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There are certain locations of note - such as the Tractor Factory - but a lot of the descriptions of the fighting are vague and generalized, since they come from the individual soldiers, and they certainly couldn't know what was going on.

Antony Beevor has written an excellent history which should be required reading for those who think that D-Day was what broke the back of the Nazi war machine. Yet, General Rodimtsev's troops managed to hold on to the Kurgan, and the German 295th Infantry Division was "fought to a standstill.He has made impressive use of the German and Russian military archives – not just to uncover new evidence on the atrocities committed by both sides but also to bring out, in all its terrifying aspects, the human experience of the war by citing soldiers’ letters and diaries, personal accounts and oral testimonies of civilians.

That happened with Operation Uranus in November, as Soviet forces broke through the allied Romanian armies on the German flank--and trapped the 6th Army within the city that it had been fighting so hard to conquer. Once in the bunker, they finally convince the German company commander to take the message to his commander. Ce qui manqué aux Palmeres d'Antony Beevor, c'est le prix Nobel de littérature accordé à un historien pour la dernière fois en 1953.Yes, the Soviet Special Brigades posted just behind the front lines to execute any who retreat and the NKVD squads roaming the rear for deserters and escapees account for some of the reasons why the Soviets held out.

The Number One bestselling historian in Britain , Beevor's books have appeared in thirty-two languages and have sold just over seven million copies. If I was the criticise this book, I would say that it was a slow starter, hard to understand or imagine the scale of the battle and I felt I missed the house to house combat in the earlier stages of the battle. A Napoleonic dictum says that to gain power, one must be absolutely petty, but to wield power, one must exercise true greatness. In a trice, it was the Sixth Army that turned into stumbling starvelings sans food, sans ammunition, sans fuel, sans everything. The crossing was probably most eerie for those in the rowing boats, as the water gently slapped the bow, and the rowlocks creaked in unison.Some chapters elucidate the chain of events that led to the Red Army's victory; composite chapters discuss specific features of the battle: hiwis or deficiencies of urban fighting for Germans. One can only draw parallels with the 1812 invasion and the unimaginable suffering of both armies in the cold so far away from home.