Download or read book Sacrifice on the Steppe written by Hope Hamilton and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2016-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Germany's Sixth Army advanced to Stalingrad in 1942, its long-extended flanks were mainly held by allied armies. But as history tells us, these flanks quickly caved in before the massive Soviet counter-offensive which commenced that November, dooming the Germans to their first catastrophe of the war. However, the historical record also makes c

Download or read book Stalingrad written by Antony Beevor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1999-05-01 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Stalingrad was not only the psychological turning point of World War II: it also changed the face of modern warfare. From Antony Beevor, the internationally bestselling author of D-Day and The Battle of Arnhem. In August 1942, Hitler's huge Sixth Army reached the city that bore Stalin's name. In the five-month siege that followed, the Russians fought to hold Stalingrad at any cost; then, in an astonishing reversal, encircled and trapped their Nazi enemy. This battle for the ruins of a city cost more than a million lives. Stalingrad conveys the experience of soldiers on both sides, fighting in inhuman conditions, and of civilians trapped on an urban battlefield. Antony Beevor has itnerviewed survivors and discovered completely new material in a wide range of German and Soviet archives, including prisoner interrogations and reports of desertions and executions. As a story of cruelty, courage, and human suffering, Stalingrad is unprecedented and unforgettable. Historians and reviewers worldwide have hailed Antony Beevor's magisterial Stalingrad as the definitive account of World War II's most harrowing battle.

Download or read book Stalingrad written by Christer Bergström and published by Midland Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compiled by one of the world's leading experts on the air war over the Eastern Front, this book is the second in a series of books to cover the major phases of World War II in this theatre of operations.

Download or read book Stalingrad written by Jochen Hellbeck and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The turning point of World War II came at Stalingrad. Hitler's soldiers stormed the city in September 1942 in a bid to complete the conquest of Europe. Yet Stalingrad never fell. After months of bitter fighting, 100,000 surviving Germans, huddled in the ruined city, surrendered to Soviet troops. During the battle and shortly after its conclusion, scores of Red Army commanders and soldiers, party officials and workers spoke with a team of historians who visited from Moscow to record their conversations. The tapestry of their voices provides groundbreaking insights into the thoughts and feelings of Soviet citizens during wartime. Legendary sniper Vasily Zaytsev recounted the horrors he witnessed at Stalingrad: "You see young girls, children hanging from trees in the park.[ . . .] That has a tremendous impact." Nurse Vera Gurova attended hundreds of wounded soldiers in a makeshift hospital every day, but she couldn't forget one young amputee who begged her to avenge his suffering. "Every soldier and officer in Stalingrad was itching to kill as many Germans as possible," said Major Nikolai Aksyonov. These testimonials were so harrowing and candid that the Kremlin forbade their publication, and they were forgotten by modern history -- until now. Revealed here in English for the first time, they humanize the Soviet defenders and allow Jochen Hellbeck, in Stalingrad, to present a definitive new portrait of the most fateful battle of World War II.

Download or read book Stalingrad 1942 43 2 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-16 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second in a three-part series examining the Stalingrad campaign, one of the most decisive military operations in World War II, that set the stage for the ultimate defeat of the Third Reich. By early September 1942, 6.Armee and 4.Panzer-Armee had reached the outskirts of Stalingrad, and Hitler believed it was about to fall. He ordered for the capture of the city as soon as possible, but this was easier said than done. On 13 September, a direct German assault was launched against the city on the Volga and a protracted urban battle followed amid the ruins, already devastated by massive Luftwaffe raids. Although hit hard by the initial German offensive, a ruthless and obstinate Red Army was able to hold onto the city through a costly battle of attrition that sacrificed huge amounts of men and materiel. This second volume in the Stalingrad trilogy, written by a leading expert on the military history of the Eastern Front, brings the fighting in the city to life in full visual detail, including the iconic battles at the Krasny Oktyabr Steel Plant, the Grain Elevator, the Barrikady and STZ factories, the 'Tennis Racquet' and Rynok–Spartanovka. Drawing from sources on both sides, this book offers a truly comprehensive account of history's greatest urban battle.

Download or read book Survivors of Stalingrad written by Reinhold Busch and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2014-09-03 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In November 1942 _ in a devastating counter-attack from outside the city _ Soviet forces smashed the German siege and encircled Stalingrad, trapping some 290,000 soldiers of the 6th Army inside. For almost three months, during the harshest part of the Russian winter, the German troops endured atrocious conditions. Freezing cold and reliant on dwindling food supplies from Luftwaffe air drops, thousands died from starvation, frostbite or infection if not from the fighting itself. ??This important work reconstructs the grim fate of the 6th Army in full for the first time by examining the little-known story of the field hospitals and central dressing stations. The author has trawled through hundreds of previously unpublished reports, interviews, diaries and newspaper accounts to reveal the experiences of soldiers of all ranks, from simple soldiers to generals. ??The book includes first-hand accounts of soldiers who were wounded or fell ill and were flown out of the encirclement; as well as those who fought to the bitter end and were taken prisoner by the Soviets. They reflect on the severity of the fighting, and reveal the slowly ebbing hopes for survival. Together they provide an illuminating and tragic portrait of the appalling events at Stalingrad.

Download or read book Stopped at Stalingrad written by Joel S. A. Hayward and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the time Hitler declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941, he knew that his military machine was running out of fuel. In response, he launched Operation Blau, a campaign designed to protect Nazi oilfields in Romania while securing new ones in the Caucasus. All that stood in the way was Stalingrad.

Download or read book German Soldier vs Soviet Soldier written by Chris McNab and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the end of the first week of November 1942, the German Sixth Army held about 90 per cent of Stalingrad. Yet the Soviets stubbornly held on to the remaining parts of the city, and German casualties started to reach catastrophic levels. In an attempt to break the deadlock, Hitler decided to send additional German pioneer battalions to act as an urban warfare spearhead. These combat engineers were skilled in all aspects of city fighting, especially in the use of demolitions and small arms to overcome defended positions and in the destruction of armoured vehicles. Facing them were hardened Soviet troops who had perfected the use of urban camouflage, concealed and interlocking firing positions, close quarters battle, and sniper support. This fully illustrated book explores the tactics and effectiveness of these opposing troops during this period, focusing particularly on the brutal close-quarters fight over the Krasnaya Barrikady (Red Barricades) ordnance factory.

Download or read book After Stalingrad written by David M. Glantz and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume and the series that provides its context, restores that which was lost and concealed to the historical record. Exploring newly-released Russian archival materials, it reveals the unbounded ambitions that shaped the Stavka's winter offensive and the full scope and scale of the Red Army's many offensive operations. For example, it reflects on recently-rediscovered Operation Mars, Marshal Zhukov's companion-piece to the more famous Operation Uranus at Stalingrad. It then reexamines the Red Army's dramatic offensive into the Donbas and Khar'kov region during February, clearly domonstrating that this offensive was indeed conducted by three rather than two Red Army fronts. Included are over one hundred operational maps that highlight key aspects of the offensives as well as many photographs of key historical figures.

Download or read book Stalingrad written by Stephen Walsh and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walsh gives a detailed history of Hitler's great failure and a comprehensive account of one of the most important battles of World War II. With full-color strategic maps, 170 b&w photos, and detailed appendices, "Stalingrad" is an exhaustive look at the battle that bled the German army dry.

Download or read book The Rzhev Slaughterhouse written by Svetlana Gerasimova and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians consider the Battle of Rzhev "one of the bloodiest in the history of the Great Patriotic War" and "Zhukov's greatest defeat". Veterans called this colossal battle, which continued for a total of 15 months, "the Rzhev slaughterhouse" or "the Massacre", while the German generals named this city "the cornerstone of the Eastern Front" and "the gateway to Berlin". By their territorial scale, number of participating troops, length and casualties, the military operations in the area of the Rzhev - Viaz'ma salient are not only comparable to the Stalingrad battle, but to a great extent surpass it. The total losses of the Red Army around Rzhev amounted to 2,000,000 men; the Wehrmacht's total losses are still unknown precisely to the present day. Why was one of the greatest battles of the Second World War consigned to oblivion in the Soviet Union? Why were the forces of the German Army Group Center in the Rzhev - Viaz'ma salient not encircled and destroyed? Whose fault is it that the German forces were able to withdraw from a pocket that was never fully sealed? Indeed, are there justifications for blaming this "lost victory" on G.K. Zhukov? In this book, which has been recognized in Russia as one of the best domestic studies of the Rzhev battle, answers to all these questions have been given. The author, Svetlana Gerasimova, has lived and worked amidst the still extant signs of this colossal battle, the tens of thousands of unmarked graves and the now silent bunkers and pillboxes, and has dedicated herself to the study of its history. Svetlana Aleksandrovna Gerasimova is a historian and museum official. After graduating from Leningrad State University with a history degree, she worked in the Urals as a middle school history teacher, before moving to Tver, where she taught a number of courses in history and local history, and about museum work and leading excursions in the Tver' School of Culture. She earned her Ph.D. in history from Tver State University in 2002. For more than 20 years, S.A. Gerasimova has been working in the Tver' State Consolidated Museum, and is the creator and co-creator of a many displays and exhibits in the branches of the Museum, and in municipal and institutional museums of the Tver' Oblast. Recent museum exhibits that she has created include "The Battle of Rzhev 1942-1943" and "The Fatal Forties … Toropets District in the Years of the Great Patriotic War." She has led approximately 20 historical and folklore-ethnographic expeditions in the area of Tver' Oblast and is the author of numerous articles in such journals as Voprosy istorii [Questions of History], Voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv [Military History Archive], Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal [Journal of Military History] and Zhivaia starina [The Living Past], and of other publications. In 2009, she served as a featured consultant to a Russian NTV television documentary about the Battle of Rzhev, which quickly became controversial for its very frank discussion of the campaign. Stuart Britton is a freelance translator and editor residing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He has been responsible for making a growing number of Russian titles available to readers of the English language, consisting primarily of memoirs by Red Army veterans and recent historical research concerning the Eastern Front of the Second World War and Soviet air operations in the Korean War. Notable recent titles include Valeriy Zamulin's award-winning 'Demolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943: An Operational Narrative ' (Helion, 2011), Boris Gorbachevsky's 'Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier's War on the Eastern Front 1942-45' (University Press of Kansas, 2008) and Yuri Sutiagin's and Igor Seidov's 'MiG Menace Over Korea: The Story of Soviet Fighter Ace Nikolai Sutiagin' (Pen & Sword Aviation, 2009). Future books will include Svetlana Gerasimova's analysis of the prolonged and savage fighting against Army Group Center in 1942-43 to liberate the city of Rzhev, and more of Igor Seidov's studies of the Soviet side of the air war in Korea, 1951-1953.

Download or read book Stalin s Italian Prisoners of War written by Maria Teresa Giusti and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reconstructs the fate of Italian prisoners of war captured by the Red Army between August 1941 and the winter of 1942-43. On 230.000 Italians left on the Eastern front almost 100.000 did not come back home. Testimonies and memoirs from surviving veterans complement the author's intensive work in Russian and Italian archives. The study examines Italian war crimes against the Soviet civilian population and describes the particularly grim fate of the thousands of Italian military internees who after the 8 September 1943 Armistice had been sent to Germany and were subsequently captured by the Soviet army to be deported to the USSR. The book presents everyday life and death in the Soviet prisoner camps and explains the particularly high mortality among Italian prisoners. Giusti explores how well the system of prisoner labor, personally supervised by Stalin, was planned, starting in 1943. A special focus of the study is antifascist propaganda among prisoners and the infiltration of the Soviet security agencies in the camps. Stalin was keen to create a new cohort of supporters through the mass political reeducation of war prisoners, especially middle-class intellectuals and military élite. The book ends with the laborious diplomatic talks in 1946 and 1947 between USSR, Italy, and the Holy See for the repatriation of the surviving prisoners.

Download or read book The Battle for the Caucasus 1942 1943 written by Anthony Tucker-Jones and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2018-03-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In late 1942 Hitler's forces advanced far into the Caucasus in the southern Soviet Union in one of the most ambitious offensives of the Second World War, but this extraordinary episode is often forgotten-it is overshadowed by the disastrous German attack on Stalingrad which took place at the same time. Using over 150 wartime photographs Anthony Tucker-Jones gives the reader a graphic, concise introduction to this remarkable but neglected campaign on the Eastern Front.Operation Edelweiss was designed to seize the oil fields of Maikop, Baku and Grozny. Seen by some as a wholly unnecessary diversion of resources from the critical confrontation at Stalingrad, the assault on the Caucasus aimed to secure oil supplies for the Germans and deny them to the Soviets.As this memorable selection of photographs shows, the Werhmacht came close to success. Their forces advanced almost as far as Grozny, famously raising the Nazi flag over Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in the region, before they were compelled into a hurried withdrawal by the rapid deterioration of the German position elsewhere on the Eastern Front.

Download or read book Soviet Defensive Tactics At Kursk July 1943 written by Colonel David M Glantz and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his classic work, On War, Carl von Clausewitz wrote, “As we shall show, defense is a stronger form of fighting than attack.” A generation of nineteenth century officers, nurtured on the study of the experiences of Napoleon and conditioned by the wars of German unification, had little reason to accept that view. The offensive spirit swept through European armies and manifested itself in the regulations, plans, and mentality of those armiehe events of 1939, 1940, and 1941 in Poland, France, and Russia respectively again challenged Clausewitz’ claim of the superiority of the defense and prompted armies worldwide to frantically field large armored forces and develop doctrines for their use. While blitzkrieg concepts ruled supreme, it fell to that nation victimized most by those concepts to develop techniques to counter the German juggernaut. The Soviets had to temper a generation of offensive tradition in order to marshal forces and develop techniques to counter blitzkrieg. In essence, the Soviet struggle for survival against blitzkrieg proved also to be a partial test of Clausewitz’ dictum. In July 1943, after arduous months of developing defensive techniques, often at a high cost in terms of men and material, the Soviets met blitzkrieg head-on and proved that defense against it was feasible. The titanic, grinding Kursk operation validated, in part, Clausewitz’ views. But it also demonstrated that careful study of force organization and employment and application of the fruits of that study can produce either offensive or defensive victory. While on the surface the events of Kursk seemed to validate Clausewitz’ view, it is often forgotten that, at Kursk, the Soviets integrated the concept of counteroffensive into their grand defensive designs. Thus the defense itself was meaningless unless viewed against the backdrop of the renewed offensive efforts and vice versa. What Kursk did prove was that strategic, operational, and tactical defenses could counter blitzkrieg.

Download or read book Velikiye Luki 1942 43 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Velikiye Luki had been an important Russian fortress city since the 13th century and had become an important rail-hub by the 19th century. In August 1941, the Germans occupied the city of 30,000 during Operation Barbarossa and made it a bulwark on the boundary between Heeresgruppe Nord and Heeresgruppe Mitte. In the winter of 1942–43, while Soviet forces were encircling Stalingrad, the Stavka (High Command) conducted a simultaneous offensive to isolate and destroy the 7,500-man German garrison in Velikiye Luki. After surrounding the city on 27 November 1942, the Soviet 3rd Shock Army gradually reduced the city to rubble, while the German garrison, sustained by Luftwaffe air lifts, hunkered down in the medieval city and awaited rescue. This illustrated title reveals the full story of the tense seven-week siege of Velikiye Luki, which saw Soviet forces striving to liberate the city in the face of a determined garrison and fierce relief efforts. Detailed analysis by renowned World War II historian Robert Forczyk is complimented by stunning and historically accurate battlescenes, maps, and bird's-eye-views to offer a comprehensive look at this gripping campaign.

Download or read book Retreat from Moscow written by David Stahel and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative revisionist account of the German Winter Campaign of 1941–1942, with maps: “Hair-raising . . . a page-turner.” —Kirkus Reviews Germany’s winter campaign of 1941–1942 is commonly seen as its first defeat. In Retreat from Moscow, a bold, gripping account of one of the seminal moments of World War II, David Stahel argues that instead it was its first strategic success in the East. The Soviet counteroffensive was in fact a Pyrrhic victory. Despite being pushed back from Moscow, the Wehrmacht lost far fewer men, frustrated its enemy’s strategy, and emerged in the spring unbroken and poised to recapture the initiative. Hitler’s strategic plan called for holding important Russian industrial cities, and the German army succeeded. The Soviets as of January 1942 aimed for nothing less than the destruction of Army Group Center, yet not a single German unit was ever destroyed. Lacking the professionalism, training, and experience of the Wehrmacht, the Red Army’s offensive attempting to break German lines in countless head-on assaults led to far more tactical defeats than victories. Using accounts from journals, memoirs, and wartime correspondence, Stahel takes us directly into the Wolf’s Lair to reveal a German command at war with itself as generals on the ground fought to maintain order and save their troops in the face of Hitler’s capricious, increasingly irrational directives. Excerpts from soldiers’ diaries and letters home paint a rich portrait of life and death on the front, where the men of the Ostheer battled frostbite nearly as deadly as Soviet artillery. With this latest installment of his pathbreaking series on the Eastern Front, David Stahel completes a military history of the highest order. “An engaging, fine-grained account of an epic struggle . . . Mr. Stahel describes these days brilliantly, switching among various levels of command while reminding us of the experiences of the soldiers on the ground and the civilians caught up in the Nazi ‘war of annihilation.’” —The Wall Street Journal

Download or read book Stalingrad written by David M. Glantz and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2019-07-13 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long awaited one-volume campaign history from the leading experts of the decisive clash of Nazi and Soviet forces at Stalingrad; an abridged edition of the five volume Stalingrad Trilogy. Stalingrad offers a sweeping synthesis of this massive confrontation, how it impacted the war, and why it matters today.