Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942–1943

Beevor manages a masterpiece of military history in Stalingrad. He covers this battle completely, from Operation Barbarossa, to the siege and the kessel, and the final disintegration of the Nazi 6th Army into Soviet prison camps and post-war ignominy. The narrative moves easily and naturally between Stalin and Hitler in their supreme HQs, staring at maps and radiotelegraphy reports, to the titanic clash of Panzer divisions, and air fleets, and above all, the dire struggle for survival faced by the ordinary soldier. Stalingrad was a meatgrinder, fought by nations that did not give a whit for human life. Deaths on both sides were over one million; exactly how high we’ll never know, given the paucity of records. The city was flattened, entire armies annihilated, and Beevor recounts again and again the last letters of men going to their death, and the human cost of that battle.

What I did not expect was to feel sympathy for the Nazis. Soviet soldiers died horribly; without sufficient weapons or supplies to stop Panzers, executed under the arbitrary discipline of the commissars, but whether it was truth or effective propaganda, most of them knew they were selling their lives dearly in defense of the beloved rodina. Nazis soldiers died for Hitler’s pride, in foolish hope that they would be rescued from encirclement. They died starving, frozen, crawling with lice, from disease and from Soviet mistreatment in prisoner-of-war camps. Even genocidal war criminals deserve better.

Stalingrad was the turning point of World War 2, the battle that broke the Wehrmacht, and proved Hitler incompetent. This is the single best book about that battle imaginable.