by Antony Beevor (Author)
This is a timely analysis and re-creation of the turning point of World War II. In October 1942, a panzer officer wrote "Stalingrad is no longer a town...Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure". The battle became the focus of Hitler and Stalin's determination to win the gruesome, vicious war on the eastern front. The citizens of Stalingrad endured unimaginable hardship; the battle, with fierce hand to hand fighting in each room of each building, was brutally destructive to both armies. But the eventual victory of the Red Army, and the failure of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa was the first defeat of Hitler's territorial ambitions in Europe, and the start of his decline. An extraordinary story of tactical genius, civilian bravery, obsession, carnage and the nature of war itself, "Stalingrad" will act as a testament to the vital role of the soviet war effort.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 512
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 06 May 1999
ISBN 10: 0140249850
ISBN 13: 9780140249859
Prizes: Winner of Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 1999 and Hawthornden Prize 1999 and Wolfson Literary Award for History 1999. Shortlisted for Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 1999 and WH Smith Literary Prize 1999 and WH Smith Annual Literary Award 1999.