# Stalingrad



## patrick666 (12 Dec 2005)

I have finished Battle Of Stalingrad and Fall of Berlin, which sparked my interest in such a battle. I have made this post to ask if anyone has any other suggestions to read about Stalingrad and related material? 

Also, is Stalingrad now Volgograd? 

Cheers


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## sigpig (12 Dec 2005)

I enjoyed 'Enemy at the Gates' by William Craig when I was a kid but that was a long time ago  :'(

Note the book is not related to the movie of the same name. Check out the reviews on Amazon.

Yes, Stalingrad is now Volgograd.


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## Michael Dorosh (12 Dec 2005)

War of the Rats was a fictional account of Stalingrad that came out a couple of years ago.

There are several books on The Battle of Stalingrad so using that as a title doesn't tell us much.  Do you mean the book by Antony Beevor?

Enemy at the Gates is a good suggestion per the above.

Death of the Leaping Horseman is supposed to be good - about the 24th Panzer Division (whose divisional sigil was a leaping horseman); they were a reorg of the 1st Cavalry Division and gave up their horses in 1941 and fought with tanks and halftracks on the approach to Stalingrad; they were consumed by fighting within the city proper.


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## dutchie (12 Dec 2005)

Michael Dorosh said:
			
		

> War of the Rats was a fictional account of Stalingrad that came out a couple of years ago.
> 
> There are several books on The Battle of Stalingrad so using that as a title doesn't tell us much.   Do you mean the book by Antony Beevor?



I have read his Stalingrad and the Fall of Berlin and enjoyed it thoroughly. Thoughts on this author Michael?


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## D-n-A (12 Dec 2005)

A good movie on Stalingrad is a german film made in the early '90s, titled Stalingrad. Might be hard to find though.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108211/


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## Michael Dorosh (12 Dec 2005)

MikeL said:
			
		

> A good movie on Stalingrad is a german film made in the early '90s, titled Stalingrad. Might be hard to find though.
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108211/



It's available on DVD from amazon.com   - not that hard to find.   Not all that good either.  Worth a rental though.

No real thoughts on Beevor, Caesar...haven't read enough of his stuff to form an opinion.


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## Nieghorn (12 Dec 2005)

After acquiring it for next to nothing some years ago, I have never actually read my copy of "The Last Battle" by Cornelius Ryan but if it's as good as "The Longest Day" and  "A Bridge Too Far" it should be worth a read on the battle for Berlin.


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## BruceinAlberta (17 Dec 2005)

An excellent work on the Eastern Front is "When Titans Clashed" which really gives a good bread and butter history of the Eastern Front.  Also, read the "Forgotten Soldier."  This is an autobiography of a German soldier on the Eastern Front that really brings that war to life.


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## Michael Dorosh (17 Dec 2005)

BruceinAlberta said:
			
		

> An excellent work on the Eastern Front is "When Titans Clashed" which really gives a good bread and butter history of the Eastern Front.  Also, read the "Forgotten Soldier."  This is an autobiography of a German soldier on the Eastern Front that really brings that war to life.



The Forgotten Soldier is actually heavily criticized due to the poor writing; many suspect it is even fiction.  Certainly there are dozens of errors of fact, but it is interesting reading.  A better book is SOLDAT by Siegfried Knappe.

Read about Forgotten Soldier at http://members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/sajer.htm


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## Nieghorn (19 Dec 2005)

I loved Soldat.  Not much in the way of action from what I remember, being in the artillery, and wounded a few times.  Stuff on Berlin at the end was great.  Own Panzer Commander by Hans von Luck.  Great book from German perspective as well, and had some cool moments about the brotherhood among friends despite their ideologies - his friendship with French men he suspected were Resistance fighters. Also the spirit of 'real' fighting men - ie. the little daytime truces with the Brits because it was too bloody hot to fight in the desert.


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## 3rd Herd (19 Dec 2005)

Here is a list of fiction authors and non fiction off my book shelves
Eastern Front

Fiction

Berthold Willi
Heinrick Willi
Hassel Sven
Konsalik Heinz
Kostov K.N.
Pliever Theodor
Robbins David L.
Stock Kurt W.
Whitting Charles (Leo Kessler)

Non Fiction 
Abdulin Mansur- Red Road From Stalingrad, Recollections of a Soviet Infantryman
Beevor Antony- Stalingrad
                     - The Fall of Berlin 1945
Caidin Martin- The Tigers are Burning
Caldwell Donald- JG 26 Top Guns of the Luftwaffe
Carell Raul- Hitler Moves East 1941-1943
              -	Scorched Earth 1943-1944
Chaney Jr. Otto Preston â â€œ Zhukov, Marshal of the Soviet Union
Chuikov Vasili I.- The Fall of Berlin
                    -The Battle for Stalingrad
Craig William- Enemy at the Gates
Deichmann Paul, Price Alfred Editor- Spearhead for the Blitzkrieg
Erickson John, Erickson Ljubica- The Road to Stalingrad
                                          -The Road to Berlin
                                          - The Soviet Armed Forces 1918-1992
Fitzgibbon Louis- Katyn Massacre
Fisher David, Read Anthoney- The Deadly Embrace
Glantz David M- Colossus Reborn, The Red Army at War 1941-1943
                    -Before Stalingrad,Barbarossa, Hilters Invasion of Russia
Glantz David M, Jonathan M. House- The Battle of Kursk
Guderian Heinz- Panzer Leader
Hill, Alexander- The War Behind the Eastern Front
Jackson Robert- The Red Falcons
Jukes Geoffrey- Kursk the Clash of Armour
               -The Defense of Moscow
              -	Stalingrad, The Turning Point
Kerr Walter- The Secret of Stalingrad
Kuby Erich- The Russians and Berlin 1945
Le Tissier Tony â â€œ With Our Backs to Berlin
                     -Slaughter at Hable
                     -Death was Our Companion
Lucas James â â€œ War on the Eastern Front 1941-1945
Luck Hans von- Panzer Commander
Mellenthin F.W. Von â â€œ Panzer Battles
Messenger Charles- Hitler's Gladiator
Myles Bruce- Night Witches
Neumann Peter- The Black March
Overy Richard- Russia's War
Rudel Hans U. â â€œ Stuka Pilot
Salisbury Harrison E. â â€œ The 900 Hundred Days
Schofield B.B.- The Russian Convoys
Shepard Ben- War in the Wild East
Thorwald Juergen- Defeat in the East
Trotter William- Frozen Hell, The Russo-Finnish Winter War
Tsouras Peter G. â â€œ Fighting in Hell, The German Ordeal on the Eastern Front
Werth Alexander- Russia At War 1941-1945
Wykes Alan- The Siege of Leningrad
Zhukov Georgi K. â â€œ Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles
Ziemke Earl F. â â€œ Battle For Berlin, End of the Third Reich

abebooks is also a good site to find hard to find /out of print


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## Michael Dorosh (19 Dec 2005)

3rd Herd said:
			
		

> Pliever Theodor



What did you think of his book on Stalingrad?  I own that one as well.

Is this a list of recommendations?  Cause I wouldn't be so quick to recommend Sven Hassell....


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## 3rd Herd (19 Dec 2005)

Michael, The non fiction is a excellent source list. The fiction authors is what I happen to have, Pliever has three books- Stalingrad, Moscow and Berlin. Berlin I liked the least but the other two were pretty good. As for Sven it is a toss up- some like him some don't. Books that have been mentioned I didn't. Many also critize Kessler(Whitting) but his fiction often leads me to find the fact. Konsalik is very good, Berthold is as well, both have about seven or eight books


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## Clément Barbeau Vermet (21 Dec 2005)

MikeL said:
			
		

> A good movie on Stalingrad is a german film made in the early '90s, titled Stalingrad. Might be hard to find though.



That one brings back memories. I remember when my mother made me watch it when I was 7 years old. I don't remember much of the movie, perhaps. It was my first war moovie, from that day I developed an interest for the military.


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## Clément Barbeau Vermet (21 Dec 2005)

MikeL said:
			
		

> A good movie on Stalingrad is a german film made in the early '90s, titled Stalingrad. Might be hard to find though.
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108211/


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## Michael Dorosh (21 Dec 2005)

Clément Barbeau Vermet said:
			
		

> That one brings back memories. I remember when my mother made me watch it when I was 7 years old. I don't remember much of the movie, perhaps. It was my first war moovie, from that day I developed an interest for the military.



Was that mom's intent?!?!? heh.


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## 3rd Herd (21 Dec 2005)

Thu May 5,2005 

Volgograd may have been rebuilt from scratch after 1945, but the city once called Stalingrad is still haunted by the ghosts of World War II's watershed battle which saw Nazi Germany's first crushing defeat. 

"The whole city is a memorial," said Mikhail Godun, a young fireman who spends much of his free time digging up the remains of those who fell during the brutal, 200-day clash. 

What was arguably the mother of all World War II battles -- and Soviet victories -- claimed the lives of more than one million Soviet soldiers, around 800,000 German, Romanian and Italian axis troops and around 500,000 civilians in Stalingrad and the surrounding area, according to figures from the general staff of the Russian armed forces. 

Many of those who died still lie in the ground at the exact place where they were slain during combat that raged from August 1942 to February 1943. 

"As soon as the snow begins to melt, we start digging for soldiers' bodies," Godun says. 

"In February, beyond the canal, on a construction site on Korpusnaya street, we found 60 bodies of German soldiers," which were then buried in a German military cemetary on the fringes of the city, he says. 

Sometimes, bodies are also found by chance, during construction work. "Volgograd residents have long become used to finding dead soldiers when water pipes are being replaced in their streets," Godun says. 

The city is dominated by the Mamayev Kurgan battle memorial, which is set set on a man-made hill. It is topped by an 80-meter (262-foot) concrete and steel statue of a woman wielding a sword over her head, meant to personify the motherland. 

But while this and other monuments recall the battle as a horror of the past, its physical and psychological vestiges are part of the present for many local residents. 

"We are just crossing the frontline" that used to separate Soviet from German troops, Godun said as he stepped across a street in central Volgograd. 

On the city's main square, called the Square of Men Fallen in Battle, grows a tree that survived the battle. Next to it, a shrine carries these words: "Here are buried those who died fighting the German fascist invaders." 

High school students in military attire parade in front of the memorial and its eternal flame, a landmark of Stalingrad -- the city was renamed Volgograd in 1961 -- which was elevated to the status of "Hero City" following the battle. 

"They are the honor guard watching over post number one, the Hero City's eternal flame," said Lidya Metyolkina, assistant principal of a local high school. 

"Being allowed to watch over the eternal flame is a reward granted to the city's best schools. The children like it, and it is an honor." 

Bordering the central square is the Univermag, a Soviet-era department store whose basement served as headquarters for the commander in chief of German forces in the battle, Marshall Friedrich Paulus. 

On February 2, 1943, Paulus, who commanded Nazi Germany's Sixth army, which had been besieged in the city by Soviet troops, finally surrendered. 

Today, a little-advertised museum recreates the German headquarters in the Univermag's basement, next to the crockery department. 

But few of Volgograd's 1.4 million inhabitants have direct recollections of the battle, as most of them moved here in the aftermath of World War II. 

In 1942, now 84-year-old Gamlet Dallakian was a young signals officer with the Soviet frontline general staff. 

"The general staff was buried 26 meters deep on the banks of the Tsaritsa river, a stone's throw from the city center, which was held by the Germans," he recalls, wearing a string of medals pinned on his breast. 

There, he crossed the path of a Soviet officer called Nikita Khrushchev, who would go on to become Soviet leader following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, Dallakian says. 

Dallakian carried out numerous night-time missions to liaise with Soviet troops posted on the opposite bank of the Volga. During one one of them, he was wounded by a German bullet. 

Today, the students who walk along the Volga's banks do not even spare a glance for the memorials marking the once deadly frontline.


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## Clément Barbeau Vermet (22 Dec 2005)

Michael Dorosh said:
			
		

> Was that mom's intent?!?!? heh.



Euhh...As far as I remember, I had visited the war museum with my grand-father not long before that and I enjoyed my experience so my mother probably thought I would also like a war moovie. In fact she had to wake me up me up because I was sleeping. I remember so little of the moovie that before yesterday I thought it was in black and white.


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## FoverF (30 Dec 2005)

The early-90's Stalingrad movie mentioned before was not too bad. It was made by the same bunch of people who made "Das Boot", which gives an indication... Not bad, definitely worth watching. Most of it is long, and boring, and not much happens, which is basically how it went. It also makes you feel very cold, which I thought was good. I actually felt physically cold watching most of the movie. And in the end, the only surviving characters freeze to death. Not the best war movie, but as I said, worth watching. 

And I have to say that I recommend Anthony Beevor's book on Stalingrad. Good from a 'what unit was where doing what' standpoint, but also helps you appreciate the sheer scale of what happened. Well written in my opinion, one of the few military history books (well, somewhat dramatic military history) I've actually bought new. I would say it's in the same league as "A Bridge Too Far", or Len Deighton's "Fighters" (actually, probably better than Deighton's book in terms of writing)

Haven't read his book on the fall of Berlin yet, though. Is it any good>?


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## Mineguy (30 Dec 2005)

My wifes grandfather was killed at stalingrad in the 369th Croatian legion under the 227th inf regt and 100th Austrian Jaeger Div.Their sector was red oktober tractor factory and they were anhillated by attrition while holding the position. They fought till only a small number surrendered with Gen. Paulus. 1800 croats were evacuated wounded and the last plane gave up their seats to evacuate nurses. These 1800 were later massacred by the Allies (Partisans) in 1945. Ive done a  alot of research and came up with some intresting results finally giving an answer to the family at least and some casualty details and other important unit pertinent stuff. Its a pity i cant find out more but the british after handing over the remaining 200,000 Croatian POWs to tito who massacred the remaining survivors at bleiburg austria right after the may 45 surrender and into the 70s and eradicated any history he could but i imagine this was the same in many communist countries. There is a war dairy from the unit but its still being held in belgrade by the serbian army and should be possibly handed over with other important croatian cultural and other documents which im waiting forthat day. So far ive confirmed previous unconfirmed details from 1 doc that was found on a tito era hidden microfilm with a list of  decorated men in which i found him. That was 60 odd years before they finnaly knew so it was a personally rewarding story...


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## casing (11 Jan 2006)

Michael Dorosh said:
			
		

> War of the Rats was a fictional account of Stalingrad that came out a couple of years ago.



I thought this book by David L. Robbins was excellent!  I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get an intimate "feel" for the Stalingrad battle.


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## 3rd Herd (11 Jan 2006)

The Last Citadel by Robbins is out. Battle of Kursk this time and I have posted a review in the War of the Rats thread  for interrested parties.


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## Cpl.Banks (29 Mar 2006)

Three book I very much thouroughly enjoyed:
1) "Fighting in Hell" by Peter G Tsouras. This book is a recollection of four veteran accounts(German). Not so much a story of their battles but chapters divided into for example : German tactics, Air ops,  clothing equipment and rations...etc Very interesting.
2) "Armageddon" by Max Hastings. Once again this book does not discuss so much Stalingrad as much as 1944-1945, the soviet/allied advance into Germany. A great read seeing as you are also able to see how the western front is going as well as the eastern.
3) "Panzer Operations". A Memoire by Erhard Raus, a very talented commander, and by the end of the war the foremost tactician of armoured warfare in the German army. His memories go from Barbarossa- Stalingrad- Kursk-Kharkov- Pomerania. Very good, nice maps, well written.
Anyways that's it Enjoy!


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