The Battle of Stalingrad was arguably the most important single battle of the Second World War. It was certainly the turning point of the war on the Eastern front, the first large-scale defeat of the vast German war machine, the defeat that destroyed forever its aura of invincibility. In telling the story of Stalingrad once again, Anthony Beevor has made military history accessible to the layman in a way that brings home the suffering of the infantryman as clearly as the aspirations and exasperations of the generals. He shows how in facing the twin enemies of the Russian army and the Russian winter, Hitler and his field marshals made many of the mistakes made by Napoleon more than a century before, and added horrors that could only be the product of the twentieth century with its greater power of destruction and less concern for the sanctity of human life.
Napoleon is reputed to have said, ‘Cannons kill men,’ but the cannons of the 1940s, augmented by rockets and aerial bombardment were far more deadly that those hauled nearly to Moscow in 1812. Anthony Beevor gives due prominence to the principle weapons: the Stuka dive bomber, the T34 tank, 88mm anti-aircraft gun used in an anti-tank role and the Katyusha multiple rocket launcher called Stalin’s organ. But this is much more a story about real men and rather fewer women, who fought and fell, many heroically, on both sides of this dreadful conflict. Through amazingly thorough research, Beevor names many humble folk whose stories might well have remained hidden from a general readership.
Although Beevor tells the story in a way that grips the reader and draws him ever on to discover what happens next, the book is not in some ways an easy read. Military history inevitable involves units from companies to battalions, regiments, brigades, and divisions, all with long designations in text and numerals, including Roman numerals, that must inevitably be repeatedly mentioned in full. Add to this the long and unfamiliar Russian names, and the diligent Western reader finds many stumbling blocks in his/her path. It is a tribute to the author’s skill that one is drawn to press on through even the most technical passages.
Normally in reading an account of a war the reader tends to favour one side over the other. Anthony Beevor’s book is unusual in that it is entirely neutral and persuades the objective reader to take the same perspective. Stalingrad was a battle of wills between two all-powerful and ruthless dictators whose egos meant much more to them than the lives or welfare of their soldiers. War crimes were commonly committed by both sides and the Geneva Convention was almost entirely ignored, except where useful for purposes of propaganda. Anthony Beevor plays the role of an astute referee who spots every foul as well as noting all the skilful moves and examples of outstanding conduct.