Our prior book reviw focused on the remembrances of German combatants at Stalingrad. This month's review tackles a book focused on the Soviet side. Perhaps even more so than my last book reviewed (and given the ubiquity of German memoirs, interviews, and first-person accounts of the battle), this rare look at what actual Soviet participants in the battle experience and felt is something you should not pass over.
Stalingrad is a battle that fascinates on so many levels. Survivors of Stalingrad offers yet another. This book's searing first-person descriptions as to what it was like to survive the hell that was the final months of the German Sixth Army's existence during the winter of 1942-1943 is truly a must-read.
Photographic research can be a powerful adjunct to primary documents and secondary sources such as operational military history, memoirs, journal articles, and other such publications. The Battle of Stalingrad: Then and Now is a great example of that idea.
Lend-Lease is certainly in the news given the ongoing shipment of weapons from NATO countries into the Ukraine. This isn't the first time this was done. Author Vladimir Kotelnikov's Lend-Lease And Soviet Aviation In The Second World War offers a superb look into the delivering, modifying, and employing in combat of the various Allied aircraft shipped to the Soviet Union.
Given current events it is hard to find a more timely look at how much effort is involved in arming another country with war material at the same time it is actually engaged in conventional warfare against a peer
This month's book review delves into StuG Abteilung 191. The book provides rich insight into the German usage of assault guns during the Second World War, all while paying attention to the kind of details that other works may overlook.
Organized into nine chapters Red Army Into The Reich provides an excellent general overview of the Red Army's 1944-1945 push into not just Germany, but Scandinavia, Central Europe, and the Balkans as well.
Last year I reviewed and recommended Volume I of Douglas E. Nash Senior's new trilogy looking into the combat history of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps. I have now completed Volume's II and III and think you will like them both. Check out the new review of these volumes here!
Many of my readers probably have an interest in military history and operations in general and not just the Second World War. If so then you may have been paying attention to the advanced nature of the Russian effort to secure a dominant military position in the Arctic Circle. You may have also wondered what this effort entails and why it is such a big deal.
If so, then I have just reviewed a book about the Second World War era ground based military operations of Germany's Mountain Corps Norway that took place during the June to October 1941 portion of Operation Barbarossa.
I've spent the last two months reading the most detailed study you might ever find regarding one of the Second World War's more overlooked but great city sieges. Clocking in at 1,400 pages and two volumes this may end up becoming the definitive study of the 1944-45 Battle for Budapest, and it is well-worth your time. Take a moment to check out the review and why it is I think this two-volume set lives up to the author's ambitious goals.
Here we are again. I had previously sworn off reviewing World War II books written by former German officers. Darn it but don't I have another good one for my readers. This time we get to hear the thoughts of Panzer Group 4's former Chief of Staff - Chales De Beaulieu and his opinion as to why his panzer group failed to take Leningrad during Operation Barbarossa. Please do check out the full review. The analysis within this book's pages are well worth your time.
