Stalingrad - Chronicle of a Foretold Defeat

Many books have addressed the Battle of Stalingrad — and for good reason: it is one of the fiercest battles of the Second World War and, in many respects, one of the turning points on the Eastern Front.

Urban combat, the "war of rats", the fierce resistance of the Red Army with its back to the Volga, the encirclement of an entire German army — which then clung, in Dantesque conditions, to the last districts of a devastated city for months, linked to the rest of the German front by a slender airlift. These images come to mind whenever we set out to recount this famous battle.

So what more can be learned? That is the challenge brilliantly met by the author, who delivers here an account of the battle of rare precision. Drawing extensively on primary sources such as combat reports and the diaries of the officers and soldiers who took part in the battle, the text presented here is both vivid and detailed.

Illustrating his argument with a wealth of testimonies and excerpts from reports, the author succeeds in offering a sometimes little-known or even original reading of certain aspects of the battle. The entire event is covered, from the approach of the German forces to their surrender.

A comprehensive work, innovative in many respects, closely following the fighting and the combatants, offering a detailed picture of the hell that was the Battle of Stalingrad, for both sides.