Lately I have been on a reading binge of books focused on the Eastern Front and the Second World War. Beevor’s Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege is a humane testament to the wartime sufferings of millions and a damning indictment of the totalitarian warlords responsible for their fate. The author draws upon a wide range of material, from Russian archives to war diaries, personal accounts, letters, and NKVD interrogations of German POWs.

There are certain locations of note - such as the Tractor Factory - but a lot of the descriptions of the fighting are vague and generalized, since they come from the individual soldiers, and they certainly couldn't know what was going on. Of course, there is a flip side to this too in heroism, and medals dished out like they were sweets.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. First, to synthesize the standard American narrative of the Second World War’s European Theatre, it was the United States who broke the back of Nazi Germany, rescuing, yet again, the French (and others) from the Germans. 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.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. From the lice infestations ( a soldier counting over 200 in his helmet; moving masses leaving a dead body to find living flesh). The book ends with the defeat and surrender of the Germans in February 1943 and the beginning of the Soviet advance on Germany.

Christian Tyler, Financial Times “A masterpiece of historical narrative that will still be read in a hundred years. Its main focus is the Battle of Stalingrad, in particular the period from the initial German attack to Operation Uranus and the Soviet victory.