With first hand accounts, primary sources, and a riveting narrative, this is one of the best works and most detailed for easy reading on the battle.

The Battle of Stalingrad is acknowledged as one of the largest, bloodiest, and most important in history. Author William Craig describes the battle (August 1942 to February 1943) mostly in very personal terms, following individual Russian, German, and Italian soldiers, officers, and generals through those six months. He also gives the reader a good appreciation of the actions of Joseph Stalin and in particular, Adolph Hitler. Human suffering and death on both sides was simply horrendous. The results of this campaign effectively marked the beginning of a long decline for Nazi Germany. Author William Craig does a good job of teaching the reader about this battle. If your interested in the Eastern European Front of World War II, this is one book that should be on your reading list.

The turning point of WWII for the Germans occurred at the Battle of Stalingrad and the picture of this classic siege is very well researched and told by William Craig. Craig gets the reader as if you are threre with the commanders the infantrymen in the bombed-out buildings. The descriptions of the weather and the problems the Germans faced in the stretched out logistical supply trains brought forth just as many problems as fighting the Russians. Craig shows a desperate Stalin throwing all his resources at the siege of Stalingrad knowing that there was no substitute for victory. Stalin knew if he stopped the Germans on the steppe plains of Russia at Stalingrad the Germans could and would be defeated. The author shows how the German 6th Army had held out under increasingly difficult surroundings and how General Paulus had to motivate and deal with a lack of food, equipment, clothing, ammunition and fuel. It also showed how the Luftwaffe suffered from attrition as the winter of 1942/43 wore on. As Paulus was dealing with all this Hitler remained steadfast that no retreat was forthcoming, his orders were to hold to the last man. Although Paulus did not hold to the last man, it was just a matter of running out of supplies and ammunition and Paulus finally surrendered just aster Hitler had promoted Paulus to Field Marshall. This book shows in historical detail the sights and sounds of a siege that stands with other great sieges such as Dien Bien Phu and Khe Sahn. Reading this book will give the reader a true sense of what it was like to fight on the brutal Eastern Front.

The author’s approach of using personal experiences and memories of the combattents, both Russian and German, made the history of this battle come alive. To read it is to personally exoerience it.

This is the first book I've read on the battle for Stalingrad proper. It's great reading, and I could hardly put it down. As they say, Craig knew how to spin a good yarn. True, he had excellent material to write a great story, but it's one of his merits that he collected much of this material himself, through interviews with many participants of the battle. That said, some flaws of the book bothered me even while I was enjoying the narrative: 1) Craig often adds the "von" particle to the name of the German commander Friedrich Paulus. This mistake is more serious than it seems, as it may give the reader the impression that Paulus was of noble origin and, therefore, in all likelihood, the heir to a long family tradition of military service. This is not the case: Paulus was of relatively humble origins, and this may arguably be an important element to understand the man and his behavior both during the battle and in the years that followed. 2) I was surprised to read about the "Kazakh" villagers at the Don that had expelled their Russian liberators and were all murdered in retaliation. One reviewer clarified that it was actually a Cossack village, which makes more sense. Again, an apparently minor mistake may lead to very wrong conclusions which affect our whole view of the war in Russia. Cossacks were opposed to the Bolshevik regime from the start, and suffered a lot under Soviet rule. 3) To some extent, Craig fails to convey to the reader the moral dimension of the battle. Sometimes, it seems we are reading the account of a duel between two opponents with an equally valid claim to the stakes. Craig does tell some harrowing stories, most notably that of a baby torn apart by two German soldiers just for the fun of it. He also tells episodes of cruelty by the Red Army (and the NKVD). However, one of the main aspects of this war that made it different from all other wars was the SYSTEMATIC perpetration of atrocities - in an unprecedented scale - in the wake of Wehrmacht victories everywhere. By failing to present this context (or, perhaps, by assuming readers have it in mind), Craig makes it difficult for us to understand the harsh treatment Russians dispensed on German prisoners after victory, and makes it look like sheer, gratuitous cruelty. Without condoning the Russian attitude, Craig could have told us more about the reasons that led to it. Among these, the horrendous treatment of Soviet POWs, over one million of which died under captivity in the winter of 1941-42. Not surprisingly, a common motto in Russia at the time was "Comrade, kill your German." 4) As a consequence of the above - and this, paradoxically, is also a tribute to Craig's narrative skills - the reader could easily catch himself rooting for the Germans, especially in the second part of the book, which focuses on the plight of the Sixth Army under encirclement. One reader mentioned that Germans in the book are usually much more lifelike than Russians. I had the same impression. I think I'm much more familiar with Paulus and other German commanders and soldiers than with many Russians that are mentioned but that we never really get to know in depth. In fairness, let us admit it must have been much easier for Craig, in the late 1960's and early 1970's, to interview German veterans in West Germany than Soviet ones in Brezhnev's USSR (some of these accounts were obtained in Israel and elsewhere). And he certainly had much easier access to German documents and letters than to Russian ones. Why, then, four stars? Because, as I said above, the book is a great read. Also, Craig's account of the battle seems to be fairly accurate, within the limitations of the time when it was written, and in spite of the slant toward the German side. (This must not be confused with sympathy for the Nazis. Craig has none.) I thought I learned a lot in the chapters describing Stalin and Hitler making decisions on the conduct of the battle. One can easily understand why so many German officers and soldiers became disillusioned with the Führer after Stalingrad. No wonder so many high ranking veterans of the Russian campaign eventually got involved in the "officer's plot" to murder Hitler on July 20, 1944. A little episode Craig tells makes a lot of sense to the reader at this point. In the last weeks of the battle, a group of German soldiers were listening to a radio broadcast from Germany. They were weeping at the sound of the national anthem, "Deutschland über alles" (music by Haydn, remember). But then, when the "Horst Wessel Lied" (song of the Nazi Party) followed, someone smashed the radio to pieces. No one protested. As the example shows, Craig has an eye for the telling detail, and many of the episodes in the book really move you, make you think and give you a most revelatory picture of the mind of men (and women) in extreme circumstances. The description of cannibalism among Italian prisoners of war, the sense of duty of the German doctor (who would pay dearly for his decision to return to his men in the battlefield even though he had a chance to stay away), the feelings of comradeship, the Russian nurse who lost all her limbs: these are some of the episodes I think I will not forget. As I will never forget the story of Mikhail Goldstein's violin playing on New Year's eve. I won't spoil your pleasure here, but this very moving episode alone was, for me, worth the price of the book many times over!

Five decades after it was written this remains a top choice for a WW2 book. It's a massive and beautifully written collection of reports revealing the day-to-day military operations of both the Germans and the Russians in the battle for Stalingrad and the political decisions guiding both sides. The exhaustively compiled accounts rich in personal detail were gathered from journals or letters written by the combatants, interviews with soldier and civilian survivors, and official documents. Aside from many graphic descriptions of sometimes shocking military actions and the detailed recounting of how the battle was supplied, fought and lost by the Germans, it reveals the political conflicts among the top German officers, with Hitler's bootlicking sycophants ensuring that their beloved fuhrer's most idiotic and suicidal orders prevailed - while their practical-minded opponents led a protracted but hopeless effort to save their doomed army. On the Russian side, we get insights into Stalin with his cold-blooded but clearheaded strategy to win the war. A fascinating, entertaining, eminently readable book.