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Book suggestions
This isn't really all that naval but I'm looking for suggestions for first-hand accounts of the WWII Eastern front, preferably from the German point of view but I'm open to Soviet. I've already read Blood Red Snow and The Forgotten Soldier, which are both excellent books.
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I'm also interested if anybody has anything to recommend. I like this sort of thing.
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Are you more interested in the human tragedy side of that war or the military science/history side?
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Open to suggestions. |
I would look if I have any good books translated.
What I would suggest reading would be the -commission for studies of war experience- materials (or whatever it was called). That commission would collect and study the combat experience and then transmit it around the armed forces in form of special documents. This was done quickly and hence (amongst other things) allowed the Soviet Armed Forces to grow from where they were in 1941 to where they were in 1945. |
Hi, gordonmull: I have the two books you've read. I also have "The Outermost Frontier: A German Soldier in the Russian Campaign" by Helmut Pabst (ISBN 0-7183-0600-7) which is a personal account type book;
also "War On The Eastern Front 1941-1945: The German Soldier in Russia" by James Lucas (no ISBN number in the book, but it was published by Cooper & Lucas Ltd) factual, with good long passages of personal account, which is the type of book I especially like. |
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Those would be secondary sources, no?
Why not recommend any of the works by David Glantz then? Or Armstrong? |
Here are the covers:
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Valentin Mikula: "Stuka"
very good book, from training, to Poland, to Stalingrad .. and back, with a short intermezzo around Malta. You also learn a lot about flying and tactics, very tense and (unlike Hollywood and other western literature of the kind) not glorifying, while describing mentality and comradeship. You can compare this to "Das Boot", but with planes. Don't know if ever translated into english though. Greetings, Catfish |
From the Soviet perspective:
"Swastika In The Gunsight: Memoirs of a Russian Fighter Pilot 1941-43" by Igor Kaberov
Focused particularly on the siege of Leningrad. ISBN 0 7509 2240 0 |
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http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...astern+f%2Caps |
for a German perspective: Paul Carell - Operation Barbarossa and its continuation Scorched Earth.
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For the air war Christer Bergstrom series.. Barbarossa: The Air Battle July-December 1941 Stalingrad - The Air Battle: 1942 through January 1943 Kursk: The Air Battle July 1943 Bagration to Berlin: The Final Air Battles in the East 1944-1945 Osprey campaign series has a number of books, be careful they do cost money. Three of their titles have been grouped together in a book with a little bit more info. Operation Barbarossa by Robert Kirchubel. Talking of Barbarossa here are some more.. Barbarossa by David Glantz (Well worth checking out his books) Barbarossa by Bryan I. Fugate War without Garlands by Robert Kershaw David Stahel has written four books very detailed, I've read the first two just waiting for the next two to come out in paperback. Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East Kiev 1941 Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941 The Battle for Moscow Death on the Don: The Destruction of Germany's Allies on the Eastern Front 1941-44 by Jonathan trigg (He also wrote four books on volunteers from other countries served in the Waffen SS) Red Storm on the Reich by Christopher Duffy Hitler's Final Fortress Breslau 1945 by Richard Hargreaves Berlin Soldiger by Helmut Altner Three more on the last days.. Until the final hour by Traudl Junge In the Bunker with Hitler by Berd Freytag Von Loinghoven Hitler's last days by Gerhardt Boldt And from the Russian point. Ivan's War The Red Army 1939-45 by Catherine Merridale Antony Beevor two on Stalingrad/Berlin |
Brilliant book this, it is a novel though:
"The Stalin Organ" by Gert Ledig, more here: http://dannyreviews.com/h/Stalin_Organ.html , "1942, at the Eastern Front. Soldiers crouch in horrible holes in the ground, mingling with corpses. Tunneled beneath a radio mast, German soldiers await the order to blow themselves up. Russian tanks, struggling to break through enemy lines, bog down in a swamp, while a German runner, bearing messages from headquarters to the front, scrambles desperately from shelter to shelter as he tries to avoid getting caught in the action. Through it all, Russian artillery—the crude but devastatingly effective multiple rocket launcher known to the Germans as the Stalin Organ and to the Russians as Katyusha—rains death upon the struggling troops. |
Fair amount of suggestions there, I'm more into land forces' (infantry, tanker's) experiences. Jim, I had thought of a search on Amazon but I figured I'd ask here first, given the ever so slight bastion of knowledge on WWII :03:. Settled on either Black EdelWeiss by Johann Voss or Red Army Tank Commander: At War in a T-34 on the Eastern Front by Vasiley Bryukhov.
It's not a book, but just to share for anyone who's not come across it, Pte Tom Barker's memoirs are a good read. He served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in North Africa, then Crete. http://www.warlinks.com/memories/barker/index.php |
don't read soviet commanders' memoirs. Most of them are like:
Day 1: we killed 100 fascists. Day 2: we killed 1000 fascists. Day 3: we killed 100 000 fascists. Day 4: Retreat. |
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However, if you insist I would sum up German memoirs the same way Koshkin did:
(can be found here in Russian, original is not mine: http://armor.kiev.ua/humor/txt/ger.php) |
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