Easton Press: STALINGRAD: FATEFUL SIEGE: 1942-1943: WORLD WAR II: STALIN: HITLER

Description: Easton Press leather edition of Antony Beevor's "The Fateful Siege: 1942-- 1943," a COLLECTOR'S edition, Period Photographs, published in 2004. Bound in deep hunter green leather, the book has camel tan French moire end leaves, satin book marker, hubbed spine, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, gold gilding on three edges---in near FINE condition---except for a blank attached bookplate on inside fly leaf. "The Battle of Stalingrad" was not only the psychological turning point of World War II: it also changed the face of modern warfare. In 1942, Hitler's huge Sixth Army reached Stalingrad. In the five-month siege that followed, the Russians fought to hold the city at any cost, then, in an astonishing reversal, encircled and trapped their Nazi enemy. The battle for the ruins of the city cost more than a million lives. Leningrad was built in 1703 by Peter the Great who intended it to be both a fortress against Western aggression and a bridge to Western culture. A sophisticated and cultured city, Leningrad stirred hatred in an envious Hitler and distrust by the xenophobic Stalin. Josef Stalin had refused to accept the possibility of a German invasion. He was terrified of provoking Hitler. Goebbels compared Stalin "to a rabbit mesmerized by a snake." During the frigid winter of 1942, many Leningraders died of starvation, others from the relenting Nazi bombardment. Germany had over a half million troops amassed on Russia's border. In 1942, the city was without heat, water, or light. Food supplies went up in smoke during the Luftwaffe raids. In constant sub-zero temperatures, the citizens of Leningrad lived, or died, on a bread ration of one-half pound per day for workers, and two slices for everyone else. Sawdust, boiled leather, cottonseed cake, wallpaper paste were used to supplement this starvation diet. Cats and dogs soon disappeared, and parents kept close guard over their children for fear of kidnapping because it was rumored that "meat patties" contained human flesh. Survivors later claimed that they survived by visiting art galleries and listening to their fine symphony music---food for the soul! Beevor conveys the experience of soldiers on both sides, fighting in inhuman conditions, and of civilians trapped on an urban battlefield. Beevor examined a wide range of German and Soviet archives, including prisoner interrogations and reports of desertions and executions. The account is a story of cruelty, courage, and human suffering. At Stalingrad, the Sixth Army's Red Army soldiers contained 50,000 Soviet citizens in German uniform, many of them brutally press-ganged into service through starvation in prison camps; others were volunteers. Captain von Rosenbach-Lepinski is said to have told his motorcycle reconnaissance battalion: 'The war with Russia will last only four weeks." The Wehrmacht had assembled the largest invasion force ever seen, with 3,350 tanks, around 7,000 field guns and over 2,000 aircraft. The Germans were very confident since they had overrun France, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland---with little resistance! In the first days of Barbarossa, German generals saw little to change their low opinion of Soviet commanders. However, by mid-July, the Red Army was in a desperate position. In the first three weeks of fighting, it had lost 3,500 tanks, over 6,000 aircraft, and some two million men, including a significant proportion of the Red Army officer corps. In many places German troops had to build their own 'corduroy roads' of birch trunks laid side to side. Field Marshall von Bock had under his command one and a half million men, but his panzer divisions were weakened by the lack of replacement tanks and spare parts. The total war dead of the Soviet Union was about 27 million, almost exactly double the total of German war dead. Historians and reviewers worldwide have hailed Beevor's "Stalingrad" as the definitive account of World War II's most harrowing battle. 494 pages, including Sources, Bibliography, and an index---a RARE title. I offer combined shipping.

Price: 79.95 USD

Location: Walnut Ridge, Arkansas

End Time: 2024-12-12T13:30:25.000Z

Shipping Cost: 8 USD