Survivors of Stalingrad: Eyewitness Accounts from the 6th Army, 1942-1943

Description

I’ve been waiting for a book that compiled individual accounts of the German experience in Stalingrad and finally, with SURVIVORS OF STALINGRAD, there is one. Editor, Reinhold Busch, has compiled 39 individual and diverse accounts of German soldiers and airmen who either escaped the Stalingrad “Kessel”/pocket or became prisoners and lived to tell about it.Busch, who has previously published his research of German surgeons in the battle of Stalingrad, provides an interesting and unique visage of the depravity experienced by an entire army left to fend for themselves after being surrounded by a motivated and vindictive Red Army. With temperatures falling to sub-zero levels and still wearing uniforms suited for spring and summer, each soldier/airman’s account echoes a recurring theme of futility and misery. The stories provide a broad perspective of the epic battle’s final days, giving readers a better understanding of the chaos and downright fear that blanketed those trapped inside the pocket … from the frontline infantryman lacking ammunition and support to airmen dealing with the flood of terrified and wounded soldiers swarming their planes in a desperate attempt to flee captivity and certain death.Each chapter represents an individual’s account and while they are all different, most all manage to touch on the same points: personal filth, extreme hunger, the unbearable cold, unburied dead, the soon-to-be-dead wounded and the Red Army bearing down. With the exception of a few, the stories range from two to six pages in length. Some of the accounts are more interesting than others, but they all combine to provide a better overall picture of the entire situation facing Germans before von Paulus’ surrender (one account even included that moment). Unlike most books involving personal recollections of war, I found it hard to view these men (in the circumstances they were in) as instruments of the once-vaunted, steamrolling Nazi war machine, but a string of forgotten left-overs whose fate depended mostly on good-fortune. There are a few “fighting to the end” scenarios presented, but most stories reflect a desperate effort to escape certain death from hunger, freezing to death or at the hands of vengeful Russian captors. The images presented are quite bleak and I found the book less war-like and more of a collection of human interest/survival stories. The accounts are retrieved either through interviews (present and past) and/or public record … they are told from a first-person perspective (we’re seeing what they saw). A collection of glossy photos in the middle of the book allows readers to put faces to some of the stories being told.I appreciated the way Busch provided details of almost every individual named throughout the book, not just those providing the narratives. Footnotes detail the dates, places of birth and death (if applicable), as well as the dates of promotions and stages of any decorations awarded. I found this meticulous approach to detail quite impressive. The ranks and duties of all the individual stories are varied as well, adding a ground-up perspective to the whole picture. Additionally, we are provided the post-war status of the storytellers, including steps in their careers and where they are today (if living). Several of the men actually survived being a POW of the Soviet Union … a subject I wish Busch would consider for a future project.SURVIVORS OF STALINGRAD is a unique book in that I haven’t been able to find anything comparable to it … most books about Stalingrad are overviews told by an individual (usually a historian). Considering the scant number of Germans who survived Stalingrad are still living, I feel this book serves as an important missing-link to the battle’s entire story.