My German colleague recommended this book and lent it to me. It is a semi-autobiographical account of when the 6th German Army was encircled by Soviets at Stalingrad in 1942 and then, due to freezing winter temperatures and lack of supplies as much as actual fighting, was defeated in 1943. The message is, of course, that the human costs of war are tragically high.
The book was interesting in several ways…
- Most of the WWII stories I’ve been exposed to are told from an American or British perspective. This story was told from the perspective of a German soldier.
- Similarly, although I know slightly more than absolutely nothing about WWII in Southeast Asia, China, and the Pacific, most of the stories I’ve been exposed to are about the European western front. This story is about the European eastern front.
- The history of how the book came to be was included at the back of the copy I read. It involves a secret, miniature copy of the manuscript, the loss of both the original and the miniature, an attempt to “recover” the text by hypnosis, a related lawsuit, the rewriting of the entire thing, and the eventual discovery of the original manuscript in Russian military archives.
The version I read, Breakout at Stalingrad, is the version based on the original manuscript. The reconstructed version, which was published earlier but arguably doesn’t reflect the author’s experiences as accurately, is titled The Forsaken Army in English.
One memorable part of the book was when some starving, freezing German soldiers who were retreating came across an encampment of another group of German soldiers who were not at all starving or freezing. They stumbled into a cabin that had a stove and firewood, electric light, and food. The well-dressed, well-rested occupant, unaware of the retreat or at least its urgency, was annoyed at being interrupted in his reading.
Books and movies about war all follow soldiers into hellish situations: insane orders to take over well-defended positions “at all costs”; field hospitals where unsanitary amputations are performed; mass graves, or just piles above ground where bodies are dumped without ceremony; people so hungry they’ll eat pets or pests or mistake cans of motor oil for sugar syrup. But it all seems like another world. Seeing the collision of two worlds, the normal and the hellish, instantly reveals everything that’s at stake, and how suddenly the balance can tip and plunge you into the abyss.
When and Why I Read Breakout at Stalingrad
Recommended/lent by German coworker. Novel based on the author's life experience.
Genre: Historical Fiction (WWII)
Date started / date finished: 10-Jul-26 to 24-Jul-26
Length: 720 pages
ISBN: 9781786690630
Originally published in: 2016/2017/2019
Amazon link: Breakout at Stalingrad
