Cumins, Keith.
CATACLYSM:
The War on the Eastern Front 1941-45.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Helion, 2011).
6x9, 40 photographs, 32 maps, 400 pages.
~~~ It has been more than 60 years since the end of the Second World War, a conflict
that shaped the second half of the Twentieth Century. The significance of the war, and its
relevance to the lives of so many, has generated a legacy of published material on the
topic sufficient to fill a library. Yet disproportionately few publications deal exclusively
with the true cauldron of the conflict - the brutal and uncompromising war between
Germany and the Soviet Union; and fewer still attempt to provide, in a single volume,
a comprehensive overview of that war from the commencement of Operation Barbarossa
to the last battle in the rubble-strewn streets of Berlin. Drawing on information from
Soviet archives that have only become available since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Cataclysm: The War on the Eastern Front 1941-1945, is unquestionably the most successful attempt so far to achieve that goal.
~~~
As Winston Churchill acknowledged, the Red Army tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht, and the story of how that happened, a story in which the events at Stalingrad were just one part, deserves to be told with greater frequency and to be understood more widely. From the enormous amount of detailed information currently available on the military struggle on the Eastern Front, condensing the events of a war of such scale and duration into a succinct narrative in a meaningful and balanced way has long been a challenging task. Yet the mortal conflict between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia is deserving of the effort.
~~~
Cataclysm focuses on the ground fighting along the Eastern Front, for it was overwhelmingly the ground war that determined the outcome of the conflict. With the aid of concise supporting maps, the book provides a clear and comprehensive account of the ebb and flow of a four-year long conflict conducted across a thousand miles of frontline in the vast region between the Elbe and Volga. Describing the conflict in a predominantly chronological manner, the book's narrative nonetheless maintains an easy, flowing style, relating with clarity the sequence of events as the interwoven campaigns on different sectors of the long frontline unfolded. For anyone wishing to understand the war in on the Eastern Front, 'Cataclysm' is essential reading, and the book will prove to be an invaluable addition to any bookshelf.
~~~ Not available until late July 2011.
$59.95
Duffy, Christopher,
RED STORM ON THE REICH: The Soviet March on Germany, 1945.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Castle). 403 pages.
~~~ "A powerful narrative history of a campaign of
unprecedented scale and ferocity. Draws on both Russian and
German source material to portray the brutal 1945 battle on the Eastern
Front."
Paperback edition currently in print at $18.
This hardcover edition originally published at $27.50, now OUT OF PRINT.
$30.00
Fowler, Will.
EASTERN FRONT: The Unpublished Photographs, 1941-1945.
NF/NF. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Osceola, WI: MBI Publishing, 2001).
Photographs, index, 225 pages.
~~~ This book presents the remarkable personal journals of a German soldier who participated in Operation Barbarossa and subsequent battles on the Eastern Front, revealing the combat experience of the German-Russian War as seldom seen before.
~~~
Hans Roth was a member of the anti-tank (Panzerjager) battalion, 299th Infantry Division, attached to Sixth Army, as the invasion of Russia began. Writing as events transpired, he recorded the mystery and tension as the Germans deployed on the Soviet frontier in June 1941. Then a firestorm broke loose as the Wehrmacht tore across the front, forging into the primitive vastness of the East.
~~~
During the Kiev encirclement, Roth's unit was under constant attack as the Soviets desperately tried to break through the German ring. At one point, after the enemy had finally been beaten, a friend serving with the SS led him to a site where he witnessed civilians being massacred en masse (which may well have been Babi Yar). After suffering through a horrible winter against apparently endless Russian reserves, his division went on the offensive again, this time on the northern wing of "Case Gelb," the German drive toward Stalingrad.
~~~
In these journals, attacks and counterattacks are described in "you are there" detail, as Roth wrote privately, as if to keep himself sane, knowing that his honest accounts of the horrors in the East could never pass through Wehrmacht censors. When the Soviet counteroffensive of winter 1942 begins, his unit is stationed alongside the Italian 8th Army, and his observations of its collapse, as opposed to the reaction of the German troops sent to stiffen its front, are of special fascination.
~~~
Roth’s three journals were discovered many years after his disappearance, tucked away in the home of his brother, with whom he was known to have had a deep bond. After his brother’s death, his family discovered them and quickly sent them to Rosel, Roth’s wife. In time, Rosel handed down the journals to Erika, Roth’s only daughter, who had meantime immigrated to America.
~~~
Hans Roth was doubtlessly working on a fourth journal before he was reported missing in action in July 1944 during the battle known as the Destruction of Army Group Center. Although Roth’s ultimate fate remains unknown, what he did leave behind, now finally revealed, is an incredible firsthand account of the horrific war the Germans waged in Russia.
[Allerberger] Albrecht Wacker (translated by Geoffrey Brooks),
SNIPER ON THE EASTERN FRONT: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knights Cross.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2005). Map, photographs, index, 196 pages.
~~~ A Sniper on the Eastern Front begins when
Allerberger, a front-line machine-gunner, receives a minor hand
wound in combat. While convalescing, he happens upon a captured
Red Army sniper rifle and, on a lark, starts shooting targets with
it. Those around him immediately realize what his real talent is.
Allerberger is made a sniper on the spot, issued an 8x scope to go
with his Russian gun, and sent out on a more or less freelance
mission to kill as many Soviets as he can. What follows is his
memoir of operating in a landscape of nightmares. ~~~ In the
beginning, Allerberger wonders whether he’s doing a noble or
cowardly thing. Plenty of soldiers, even on his own side, hated
snipers. But this was the Eastern Front, the worst place in the
unholy epic of human warfare. In one scene, seconds after an
artillery attack, Allerberger’s charred, steaming and limbless
comrade looks him in the eye and asks, “What happened? Why is
it so dark?” Then he begins to cry and dies on the spot. ~~~ “Alas,
there was no place for sentimentality in this war,” Allerberger
reflects, and pulls the trigger one more time.
$34.95
Alexander, Christine & Mason Kunze (eds).
EASTERN INFERNO: The Journals of a German Panzerjäger on the Eastern Front, 1941-43.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Casemate, 2010)
Illustrations, 6x9, 240 pages.
~~~ This book presents the remarkable personal journals of a German soldier who participated in Operation Barbarossa and subsequent battles on the Eastern Front, revealing the combat experience of the German-Russian War as seldom seen before.
~~~
Hans Roth was a member of the anti-tank (Panzerjager) battalion, 299th Infantry Division, attached to Sixth Army, as the invasion of Russia began. Writing as events transpired, he recorded the mystery and tension as the Germans deployed on the Soviet frontier in June 1941. Then a firestorm broke loose as the Wehrmacht tore across the front, forging into the primitive vastness of the East.
~~~
During the Kiev encirclement, Roth's unit was under constant attack as the Soviets desperately tried to break through the German ring. At one point, after the enemy had finally been beaten, a friend serving with the SS led him to a site where he witnessed civilians being massacred en masse (which may well have been Babi Yar). After suffering through a horrible winter against apparently endless Russian reserves, his division went on the offensive again, this time on the northern wing of "Case Gelb," the German drive toward Stalingrad.
~~~
In these journals, attacks and counterattacks are described in "you are there" detail, as Roth wrote privately, as if to keep himself sane, knowing that his honest accounts of the horrors in the East could never pass through Wehrmacht censors. When the Soviet counteroffensive of winter 1942 begins, his unit is stationed alongside the Italian 8th Army, and his observations of its collapse, as opposed to the reaction of the German troops sent to stiffen its front, are of special fascination.
~~~
Roth’s three journals were discovered many years after his disappearance, tucked away in the home of his brother, with whom he was known to have had a deep bond. After his brother’s death, his family discovered them and quickly sent them to Rosel, Roth’s wife. In time, Rosel handed down the journals to Erika, Roth’s only daughter, who had meantime immigrated to America.
~~~
Hans Roth was doubtlessly working on a fourth journal before he was reported missing in action in July 1944 during the battle known as the Destruction of Army Group Center. Although Roth’s ultimate fate remains unknown, what he did leave behind, now finally revealed, is an incredible firsthand account of the horrific war the Germans waged in Russia.
$32.95
Baxter, Ian.
STEEL BULWARK: The Last Years of the German Panzerwaffe on
the Eastern Front, 1943-45.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Helion, 2009)
175 black & white photographs, 9x12, 240 pages.
~~~ Steel Bulwark: The Last Years of the German Panzerwaffe on the Eastern Front 1943-45 is a unique visual book providing the reader with a wide selection of rare and mostly unpublished photographs accompanied by in-depth captions. The images reveal the unfolding story of the last desperate years of the German Panzer forces - the Panzerwaffe - which had played a vital role in the military victories of the Nazis between 1939 and 1942. In the remaining years of the war it provided the backbone of Germany`s defense. Although its strength was badly depleted following serious losses at Kursk in the summer weeks of July 1943, the Panzerwaffe remained committed on the battlefield in spite of the titanic struggles which took place. Throughout the last years of the war it demonstrated the German tank soldiers' superior tactical abilities and showed how they carefully utilized all available reserves and resources into building numerous variants that went into production and saw action on the battlefield.
The photos portray how these formidable machines were adapted and up-gunned to face the ever-increasing enemy threat. Even when it was forced to withdraw towards the frontiers of the Reich under the constant hammer blows of enemy ground and air bombardments, it reveals how the Panzerwaffe played a decisive role in trying to stem the rout along the disintegrating front lines. The book is a captivating glimpse of a remarkable band of soldiers showing the evolution of their tactics and unmatched fighting vehicles. It reveals its successes and many of its defeats. Even during the last months of the war as the German Panzers withdrew ever further into their Homeland, it shows how units of the Panzerwaffe fought on to the grim death, hoping to hold back the superior weight of their enemy in order to win time and save their forces from ultimate destruction.
The majority of the images are drawn from private collections and archives in Germany and Eastern Europe, and are previously unpublished.
$59.95
Butler, Rupert,
SS-WIKING: The History of the Fifth SS Division, 1941-45
NEW copy. (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2002). Hardcover (laminated boards) issued
without dust jacket. Maps, photographs, diagrams, appendices, bibliography,
index, 192 pages. ~~~ "This the fourth in a series of books on the
divisions of the Waffen-SS which explores the background to the unit's
formation, the men it recruited, the key figures involved and its
organisation. - Illustrated with rare photographs and with an authoritative
text and detailed appendices, SS-Wiking is a definitive history of one of
Germany's top fighting units of wwii. - This is an in-depth examination of
one of the most notorious of the SS Divisions, the Wiking, which was largely
recruited from foreign volunteers from German occupied countries. - Despite
their non-Germanic background, the Norwegians, Dutch, Danes, Belgians, Finns
and other nationalities, often motivated by an extreme anti-Communist zeal,
fought hard on the Eastern Front for the Nazi cause and won considerable
praise for their bravery. - It looks at the specialist training of the
Waffen-SS and the uniforms and insignia that members of the Wiking division
wore. -- It also provides a full combat record of the unit describing their
service on the Eastern Front, including the invasion of Russia, the capture
of Rostov, the hard fought defensive battles of 1943, the breakout from the
Cherkassy pocket and the defence of Warsaw, to the fruitless attempt to
relieve Budapest and the unit's effective destruction by the war's end."
$29.95
Hinze, Rolf.
CRUCIBLE OF COMBAT:
Germany's Defensive Battles in the Ukraine 1943-44.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Helion, 2009).
6x9, 100 black & white photographs, 105 maps, 504 pages.
~~~ In his historical series Hinze provides the only comprehensive account of events on the central and southern portions of the German Eastern Front during the years of German retreat. This volume covers events on the southern portion of the Eastern Front from late 1943, in the aftermath of the Battle of Kursk, through the great Soviet summer offensives of 1943 and 1944.
~~~
Following the final failure of German hopes in the great Battle of Kursk, the German forces in the Ukraine were forced ever back, losing ground gained in the years of victorious advance. This volume describes the bitter and eventful battles of German army groups in the Ukraine and the evacuation of the Crimean Peninsula during 1943 -1944. It follows the retreat from the Dnjepr to the Dnjestr rivers, Tscherkassy, Nikopol, Chersson, the fighting around Kriwoi Rog and Kirowograd, the loss of the Dnjepr salient, the breakout from the Tscherkassy Kessel ['pocket'], and the battles on the Rumainan frontier around Targul-Frumos. The roster of battles goes on and on, including Tarnopol and the magnificent feats of the Hube Kessel, as the cut-off German First Army fought its way as a 'moving pocket' to freedom.
~~~
The panorama stretches from the Pripjet swamps north of Kiew on the boundary with Heeresgruppe Mitte to the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea and Sewastopol in the south, from the Mius and Donez Rivers to the borders of Hungary and Rumania.
~~~
Hinze's accounts are indispensable to any study of the collapse of the German central front (covered in his two volumes on the collapse of Heeresgruppe Mitte), the great retreats across the Ukraine to the borders of Hungary and Rumania, and the evacuation of the Crimean Peninsula (both covered in this volume), the fate of Heeresgruppen Nordukraine, Südukraine and Süd-/ Ostmark in 1945 (to be covered in a subsequent title) and the battles of Heeresgruppe Nordukraine/A/Mitte (covered in 'To the Bitter End', published by Helion). There are no other detailed but comprehensive accounts in which the various individual narratives, unit histories and studies of individual battles may find their place in relation to the big picture. Hinze's maps, alone, would justify his works, for most of the unit histories, narratives and studies of individual battles lack maps illustrating their place in the larger geography of the war. The study is complemented by orders of battle, the aforementioned maps (over 100 of them), plus photographs. 'Crucible of Combat' represents a major contribution to our understanding of the Soviet-German War 1941-45.
$59.95
Koschorrek, Gunther,
BLOOD RED SNOW: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (London: Greenhill Books [Stackhill], 2002).
Maps, photographs, 318 pages. ~~~
Gunther Koschorrek wrote his illicit diary on any scraps of paper he could
lay his hands on. As keeping a diary was strictly forbidden, he sewed the pages
into the lining of his thick winter coat and deposited them with his mother on
infrequent trips home on leave. The diary went missing and it was when he was
reunited with his daughter in America some forty years later that it came to
light and became "Blood Red Snow." The horror and confusion of fighting in
the streets of Stalingrad are brought to life by his descriptions of the others
in his unit: their differing manners and techniques for dealing with the squalor
and death. This harrowing book takes the reader to the front line and paints a
very human picture of what life was like under relentless Russian attacks in
freezing conditions. As Koschorrek says in his introduction, the book stands as
a memorial to the huge numbers on both sides who did not survive and is, over
five decades later, the fulfillment of a responsibility he feels to honor the
memory of those who perished.
Paperback currently in print at $17.95; hardcover currently OUT OF PRINT.
$35.00
McGuirl, Thomas and Remy Spezzano,
GOD, HONOR, FATHERLAND: A Photo History of Panzergrenadier Division Grossdeutschland on the Eastern Front, 1942-1944.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (RZM Imports, 2007). Photographs, 226 pages.
~~~ Panzergrenadier Division "Grossdeutschland" was one of Germany's most
celebrated military formations of the Second World War. Formed in 1942 by the expansion
of Infantry Regiment (motorized) "Grossdeutschland," the new division quickly earned its
reputation on the Eastern Front of being the elite of the German Army. Twice the size of
most other divisions, it was an immensely powerful and hard-hitting mechanized formation
that cut a large swath through the Red Army, whether in the attack or on the defense. Its
carefully selected officer and non-commissioned officer corps ensured that no matter what
the odds, the division would always give a good account of itself in battle and would
possess an esprit de corps enjoyed by few other comparable divisions, including those
of the Waffen-SS.
~~~
The thousands of volunteers from every land and province in Germany who fought and died
while serving in the ranks of Panzergrenadier Division "Grossdeutschland" represented a
cross-section of German society, a radical departure from the manner in which most
German divisions of the era were created. Now for the first time, the faces of these men,
at rest and in battle, can be seen through the images gleaned from hundreds of photographs
taken by the division's war correspondents or Kriegsberichter.
~~~
This outstanding selection of photographs, which until recently remained unseen for
decades in a European archive, have been recovered and painstakingly researched by
authors Remy Spezzano and Thomas McGuirl. Together with the assistance of the
division's Veterans' association, they identified hundreds of men, living and dead, as
well as dozens of combat vehicles, items of equipment, and specific engagements the
division took part in from April 1942 to September 1944. Accompanied by a detailed
narrative that ties each of the photos within the context of the war on the Eastern Front,
God, Honor, Fatherland represents a milestone in the study of the war in the East
and shows the face of the German soldier as he has never been shown before.
Currently in print at $69.95.
$50.00
Reese, Willy Peter,
A STRANGER TO MYSELF: The Inhumanity of War, Russia, 1941-44.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005).
Photographs, 176 pages.
~~~ A Stranger to Myself: The
Inhumanity of War, Russia 1941--44 is the haunting memoir of a young German
soldier on the Russian front during World War II. Willy Peter Reese was only
twenty years old when he found himself marching through Russia with orders to
take no prisoners. Three years later he was dead. Bearing witness to-and
participating in-the atrocities of war,
Reese recorded his reflections in his
diary, leaving behind an intelligent, touching, and illuminating perspective on
life on the eastern front. He documented the carnage perpetrated by both sides,
the destruction which was exacerbated by the young soldiers' hunger, frostbite,
exhaustion, and their daily struggle to survive. And he wrestled with his own
sins, with the realization that what he and his fellow soldiers had done to
civilians and enemies alike was unforgivable, with his growing awareness of the
Nazi policies toward Jews, and with his deep disillusionment with himself and
his fellow men. ~~~ An international sensation, A Stranger to Myself
is an unforgettable account of men at war.
Originally published at $23, now OUT OF PRINT.
$27.00
Schuster, Peter & Harold Tiede,
UNIFORMS AND INSIGNIA OF THE COSSACKS IN THE GERMAN WEHRMACHT IN WORLD WAR II.
NEW copy, hardcover. (Lancaster, PA:
Schiffer Publishing). 8.5x11. Over 420 b&w and color
photographs. 160 pages.
~~~ This book examines the uniforms and badges of an almost forgotten group of soldiers - Don, Kuban, Terek and Siberian Cossack units that fought with the German Wehrmacht during World War II. With the cooperation of former members of many Cossack units the authors have collected a great deal of material - much of the information I this book appears in print here for the first time. Among the subjects covered are: Cossacks in the Imperial Russian Army; the uniforms and badges of the Cossacks in the Wehrmacht in World War II, including collar insignia, Cossack headgear, sleeve badges (arm shields), Cossack qualification badges, decorations awarded to Cossacks; flags and command symbols of the Cossack units.
$49.95
Wulffson, Don,
SOLDIER X.
VG. In new condition except for remainder mark on bottom edge (page edges) of book. Mass market paperback. (NY: Speak, Penguin Group, 2001).
Juvenile fiction (ages 10-14). 227 pages.
~~~ From Publishers Weekly: "Wulffson poses haunting questions of
allegiance, not only for his characters but for readers, with this behind-enemy-lines look
at WWII. Veteran and teacher Erik Brandt's students deem him a hero, but he confides to
readers that in WWII he fought for the Germans -- not the Americans. He then flashes back
to March 21, 1944, when at age 16, Erik, the son of a (deceased) German father and
Russian mother, and a member of the Hitler Youth, boards a train bound for battle in
Russia. Erik's idealism quickly fades as he witnesses firsthand the Third Reich's brutal
treatment of Jews, the casualties of war (a nurse carrying a severed human leg) and the
everyday compromises necessary to survive (the soldiers eat rats for sustenance). One of
the most chilling quotes in the novel comes from a seasoned soldier when the teenaged
reinforcements arrive at their post: All the men are dead.... Now they are sending us boys.
Wulffson effectively lays the groundwork for Erik's one chance for survival after a bloody
German defeat in battle: Erik dresses in a dead enemy's clothes and, thanks to his fluency
in Russian, passes as a Russian with amnesia, known as 'X', in a Russian hospital. There
he meets a beautiful nurse, Tamara, and although their love affair is not always convincing,
the questions their relationship raises about loyalty (when she discovers Erik's true identity)
are just as compelling as those found elsewhere in this riveting novel. With well-researched
and meticulously recorded details of life under fire, Wulffson urges readers to look past the
outer trappings of the enemy to discover the human being inside the uniform".
$7
Gorodetsky, Gabriel,
GRAND DELUSION: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Yale University Press, 1999). 424 pages.
~~~
From Publisher's Weekly: Gorodetsky's diplomatic history of the
period immediately preceding WWII effectively refutes the argument, made
most popular by Viktor Suvorov's Icebreaker, that Stalin authorized
the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact of 1939 because he was preparing to
bring revolutionary war to Europe and wanted to neutralize Hitler. Having
examined recently opened Soviet archives, Gorodetsky, a professor of
history at Tel Aviv University, shows that, while Stalin feared a German
attack, he thought he could work out a traditional balance-of-power
arrangement with Germany that established recognized spheres of influence.
The reason Stalin succumbed to this delusion, according to Gorodetsky, was
that he distrusted Britain more than he feared Hitler. He loathed the idea
of becoming Britain's pawn, believing (not without reason, as it turned out)
that a Soviet-British alliance would make cannon fodder of the poorly
prepared Red Army. Gorodetsky reveals that Stalin both courted and bullied
the leaders of Bulgaria and Turkey in hopes of gaining control of the
Bosphorus and then using that control as a bargaining chip when striking
a balance of power in the region. As for the contention that Stalin planned
to export revolution by war, Gorodetsky, like many before him, observes
that Stalin's purges of the officer corps had rendered the Red Army
ill-prepared for a defensive war, much less an attack on Nazi Germany.
Though stiffly written in some places, this thorough analysis of Soviet
diplomatic brinksmanship makes it more than clear that Stalin was
ultimately driven more by a combination of paranoia and realpolitik than
by Bolshevik ideology.
~~~ Currently in print at $50.00.
$45.00
[Khaldei] Alexander and Alice Nakhimovsky.
WITNESS TO HISTORY: The Photographs of Yevgeny Khaldei.
Fine/Fine. Collector's grade hardcover with dust jacket. (Aperture, 1997). 75 black-and-white duotone photographs, 9 x 12, 96 pages.
~~~ One of the greatest Soviet treasures to come to light after the of the cold war is the work of the photographer Yevgeny Khaldei. A staff photographer for TASS during World War II, Khaldei produced a tremendous and valuable archive of images. He covered every day of the conflict from the German invasion of the USSR in 1941 to the fall of Berlin in 1945, where he raced to the roof of the burning Reichstag to take his famous photograph of a soldier hoisting the Soviet flag. His unflinching approach, and the moving images that resulted, have led to comparisons with the work of Robert Capa. Khaldei's life was shaped by the triumphs and disasters of the Soviet twentieth century. Yevgeny Khaldei was born in 1917, just months before the Bolshevik Revolution. A year later, as pogroms ravaged the Jewish towns of the Ukraine, his mother was shot and the bullet that killed her lodged in his chest. At the age of eleven he made a crude camera from a cardboard box and his grandmother's spectacles. Before long his images of the heroes of Soviet construction, triumphant steelworkers and stoic farmers, were appearing in Pravda. By the of the war Khaldei was acknowledged as Russia's greatest combat photographer. Born as the Soviet Union was coming into existence, Yevgeny Khaldei has lived through its struggles, triumphs, and eventually its downfall. Eighty years old, Yevgeny Khaldei still resides in Moscow.
Originally published at $40, now OUT OF PRINT.
$65.00
Kopperud, Gunnar,
THE TIME OF LIGHT.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. Black remainder dot on bottom
edge of book. (NY: Bloomsbury, 2000). First American Edition.
247 pages. ~~~
A powerful and lyrical meditation on war and the pity of war.
The Time of Light begins as Markus, a former German soldier, seeks
atonement from an Armenian priest for his part in the Nazi invasion of Russia.
Captured at the Battle of Stalingrad, Markus never returned to Germany but
tried instead to work out his destiny in the country and among the people he
feels he desecrated. Overcome by grief and shame, Markus turns his back on
everything, including his wife and son. ~~~ Framed by the 9-day Nagorno-
Karabakh conflict of 1994, The Time of Light is skillfully created from
a series of tales that arise from Markus's conversations with the priest. It is
a novel of striking contrasts, where devastating scenes are etched with an
incisive lyricism that leaves the reader reeling. Clear-eyed about the savagery
of war, harrowing in its evocation of emotion, powerfully imaginative in its
grasp of something ineluctable in the human condition, The Time of Light
is a mesmerizing novel by a prodigiously gifted new author.
~~~ From Publishers Weekly: "War and its consequences are the
subjects of Norway-based journalist Kopperud's dreamlike first novel, set
during a 10-day skirmish between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994. As that
conflict unfolds, it triggers the haunted memories of wwii vet Markus Wagner,
a German expatriate who participated in the Nazi army's disastrous winter
1942-1943 battle and occupation of Stalingrad. Burdened by the weight of his
past, Markus recounts his story to an old Armenian priest, in wide-ranging
conversations that touch on everything from Bertrand Russell to the
inevitability of war atrocities. Chief among these in Markus's recollection
are the torching of a Russian church filled with civilians, and the rape and
murder of a village girl. In both cases, Markus is tormented by his own
conflicted role. Kopperud spaces the war scenes far apart, with lots of
philosophy and history in between. When the memories do come, they are filled
with microscopic detail and stark imagery, and they possess a veneer of
shimmering beauty, thanks to Kopperud's lyrical descriptions of the most
base savagery. Some stories must either never be told or be told only
the way dreams are told, says one character, an Armenian survivor of
Turkish brutality, and Kopperud obliges with fanciful, hallucinatory scenes
such as one in which a musically gifted German sniper plays a duet in gunfire
with his Russian counterpart. While Markus is the book's central figure, the
third-person narrative encompasses other viewpoints as well -- most successfully
that of Rachel, the Jewish lover Markus left behind in Norway. Other
characters include Manfred and Dieter, fellow soldiers in Markus's unit.
Gracefully manipulating fragmented voices and a patchwork narrative,
Kopperud crafts a moving modernist meditation on German war guilt and
the fundamental nature of good and evil, light and dark.
$23.95
Lodieu, Didier.
III. PZ KORPS AT KURSK, 1943.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Histoire and Collections, 2007).
Full color illustrations throughout, 12x9, 128 pages.
~~~ This book is the first in a new series devoted to German armored formations of World War II.
~~~
Packed with full color images and a large amount of previously unpublished material, it is custom designed to appeal to modelers, AFV enthusiasts, and readers interested in Second World War technical history.
~~~
The book traces the battle of Kursk and the involvement of the German Panzer Units, through first hand records. Many hitherto unpublished photos, plus recently discovered memoirs from veterans combined with color profiles of AFVs, contribute to make this book a real reference bible for the enthusiast.
~~~
Didier Lodieu is a dedicated specialist on the German Army of World War II. In more than thirty years of research. he has learned how to find the most interesting photos and historical sources.
$44.95
Porter, David.
FIFTH GUARDS TANK ARMY AT KURSK, 11 July 1943.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Amber, 2011).
600 artist's renditions and photographs, 7.5x9.5, 192 pages.
~~~ In the early summer of 1943, following the German defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler sought a decisive battle that would turn the struggle on the Eastern Front in the Germans’ favor. On the 5th July 1943, the Wehrmacht launched Operation Citadel. Attacking with a force of 3000 tanks and assault guns, the Germans faced a well dug-in force of more than 3900 Soviet tanks, with another 1500 tanks in reserve. The tanks advanced with as many as 50 vehicles packed together per kilometer of line. What followed was the largest tank battle the world has ever seen, with both sides suffering heavy casualties
~~~
On the 11th July, three SS divisions – Totenkopf, Das Reich and Leibstandarte – attempted to break through the Soviet lines at the village of Prokhorovka, and so force the flank of the Soviet defensive position. Facing them were the newly deployed Soviet 5th Guards Tanks Army. It was the Germans’ last chance for a potential breakthrough on the Eastern Front. The battle raged all day, with German attack followed by Soviet counterattack. By nightfall the Germans had lost more than 300 tanks and the 5th Guards Tanks Army 50 percent of their strength. Despite their heavy losses, the Soviet defenders had achieved their aim: the German attack had been halted and all hope of their regaining the initiative lost.
~~~
5th Guards Tank Army at Kursk has an eight-page gatefold depicting one of the brigades from the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army in an innovative and fresh manner. This brigade is shown in battle deployment, with reconnaissance units, advance companies, the main body, the brigade command section, plus all the supporting engineers, signalers, artillery etc to provide a visual guide to exactly how many tanks and other armored vehicles were advancing on the 11th July. The book itself is broken down by these sections, looking at each component part of the brigade in turn, their structure, equipment and what they did on 11th July. Maps will be used where appropriate to show the location of each element on the battlefield. The description of each part includes action reports, organization, equipment, unit commanders and much more. Thanks to its novel and accessible approach, the book will appeal to both the enthusiast and the general reader interested in World War II.
~~~ THIS BOOK NOT AVAILABLE UNTIL LATE JUNE 2011.
$34.95
Seidler, Hans.
BATTLE OF KURSK, 1943.
NEW copy, PAPERBACK.
(Pen and Sword, 2011).
300 black and white photographs, 7.5x9.5, 160 pages.
~~~ The greatest tank battle in world history, known as Operation CITADEL, opened during the early hours of 5 July 1943, and its outcome was to decide the eventual outcome of the war on the Eastern Front. Images of War - Battle of Kursk 1943, is an illustrated account of this pivotal battle of the war on the Eastern Front, when the Germans threw 900,000 men and 2,500 tanks against 1,300,000 soldiers and 3,000 tanks of the Red Army in a savage battle of attrition.
~~~
Unlike many pictorial accounts of the war on the Eastern Front, Battle of Kursk 1943 draws upon both German and Russian archive material, all of which are rare or unpublished. The images convey the true scale, intensity and horror of the fighting at Kursk, as the Germans tried in vain to batter their way through the Soviet defensive systems. The battle climaxed at the village of Prokhorovka, which involved some 1,000 tanks fighting each other at pointblank range.
~~~
During this vicious two week battle the Red Army dealt the Panzerwaffe a severe battering from which the German war effort was never to recover fully. Kursk finally ended the myth of German invincibility.
~~~ THIS BOOK NOT AVAILABLE UNTIL OCT 2011.
$24.95
Alexandrovich, Daniel,
LENINGRAD UNDER SIEGE: First-Hand Accounts of the Ordeal.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Pen & Sword, 2008).
Photographs, 2
24 pages.
~~~ Leningrad was under siege for almost three years, and the first winter of that
siege was one of the coldest on record. The Russians had been taken by surprise by the
Germans' sudden onslaught in June 1941.
~~~
This book tells the story of that long, bitter siege in the words of those who were there.
It vividly describes how ordinary Leningraders struggled to stay alive and to defend their
beloved city in the most appalling conditions. They were bombed, shelled, starved and
frozen. They dug tank-traps and trenches, built shelters and fortifications, fought fires,
cleared rubble, tended the wounded and, for as long as they had strength to do so, buried
their dead. Many were killed by German bombs or shells, but most of them died of hunger
and cold.
~~~
Based on interviews with survivors of the siege and on contemporary diaries and personal
memoirs. The primary focus is on three people: a young mother with two small children, a
boy of sixteen at the outbreak of war, and an elderly academic. We see the siege through
their eyes as its horrors unfold and as they struggle to survive.
$33.00
Glantz, David M..
THE SIEGE OF LENINGRAD, 1941-1944:
900 Days of Terror.
NEW copy. Oversized hardcover with dust jacket. (Osceola WI: MBI Publishing, 2001).
Maps, photographs, appendices, notes, bibliography, index, 224 pages.
~~~ Nazi Germany's siege of Leningrad is one of world history's epic chapters. For
nearly three years, the people of this industrial port city withstood everything the surrounding
German Army could throw at them — and their resistance sounded a crucial death knell for
Hitler's ambitions to rule Europe. This compelling narrative explains the increasingly drastic
methods employed by the Wehrmacht to reduce the city's defenses and break the morale of
its citizens, while also examining Leningrad's political symbolism, the Red Army's frantic
counteroffensives, and the hardships faced by Leningraders — 4,000 citizens starved to
death on Christmas Day 1941 alone, for example. Previously unpublished photographs,
detailed maps, and firsthand accounts are supplemented by an overview of the roles
played by Soviet leaders and the heroism of the city as a whole.
Originally published at $24.95, now OUT OF PRINT.
$35.00
Lubbeck, William,
AT LENINGRAD'S GATES: The Combat Memoirs of a Soldier with Army Group North.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Casemate, 2006).
Photographs, 256 pages.
~~~ This is the remarkable story of a German soldier who fought throughout
World War II, rising from conscript private to captain of a heavy weapons company
on the Eastern Front.
~~~
William Lubbeck, age 19, was drafted into the Wehrmacht in August 1939. As a member of
the 58th Infantry Division, he received his baptism of fire during the 1940 invasion of France.
The following spring his division served on the left flank of Army Group North in Operation
Barbarossa. After grueling marches admidst countless Russian bodies, burnt-out vehicles,
and a great number of cheering Baltic civilians, Lubbeck's unit entered the outskirts of
Leningrad, making the deepest penetration of any German formation.
~~~
The Germans suffered brutal hardships the following winter as they fought both Russian
counterattacks and the brutal cold. The 58th Division was thrown back and forth across
the front of Army Group North, from Novgorod to Demyansk, at one point fighting back
Russian attacks on the ice of Lake Ilmen. Returning to the outskirts of Leningrad, the 58th
was placed in support of the Spanish "Blue" Division. Relations between the allied
formations soured at one point when the Spaniards used a Russian bath house for target
practice, not realizing that Germans were relaxing inside.
~~~
A soldier who preferred to be close to the action, Lubbeck served as forward observer for
his company, dueling with Russian snipers, partisans and full-scale assaults alike. His worries
were not confined to his own safety, however, as news arrived of disasters in Germany,
including the destruction of Hamburg where his girlfriend served as an Army nurse.
~~~
In September 1943, Lubbeck earned the Iron Cross First Class and was assigned to
officers' training school in Dresden. By the time he returned to Russia, Army Group
North was in full-scale retreat. Now commanding his former heavy weapons company,
Lubbeck alternated sharp counterattacks with inexorable withdrawal, from Riga to Memel
on the Baltic. In April 1945 Lubbeck's company became stalled in a traffic jam and was
nearly obliterated by a Russian barrage followed by air attacks.
~~~
In the last chaotic scramble from East Prussia, Lubbeck was able to evacuate on a newly
minted German destroyer. He recounts how the ship arrived in the British zone off Denmark
with all guns blazing against pursuing Russians. The following morning, May 8, 1945, he
learned that the war was over.
~~~
After his release from British captivity, Lubbeck married his sweetheart, Anneliese, and in
1949 immigrated to the United States where he raised a successful family. With the
assistance of David B. Hurt, he has drawn on his wartime notes and letters, Soldatbuch,
regimental history and personal memories to recount his four years of frontline experience.
Containing rare firsthand accounts of both triumph and disaster, At Leningrad's Gates
provides a fascinating glimpse into the reality of combat on the Eastern Front.
$33.00
Malaparte, Curzio,
THE VOLGA RISES IN EUROPE.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Military Book
Club Special Edition, 2000).
288 pages.
~~~ Among the hundreds of thousands of soldiers killing each other on the Eastern Front, one solitary war correspondent was taking notes. Curzio Malaparte, an Italian journalist working on the side of the Axis powers, spent the summer of 1941 amid the pandemonium--only to be removed and imprisoned by Goebbels. His crime? Being "too objective." After spending four years under house arrest, he was sent to cover the war in Finland, then Leningrad.
In The Volga Rises in Europe, Malaparte offers more than just
the refreshingly objective perspective of a journalist. One of Italy's
most celebrated writers of the decade after the war, he provides a
peerless illustration of the human dimension of the Eastern Front.
Malaparte's ability to spot details is uncanny; his ability to build
upon them to express the horror and absurdity of war is astonishing.
Here you get a complete panorama of the front, with views of civilians
in their war-ravaged homes; soldiers readying themselves for battle;
and graphic descriptions of the most furious combat of WW II. Rarely
does an author have such an intimacy with the landscape and its people.
This dense, all-encompassing, often poetic chronicle leaves you
speechless. It's literally one of a kind. ~~ (If you are looking for
a gripping frontline account of the fighting, this book may disappoint.
It is often more philosophical than journalistic).
$25.00
Mazkova, Daniela and Vladimir Remes,
THE RUSSIAN WAR, 1941-1945.
Dutton, 1977. VG/VG. Dutton, 1977. First American Edition. Oblong octavo, 152pp.
Introduction by Harrison Salisbury, preface and notes
by A.J.P. Taylor. 127 black and white photographs, arranged chronologically. From the introduction: "Stalin grad was a battle fought street by street, building by building, floor by floor, room by room, and often man to man.
The Soviet cameraman literally shot over the shoulders of combat soldiers and not infrequently
alternated between lens and pistol..... Almost every step, every act, every tragedy, every
defeat, every victory in this calvary of the years 1941-1945 was recorded by the lenses of
an incredibly brave, numerous an ingenious band of Soviet photographers. these pictures are
among the finest of the war -- and the least known in the West."
$40.00
Merridale, Catherine,
NIGHT OF STONE: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia.
Trade Paperback. NEW copy, Penguin, 2001. Photographs, Notes & Sources,
Bibliography, Index, 402 pages.
~~ Deals extensively with life and death during World War I, the
revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the Civil War between the Whites and the Bolsheviks, and the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany.
~~ During the twentieth century, Russia, Ukraine, and the other
territories of the former Soviet Union experienced more bloodshed and violent
death than anywhere else on earth: fifty million dead in an epic of
destruction that encompassed war, revolution, famine, epidemic, and political
purges. In Night of Stone, Catherine Merridale asks Russians the most
difficult questions about how their country's volatile past has affected their
everyday lives, aspirations, dreams, and nightmares. Drawing upon evidence
from rare Imperial archives, Soviet propaganda, memoirs, letters, newspapers,
literature, psychiatric studies, and interviews, Night of Stone provides
a highly original and revealing history of modern Russia.
~~ From Publishers Weekly: "Russia's story of death has been
obscured so often," explains Merridale (Perestroika: The Historical
Perspective; Moscow Politics and the Rise of Stalin). The extraordinary
scale of the violence and loss in modern Russian history has been shrouded
in secrecy; indeed, the government has only recently acknowledged the hundreds
of thousands killed under Stalin. 'For 50 years,' Merridale writes, 'until the
fall of Communism, families had kept bereavement of this kind to themselves....
It was dangerous, after all, to mourn the passing of an enemy of the people.'
Paying particular attention to the ways that Orthodox religion and Soviet
atheism have affected Russian bereavement, Merridale explores Russian
perceptions of death and afterlife from before the Bolshevik Revolution,
through both world wars and the great famines of the 1930s and into the
present. Her fascinating study is based on intimate conversations with
bereaved Russians, as well as interviews with gravediggers, funeral
directors, social workers, doctors and priests, and meticulous readings of
imperial archives, Soviet propaganda, letters, memoirs, literature and
government documents. (As Merridale points out, much of this research would
have been impossible 20 years ago.) Merridale scrupulously avoids imposing
her own ideological or cultural prejudices on her subject. By turns solemn
and grisly, empathetic and scholarly, this inspired work provides a unique
window on Soviet history through the brutality, ceremony and silences of
death."
~~ From Kirkus Reviews: "A wrenchingly poignant examination
of how the Russian people have coped with a century of tragedy and loss.
Because Merridale (History/Univ. of Bristol) believes that the truth resides
more in stories than statistics, she spent two years in Russia interviewing a
wide variety of people, reviewing personal and archival documents (many just
recently available), and visiting the sites associated with the revolutions,
wars, and atrocities that characterized the Soviet period. She does not
ignore statistics, but she folds them seamlessly into her mesmerizing
narrative. Beginning with a 1997 visit to a mass grave for Stalinist victims
at Sandormokh, she segues smoothly into an examination of sanguinary
historical events and their psychological impact, which many Russians still
deny. One of the questions that drives her narrative is: How do people's
memories accommodate the unthinkable? After all the arrests, tortures,
mass murders, deportations, bloody battles, famines and starvation, even
cannibalism (all reported here), how do the survivors carry on? As the author
proceeds through the century in riveting and occasionally nauseating detail,
she uncovers some astonishing data. The census of 1937, for example, stunned
Soviet officials with its revelation that the famine of 1932-33 had claimed
as many as seven million lives. She reveals with devastating clarity the
'success' of Soviet propaganda among its own citizens. During the two-year
siege of Leningrad, for example, more than ten times as many people died
as at Hiroshima, yet survivors tend to reject the suggestion that its horrors
had lingering psychological consequences. Silence and dissociation become the
operative strategies. Merridale examines, as well, more recent events, such as
the war in Afghanistan, the disaster at Chernobyl, the fall of Communism and
the dismantling of the USSR; through it all she sees many Russians embracing
what she calls 'the stoicism myth.' Despite what they have suffered through a
most savage century, Merridale concludes, they are only now beginning to
realize -- and acknowledge -- the effects. Written with consummate skill
and enormous compassion."
$16.00
Overy, Richard,
RUSSIA'S WAR: Blood Upon the Snow.
NF/NF. Jacket in mylar (NY: TV Books [Penguin Putnam], 1997).
Maps, photographs, bibliography, index, 431 pages. ~~~
Overy gained exclusive access to previously unavailable information from the former KGB, GRU, and presidential archives to assemble this definitive book that fully covers the Russian efforts to defeat the Axis powers in World War II.
~~~ From New York Times Book Review "The savage war between Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945 was the most gigantic military
struggle in world history. . . .Making excellent use of newly available
Presidential archival material and K.G.B. collections, Overy has written a
penetrating and compassionate book."
~~ Richard Overy is Professor of Modern History at King's College, London. He is the author of thirteen books on the Third Reich and the history of World War II, including, most recently, Why the Allies Won. He is currently at work on the Oxford History of the Second World War and completing a history of the Nazi economy.
~~ Hardcover originally in print at $29.95, now OUT OF PRINT. Paperback currently in print at $16.00.
$35.00
Pleshakov, Constantine,
STALIN'S FOLLY: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (Houghton Mifflin, 2005).
Maps, photographs, 326 pages. ~~~
On June 22, 1941, Hitler launched a massive three-pronged attack on the Soviet Union,
and in days his troops were within reach of Moscow. The attack was stunning, but Stalin’s
response was even more astonishing. During the invasion, the mighty Soviet military stood
in place while its soldiers were slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands.
~~~
Drawing on a wealth of newly available documents, from classified Politburo papers and
diaries of key generals to diplomatic cables and secret police memos, the Russian historian
Constantine Pleshakov paints a startling portrait of Stalin, one of history’s most feared
despots, as a vulnerable and paralyzed leader. Refusing to believe that the Germans would
strike first, despite repeated warnings, he continued to supply them with war materials in the
days before the attack, then tied his generals’ hands in the crucial first hours of the invasion.
For more than a week, while Hitler rolled over Soviet territory, Stalin cowered in his dacha,
leaving the country rudderless and — as Pleshakov reveals here — nearly losing power.
The Red Army’s effort to regain the territory lost in those first ten days cost more than
10 million Soviet lives.
Stalin’s Folly is a dramatic hour-by-hour account that sheds light on an enigmatic
and ruthless figure while providing a new and far deeper understanding of Russian history.
~~~ Originally published at $26, now OUT OF PRINT.
$30.00
Emelianenko, Vasily,
RED STAR AGAINST THE SWASTIKA: The Story of a Soviet Pilot over the
Eastern Front.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (Greenhill Books, 2005). 240 pages.
~~~
This is the extraordinary story of Vasily B. Emelianenko, the veteran pilot of one of the Soviet Union's
most contradictory planes of wwii the I1-2. This heavily armored aircraft was practically unrivalled in
terms of fire power, but it was slow to maneuver and an easy target for fighters.
I12 had to attack enemy
flak columns at extremely low altitudes, which led to enormous tolls both in equipment and personnel. It
is no wonder then that, having flown 80 combat sorties against the Germans, Emelianenko was awarded the
highest decoration the Hero of the Soviet Union. He went on to complete a total of 92 sorties. His plane
was shot down 3 times, and on each occasion he managed to pilot the damaged aircraft home, demonstrating
remarkable resilience and bravery in the face of terrifying odds.
$34.95
Stroud, John,
THE RED AIR FORCE. The history of Soviet aviation and a survey
of the aircraft at present in service
.
VG/VG--. Jacket is price-clipped & chipped. A piece roughly the size of a
quarter is missing from rear panel (text unaffected). Book itself is tight & clean: bright red
cloth covers with gilt Soviet star on front. 8.5 x 11.
(London: The Pilot Press, 1943).
Despite being a wartime product,
book has glossy pages throughout and photos are therefore of higher quality
than is usual for books published during the war.
48 pages.
~~~ "The first full-length and illustrated account of what was once the 'mystery' Air Force among the Great Powers.
Following the early history of aviation in the U.S.S.R., Mr Stroud describes the types of aircraft at present in service
on the Russo-German War-front. There are also chapters on Arctic flying, transport aircraft, paratroops and gliding, and
the Red Air Force organization."
~~~ S C A R C E, particularly in jacket. OUT OF PRINT.
$175.00
Bessonov, Evgenii,
TANK RIDER: Into the Reich with the Red Army.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Greenhill Books, 2003). 256 pages.
~~~ From Library Journal: "These memoirs by a Russian
tank rider present a frontline view of the
horrific combat that was the eastern front from the Kursk battles of
1943 to the fall of Berlin in 1945. Bessonov, an officer of the 4th
Guards Tank Army, saw almost continuous action before being wounded
shortly before war's end. This is a no-frills account written from
an infantry platoon leader's perspective that, in this case, is from
the back of a tank far in advance of the main Russian forces. The
author does not attempt to condone, moralize, or politicize anything
that happened during his service, thereby giving readers a sobering
look at Russian small-unit tactics, which focused on results without
regard for the individual soldier. Bessonov recounts the courage and
fear, bravery and stupidity of all those in his military family, both
above and below him. In so doing, he leaves an honest account of
soldiers at war and a unique glimpse into the makeup of the Russian
soldier."
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
$29.95
British General Staff,
HANDBOOK OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY, 1940.
NEW copy. Hardcover, issued without dust jacket. (Nashville, Battery Press).
432 pages.
~~~ This is a compilation from three separate very rare handbooks on the Russian Army. The first
section is ' NOTES ON THE RED ARMY 1940 ', covers the history of the Red Army since WW 1, then chapters
on Russian military geography, manpower, organization & strength of various Russian formations,
administration, commands & staff, plus detailed reviews of each type of formation ( Infantry, Cavalry,
Artillery, Engineer, Chemical, Signal, and Police/Internal Security ). There is also a chapter on uniforms,
badges of rank and orders & decorations. The 2nd & 3rd sections are updates necessitated by the German
invasion of 1941, NEW NOTES ON THE RED ARMY, TACTICS & ORGANIZATION, and NEW NOTES ON THE RED ARMY,
UNIFORMS & INSIGNIA. 1998, This covers the Red Army for the early Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40, the
seizure of the Baltic States in 1940 and the first two years of the Russo-German War.
$50.00
Grau, Lester & Michael Gress (eds).
RED ARMY'S DO IT YOURSELF, NAZI-BASHING GUERRILLA WARFARE MANUAL:
The Partizan's Handbook, Updated and Revised Edition, 1943.
NEW copy, trade PAPERBACK.
(Casemate, 2011).
Illustrations, drawings, 6x9, 288 pages.
~~~ This 1943 third edition of the The Partisan’s Companion is the last-and-best Red Army manual used to train partisans to fight the Nazi invader. Its usefulness outlived World War II. It was later used to train “third-world” guerrillas in their wars of national liberation in the 1950s–70s and even the Fedayeen guerrillas who fought U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. Once upon a time, the Boy Scout Manual concentrated almost exclusively on camping, field craft and first aid. The Partisan’s Companion adds guns, demolitions, hand-to-hand combat, assorted mayhem and multiple forms of Nazi-bashing. It is like the old Boy Scout Manual on steroids.
~~~
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Red Army was hard pressed to cope with the “invincible” Wehrmacht. The initial partisan resistance efforts also had problems. No locals were welcome, and the only guerrillas recognized by Moscow were surrounded Red Army units and units of loyal party members who were sent into unfamiliar territory to battle the Nazis. The initial training manual was a reprint from the Russian Civil War, and most of these units were wiped out. Finally the Soviets began recruiting partisans from the local community—but with Red Army officers and secret police agents. The partisan effort improved.
~~~
By 1943, it was obvious that Germany was losing the war. The partisan ranks grew as did the training requirements for the partisan commanders. The 1943 edition of the Partisan’s Companion helped quickly train new guerrillas to a common standard. Besides field craft, it covers partisan tactics, German counter-guerrilla tactics, demolitions, German and Soviet weapons, scouting, camouflage, anti-tank warfare and anti-aircraft defense for squad and platoon-level instruction. It contains the Soviet lessons of two bitter years of war and provides a good look at the tactics and training of a mature partisan force. The partisans moved and lived clandestinely, harassed the enemy, and supported the Red Army through reconnaissance and attacks on the German supply lines. They were also the agents of Soviet power and vengeance in the occupied regions. Soviet historians credit the partisans with tying down ten percent of the German army and with killing almost a million enemy soldiers. They clearly frustrated German logistics and forced the Germans to periodically sideline divisions to hunt the partisans. The partisans, and this third edition, were clearly part of the eventual Soviet victory over Germany.
$18.95
Grossman, Vasily, (edited and translated by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova),
A WRITER AT WAR: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941-1945.
NEW copy, hardcoover with dust jacket. (NY: Pantheon Books, 2005). Maps, photographs, bibliography, notes, index, 378 pages.
~~~ CONTENTS: Introduction;
Translators' Note;
Glossary;
~~ PART ONE ~ THE SHOCK OF INVASION, 1941:
1. Baptism of Fire August 1941;
2. The Terrible Retreat August to September 1941;
3. On the Bryansk Front September 1941;
4. With the 50th Army September 1941;
5. Back into the Ukraine September 1941;
6. The German Capture of Orel October 1941;
7. The Withdrawl before Moscow October 1941.
~~ PART TWO ~ THE YEAR OF STALINGRAD, 1942:
8. In the South January 1942;
9. The Air War in the South January 1942;
10. On the Donets with the Black Division January and February 1942;
11. With the Khasin Tank Brigade February 1942;
12. ‘The Ruthless Truth of War’ March 1942 to July 1942;
13. The Road to Stalingrad August 1942;
14. The September Battles;
15. The Stalingrad Academy Autumn 1942;
16. The October Battles;
17. The Tide Turned November 1942.
~~~ PART THREE ~ RECOVERING THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, 1943:
18. After the Battle January 1943;
19. Winning Back the Motherland, The Early Spring of 1943;
20. The Battle of Kursk July 1943.
~~~ PART FOUR ~ FROM
THE DNEPR TO THE VISTULA, 1944:
21. The Killing Ground of Berdichev January 1944;
22. Across the Ukraine to Odessa March & April 1944;
23. Operation Bagration June & July 1944;
24. Treblinka July 1944.
~~~ PART FIVE: AMID THE RUINS OF THE NAZI WORLD:
25. Warsaw and Lódz January 1945;
26. Into the Lair of the Fascist Beast January 1945;
27. The Battle for Berlin April & May 1945.
~~~ Afterword;
The Lies of Victory;
Acknowledgements;
Bibliography;
Source Notes;
Index.
~~~ MAPS: Gomel and the Central Front, August 1941;
In the Donbass, January to March 1942;
Stalingrad, Autumn and Winter 1942;
The Battle of Kursk, July 1943;
From The New York Times: "Much of the material that filled
Grossman's notebooks never made it into print, because it was either
politically sensitive or, in the view of the censors, too disturbing
for Soviet citizens to read. In A Writer at War, the British historian
Antony Beevor and his research assistant, Luba Vingradova, have mined
this rich seam of gold, translating and editing generous excerpts from
the notebooks (made available by Grossman's descendants) and stitching
together a coherent narrative from Grossman's completed articles, his
letters and the memoirs of contemporaries, notably his editor at
Krasnaya Zvezda. The result is a first-rate volume of war reporting
that belongs with the best work of writers like Ernie Pyle, A. J.
Liebling and John Hersey."
~~~ From Publishers Weekly: "Soviet author Grossman volunteered
for the army when the Germans invaded in 1941 and spent more than three years
as a special correspondent at the front for the army newspaper
Red Star. His wartime writing established him as a major 'voice'
of war-a status resembling in many ways that of Ernie Pyle in America.
This volume, a perfect complement to the panoramic vision of Ivan's
War, collects excerpts from Grossman's notebooks and published
dispatches, few of them longer than a couple of paragraphs. And
while the dispatches usually describe scenes fitting with Soviet
orthodoxy, Grossman's notebooks also record the bloody-mindedness,
the despair and the disaffection that permeated Soviet ranks as the
Red Army paid its dues of learning how to fight a modern war. That
material, of course, was not published at the time. Grossman was a
perceptive observer with an eye for essential detail. His vignettes
of the fighting at Kursk and the battles that brought the Red Army
into Berlin are models of combat reporting, and the elegiac realism
of his description of Treblinka merits wide anthologizing in Holocaust
literature. This volume stands among the finest eyewitness accounts
of Soviet Russia's war on the Eastern Front."
Hardcover originally published at $27.50, now OUT OF PRINT.
$30.00
Jukes, Geoffrey.
STALINGRAD TO KURSK:
Triumph of the Red Army.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Pen and Sword, 2011).
6x9, 40 illustrations, 256 pages.
~~~ The epic battles fought at Stalingrad and Kursk were pivotal events in the war on the Eastern Front. After the catastrophic failure of the German offensives of 1942 and 1943, the Wehrmacht was forced onto the defensive. Never again would it regain the initiative against the seemingly inexhaustible forces of the Red Army. But how did this decisive shift in the balance of military power on the Eastern Front come about? This question has intrigued historians ever since.
~~~
In this original and thought-provoking new study Geoffrey Jukes reconstructs Soviet strategy and operations at Stalingrad and Kursk in vivid detail. He looks behind the scenes at the workings of the Soviet high command, at the roles played by the principal Red Army generals, and at the overriding influence of Stalin himself. There is an equally acute insight into German war aims and military planning as Hitler's armies geared themselves up to launch a sequence of massive offensives that would have a decisive impact on the outcome of the war.
~~~
This authoritative and highly readable reassessment of the turning point in the war on the Eastern Front is a major contribution to the debate about the reasons for the military defeat of Nazi Germany.
$32.95
Kobylyanskly, Isaak and Stuart Britton.
RUSSIAN WORLD WAR II DICTIONARY:
A Russian-English Glossary of Special Terms, Expressions and Soldiers' Slang.
NEW copy, trade PAPERBACK.
(Helion and Company, 2011).
6x9, 48 pages.
~~~ The Great Patriotic War (GPW) of the Soviet people against Nazi Germany, known in the West as the Eastern Front of WWII, continues to attract a number of military historians from different countries around the world. The frontline veterans' reminiscences occupy a prominent place among most important documents of that time. In contrast to official documents, these recollections reproduce the so-called truth of the foxholes, the genuine spirit of the war.
~~~
Along with their honesty, the WWII veterans' memories are full of idiomatic expressions, specialized terms and abbreviations peculiar to that war. Regardless of their language, the memoirs reproduce the wartime vocabulary of the authors' nationalities, and reading them can be a difficult task for uninformed readers. As a consequence, special dictionaries appeared in print and later on Internet web sites. Unlike most of the Allied countries, no war jargon/slang dictionary has been published in Russia. This glossary is intended to begin to fill that gap.
~~~
Several sources of the Red Army serviceman's slang were peculiar to the Soviet experience. The upheaval of the 1917 October Revolution and following Civil War, and the fundamental changes wrought by the political and social reforms and campaigns in the 1920s-1930s affected the Russian vocabulary substantially. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Red Army soldiers and officers came from rural households, and brought their local idioms and expressions into the trenches, also enriched the war vocabulary.
~~~
Another set of figurative expressions arose as a result of Stalin's terrible purges of the 1930s, when people created euphemisms to avoid saying words like search, arrest and execution. Such expressions came into general circulation and also contributed to Russian wartime slang. Some words also appeared under the harsh conditions of the USSR far rear, where civilians struggled under conditions of hard labor and malnutrition. Lend-lease items entered the soldiers' parlance, often in the form of nicknames. Finally, any army has its traditions and slogans, many of which were revived in the Red Army during WW II. All of the aforementioned sources and others contributed to the Russian wartime vocabulary.
~~~
The authors began this glossary as a translators' aid, but now they believe it will also be of interest to military historians and linguists who work with original Russian military sources, especially of the Second World War period.
$35.00
Kobylyanskiy, Isaak, (edited by Stuart Britton).
FROM STALINGRAD TO PILLAU: A Red Army Artillery Officer Remembers the Great Patriotic War.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2008).
Photographs, appendix, notes, index, 310 pages.
~~~ Strange sounds resembling the remote rumble of distant thunder were audible.
Everybody understood: it was the echo of the battle for Stalingrad. . . . A heavy rain began falling.
~~~
Stalingrad's outskirts provided Isaak Kobylyanskiy, a 19-year-old Jew from Ukraine, with
his first exposure to combat and initiated his long odyssey in the Great Patriotic War against
Germany. It would be more than three years before he was finally reunited with his family
and his sweetheart, Vera, the schoolmate he had promised to marry.
~~~
Kobylyanskiy started the war as a 76-mm infantry support gun crew commander for the 300th Rifle Division (and its later incarnations) and celebrated V-E Day as a battery commander. His combat journey was a long process of exhausting marches punctuated by harrowing moments of intense combat. From the liberation of Sevastopol, through Lithuania's countryside, to the final storming of Königsberg's heavy fortifications, Kobylyanskiy's memoir sweeps across the great expanses of the Eastern Front. His narrative is packed with dramatic details and insights into the daily life of the Soviet army: the relentless marches to locate and engage the enemy, the prejudicial treatment of female soldiers, and the plight of Soviet civilians.
~~~
Kobylyanskiy also discusses the role of military political officers (and his own conflicted views on communism), clarifies the place of Jews in the Red Army and discusses how his reaction to anti-Semitic utterances added a sense of responsibility to his fighting, and frames his account with personal glimpses into the stifling repression of Stalinist society, including the brutal collectivization program and resulting famine in Ukraine. Buthe balances such memories with warm recollections of some of his comrades and especially with an affecting portrait of his courtship of Vera, and concludes with an emotional coda: their wedding ceremony in a war-ravaged but recovering Kiev.
~~~
By turns vivid, reflective, intense, and entertaining, Kobylyanskiy's narrative charts one warrior's epic journey and joins a select group of memoirs that deepen our understanding of what it was like for Russian soldiers on the Eastern Front.
~~~
This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.
$29.95
Loza, Dmitriy, and James F. Gebhardt (Editor),
FIGHTING FOR THE SOVIET MOTHERLAND: Recollections from the Eastern Front.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (University of Nebraska Press, 1998).
288 pages.
~~~ "The collapse of the Soviet Union has opened the history of the Red Army to the West, providing
a more complex picture of World War II than was previously available. Details of the struggle between the
Soviet forces and the Axis powers can now be seen through the efforts of veterans such as Colonel Dmitriy
Loza. Loza draws on his own experiences and those of acquaintances to illustrate particular problems,
combat situations, and the functioning of the Soviet army in its struggle with the German and Japanese
armies."
$50.00
Merridale, Catherine,
IVAN'S WAR: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (NY: Henry Holt & Co, 2006.
480 pages.
~~~ Of the thirty million who fought, eight million died, driven
forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They
were the men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers who
confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated
it. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and
mind of Ivan—as the ordinary Russian soldier was called—remain a mystery.
We know something about hoe the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how
they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought. Drawing on
previously closed military and secret police archives, interviews with
veterans, and private letters and diaries, Catherine Merridale presents
the first comprehensive history of the Red Army rank and file. She follows
the soldiers from the shock of the German invasion to their costly triumph
in Stalingrad, where life expectancy was often a mere twenty-four hours.
Through the soldiers' eyes, we witness their victorious arrival in Berlin,
where their rage and suffering exact an awful toll, and accompany them as
they return home full of hope, only to be denied the new life they had
been fighting to secure. ~~~ A tour de force of original research
and a gripping history, Ivan's War reveals the singular mixture of courage,
patriotism, anger, and fear that made it possible for these underfed,
badly led troops to defeat the Nazi army. In the process Merridale restores
to history the invisible millions who sacrificed the most to win the war.
~~ From Kirkus Reviews: Glorified by Soviet myth-makers as
simple, heroic "Ivan," the common soldier in the Red Army in fact grappled
with despair and his own government as well as the Nazis. Merridale
(Night of Stone, 2001) has rescued this legendary generation of
Soviet soldiers from history's black hole-a remarkable achievement, given
government censorship and citizens' desire to forget the horrors of WWII
combat and civilian atrocities. Ivan and Ivana (women served on the Eastern
Front, too) matched America's "greatest generation" in hardships endured
and sacrifices made. The Soviet army began the war under significant
disadvantages. It was virtually devoid of commanders (purged by Stalin),
its rank-and-file were untrained and it was caught completely off-guard
by the Nazis' "Operation Barbarossa" in June 1941. Merridale carefully
traces the successive responses of soldiers reeling from overwhelming
blows: initial "tank panic" in the face of Nazi might, desertions, the
grim realization that they faced a war of annihilation and growing
self-confidence. Newly opened archives; recently discovered secret diaries
and letters; and interviews with more than 200 veterans enable Merridale to
narrate in gripping detail the epic tank battle of Kursk, the siege of
Stalingrad and the unexpectedly bloody final drive to Berlin. She
poignantly tallies the scars left on the Soviet soul by the carnage.
The Red Army suffered eight million deaths, its losses exceeding the
German army's by more than three to one. Revolted by the damage the
Nazis inflicted on their families and communities, chafing under political
operatives in their midst, Soviet soldiers engaged in their own orgies of
looting and rape as they pushed into Germany. In other ways, however, the
ordinary soldier was positively transformed by the war. Merridale notes
that Ivan grew more sophisticated through contact with foreigners and more
hopeful that peace and brotherhood would result from the Soviets' sufferings.
Revealing history that renders the struggles on the Eastern Front in telling
detail and with searching moral scrutiny.
$30.00
Sinclair II, James C McComb and Douglas A. Drabik,
WORLD WAR II PARADE UNIFORMS OF THE SOVIET UNION.
NEW copy, hardcover. (Lancaster, PA:
Schiffer Publishing). 8.5x11. Over 360 b&w and color
photographs. 272 pages.
~~~ New for World War II Soviet collectors, this
volume of Marshals', Generals' and Admirals' parade uniforms
is the first comprehensive book on the subject. With
hundreds of beautiful, large format full-color photographs,
detailed close-ups of uniforms, and an archive of vintage
photographs, this book will take you on a visual journey
through the development of the Soviet World War II flag
rank parade uniform. Many extremely rare and never before
seen examples of named Marshals', Generals' and Admirals'
uniforms, including many different branch variants, are
shown in their full glory. A must for the serious World
War II collector and a welcomed addition to any library,
this book offers a stunning visual glimpse of some of the
most beautiful uniforms of the Great Patriotic War.
$79.95
Webster, David & Chris Nelson,
UNIFORMS OF THE SOVIET UNION 1918-1945.
NEW copy, hardcover. (Lancaster, PA:
Schiffer Publishing). 9x12. Over 500 b&w and color photographs.
288 pages.
~~~ For the first time a photographic study of the Soviet uniforms from the Revolution, Civil War, Purges, and the Great Patriotic War. Hundreds of full color highly detailed photographs of actual uniforms are combined with period black and white photographs. Actual uniforms of Marshals of the Soviet Union, to private soldiers of all services are to be found in this extensive volume.
$49.95
Rogers, Stanley, Lloyd Clark, Duncan Anderson, Stephen Walsh
,
EASTERN FRONT: From Barbarossa, Stalingrad, Kursk, Berlin.
Hardcover with dust jacket, VG/VG. Motorbooks, 2001. 256pp.
Part of the Campaigns of World War II Series. "The illustrated history of Germany's Eastern European campaign documents a
four-year struggle of epic proportions, beginning with Operation Barbarossa-
Germany's surprise attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941-and ending with
the fall of Berlin in 1945. A year-by-year history, along with archival
photography and color maps and drawings, dissect SS tactics along the
2,000-mile front, while illustrating the strategies and comparing German
weaponry and equipment with that of the Red Army. Major events like the
siege of Leningrad, the trek to Moscow in the dead of winter, the Soviet
push to Berlin, and more are all examined in detail, as are leading
figures in the campaign. An essential and complete look at the eastern
half of Nazi Germany's flawed two-front strategy".
$25.00
Schneider, Russ,
SIEGE: A Novel of the Eastern Front, 1942.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (Garden City: Military Book Club, 2003).
First Edition. 420 pages.
~~~
In Siege: A Novel of the Eastern Front, 1942, author Russ Schneider
takes us to the immediate scene of two Russian towns, Cholm and Velikiye Luki,
the last holdouts for a small garrison of Germans surrounded by the vast Red
Army during World War II. In Cholm, under the command of General Scherer, the
garrison lasted 105 days against a besieging Russian force that outnumbered it
ten to one. The Russians had tanks and artillery, while the Germans had
neither, and most of the battle was fought in Arctic conditions in the winter
of 1941–42. Unprepared for the savage climate, the German army at Cholm and
elsewhere was nearly destroyed. The struggle for this obscure town was an epic
story ranking with any of history’s more well-known accounts of desperate
military stands. ~~~ Six months later, nearby Velikiye Luki was surrounded
with Scherer again in overall command. This time, however, Scherer and part of
his force were outside the city; he spent the next two months trying to break
through to the remainder of his men trapped inside Velikiye Luki, only to be
turned back time and again. In the end he was only able to listen helplessly
to radio reports from the doomed men as they were gradually wiped out in a
battle even more violent than the one at Cholm. ~~~ The Russo-German War
has long had a peculiar fascination for students of military and world
history, and the battles that form the basis of Siege have an
intense dramatic quality. With his expert knowledge of the war on the
Eastern Front, Russ Schneider conveys as very few other writers can
the scale of combat that had no precedent in savagery and cruelty in this
compelling and riveting account of the men of this fated garrison who could
only hope to live to tell it themselves.
Hardcover OUT OF PRINT.
$35.00
Simons, Paullina,
THE BRONZE HORSEMAN.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (NY: Harper Collins, 2002).
FICTION.
~~~ In a sweeping narrative reminiscent of the epic classic Dr.
Zhivago comes a love story that takes place in war-torn Russia during
World War II. Named for a statue in Red Square, The Bronze Horseman is a
perfect blend of romance, suspense, and intrigue, guaranteed to transport
readers to another place and time. The Metanov family, including sisters Tatiana
and Dasha, are already eking out a meager existence in recession-stricken
Leningrad, when their lives are further disrupted by the forces of war. To
Tatiana the fighting brings great fear, but also the man of her dreams -- an
officer in the Red Army named Alexander. But these two lovers are as
star-crossed as Russia herself, their destinies forged by secrecy, tragedy, and
a set of circumstances that makes their shared love a force they can neither
deny nor embrace.
Erickson, John,
THE ROAD TO STALINGRAD.
NF/NF. Hardcover with dust jacket. Jacket in mylar protector. (NY: Harper & Row, 1975).
First American Edition.
Photographs, maps, bibliography, index, 594 pages. A thick, heavy book. Nice collector's-grade copy of the first edition.
~~~ In fascinating detail, The Road to Stalingrad takes us from the inept
command structures and strategic delusions of the pre-invasion Soviet Union through
Russia's humiliation as her armies fell back on all fronts, until the tide turned at last in
Stalingrad. The assessment of the generals and political leaders, as well as of the wranglings
within both the Allied and Axis commands, is completely unsparing. The climactic battle, so
vividly described here, leaves the Red Army poised for the long fight towards Berlin.
Paperback currently in print at $12.95; hardcover OUT OF PRINT.
$40.00
Hoyt, Edwin P.,
THE BATTLE FOR STALINGRAD: 199 Days.
NEW copy. Trade paperback. Remainder mark on bottom of book. (NY: Forge, 1999).
Photographs, maps, bibliography, index, 304 pages.
~~~ In 199 Days, acclaimed historian Edwin P. Hoyt depicts the epic battle for Stalingrad in all its electrifying excitement and savage horror. More than the bloodiest skirmish in history-a momentous conflict costing three million lives-the siege was a hinge upon which the course of history rested. Had the Red Army fallen, the Nazi juggernaut would have rolled over Russia. Had the German's not held out during those last few months, Stalin would have painted Europe red. Now, over 50 years after the most extraordinary battle of the second millenium, the truth about this decisive moment is finally revealed.
$18.00
Jones, Michael K.,
STALINGRAD: How the Red Army Survived the German Onslaught.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Philadelphia: Casement Publishers, 2007).
Photographs, illustrations, maps & documents, timeline, notes, bibliography, index, 270 pages.
~~~ This new history of Stalingrad offers a radical reinterpretation of the most crucial battle in World War II. Focusing on the first half of this epic clash, it reveals new information on how nearly the Germans succeeded, and the incredible courage of the Soviet fighters who held on.
~~~
Red Army chief of staff Vasilevsky called August 23, 1942, when the Germans reached the Volga, "an unforgettably tragic day." The Russians had never been able to stop a good-weather German offensive, and it appeared that Stalin's namesake city would be lost. Indeed, Soviet armies on all sides were falling back before Hitler's summer offensive, and only one, the 62nd Army, was assigned to hold out in the city to defy the Wehrmacht. Who could have guessed that this sole force, surrounded on three sides, the river at its back, hiding out in ruins, would create such a bleeding sore that the Wehrmacht was never to recover?
~~~
Combining eyewitness testimony of Red Army fighters with fresh archive material, this book gives dramatic insight into the thinking of Soviet commanders and the desperate mood of ordinary soldiers. Col-General Anatoly Mereshko, a staff officer to 62nd Army commander Chuikov, worked closely with the author and provided testimony that is entirely new. His accounts of the battle are supported by other key veterans and recently released war diaries and combat journals.
~~~
For three months in Fall 1942 the Germans held a preponderance of force in Stalingrad as they tried to root out the diehards of 62nd Army. The latter force was nearly annihilated on several occasions, as guns from across the river failed to stem the German attacks and the Luftwaffe plunged into the chaos, bombing at will. TheRussians could only respond by going underground, in caves near the river and in the labrynthine ruins of the city itself. Yet, as the rest of the Motherland held its breath, the small, surrounded force-motivated by inspirational leadership as well as a grave sense of the battle's vital importance-continued to deny the Nazis a victory.
~~~
As we now know, Stalin was not idle while the courageous remnants of 62nd Army continued to defend his city. On November 19 and 21, new Soviet armies in overwhelming strength counterattacked across the Volga, turning the tables on the Germans to begin one of the most pitiful sagas in Western history.
~~~
The more famous siege of the Germans, concluding on February 2, 1943, has dominated the literature of Stalingrad. This book reminds us that the greater time-line of the battle consisted of the Russians besieged, and just barely holding on.
$33.00
Wieder, Joachim, Heinrich Graf Von Einsiedel, Helmut Bogler (Translator), Henrich G. Von Einsiedel, Heinrich Graf Von Einsiedel (Contributor),
STALINGRAD: Memories and Reassessments.
Arms & Armour; (March 1996) Hardcover with dust jacket. NF/NF. Not a book club edition.
Originally written over 30 years ago by a historian who was also a participant,
this analysis of the Nazis' ill-fated attempt to take Stalingrad now features
revisions by the author. Much more than a routine account of a battle, Stalingrad
presents a stunning review of the motivations, misplaced principles, and misguided
claims that led to what is considered Hitler's deadliest misstep".
$30.00
Stites, Richard,
CULTURE AND ENTERTAINMENT IN WARTIME RUSSIA.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press).
256 pages.
~~~ World War II (The Great Patriotic War) had a pronounced cultural and emotional impact on the Russian people. The subjects of these essays range from the Moscow press to frontline correspondents, from entertainment brigades to amateur songs by fighting men and women, from symphonic compositions to revivals of literary classics, and from Moscow stages to folk ensembles on the battlefield—the cultural outpourings in the hearts and souls of ordinary Russians at war.
Paperback currently in print at $16.95; hardcover OUT OF PRINT.
$35.00
Taylor, Brian,
BARBAROSSA TO BERLIN, A CHRONOLOGY OF THE CAMPAIGNS ON THE EASTERN FRONT, 1941 TO 1945: Volume One, The Long Drive East, 22 June 1941 to 18 November 1942.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Staplehurst, Kent: Spellmount Limited, 2003). First Edition.
Maps, photographs, bibliography, index, 326 pages.
256 pages.
~~~ A chronological account of the campaigns on the Eastern Front, following the German advance from the Soviet frontier to the Red Army's bitter defense of Stalingrad
-- The massive concentration of German forces in Eastern Europe during the spring of 1941 precipitated the onset of the largest land conflict the world had ever seen and detailed German and Soviet orders of battle and comparative strengths in both troops and equipment sets the scene.
-- The German advance from the frontier heralded their long drive east, and left in its wake a shattered and demoralized Red Army and the spectacular German battles of encirclement and the dogged resistance of the Soviet armies as they retreated are fully recounted.
-- From the depths of despair, a determined Soviet leadership began the long process of rebuilding its armed forces.
-- At the very edge of defeat before their capital and into the bloodbath along the banks of the Volga, the Soviet commanders carefully assembled their operational reserves in order to inflict a crippling counter-strike.
-- This day-by-day account allows the reader to obtain an understanding of the scale of the conflict and assess the impact of distance and time upon operations or alternatively, to concentrate upon a specific battle as it unfolded.
-- By each detailed combat sector, be it the encirclement battles in the north or sweeping advances in the south, the reader is able to study a chosen area of operations in isolation while also assessing its impact upon the wider campaign.
Currently in print at $39.95.
$35.00
Taylor, Brian,
BARBAROSSA TO BERLIN, A CHRONOLOGY OF THE CAMPAIGNS ON THE EASTERN FRONT, 1941 TO 1945:
Volume Two, The Defeat of Germany, 19 November 1942 to 15 May 1945.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Staplehurst, Kent: Spellmount Limited, 2004). First Edition.
Maps, photographs, bibliography, index, 341 pages.
256 pages.
~~~ The second of two volumes, this is a chronological account of the campaigns on the Eastern Front, following the Soviet counteroffensive around Stalingrad to the final destruction of the Ostheer. Having carefully mustered their forces for a counteroffensive around Stalingrad, the commanders of the Red Army began the long process of besting the German Army and pushing it out of the Soviet Union. The last largescale German offensive in the east, Kursk, broke the back of the revitalized Panzerwaffe and placed the Ostheer on the defensive for the remainder of the conflict. Unrelenting pressure pushed the Ostheer back to the Dniepr and beyond and paved the way for the overwhelming Soviet victories of 1944 and 1945. In the last 18 months of the war the Red Army demonstrated a complete mastery of the application of force and the crushing victories in Belorussia, the Balkans and Poland destroyed the cohesion of the Ostheer and proved beyond any doubt that Germany was destined for total defeat. This daybyday account allows the reader to obtain an understanding of the scale of the conflict and assess the impact of
distance and time upon operations or alternatively, to concentrate upon a specific battle as it unfolded.
By detailing each combat sector, be it the hard fighting around Leningrad, the destruction of Army Group
Centre in Belorussia or the battles of attrition at Kursk, the reader is able to study a chosen area of
operations in isolation while also assessing its impact upon the wider campaign
Currently in print at $39.95.
$35.00
Trotter, William R.,
WINTER FIRE: A Novel of Music and War.
NF. Trade PAPERBACK in new condition except for red remainder mark on bottom edge of book. (NY:
Carroll & Graf, 1993).
486 pages. ~~~
From Kirkus Reviews: "A passionate tale of deep, mysterious Finland
forests and complex moods in the music of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius,
ably set in the fire and ice of WW II by historian/first-novelist Trotter (A
Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40). Erich Ziegler, a
promising young conductor whose career is interrupted by the Nazification of
Germany's musical culture, first experiences the war on the frozen tundra near
Murmansk. Rescued by his classical background from the front lines, he's
drafted into military intelligence and sent to ferret out information from
Finnish troops in the guise of a Wehrmacht liaison officer, but a chance
sighting of Sibelius en route to his post quickly leads to friendship with
the aging recluse. As a member of the composer's inner circle, Erich falls
in love with a beautiful, enigmatic woman who is Sibelius's servant but whose
forest ties have given her unusual abilities. The couple's relationship is
interrupted when Erich allows pride to cloud his judgment during a command
orchestra performance for Hitler, committing an act of defiance that lands
him on the Russian front. There, he suffers severe shock from the battle
conditions and is hospitalized, eventually returning to Finland at Sibelius's
request. Although frustrated by the composer's refusal to acknowledge the
existence of his long-awaited Eighth Symphony, Erich still prospers as his
protoge, and after barely surviving the all-out Soviet assault on Finnish
positions, he returns to the maestro's retreat to be given a solo performance
of the work by the composer himself. But brutalized by the war and convinced
that the score is about to be destroyed, he betrays both hishost and the love
of his forest maiden, running away to meet a tragic fate. Excessively
melodramatic on occasion, but still a stunning evocation of Finnish landscapes,
myth, and music, while the desperate conditions under which war was waged in
northern Europe are brought savagely to life."
$14.00
Warfield, Hania and Gaither,
CALL US TO WITNESS: A Polish Chronicle.
VG/Poor. (NY: Ziff Davis Publishing Co., 1945). First Edition. INSCRIBED & DATED BY BOTH
AUTHORS. (Mrs. Alice L. Thomas, With best regards, Gaither P. Warfield, Hania Warfield,
Rockville, Md, 1950).
Jacket, protected by mylar, is in poor condition, with some pieces missing. Book is generally
tight and clean, though with some tape marks on rear end pages. 434 pages.
~~~ "With poignancy and deep emotion, an American clergyman and his Polish-born wife, who
were caught in the maw of war in Poland, give their account of everyday living under the German
conquerors. As they became victims of Nazi brutality, their world of peace fell away
precipitously. Overnight, life was pervaded with destruction and horror. Everybody
suffered. And everybody resisted the Germans.
~~~
Dr. Warfield carried on his work as best he could between prison terms. Whether in or out of
prison he jeopardized his life to aid both Jews and gentiles. He fled before the Germans with
the population of Warsaw and was machine-gunned on roads and in cattle cars. He was caught by
the Russians in their invasion of eastern Poland and was carried by truck into the Soviet Union,
where he was imprisoned. He was exchanged by the Russians to the Germans while they were yet
allies. Weakened by cold and hunger, he was released by the Germans because he had become too
weak to work. On the declaration of war by Germany against the United States, he was interned
by the Gestapo, on orders from Berlin, in Pawiak prison in the Warsaw ghetto. ~~~ For three
years the Warfields -- along with the Poles and Jews (this distinction was made by the Germans)
-- suffered hunger, cold, humiliation, and abuse. They were witnesses of death by firing squads,
by starvation, by freezing; witnesses of looting and hundred-fold reprisals. They devoted
themselves to helping the men and women who came to them bloody and hungry and dazed. They
kept right on doing the almost impossible until their return to America as exchange prisoners
on the Swedish S.S. Drottninghold. ~~~ Because Dr. Warfield was head of the American
Colony in Warsaw as well as head of the Methodist Church, and because his Polish wife was an
accomplished linguist, these two had unparalleled vantage points from which to view the whole
whirlpool of tragic events in Poland. After he was interned, Mrs. Warfield mediated between
the Americans and the Gestapo. ~~~ Call Us To Witness leaves the reader with the
feeling that there is no limit to human endurance when freedom is the goal. The Warfields'
story, told now by oine, now by the other, will stand as a historical document against force
and national aggression, against the German oppressor, against any oppressor. It should be
read by all who are concerned for justice in the postwar world."
$75.00
Wassiljewa, Tatjana,
HOSTAGE TO WAR: A True Story.
NF. Trade PAPERBACK. (NY:
Polaris [Scholastic], 1997). Children's non-fiction.
188 pages. ~~~
Wassiljewa pens an
award-winning, first-person account of a Russian girl's World War II hardships.
Enduring terrible conditions and near-starvation in workcamps, Wassiljewa
survived through liberation, but had more obstacles to overcome before
fulfilling her dream to become a teacher. "A harrowing, uplifting story."
--Kirkus Reviews.
~~~ From Publishers Weekly:
"In 1941, at age 13, the author
was taken from her small town near Leningrad and sent to
Germany for three years of forced labor. While the writing
itself suffers from being squeezed into an artificial diary
format... the story relayed here is
intrinsically compelling." Ages 8-12.
Originally published at $5.99, now OUT OF PRINT.
$10.00
Weiner, Amir,
MAKING SENSE OF WAR: The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution.
NEW copy, trade PAPERBACK. (Princeton University Press, 2002).
~~~
In Making Sense of War, Amir Weiner reconceptualizes the entire
historical experience of the Soviet Union from a new perspective, that
of World War II. Breaking with the conventional interpretation that views
World War II as a post-revolutionary addendum, Weiner situates this event
at the crux of the development of the Soviet--not just the Stalinist--
system. Through a richly detailed look at Soviet society as a whole, and
at one Ukrainian region in particular, the author shows how World War II
came to define the ways in which members of the political elite as well
as ordinary citizens viewed the world and acted upon their beliefs and
ideologies. ~~~ The book explores the creation of the myth of the war
against the historiography of modern schemes for social engineering, the
Holocaust, ethnic deportations, collaboration, and postwar settlements.
For communist true believers, World War II was the purgatory of the
revolution, the final cleansing of Soviet society of the remaining
elusive "human weeds" who intruded upon socialist harmony, and it
brought the polity to the brink of communism. Those ridden with doubts
turned to the war as a redemption for past wrongs of the regime, while
others hoped it would be the death blow to an evil enterprise. For all,
it was the Armageddon of the Bolshevik Revolution. The result of Weiner's
inquiry is a bold, compelling new picture of a Soviet Union both
reinforced and enfeebled by the experience of total war.
Currently in print at $27.95.
$25.00
Ziemke, Earl F.,
STALINGRAD TO BERLIN: The German Defeat in the East.
NF/NF. (NY: Barnes & Noble, 1968). Army Historical Series. Text in double columns; maps and photographs throughout.
Page-end notes, appendices, note on sources, glossary, code names, index, 549 pages.
~~~ Encompassing nearly 4 years of continuous combat, the Soviet-German conflict in WWII involved nearly 9 million actively engaged troops across a front that stretched over 3,000 miles in 1942. Despite the loss of nearly two-thirds of its resources through Hitler's blitzkrieg attacks in the first few months of the war, the Soviet Union ultimately proved a deadly opponent. This major study is the definitive account of how the Soviet Union won WWII on the battlefield. Includes 42 specially commissioned maps and over 70 b&w photos.
Paperback currently in print at $34.50; hardcover OUT OF PRINT.
Cumins, Keith.
CATACLYSM:
The War on the Eastern Front 1941-45.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Helion, 2011).
6x9, 40 photographs, 32 maps, 400 pages.
Geddes, Giorgio,
NICHIVO: Tales from the Russian Front, 1941-1943.
Greenhill Books, 2002.
288 pages. 
Originally published at $23, now OUT OF PRINT.
Merridale, Catherine,
NIGHT OF STONE: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia.
Trade Paperback. NEW copy, Penguin, 2001. Photographs, Notes & Sources,
Bibliography, Index, 402 pages.
Beevor, Antony,
STALINGRAD: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943.
Viking, 1998. NEW copy. First American Edition. Hardcover with dust jacket. Photographs, notes,
bibliography, index. 494 pages.
Dr. Warfield carried on his work as best he could between prison terms. Whether in or out of
prison he jeopardized his life to aid both Jews and gentiles. He fled before the Germans with
the population of Warsaw and was machine-gunned on roads and in cattle cars. He was caught by
the Russians in their invasion of eastern Poland and was carried by truck into the Soviet Union,
where he was imprisoned. He was exchanged by the Russians to the Germans while they were yet
allies. Weakened by cold and hunger, he was released by the Germans because he had become too
weak to work. On the declaration of war by Germany against the United States, he was interned
by the Gestapo, on orders from Berlin, in Pawiak prison in the Warsaw ghetto. ~~~ For three
years the Warfields -- along with the Poles and Jews (this distinction was made by the Germans)
-- suffered hunger, cold, humiliation, and abuse. They were witnesses of death by firing squads,
by starvation, by freezing; witnesses of looting and hundred-fold reprisals. They devoted
themselves to helping the men and women who came to them bloody and hungry and dazed. They
kept right on doing the almost impossible until their return to America as exchange prisoners
on the Swedish S.S. Drottninghold. ~~~ Because Dr. Warfield was head of the American
Colony in Warsaw as well as head of the Methodist Church, and because his Polish wife was an
accomplished linguist, these two had unparalleled vantage points from which to view the whole
whirlpool of tragic events in Poland. After he was interned, Mrs. Warfield mediated between
the Americans and the Gestapo. ~~~ Call Us To Witness leaves the reader with the
feeling that there is no limit to human endurance when freedom is the goal. The Warfields'
story, told now by oine, now by the other, will stand as a historical document against force
and national aggression, against the German oppressor, against any oppressor. It should be
read by all who are concerned for justice in the postwar world."
