$34.95
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[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.
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$29.95
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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.
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$48.00
|
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.
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$29.95
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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."
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$27.50
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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."
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
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$34.95
|
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.
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$25.00
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Geddes, Giorgio,
NICHIVO: Tales from the Russian Front, 1941-1943.
Greenhill Books, 2002.
288 pages.
~~~
"The story of the appalling suffering endured by the common people who were caught
up in the midst of World War II. It tells of the horror experienced by the people
on the Russian Front who found themselves sandwiched between the two greatest
armies the world has ever seen - those of Russia and Germany. It shows how the
people were constantly harassed by bandits and local warlords, were routinely
robbed of food and fuel by the invading German army, and lived under the constant
threat of being deported to Germany; they were people who had just as much to fear
from their own troops as from the Germans.
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$45.00
|
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.
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$27.50
|
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."
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$23.95
|
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.
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$35.00
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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.
|
$50.00
|
Dmitriy Loza, 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."
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$25.00
|
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).
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$40.00
|
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."
|
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.
|
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."
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$35.00
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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.
|
$16.00
|
Overy, Richard,
RUSSIA'S WAR.
NEW copy, trade paperback (Penguin Group, 1998).
Maps, photographs, bibliography, index, 394 pages.
|
$23.00
|
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.
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$25.00
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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".
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$35.00
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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.
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$25.00
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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.
~~~ Hardcover OUT OF PRINT.
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$49.95
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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.
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$79.95
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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.
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$35.00
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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.
~~~ Drawn from sources never before seen by Western scholars, this compelling
narrative chronicles the harrowing siege that was the psychological turning
point of World War II. On August 23, 1942, Hitler's 16th Panzer Division halted
on the banks of the Volga. To their right, the city of Stalingrad blazed from
the first of General von Richthofen's air raids, which ultimately killed 40,000
civilians. Many German soldiers thought the war against Russia was won. But in
Stalin's namesake city on the Volga, Hitler had chosen the wrong target. The
battle of Stalingrad would be the most pitiless, and perhaps the most important,
battle in history. When the fighting was over, the world would begin to believe
for the first time that Hitler could be defeated.
~~~ The story of Stalingrad is extraordinary in every way. Hitler had told
General Paulus that with his Sixth Army, the most powerful in the Wehrmacht, he
could 'storm the heavens.' But then, in a sudden encirclement, over a quarter of
a million of Paulus's men were trapped. Far from home, the attackers were
subjected to a terrible siege in a cruel Russian winter as Goering's boasts that
the Luftwaffe could maintain supplies proved empty. Hitler, unable to face the
truth of his own disaster, refused his starved and frozen army permission to
surrender. Goebbels ordered that their last letters home be destroyed.
~~~ The story has never been told as Antony Beevor tells it here. He writes of
the great Manichaean clash between Stalin and Hitler, and the strategic
brilliance and fatal flaws of their generals. Yet his Stalingrad is
primarily the story of the man on the ground, the first to convey the true
experience of ordinary Russian and German soldiers, caught up in the first major
modern battle in a city, which had become a killing zone of ruins. His
extraordinary research allows him to re-create the compelling human drama of the
fateful siege.
~~~ Beevor has gained access to primary sources never used before, including
reports on desertions and executions from the archives of the Russian ministry
of defense, captured German documents, transcripts of prisoner interrogations,
private letters and diaries from soldiers on both sides, medical reports, and
interviews with key witnesses and participants. These materials and Beevor's
compelling narrative style create a terrifying montage of catastrophe and
hardship, an apocalyptic vision of the first battle of truly modern warfare.
~~~ Paperback currently in print at $16.95; hardcover OUT OF PRINT.
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$30.00
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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".
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$35.00
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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.
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$125.00
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 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."
~~~ "Russian aeroplanes and pilots made their appearance during the Spanish War, but it was not until the gallant resistance and tremendous counter-assault of Soviet forces against the combined Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe thatt the outside world began to realise what an efficient arm of Soviet strength the Red Air Force had become. ~~~
The censorship in the USSR, working efficiently for many years, has prevented much information from coming to light, but although it is still not possible to give a complete account of Soviet aviation, the present book is the closest approximation which has yet appeared. At no other time in this country, it may sofely be said, have so many facts and figures about Soviet aircraft been gathered together in published form."
~~~ Includes British and Soviet official photographs, and photos from the following
news agencies: Sport & General, Planet News, Soviet War News Weekly,
Sovfoto, Aeroflot, and K.L.M.
~~~ S C A R C E, particularly in jacket. OUT OF PRINT.
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$35.00
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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.
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$35.00
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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.
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$14.00
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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
prot‚g‚; 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."
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$75.00
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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."
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$10.00
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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.
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$49.95
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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.
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$25.00
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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.
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$40.00
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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.
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