Description

Earl Ziemke’s From Stalingrad to Berlin is a definitive, illustrated history of the Soviet-German conflict during World War II. Introduction by Emmy Award–winning historian Bob Carruthers With scarcely an interlude, Germany clashed with the Soviet Union for 3 years, 10 months, and 16 days, seesawing across eastern and central Europe between the Elbe and the Volga, the Alps, and the Caucasus. The total number of troops continuously engaged averaged between 8 and 9 million, and the losses were appalling. Wehrmacht losses numbered between 3 and 3.5 million. Deaths on the Soviet side reached more than 12 million, about 47 percent of the grand total of soldiers of all nations killed in World War II. The war and the occupation cost the Soviet Union some 7 million civilians and Germany about 1.5 million. The losses, civilian and military, of Finland, the Baltic States, and eastern and southeastern European countries added millions more. The great struggle completely unhinged the traditional European balance of power. The war consolidated the Soviet regime in Russia, and enabled it to impose the Communist system on its neighbors, Finland excepted, and on the Soviet occupation zone in Germany. The victory made the Soviet Union the second-ranking world power. From Stalingrad to Berlin presents the strategy and tactics, partisan and psychological warfare, coalition warfare, and manpower and production problems faced by both countries, but by the Germans in particular, to create this authoritative account of the battles between these European nations.