Everyone should read this book. | Enemy at the Gates: Movie Tie-In

A moving, impresionistic view of the battle | Enemy at the Gates: Movie Tie-In | William Craig

books:


	• Enemy at the Gates: Movie Tie-In William Craig Penguin (Non-Classics), 2001 - 472 pages average customer review:based on 88 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

The was fasincating read!

I happened to notice the book as a special release while in Barnes and Noble. It was a very interesting read and will give you an idea to the intensity of the event.

I saw the movie and in it's own right it's good. However, it rather interesting to see who they made a whole movie from what was basically 6 pages of the book.

The author did a good job compiling interviews, memoirs and documents from the people involved. Overall the book flows and draws you in.

I can say there isn't a favored side in the presentation. Even though it's suggested by another review. The author did a great job simply telling a story or in this case a series of stories. You get heroes, you get villains. You get to look into the minds of the mean deciding and fighting the campaign.

One interesting thing I noticed was the fact that the soldiers pretty much stayed faithful to Hitler even though he basically screwed them by being stubborn and yet indecisive.

There are touching accounts and sad accounts. I found it interesting that battle stopped to listen to a violinist play Bach. A vet who could not slay his favorite horse and left her in a bunker with a note asking the Soviets to take care of her. Don't know if they did. The cobbler who decided to spy and was hung for it. There is so much more.

The one interesting thing is the famed duel of Vasily and Maj Koenig(from the movie and mentioned in the book). It appears that Major Koenig does not exist. People have looked for him and have commented they can't find records of him. Soviet Propaganda.

Now to a reviewers comment that the Soviets are portrayed with vile contempt. I did not get that from the author. He spoke to many veterans and even drank shots of vodka with commando commander as he toasted his long lost men. The so called contempt might be the stories of the Soviets killing prisoners. They did. There is no discussing that fact and it was even shown in the records after the USSR collapsed. Never mind the fact that 120000 Italians marched to prison and only 12000 came out. Over 100000 Germans marched to Prison and only 5000 made it out.

Overall, it's a great book but as with history you have to read many accounts.

The next book I will look into is Beevor's Stalingrad : The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943

for more information click here

Everyone should read this book.

"Enemy at the Gates" is more a collection of stories of individual experiences of the battle than it is a serious work of military history. It is very similar in approach to Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day. But that's also what makes it the most compelling English-language book on the subject. The stories tell us more about the nature of the battle than accounts of troop movements and lines on a map ever could. It is a much better book than Antony Beevor's Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943. Unlike Beevor, Craig actually interviewed hundreds of survivors of the battle and retold their stories. That is, Craig presents the reader with mostly first-hand accounts. Also unlike Beevor, Craig is not preoccupied with Soviet attrocities, although he does not ignore that aspect of the battle either. The only unfortunate thing about this book is that a bad movie with the same title was based very loosely on it.

for more information click here

A moving, impresionistic view of the battle

First, let's be clear on what this book is not. It is not a detailed, operational history of the battle. There are only a couple of maps of relatively poor quality, and the day to day movements of units is largely ignored. If you want to understand in detail how the battle developed and where units were at any given time, you will be disappointed.

What this book DOES do very well is to capture the worm's-eye view of the battle from individual perspectives. The many interviews with veterans from both sides (including the Axis allied armies) provides a moving, compelling view of the battle from the perspective of the individual soldier. While the previous reviewer is correct that these are slanted toward the German side and that the Germans come across as more believable, Craig made a strong attempt to work in Soviet views, and the Soviets come across fairly well also.

The book's greatest strength (it's personal views) is also its greatest weakness: an individual soldier never has a clear picture of the larger battle he/she is in, and because of this, is in no position to describe the larger context of his/her own actions. Commanders of larger units do have this, but Craig is more interested in their psychology than in where and when regiments, divisions, and corps moved and engaged the enemy. Although Craig is occasionally clear on operational details, usually they are hazy, and it's very unclear which units are fighting which below division level (and sometimes even above).

The previous reviewer's comments on Craig's unfamiliarity with Russian culture are also accurate. As an American who speaks both Russian and German, I can attest that his criticisms are accurate. Craig is obviously culturally much more comfortable with German culture than Russian, and this shows in many small mistakes throughout the book. In some cases, these mistakes, while small, are troubling in their implications. I am a historian, and I know that when sifting primary sources and synthesizing them into a narrative, I am often forced to make judgments and inferences. To do this accurately, one needs an encyclopedic knowledge of the entire context of one's subject, including minutiae. Craig appears to lack this. For example, on pages 71-72, there is the evocative story of the decimation of the 64th division. According to Craig, the division commander marched down the row of assembled troops, counted off each tenth man, and shot him in the face point blank in the face with his revolver. Craig writes, "When the last bullet in the revolver thudded into a man's brain, the commander shoved the pistol back in his holster and walked away....soldiers broke from formation and scattered in all directions. Behind them six of their comrades lay in a neat pattern on the grass."

This is a shocking and powerful scene, but there is a small problem: the Model 1895 Nagant revolver hold SEVEN shots, not six. One body more or less may seem insignificant, but it is precisely the minute level of detail in Craig's descriptions that make the book so powerful. However, it appears from this scene that he is making up some of the details, based on his own (Western) preconceptions. Craig doesn't use footnotes, so it's hard to tell what his source was for this story. Still, unless the commander had a partially loaded cylinder, Craig essentially fabricated at least one detail (the six bodies on the grass) in order to lend power and credibility to his story. It's unclear just how much of this story was based on documented fact and how much on undocumented extrapolation. One wonders how many other of the convincing details in the book are in fact Craig's own inaccurate assumptions as opposed to precisely accurate facts. Given his system of lumping sources together at the back of the book, there is no way to tell.

Finally, while the Prologue talks of using previously unused Soviet and German archival sources, a glance at the Bibliography makes it clear that the book is based (apart from interviews with Soviet veterans) almost entirely on German sources. There is only one Soviet source that could be considered archival. Again, this shows up in the narrative as well: the movements of Soviet troops is quite hazy, and we are again often left with vague notions of hordes of T-34s and of Soviets shouting "urrah!" as opposed to any clear or detailed picture of Soviet units. The German slant gets extremely strong as the book winds down, with inordinate amounts of time being spent on the conversations in Paulus' headquarters. As the battle continues, the focus becomes more and more German.

In the end, this is still a valuable book. Craig is a master of showing us what goes on in soldiers' minds as they fight to the death. However, a German-centered focus, troubling errors of detail and interpretation, and a limited range of sources make it less than ideal as a history of the entire campaign. I don't know of any book on the battle that does describe the campaign in detail and accurately on an operational level. Perhaps Colonel David Glantz will turn his considerable talents in this direction. For now, read this along with Beevor, but keep in mind that it is both dated and limited in its scope and sources.

for more information click here

As told by those who were there!

By far, on of the definitive works on the Battle of Stalingrad. A grudge match between two depraved dictators, and two evil political ideologies, the Battle of Stalingrad was quite arguably the definitive turning point for the outcome of the World War II in Europe. The battle for Stalingrad was in fact entirely avoidable by both sides. Nevertheless, it became a savage maelstrom of death and destruction, merely to satisfy the egos and political will of the opposing regimes. The author interviewed a large number of people on both sides of this battle, German and Soviet, military and civilian. The recent movie loosely based on this book, focuses on the famous Russian sniper, Sgt. Zaitsev, but typical of Hollywood, they warp the historical facts in order to ..."improve the plot?". Read the book instead! At the end, there is a brief section describing what became of many of the people interviewed. one of the most heart-rending stories is the account of Tanya Chernova, one of Zaitsev's fellow snipers. She had loved Zaitsev, and looked forward to marrying him at the end of the war. She was badly injured in an explosion, that rendered her incapable of bearing children. Zaitsev had heard she was dead, and never saw her again. Chernova, had also heard a rumor that Zaitsev had died in battle. Years later, she found out he had in fact survived, and married another woman, but had long since passed away after a heart-attack. In addition to this, Chernova's exploits as a soldier are quite fascinating. She was very deadly with a rifle, and just as dangerous at close-quarters, despite being of tiny stature! She was one of many female soldiers who fought with great skill for Russia.
Some of the heroic defenders of Stalingrad, of Jewish heritage, left the USSR years later, and defended their new homeland of Isreal just as valiantly. They put their experience to good use in a noble cause.
Most of the accounts seem to cover the experiences of Wehrmacht soldiers, and their allies. They were the ones who ultimately suffered the worst of the ordeal. Their logistics failed, their leadership failed, and the harsh winter weather took maximum toll. They were completely written off by their Nazi leaders. The majority of Axis personnel who became prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, never went home. Those that did, returned only after many years of vindictive abuse by the communists.

for more information click here

Accessible war history, keenly told

While I'm neither historian nor reviewer, as one who can read, write and think, and who's recently read Craig's history of the battle of Stalingrad, I can say assuredly: If you're eager to learn about WW II and/or the Russian front and/or how the Nazi war machine and/or the Russian defense of the motherland worked, and are put off by difficult or unengaging prose, read this book. Only if you are a WW II or siege-of-Stalingrad buff already steeped in the blood-drenched lore of that pivotal battle will you be disappointed. For everyone else, after wading through only a very few pages of stage-setting, you will be drawn in by the incredible and horrific drama that was a major portion of WW II's carnage, well told by an historian who obviously had respect for his craft and who as a writer chose a style that was telling while understated.

I'm aware of criticism, both academic and subjective, about elements that might fairly be found wanting in this work. While not in a position to knowledgably judge it, I'm quite sure of this history's value as an eminently accessible and generally truthful re-creation of the event that is thoughtful, detailed, nuanced, balanced, and authoritative. Mr. Craig took great pains to admix and juxtapose not just the Nazis with the Soviets, and the Russians with the Germans, but the strategies of politicians and generals with the ad hoc struggles of foot soldiers and peasants; official communiques and orders with remembered anecdotes; photos and three key maps with terse descriptions of topography and cityscape; and spoken word with written accounts, so as to create a three-dimensional accounting that is palpably human and honest, complete and polished, even if imperfect.

The lives of so many of the players in this hell-on-earth contest come alive in Mr. Craig's telling, even, as is often the case, when he can afford but little time and space for their individual tales in the service of telling the overall story. But he paints a full enough picture -- for example, of the German veterinarian turned physician, striving to save his gaunt but beloved horse amidst his beseiged countrymen as they literally starve to death -- that the reader is led inexorably to understand at once the humanity and monstrousness of the soldiers who comprised Hitler's legions.

Not often can it be said that a history that attempts to be thorough (if not comprehensive)is a page-turner; this one is. And I can't think of many praises greater than these: that I think I have a solid understanding of the basics of what unfolded a thousand or so miles east of Berlin on the Volga when Hitler tried to extend his empire and reach within and through Russia in 1942-43, and that I am looking now for other works by Craig to read, such a master at the readable and graspable telling of history was he.

If this subject at all interests you, and you are eager to learn, read this book. You will not only not be sorry, you will be grateful for the author's effort, so easy will it have made yours in reading his work.

for more information click here

Two madmen, Hitler and Stalin, engaged in a death struggle that would determine the course of history at staggering cost of human life. Craig has written the definitive book on one of the most terrible battles ever fought. With 24 pages of photos.