Stalingrad: The Turning Point

Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II / the Violent Century: Battle #3

by Geoffrey Jukes, Barrie Pitt (Editor-in-Chief), David Mason (Editor)

Stalingrad...Where Hitler threw in entire divisions in suicidal attacks, and the Russians annihilated them in the most vicious battles of the Second World War...When it was all over, the once proud German VI Army, 330,000 strong, had been entirely wiped out.

***

Stalingrad: The Turning Point is part of Ballantine's Illustrated History of the Violent Century, and is Book #3 in the Battle Book series.

Genres: History, World War II, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, War, Military History

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

A former civil servant and scholar in international relations, Geoffrey Jukes spent 14 years in the UK Ministry of Defence and Foreign and Colonial Office, specialising in Russian/Soviet military history, strategy and arms control. He was a Senior Fellow in International Relations at ANU from 1967 to 1993, and an Associate of the Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies (the Middle East & Central Asia) until his death in 2010.

Reviews

[C. G. Telcontar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine for what it is and the time it was written. I feel that going overboard with a long review of this one is just silly, especially if you want to complain about bias and impartiality. Wrong era to worry about that. This is just supposed to be a summation, a quick overview, of the battle, nothing more. It does great work with the maps and photos to compliment the dry retelling of the battle and then it's over. It's all top down, no human stories here, and relies heavily on Chuikov's memoir.

[Martin Koenigsberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Third book in the Purnells/Ballantines' Battle Series, this is a good and brief re-telling of the tale- as well as it could be told in 1968 when this book came out. Geoffrey Jukes, the author, tells the story before Ultra was revealed and the Soviet Archives were opened, so he's somewhat hampered compared to a modern writer. And yet its all there- Hitler's decision to turn south in "Case Blue"- to grab the Caucasus and it's resources- the confusion about targets- the fascination with "Stalin's City" grabs Hitler's attention- The VIth army tries to take the city- and the Soviets spring the trap. Then there's the German confusion- armies appeared that their Intelligence Department said could not exist- the break out attempt- and the eventual starvation and surrender. Even in its abbreviated form- this story never gets old- and the plethora of good Maps and B/W Pics and diagrams help to keep the reader informed.

For a book this short- Jukes really plays up the drama- the one area the Soviets were happy to support in Western histories. Yeremenko and Chuykov, the two Generals who joined Zhukov in fighting this battle, are living characters in the book- and each gets some time in the sun- well more like the cold- as this is a Winter Battle. When the Russians bait and then spring the trap- the tick- tock gets really interesting.

For the Junior reader, this is light on Gore and Adult themes -but heavy on history, so fine for any reader over about 10. For the Gamer/Modeller/Military Enthusiast- its a great little background resource. The pictures will help those looking at developing Scenarios and Terrain for Urban warfare- while the narrative contains several other Scenario/diorama ideas. It's a sneaky complete book about this episode- seeming much deeper than its 160 pages. These books are great for getting non-history readers up to speed on wars when they join the local wargame club....

[Juan · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Esta reseña es de la edición española de Editorial San Martín, colección "El siglo de la violencia", Batallas libro no. 4, editado en 1980 con prólogo de Vicente Talón.)
Durante una época, no había viaje a Madrid que no pasara por la visita a la libreria San Martín (también a Madrid Cómics, y a una tienda de discos en Gran Vía que no recuerdo). De cada visita me traía un ejemplar, que indefectiblemente luego no leía, o si leía olvidaba totalmente. Este es uno de ellos, y no tiene pinta de haber sido leído mucho, así que más bien lo primero.
Creo que lo recordaría, además. El original no está mal. Es un libro de 1968, con una portada sensiblemente similar, hasta los colores. Pero el interior parece que está hecho a base de fotocopias; la calidad tanto del papel como de la encuadernación es bastante defectuosa, por no mencionar que la reproducción de las ilustraciones es sencillamente nefasta, prácticamente incomprensible. Hasta los mapas parecen una tercera fotocopia o cuarta del original. Ni la portada o contraportada parece que se hayan reproducido con mucha calidad.
¿El interior? Hasta la caída de la Unión Soviética, poco se sabía de la realidad de esta batalla, "decisiva" según la traducción española, "punto de inflexión" según el original inglés, desde el punto de vista de los soviéticos. Todo el mundo se dedicó a escribir memorias, pero evidentemente con una visión relativamente parcial. Así que desde el punto de vista moderno, no creo que esté ni en el top 5 (en el top 1 estaría el Stalingrado de Beevor, seguro). Pero es un libro corto, prolijo en sus descripciones de movimientos de unidades, pero que deja sitio también a la anécdota y a breves análisis, y puede ser una buena introducción a la historia de esta batalla. Así que si cae en tus manos merece la pena dedicarle aunque sea un rato. Siempre tardarás menos que en leerte las sopotocientas páginas del libro de Beevor.

[Christopher Rush · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr. Jukes does a fair job presenting the exciting nature of this battle, though his tone throughout does not help the work. It's not that he makes jokes and whatnot, but his attitude toward some of the leaders and their decisions involved, especially on the German side, is at times a bit too antagonistic on the ad hominem level. I'm not saying they were wonderful people, since I have no knowledge of their characters, but Mr. Jukes is at times too dismissive and at other times derogatory, if even in a subtle way. I've made too much of a deal about it, but it was there. Similarly, despite the subtitle's intimation how important this battle was, Mr. Jukes's conclusionary paragraphs sound like nothing that happened in the battle mattered after all, effectively dismissing not only the military significance of the events but also the human cost of the defense of Stalingrad itself - not the best way to end this book, I thought, which is sad, considering how great the rest of the series for the most part has been.
On the positive side, as I mentioned, he does a fine job of bringing the ebb and flow of the battle (series of battles, really) to life in a dramatic fashion, from the Russian personalities involved to the heroic and sacrificial stands of the Russian soldiers, and from the perspectives of the beleaguered German military leaders who didn't want to do what Hitler made them do to the cocksure German soldiers who somehow, almost Providentially, became the hunted and not the hunters. This would make a great movie, especially if it were four or more hours long and really presented this battle well. I think I'll check out some other accounts of this key battle and possibly try to get my copy of The Stalingrad Campaign to the gaming table.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jukes was given a tough task trying to get to the truth of the matter regarding Stalingrad and who to exactly give credit to for the victory and the failure and even admits that with hindsight of a historian you can always see the faults after the fact but in the situation you may not have seen the full picture and had to act with the knowledge available. The knowledge available in this instance was trying to find the actual history buried under different versions of propaganda on the Russian side and Germany being on the losing side and having its own history obscured. I think the main things that stick out here is the bravery of the 62nd army holding out in Stalingrad so that the Russian surprise attack could work so brilliantly and envelop such a large force of Germans. In the end, the whole battle being fought on the German side of things was for naught and that's the sad reality of the situation. I think Jukes did well here, this just wasn't my absolute favourite but was good and there's good history here.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

FULL REVIEW TO COME: An eloquent and at times heartbreaking account of a battle neither Hitler nor Stalin originally wanted to fight and turned into the decisive engagement of the Second World War. Hitler's strategy for seizing the oil fields of the Caucasus in 1942 was, in keeping with his record in the war, too ambitious and not well thought out. For starters, it was a campaign born of failure and frustration. The collapse of Operation Typhoon, the plan to take Moscow by the end of 1941, and the fact that the Red Army kept on fighting even after losing two million POWs in the Ukraine alone and Russian battlefield deaths of a million troops or more since the launch of Barbarossa on June 22, 1941 made Hitler seek another route to victory in the East. The oil tanks at Baku and Grozny offered a tantalizing prize for the Wermacht, which had become almost totally dependent on Hitler's Romanian ally supplying petroleum from Ploesti. A strike south would also force Stalin, Hitler hoped, to divert and ultimately denude his forces on the Moscow front, making Typhoon once again feasible. If his Panzers struck fast enough, it might also be possible to trap yet another Soviet army, this time below the Caucasus. (Whether Hitler thought of Army group South linking up with Rommel's Afrika Corps in the Middle East, or the Japanese in India, is the subject of speculation.) With the snows still falling on his army in front of Moscow at the start of 1942, Hitler ordered Case Blue, the march to the south, into operation. Army Group South, except for divisions manning the gates against a Soviet counteroffensive in the Ukraine, was split by Hitler into two groups. Army Group A would strike deep all the way to the oil fields while Group B guarded its flanks by moving east towards Stalingrad under General von Paulus and his Sixth Army. The city, however, was not to be taken. Reaching the Volga, thereby cutting off the Red Army in the Caucasus, was the primary goal.

Just as with the launching of Barbarossa, time proved the Germans' worst enemy. Case Blue was delayed for almost six months while Army Group South fought the Russians in front of Kharkiv, a city that changed hands four times during the war. Likewise, the Panzers overran their infantry battalions, and the pace of the offensive had to be slowed. The key to victory for the Germans lay in capturing Rostov-on-Don, gateway to the Caucasus. Again, Hitler suffered from the spoils of victory. Rostov fell quickly, and Hitler was emboldened to take away the Fourth Panzer Division from Army Group B and pass it on to A, along with much-needed fuel supplies. When Paulus reached the outskirts of Stalingrad in July of 1942, he had been stripped bare of the essentials to build a wall against the Russians on the Volga. The Germans initially took Stalingrad as a secondary target of the offensive, but not the Russians. The build-up of Red Army forces on both sides of the Volga worried Hitler, who, thousands of miles away in Prussia, ordered Paulus to take the city before it could be turned into a citadel. The match game in the East was now set.

The savagery of this battle is described in horrific detail by Geoffrey Jukes, and the heroism of the defenders is attested to in a tsunami of histories, films, and novels, from both sides. So is Krushchev's defense in taking charge of the Communist Party apparatus and putting the Red Army under its command. I want to focus on the great mistakes the Germans made that made their already weak position worse once they entered the city. Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to pummel Stalingrad, and Goering assured him this could be done. But he was wrong this time, like on so many other occasions. The city was reduced to rubble, block by block, yet the Germans never found a way to stop Russian reinforcements from crossing the Volga on the Western part of the city over to the Eastern shore. As long as this lifeline remained open, victory would elude Paulus. Reducing the urban environment to fire and concrete actually helped the Soviets, who had experience in house-to-house warfare; on their side, the Germans had never learned the art of urban assault. No reinforcements were coming for Paulus's Sixth Army, and never would be, since Hitler demanded Grozny and Baku be captured at all costs; an ambitious goal that also escaped his grasp. The greatest mistake the Germans made, that cost them the battle and the war in the East, was over extension of their lines north and south of Stalingrad. Paulus was forced to rely on Hitler's wavering and unprepared allies, the Hungarians, Romanians and Italians, to defend the city against a Russian counteroffensive. The Soviets soon discovered and exploited this Achiles' Heel. Red Army commander Zhukov struck at the Romanians in November of 1942 in both directions with overwhelming firepower and fresh troops. The Axis front collapsed, and Paulus found himself surrounded with his 300,000 men starving and freezing, just like the German army at the gates of Moscow one year before. A relief column meant to break the siege never got to Stalingrad. Goering lied to Hitler again, telling him the Luftwaffe could supply Paulus with 500 tons of fuel and food per day, when Sixth Army needed closer to 800 just to stay alive. Hitler now found himself with a nightmare scenario in the South. The drive to the oil fields had failed, Sixth Army was losing strength every day, and the real danger of his armies in the Caucasus being trapped threatened the collapse of the entire Eastern front. His orders to Paulus to hold fast and die rather than retreat worked no better than they had at Moscow. Paulus surrendered the very day Hitler elevated him to Field Marshal, hoping his general would honor the German tradition that no Field Marshal had ever been taken alive. He was this time.

Jukes follows the fighting street by street, never missing the viewpoints of the Wehrmacht or the Red Army. The conclusion alone is worth the read: "And in the end, for Germany, it had all been for naught".

TO BE CONTINUED

[Fred Grogan]

First book I ever read about the Eastern Front, first read way back in 1969 or so.
Some years ago I re-read this and again found it worth the effort. It is a pretty decent account overall, as most of the Ballentine series tended to be. My recollection upon reading again was that this rather small format paper back, new in 1969, had lost some the edge it had earlier.
The other impression was that the reason it may have lost the edge was in the main the German forces being the focus of the story telling, and the Soviets depicted as more of the shadowy adversaries.
The ultimate defeat of the 6th Army was also depicted as a question of weather more than failed logistics and a dedicated defense.

[George Kasnic · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent survey of the battle. Written before the fall of the Berlin Wall, so no access to open sources from the Soviet side, the author manages to avoid the pratfall may British historians - this series is sponsored by the Imperial War Museum - fall into, a fawning attitude towards the German army and a blindness towards the evil for which they fought. He quotes Soviet sources and treats the subject with a balance not often seen in writers during this time frame. As all of these books are, excellent images and photographs, a good amount of maps, but I always want more maps. These are the books I learned my love of military history of as a tween, and I am happy to revisit them with a more experienced eye. They still retain value and worth.

[Henry Mahone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a case of C. diff, Nazis can be persistent.

[carl theaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ballantine books was the main source for WW2 books in the 60 & 70s and
this was part of an innovative illustrated series, a godsend to history
fans. The intro is by Liddel Hart to show you they had credentials.


My edition is 1968, have to update GR later. 160pgs w/b&w photos
and ample text telling the story.

[Jeff Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent work

Once again, Geoffrey Jukes delivers a very compelling tale revolving around one the greatest turning points of World War Two. With pictures and excellent analysis, readers are able to immerse themselves into the greatest conflict of ideologies the Twentieth Century ever witnessed. A great primer for readers who have never read about this battle.

Five stars

[Jim Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very difficult to read because the presentation of the text is downright awful. A more skeptical take on the fighting.

[Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of the Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II.

Quick, factual read.