Russian Campaign books: Barbarossa through Stalingrad

[Immer Treue]

Hello all. I collected in the 70's and 80's. All stuff and books long gone. Now living up in Northern Minnesota and looking to lay in reading material for Winter. I read extensively (Manstein, Guderian, Seaton, etc)what was available when I collected, but I'm sure there are better books now available.

Don't want to get bogged down with multiple authors. Read some reviews of Gantz. Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

[MarcRikmenspoel]

Back in the 70s and 80s, most historians writing in English didn't really know what happened on the Eastern Front. They tended to base their books on what various German and Soviet commanders wrote in their memoirs, which wasn't necessarily an accurate version of events.

These days, there are plenty of books based on archival research and the study of unit histories and accounts by lower-level veterans. For Barbarossa to Moscow, War Without Garlands, by Robert Kershaw, is a gripping look at how brutal the war was for the soldiers and civilians caught up in it.

A great new look at armored warfare, in particular, is Robert Forczyk's Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1941-1942. This covers Barbarossa through Stalingrad, just as you seek. It is full of descriptions of battles most readers have likely never heard of, along with accounts of the more well-known ones.

[pasoleati]

I can second Marc's recommendation of that Forczyk title as well. In addition, Forczyk has some good Osprey titles on the Eastern Front already out and his Crimea book should be out later this year.

However, I am a bit less enthused by Kershaw's War without Garlands, as the personal accounts in that book are too often too short. Plus on occasion he uses TV interviews as direct sources and that I find questionable. Plus the actual archival research could be stronger.

Glantz is a very annoying author in that he is not the best writer out there, his books are quite short on analyses and quite uneven in sourcing.

Anything by Niklas Zetterling is good.

[Immer Treue]

Picked up Bevor's Stalingrad and the Fall of Berlin, as well as Forczyk's Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1941-1942, and I'm about half way through the latter. An interesting read so far, but in my minds eye a glaring weakness is its lack of maps. It's fairly easy to follow the unit movements, so in that respect unit place on a map is unnecessary, but maps with locales and rivers for reference would be helpful. Mu basic understanding of Russian geography and cities and towns from readings twenty years ago is getting me through, but jeezo pezzo for a new book on the topic why not some decent maps?