Stalingrad by Antony Beevor is 145,438 words; I’ve summarized it to just 1,710 words, part by part and chapter by chapter.
About Antony Beevor
Antony Beevor is a British military historian who has also served in the British military. He has written several books about major battles of World War II, which have been translated into 37 different languages. Stalingrad is his best seller of all time and ranks 31st in German history and 10th in Russian history on Amazon US.
Contents
Part 1—The World Will Hold Its Breath!
Hitler attacked the Soviet Union without a war declaration. Stalin was shocked, as were all Russian citizens. But it’s true, Operation Barbarossa was launched on June 22, 1941. {page 3-11}
At the western Russian border, the Wehrmacht caught the Red Army unprepared. The Red Army too was relaxed, thinking the invasion wasn’t real yet. {page 12-20}
Just about a month into Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht has penetrated deep into Soviet land. But despite continuous loss, the Soviet army continues to show great resistance against the German invader. {page 21-30}
The Wehrmacht was less than 200 miles from Moscow; Hitler ordered not to capture the city. Hitler argued that Moscow was less strategically important to Stalingrad. General Guderian disagreed, but he couldn’t refuse the man whom he had sworn an oath of allegiance to. {page 31-48}
Part 2—Barbarossa Relaunched
The advancing German army supported the SS in massacring the Russian prisoners of war, despite acknowledging the international war law that banned such action. Field Marshal von Reichnau died of a heart attack; at that instant, Hitler chose Paulus as his replacement as commander-in-chief of the Sixth Army. In his first battle with the Sixth Army, Paulus was able to capture 240,000 Red Army soldiers, leading to a massive victory for him. Hitler congratulated him with a Knight’s Cross award. {page 51-68}
While planning Operation Barbarossa at the beginning of 1941, Hitler never mentioned Stalingrad as a key target to be captured by the Wehrmacht. But success after success at the Eastern Front boosted his confidence that he could take whatever land he wished from the Soviets. Out of the blue, Hitler just wanted Stalingrad hurriedly, instead of the much-needed oil field in the Caucasus. {page 69-83}
Stalin renewed his order of ”no one step backward,” meaning no Soviet soldier must be seen retreating; anyone caught should be shot on the spot. On the road to Stalingrad, the Sixth Army reached the Don, where both the Red Army and the German army suffered heavy losses during the German attack. This just made the Germans realize that the easy victory they craved over the Russians wouldn’t be as easy as they had initially thought. {page 84-101}
The Sixth Army crossed the Volga on 23 August, with the Richthofen-commanded air fleet leading the ferocious advance. At that moment, Stalingrad was wide open for the Germans to take. The Red Army, hustling to defend the city to the last man, suffered heavy casualties among soldiers and civilians. Initially, German officers and soldiers were joyous at the apparent easy victory in Stalingrad. However, soon after, the Soviet army began to fight back fiercely. {page 102-119}
Part 3—The Fateful City
The Sixth Army reached Stalingrad and was hoping the city would fall in one fell swoop. That was not going to be the case, as Germans would soon realize. Soon enough, an order came from Stalin to defend the city to the last man breathing, even if it cost every man available. Fresh waves of Red Army Stalingrad defenders kept deploying to fight the German army, but what the Germans didn’t know was that the Soviets defending Stalingrad, too, were scared and were deserting their posts at the risk of being shot when discovered. {page 123-144}
As the battle for Stalingrad dragged on to the beginning of October, the fighting became house-to-house combat. And the Germans hated the close combat so much that they named it “Rattenkrieg.” Soviet female nurses performed miracles of saving the lives of their male soldiers, even sometimes sacrificing their own safety in the process. The Red Army was losing more men but not more than the Germans. {page 145-165}
Dissertations became commonplace from both sides of the battle. Germans were deserting due to intense exhaustion, and the Russians due to low rations and maltreatment from Stalin’s political officers, who were not front-line fighters. Soviet intelligence put the German deserter to better use by extracting secret information about their formation. {page 166-186}
At the Führer’s order, the Sixth Army launched a counteroffensive on October 14. Unknown to them, the Russians were aware that the Germans were coming. And they were prepared. Despite making an advance, the German soldiers were complaining bitterly that they were fighting the stubborn Russians on their turf. The cult of sniperism was invented amongst the Red Army. Still, the Sixth Army gained only a few yards. {page 187-207}
The Sixth Army launched a new offensive with fresh troops in November but made no significant gains in the rubble of Stalingrad. On November 8, Hitler announced that no further reinforcements would be sent to Stalingrad for the Sixth Army. The Red Army countered the German offensive by exploiting the Germans’ weakness in relation to their Axis allies. {page 208-219}
While Operation Uranus was underway in Russia with unconditional backing from Stalin, Hitler and his top generals underestimated any major attack from the Red Army. The Romanian Army, which directly faced the renewed Soviet operation in Stalingrad, warned Berlin of an imminent attack, but no one took them seriously. Although the Germans’ unawareness could be thanks to the masterpiece of deception that the Soviet planners had up their sleeve. {page 220-236}
Part 4—Zhukov’s Trap
On 19th November, at exactly 5:30am, the Red Army began Operation Uranus by invading the weak Romanian Third Army from the Sixth Army’s north flank. The German army was slow to react to the attack due to the sluggishness of orders from Hitler’s headquarters on how to address the situation. Before long, the Red Army was making significant progress and forcing the Germans to retreat ferociously back behind the Volga. {page 239-265}
Hitler was compelled to fully acknowledge the danger posed by the encirclement facing the entire Sixth Army. Göring, in Hitler’s presence, promised a miracle of resupplying the encircled army by air, when he knew too well it couldn’t be done. Amid the encirclement, Hitler appointed von Manstein commander-in-chief of Army Group Don. Realistically, some senior officers in the Sixth Army had recognized their doomed position in Stalingrad and contemplated a coup against the Führer. {page 266-277}
As bad as the December catastrophe was, the Croats fighting alongside the Germans lobbied for their mistresses to be flown out of the encirclement. They succeeded. According to Soviet intelligence, the majority of German soldiers, even officers, didn’t believe they’d been fully encircled by mid-December. Many still had high hopes that Hitler would somehow save them. In the end, two tons of nothing were supplied by Göring’s Luftwaffe to the encircled Sixth Army. Despite their dire situation, a commander managed to keep his troops’ morale high by playing soothing piano music in their underground bunkers. {page 278-290}
Operation Little Saturn was the Red Army’s operation to attack the Sixth Army from the rear and block Manstein’s Army Group Don from breaking the Russians off from the encirclement. By mid-December, the Luftwaffe was supplying only a fraction of what the encircled army needed, resulting in widespread starvation among the German forces. To make matters worse, Hitler determined to never break the Sixth Army out of Stalingrad even when presented with a slight way to get them out. {page 291-310}
The Sixth Army spent its Christmas in the Red Army encirclement case. Unfortunately, on 26th December, when the supply arrived, it was ten tons of sweet candy and zero tons of fuel. Paulus was angered but could do nothing. Hitler’s New Year’s letter to the trapped Sixth Army further acknowledges that no help is coming. After Operation Ring had been finalized, the Soviets sent a surrender ultimatum to Paulus twice, and it was rejected outright both times. {page 311-330}
Part 5—The Subjugation of the Sixth Army
The Red Fleet managed to destroy chunks of the Luftwaffe transport planes, further worsening the supply shortages for the already suffering Sixth Army. Against this backdrop, Hitler received the real situation report of the army at Stalingrad for the first time. News of starvation, low ammunition, fuel shortage, and multiple desertions reached him, but he quickly replied with a vague promise to save the Sixth Army. By now, numerous foot soldiers had grasped the full picture of their doomed position at Stalingrad, and many wrote their farewell letters home. {page 333-351}
On January 10, Operation Ring went into high gear, which put the Soviets on maximum offensive. The Sixth Army put up a fierce resistance but was unable to stop the advance of the reinforced Red Army. Lack of food, frost, and low offensive material contributed to the Sixth Army’s sharp deterioration. Desertion became ever more rampant among the Germans. As the end of January approaches, Hitler makes it obviously clear that he’s not coming to save the Sixth Army. The Führer has broken his promise. {page 352-373}
By January 26, Sixth Army generals were surrendering en masse to the Soviets. Various group commanders, too, were single-handedly doing the same. The Soviets now have the firm belief that the encircled Sixth Army is on the verge of collapse. Hitler duplicitously promoted Paulus to field marshal, expecting him and the whole Sixth Army to shoot themselves rather than surrender to the Red Army. Paulus forbade such an act upon himself and all his officers. Finally, on January 31, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered at the Red Army Stalingrad field headquarters but still refused to sign the surrender order prepared by the Soviets. The Sixth Army will be reborn, Hitler claimed. {page 374-395}
On February 3, the last German general in Stalingrad surrendered. Stalin and the whole Soviet Union celebrated their symbolic victory over the Germans. Meanwhile, in Germany, the Nazi regime mourned the total collapse of the Sixth Army. {page 396-405}
Real statistics of the total deaths or wounded that the Battle of Stalingrad claimed would be hard to measure. Certainly, it was that the bulk of senior officers of the Sixth Army were treated well; less well so are the foot soldiers. {page 406-417}
The battle of Stalingrad has ended, but the suffering of the captured Sixth Army continues for years even after World War II has ended. Some senior generals, on the other hand, cooperated with the Soviet government to wipe Germany clean of Hitler and his ideas even after Nazi Germany had fallen. {page 418-431}
