Stalingrad Battle Atlas

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Olimpia Sawaia

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Aug 5, 2024, 8:28:34 AM8/5/24

to grensigroper

Greetingseveryone!

I thought of creating this topic to gather your suggestions about good reads about the battle of stalingrad and the eastern front. I am a big reader and I am always looking for new material to add to my library. So... you have this incredible book about the design of the 109? Or this book about the Yak-1 or the Il-2? Do share!

I would recommend

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-1943 by Anthony Beevor.

I am also planning on buying Fighters over Stalingrad Volume 1: Air Operations of the Soviet Union VVS and Luftwaffe by Nikita Egorov and Boris Nechkin when it releases (the release date has been pushed back from 2013 to late 2014 though... uuugh)

I am a great fan of technical books like Haynes' series (even if it might be light on details sometimes, but it's still very interesting stuff). Any good books on the 109, 190, Yak-1 or Pe-2 worth reading?

I can definateyl recommend the Soviet Combat Aircraft series. Probably the best books if you're interesting in the planes of the VVS. It covers pretty much all planes, also prototypes or planes which only saw very limited use. It's very technical though and does not contain that much information about the organisation of the VVS, combat reports etc.

Black Cross / Red Star 3 is very much focussed on combat reports. It's a good book, but it can become a bit tedious and for me, it's tough to keep reading it for longer periods of time. It has some interesting overall infos, about squadrons, order of battle, etc. It does feel more like a summary of pilot reports though, so it can be a bit bland at times. But i would still recommend buying it, especially because it covers both sides, even including the German allies. It also has a few very nice aircraft profiles. They look fantastic and are probably the best i've seen in any book so far.

If you want to read about the man who designed the Yak's "The Aim of A Lifetime" by Alexander Yakovlev might fit the bill. I got the hardcover for a great price and am enjoying it. It certainly describes a world totally different than the one I grew up in! What a cool thing to have the resources of the country support your interests and passion. I don't know if it's going to be technical enough for you. I'm close to a quarter through and am enjoying all the trials and travails he went through coming up through the ranks with the herd of great designers that were all around him.

The only one I have is Stuka pilot by Hans Rudel; it covers whole Eastern Front timeline, including Stalingrad Battle. Lots of from point of view of Grerman pilot, with good insight on both what Stuka squadron operations looked like, and into mentlaity and daily life of German soldiers (as opposed to Nazi politicians).

The best reference book for the BoS period is Stalingrad - The Air Battle: 1942 through January 1943 by Christer Bergstrm. I was disappointed that volume 3 of Black Cross Red Star ends before the commencement of Operation Uranus.

For Stuka operations I'd recommend reading Conversations with a Stuka Pilot, a lecture by Paul-Werner Hozzel commander of the Immelmann Wing during the Stalingrad campaign. It was published as a book in the early 80's but you can read it here: -with-a-Stuka-Pilot-Paul-Werner-Hozzel.html

Major Akins is a C-130 pilot and this book is his Master's Thesis for Master of Military Art and Science. In the book Maj. Akins analyses the role of Luftwaffe and the failure in Stalingrad from two points of view:

The book is very interesting, while some might find the academic tone a bit tedious. I still highly recommend it to everyone interested in the matter. It gives a good and objective view on the happenings what lead to the Stalingrad disaster and analyses how earlier supply experiences, communication problems and leadership affected the situation. I simply couldn't put the book down after I started to read it. First part of the book summarizes the war leading up to Stalingrad, mostly from Luftwaffe's point of view. The second part discusses what effect the experiences the German Air Force and military had Demyansk and Kholm and how they relate to the decisions made in Stalingrad, and goes into details about the Stalingrad aerial supply operation itself. The first two parts take about two thirds of the book, while the beginning of the third part discusses the lessons to be learned from the Stalingrad and what implications they have to the modern US military.

The last part of the book summarizes the operations of JG 27, KG 51 and StG 77 through out the war and has a chapter on the Ju 52. The book also contains annexes about operation "Blue" and the land actions in Stalingrad, and glossary of terms. And what seems to be rather extensive "selected bibliography" which will most likely give anyone some hints about other interesting books.

Just one warning: The Kindle version @ Amazon has several typos and formatting errors. The book is definitely readable, but frequent errors (most likely result of OCR of the original text) make the reading a bit of a chore at places. Like He 111 is many times written as He Ill and the references to the bibliography are very annoyingly formatted.

'The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe' by David Irving - actually a biography of Erhard Milch - has an interesting chapter ('Panama!') on the Stalingrad airlift. It's freely availabe in full, online, here:

Operation Typhoon - Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941 by David Stahel (ISBN: 978-1-107-03512-6) is a great resource on the closing act of Operation Barbarossa. Stahel goes into great detail about the operational and strategic context of Operation Typhoon, as well as the ultimate reasons why Barbarossa failed. Of course this sets the stage for Fall Blau which has the Stalingrad campaign at it's centre.

The second is also outstanding as it displays the frontline in the city on actual wartime aerial photos instead of synthetic maps, and this for every day in the Stalingrad campaign (3 volumes available).

These 2 volumes are based on great research from sources on both sides of the conflict. It covers the air war, day by day, in the southern region from June to October 1941. It's a great resource for scenario/mission creation.

I just got the latest edition of Graf & Grislawski by Christer Bergstrm. Great read so far. Grislawski and his family were heavily involved in making of the book as well as Graf's wife. Grislawski died 1 month after the book was released. Other books I have about Eastern Front are about Rudel, Lipfert, Rall, Hartmann etc. Also Ju88 and Bf110 pilot books. I also have a few infantry and tanker memoirs from German side, like Otto Carius's Tigers in the mud etc. From soviet side I have the IL-2 pilot memoirs mentioned above, Emelianenko's book. It was OK read. I tried to read some other russian memoirs, but they were so full of soviet propaganda that you could choke on it. Had nothing to do with reality, but filled utopistic achievements and fairy tales of one Su-85 crew taking out more Tigers than ever produced etc. Then I have some Finnish books as it can be related to Eastern Front. I wish to get more books, like the Red Star Black Cross series etc.

The atlas is titled Der Feldzug gegen Sowjet-Russland: Band I. Operationen Sommer-Herbst 1941 vom 21. Juni-6. Dezember 1941. This translates as The Campaign against Soviet Russia: Volume 1, Operation Summer-Fall 1941, from June 21 to December 6. The atlas was printed by the German general staff in 1942. The table of contents lists a foreword, but it is missing and does not appear to have been included, suggesting the atlas may be a proof.

In August of 1939, the Nazis and Soviets signed a non-aggression pact and secretly agreed to divide Poland between them. A few days later, World War II began with the Nazi invasion of Poland on Sept. 1. The Soviets invaded from the east on Sept. 17. Poland was swallowed.