New Stalingrad book

[Cuirassier]

I just checked the library today and noticed Glantz's new book on Stalingrad on the shelves. Anyone read it yet? I am itching to give it a read but have too much on my plate as of now.

[jtcm]

What's the newness about it ? I mean-- new archival research ? New angle ?

[Sergei]

I suppose this is Armageddon in Stalingrad? The new angle is that in Stalingrad Satan, Gog and Magog gathered to fight Jesus... uh, sorry, wrong book. Here's the blurb:

Previous accounts of the battle are far less accurate, having relied on Soviet military memoirs plagued by error and cloaked in secrecy. Glantz and House have plumbed previously unexploited sources--including the archives of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) and the records of the Soviet 62nd and German Sixth Armies--to provide unprecedented detail and fresh interpretations of this apocalyptic campaign. They allow the authors to reconstruct the fighting hour by hour, street by street, and even building by building and reveal how Soviet defenders established killing zones throughout the city and repeatedly ambushed German spearheads.

[TheVulture]

Without knowing which book exactly anyone is talking about, I cam across this email from David Glantz published on The Axis History Forum (hopefully with his permission), dated Dec 2008, which might contain the answer:

The Stalingrad Trilogy, to be published by the University Press of Kansas, is a major effort on my part to rid the entire subject of its many "myths" contained in numerous previously published single-volume histories of the battle. It differs from After Stalingrad in that the latter is a fundamental revision of my older book, From the Don to the Dnepr, which I wrote before I learned about the many so-called "forgotten battles" that occurred during that period. By "forgotten," I mean military operations, mostly failures, which former Soviet historians have covered up or otherwise concealed. Therefore, After Stalingrad is actually a "fourth volume" in the trilogy.

As for the trilogy itself, it addresses the three periods of the Stalingrad campaign, as follows:

1) To the Gates of Stalingrad -- covering operations from 28 June-August 1942, including the preliminary operations in April-May 1942, the German advance on Stalingrad and into the Caucasus region (Operations Blau I, II, and III), and the battles on the distant flanks of Operation Blau;

2) The Fight for Stalingrad City -- covering operations from September-18 November 1942, including Sixth Army's fighting with 62nd and 64th Armies in Stalingrad and along the adjacent flanks, German operation Edelweiss in the Caucasus, and the battles on the distant flanks; and

3) The Soviet Counteroffensive and Winter Campaign - covering operations from 19 November 1942-February 1943, including the Red Army's counteroffensive (Operation Uranus), German attempts to rescue encircled Sixth Army, and the subsequent Soviet expansion of the offensive to the West, with a summary chapter on the end of the Soviet's winter campaign (the same subject as After Stalingrad).

Unlike previous studies on military operations during the Soviet-German War, the trilogy, in particular, the second volume, is the first study containing what I call "ground truth," This means that it is based on the daily records of German Sixth Army, Soviet 62nd Army, and most of 62nd Armies' subordinate divisions and brigades. By virtue of these sources, we now know precisely who did what to whom and when on an hourly and street-by-street and building-by-building basis. Since I have decided to cover all of the fighting, both in the city and along the city's flanks, the second volume is very detailed and, frankly, must be studied rather than simply read. I have done this for two reasons: first, I know of no-one else who will make this effort and, second, someone else can use this information to write a more popular and less detailed account. Thus, it will be no "easy read."

In answer to your specific questions:

1) This work destroys the many myths associated with the "Battle for Stalingrad" and fundamentally alters previous facts and interpretations regarding the battle.

2) As such, the study is exhaustive and an attempt to be definitive.

3) The trilogy covers the fighting strategically, operationally, and tactically, that is, from German army group and Red Army front level down to battalion and company level regarding the fighting in the city.

4) After Stalingrad includes everything missing from Don to Dnepr, in particular, the role of the Southern Front in the February 1943 Donbas operation (operation Gallop), the major offensive by Rokossovsky's Central Front through Kursk toward the Dnepr River, the supporting offensives by the Western and Briansk Fronts, and Zhukov's failed Operation Polar Star, the Soviet offensive in February 1943 designed to defeat and destroy German Army Group North.

5) The major new points made by the trilogy include but are not limited to the following:

-- When confronted by German forces advancing in Operation Blau, Stalin ordered his Southwestern and Southern Fronts to stand and fight instead of conducting a general fighting withdrawal previous sources have claimed .

-- As a result of Stalin's belligerence, the fighting on the road to Stalingrad was far more intense and damaging to both sides than previously supposed.

-- The Stavka began attempting counteroffensive action as early as late July 1942, when it committed three tank armies into action, the 5th Tank Army near Voronezh, and the 1st and 4th Tank Armies in the "Great Bend" of the Don. Although this counteroffensive failed, it inflicted damaging losses on German Second and Sixth Armies.

-- Thereafter, the Stavka repeatedly attempted to organize new counteroffensives and counterstrokes against German forces in the Stalingrad region, primarily just northwest and south of the city. These occurred from late August to early October 12942.

-- During the fighting in the Donbas region, the Soviet lost the better part of six armies, including the 40th, 28th, 38th, 9th, 24th, and 57th Armies. However, despite encircling these armies, German Army Group B had insufficient infantry to "capture" the encircled forces, most of which escaped or simply "went to ground."

-- Paulus's Sixth Army was too weak to clear Soviet forces from the Great Bend of the Don within the period planned (one-two weeks). Thereafter, it took several more weeks of heavy combat and high losses for Sixth Army to reach the Don River, combat attrition that left Sixth Army too weak to seize Stalingrad from the march.

-- Paulus's plan to seize Stalingrad by envelopment from north to south (by XIV and XXXXVII Panzer Corps) failed because of heavy counterattacks the Stavka organized in the Kotluban' region northwest of the city. The four-five major counterstrokes in that region from late August through October prevented XIV Panzer Corps from seizing the city's factory district from the march and, later, joining the fight for the city in sufficient strength to make a difference.

-- The battle in Stalingrad city proper occurred in distinct stages, the earliest of which involved considerable maneuver in urban terrain. These stages unfolded in specific locations in the city and at specific times. In other words, rather than a generalized "urban brawl," the battle in the city was a genuine urban campaign.

-- The forces involved in the fight for Stalingrad city were far weaker than previously believed. For example, Sixth Army's forces which fought in the city comprised well under half the army's total strength and the divisions which fought in the city were well under 50 percent strength. This weakness applied in particular to combat forces such as infantry, panzer grenadiers, and combat engineers (sappers). The 62nd Army's (and 64th Army's) divisions and brigades were, in reality, regiments, battalions, and companies.

-- The Stavka authorized the Southeastern Front and, later, Stalingrad Front to commit just enough forces into the city fight to tie down Sixth Army's forces and prevent them from seizing the entire city -- and not a man more.

-- The newly available archival materials demonstrate that the order of battle for both sides contained in previous histories is inaccurate. For example, the German 76th Infantry Division never fought in the city. Instead, it was decimated in the fighting northwest of the city. These new materials also show the combat strength and losses of both German and Soviet forces throughout the city fight.

-- At the peak of the fighting in the city, during late October and early November 1942, approximately 50,000 German forces fought a slightly lower number of Soviet forces in the city. The final fight in the city's factory district in the first half of November involved a clash between of battalion-and company-size units rather than divisions, brigades, and regiments.

-- The decision by Hitler to attempt to seize the Caucasus region and Stalingrad, simultaneously, led to ultimate German defeat.

I hope these comments both answer your questions and kindle your interest.

All the best,

David

[TheVulture]

To link up with Sergei's simultaneous post, "Armageddon in Stalingrad" appears to be "Armageddon in Stalingrad: September-November 1942", and thus seems to be the published title of the 2nd book in the trilogy.

[JasonC]

I've read the entire first volume with care, and I am half way through the second volume.

There are numerous important bits of new information in the first volume, especially on the Russian countermeasure attempts to the German summer offensive, and the extensive fighting around Voronezh. The level of detail on the approach battles to Stalingrad is also extraordinary and new - it was not remotely a cakewalk.

However, some aspects of both volumes suffer from a tendency too prevalent in much of Glantz's work, to simply record for very short time periods which formations on either side of the line were fighting which enemy formations, where. Which might be conveyed much more simply with accurate new maps. The maps included are instead largely period pieces and very poor by e.g. the standards of the Kursk book.

There is nevertheless enough good material to repay careful reading. It is just sandwiched in nearly endless amounts of "and the next day, foo division fought at wheresville while bar division fought at theresville, against 14 formations, specifically whosebrigades, whatsbattalion, ..." Tactical detail is also sparse - by which I mean, frequently there is no real analysis of why when formation A fought formation B at location X on day Y, the result was what it was, or relating that to the forces or terrain or anything else really.

Now, there are cases where some such analysis is provided and it is always both useful and believable when it is present. There is just a *lot* of the dry "here, so and so, there, so and so..." for page after page after page.

[Vark]

Little dubious about the 'new' revelation that the forces were far weaker than previously thought. In Fire and Movement magazine the designers notes for the original version of the monster boardgame "Streets of Stalingrad", explicitly state there are no step losses for counters, because most units (each counter is a company) were operating at or close to 50%.

I have looked at Volume 1 but shyed away because of the apalling maps, I have a visual memory and when I browsed came across numerous examples that Jason cites eg the Shame, perhaps if somone produced Collin's notes for such books, with big colour maps I might try!!

Interestingly whilst playing Streets you never thought you were in an urban brawl, but a conventional battle with artificial close terrain. Perhaps this is a direct result of the unrealistic gods eye view the player has, or it could be that C&C problems in BUA's has been over exagerated. Or could it be again the pernicious influence of the World at war programme!

[Vark]

Appalling maps, not apalling spelling!!

[Der Alte Fritz]

On thing to be aware of is that several of David Glantz's recent books are taken from his earlier work

"Forgotten Battles of the German-Soviet War"

a planned 8 volume (up to volume 6 now) self published work which is still continuing. Whole chapters have been cut and pasted into some of his recently published books such as "After Stalingrad: The Red Army's Winter Offensive, 1942-1943". I bought this and found that so much material was the same, that I sent it back and got a refund.

Probably one reason why the maps are so poor is that they are photocopies of the originals in the Russian archives and not drawn from scratch.

[Michael Emrys]

Maps are becoming an increasing problem in history of war books. They really are necessary in visualizing actions on the ground, yet the ones we are presented with seem to be getting less and less adequate and scarcer as well. I suppose publishers are reluctant to meet the costs of commissioning really good cartographers who have a grasp of the subject and are able to present the necessary information in a clear and complete fashion. Perhaps book buyers are similarly unwilling to pick up the tab as well, I don't know. But so often the ones we are presented with might as well have been omitted altogether. Often they are worse than useless because they are misleading and confusing.

Michael

[jtcm]

Um, what do you think of the Beevor book ?

[Der Alte Fritz]

Since I used to work for Frank Cass publishing many of David Glantz's books, I can tell you exactly the reason.

Cost.

In our case as an academic publisher, we would print around 3,000 copies for the World market, half of whom would be sold to academic libraries, about a quarter would be sold to wargamers or amateur historians, at time of publication and the remainder would dribble out over the next 15 years or so. The author would supply the photos and maps, the dust jacket would be produced in house and for a good selling book we might have a budget of £50 for a picture (since Hulton Getty sells its pictures for around £500, we would have to beg borrow and steal from military collections and donate them the £50). There was no budget for maps, a decent graphic designer might do you one for £100 upwards but a really detailed one was either supplied by the author or beyond our budget.

In the late 1990s with the arrival of new technology meant that we could move to "Print on Demand" (ie print each book as it was ordered by essentially a giant photocopier) which cut capital outlay (ie stock sitting in expensive warehouses) but still did not help book production costs as this was a more expensive method of printing and you still had your editorial/design costs up front.

Even bigger market books such as the ones we did for HM Government - like the official history of the Battle of Britain, only got a few maps (again supplied by the RAF) but did get colour dust jackets and better quality paper.

The books you get reflect the size of the market. Military books are a small but at the end of the day specialist market when compared to cookery books which are large glossy sell, hundreds of thousands and get designers to work on them. A publisher could never afford a cartographer, they would simply use and existing map and pay the copyright fee.

Publisher like Frank Cass are under great pressure, which is why we were bought out by multi-national Taylor and Francis who put 2 editors onto our books whereas we had employed about 12. Economies of scale. I now run a guesthouse.

I loved my work with a historical publishing house. I met spies, partizans, soldiers, admirals, men who had stood next to Hitler, a elderly English man who rolled back his sleeve and showed me the tattoo on his arm from Auschwitz, men and women who had run and hid in the woods from the SS in Russia, resistance fighters from Holland, people who had produced war winning weapons.

[JasonC]

When we can get quality military publishers to make maps as outstanding as those in Esposito and Elting's historical atlas of the Napoleonic wars, on far more obscure topics, I find that excuse less than compelling. The Kursk book had reasonable maps, though it could have used more of them, and they are relatively simple by the standard of the "best" represented by the atlas mentioned above. Here the authors have simply not taken the time or made the effort to digest the information in their own narrative and on the included historical-original maps (which are horrible themselves), and make modern maps. For the amount loyal readers are paying them to buy every book they put out, it is rather shoddy.

As for the parts that count as relevations, it isn't the unit strength of units in the fighting within the city itself, which has been covered in numerous sources before (though the number of Russian "rifle divisions" with less than 500 men actual trench strength is still appalling enough in their statistics). It is instead some of the details of the approaching fighting, both how reckless some of the earlier Russian counterattacks were and how much they threw away, and what the diversion effects were in the early lunges into the city area, and the like. In the previous volume, the scale of the Russian armored counterattacks around Voronezh and again in the Don bend approach fight are additional examples. Some of these efforts were around the same scale as Uranus itself, just very badly executed and sometimes launched on shoestrings. There are cases of Russian tank corps commanders ordered to launch important and urgent counterattacks, who had to be relieved when their superiors discovered said corps commanders were entirely ignorant of the actual position of their own formation. I'd call that news. Yes we were aware that sort of thing happened regularly in 1941, but that is was still occasionally happening in the summer of 1942 with operational consequences, was news to me.

On the German side, they have a solid take on the dispute that led to the relief of Bock. I think it is clear from their narrative that Bock was entirely right and the early wheel south to Rostov was a major blunder, that it wasn't a cut point of any great significance, and that the drive along the Don's western bank that Bock envisioned was the right "big solution" call. With the cut point aimed at the Caspian, not the Sea of Azov. Hitler took Bock's superior operational grasp of the developing offensive for insubordination and threw away its driving mind in mid course. That there was a command and personality dispute over the course to take in clear in earlier sources, but the real alternative conception, "road not taken", was never so clear to me in any previous account of the campaign. Bock also understood the weight of the Russian counterefforts in the north and that the decisive sector was there all along - as it proved to be by the time of Uranus.

One of the points to emerge clearly from volume one, for me, was therefore a significant increase in my own estimate of the operational skill and mind of general Bock, and a recognition of how collosally stupid it had been to relieve him, and some idea of the chances thereby thrown away. I've stated in the past, repeatedly, that my estimate of the "big chess" moves on the map are that German "play" got clearly and catastrophically worse for the Germans from mid 1942 on, and they were outplayed from that point. I now associate that change much more clearly with the removal of a specific directing intelligence, one much less "sung" then Manstein or Guderian, but rather undeservedly.

I'd also say that my estimate of Zhukov, never as high as his press, suffers considerably, on the evidence Glantz and House present. His handling of the early counterattacks north of Stalingrad in September was a textbook case of wild stubborn hammering to no purpose in complete disregard for the state of the terrain or required tactical preparation. He was right to later, with Vasilevsky, recommend the more prepared attack that worked as Uranus - but he screwed the pooch in September 1942, squandering magnificant forces and opportunities.

As I said, there is plenty of useful stuff in these volumes. You just have to wade through a lot of narrative dross to get all of it.

[Der Alte Fritz]

"When we can get quality military publishers to make maps as outstanding as those in Esposito and Elting's historical atlas of the Napoleonic wars, on far more obscure topics, I find that excuse less than compelling."

The original for this book was produced in 1964 when book publishing had a very different landscape. I am not saying that quality books cannot be produced, but they will tend to be books about Hitler, the SS, Napoleon or by block buster authors or have sponsorship. For instance we did a very large and glossy book on Stalin's Navy, full colour, maps, line drawing, plans etc. It had sponsorship from the Russian Navy and the support of the US Navy in the form of a large pre-publication order.

I am afraid that David Glantz and his area of study falls squarely into the Academic arena, both by his writing style and by his subject matter and as such his books will always be limited to the constrains I outlined above. Sales of all Davids books (from all of his publishers) are on the small side. However as editor of the Journal of Slavic Military Studies he has gained an international reputation outside his normal professional military readership but again this is squarely in the academic field.

The pressures on academic publishers have to be recognised. The rise of the internet means students no longer buy books in the numbers they used to, libraries have followed suit and now that journals are online as well, it is hard for academic publishers to draw on the revenue streams that they have relied on for years. This is why you have seen so many mergers of companies and why even companies such as the mighty Cambridge University Press now relies mainly on freelance editors and have sacked their staff of full time editors. Cost cutting is the name of the game these days. At Taylor and Francis over a five year period at the end of the 90s, they took over nearly 30 other publishers. They did not increase their own staff at all. Their sales reps went from carrying 150 titles a year to over 800, again no increase in staff.

This is the reason that the quality of academic books has been falling since 2000.

[Michael Emrys]

DAF,

Thanks for the reply. Everything you post is absolutely consistent with what I have read and heard elsewhere on the subject, but it is good to have the additional first hand detail.

Publisher like Frank Cass are under great pressure, which is why we were bought out by multi-national Taylor and Francis who put 2 editors onto our books whereas we had employed about 12. Economies of scale. I now run a guesthouse.

It is anecdotes like this that cause me the most despair. It seems that almost everywhere quality is being lost to mediocrity, or worse.

Michael

[coe]

As I've read a bit more about the winter of 42-43 on the Eastern front. I'm starting to think that even if the 6th Army wasn't cutoff at Stalingrad (or lets miraculously assume even if it was cut off that it was well supplied) the Axis would likely have suffered some serious defeats anyways or would have to have retreated significantly. That the Soviets were able to attack Rhzev (Rzhev?) and Stalingrad simultaneously and despite having to use significant forces to contain the pocket, still managed to launch major offensives indicates to me that there was at least a significant manpower advantage.

They were able to rub out the Satellite armies one by one tearing huge gaps. I'm starting to wonder if this could have started earlier than in mid November 1942. Then again I'm also wondering how the Satellite armies could have been successful on the offensive drive only to suddenly be defenseless in the late fall/winter.

Anyways, it does seem to me that in the winter 42-43 the Soviets seemed to be everywhere to a point where I think that an intact Sixth Army would not have been able to prevent a general retreat even if the Germans conducted mobile operations with skill.

So... any opinions?

(the other thing that is rather neat are times when Pz divisions attack with only 30 tanks left and somehow that made a difference over a 100 mile front - I started to think how little amount of space 30 tanks take up... that's like 60 cars parked on a road...not much).

Conan

[costard]

At the start of the war, German High Command reckoned on 200 USSR divisions against them. At the end of August 1941 (Barbarossa started in June), they had met 360. By the end of 1941, the USSR had fielded 600. This would go a long way to explaining the problems the Wehrmacht faced in Russia.

[huhr]

I have the three volumes and completed the first one and about mid way through the second volume. Lots of detail about units and much of the info (for me) not really necessary. However, I enjoy all books on this battle so I purchased them. Federowicz publishing has good books if you want specialized accounts and quality maps etc.

[dieseltaylor]

Thanks for all that background DAF. Is the guesthouse convenient for military sites? : )

Whilst equally disheartened at the collapse of publishing it does open the floor to the amateur cartographer. After all Minard was by training an engineer but towards the end of his life produced the greatest graphical explanation of a Russian war. In fact thinking further surely the maps could be generic to the area and by using a computer overlay the information and time etc. Sold privately or given freely it could form a great companion to the relevant printed book.

It would be very elegant to be able to zoom from levels of Army down and roam the battlefield. And if overlayed on actual terrain ... for the really tactical stuff.

[ravells]

That would be a phenomenal amount of work, diesel....

[dieseltaylor]

http://www.maptube.org/home.aspx

Is an example of cooperative uses on current maps. Russia may not be available in the same detail!!. Howevr even at the existing resolution one could overlay several maps for higher level formations.

On drawback as you zoom in is that the landscape, extent of towns and roads is wrong. So perhaps an overlay for the period and then others superimposed. However using Google maps does make it very much more doable.

The Western Desert or the French 1940 campaign would provide an early learning curve ! : )

[Michael Emrys]

AIUI, the geography of the FSU has changed pretty drastically since 1939. Rivers have been dammed to create lakes; others have dried up; cities have expanded; the road net has grown; forests have been logged, etc. Much the same is of course true in most parts of the world. The specific trouble with the USSR is that it was poorly mapped at the time we are interested in, so it can be difficult to account precisely for the subsequent changes. Or to put it another way, we don't really know all that well what it looked like during the war. We are a little in the position of renaissance cartographers trying to map the New World. We have heard that something is out there, but we don't know just what.

Michael