That aside, I can recommend this book to anyone seeking a well-written view of what has to be one of the biggest military losses in contemporary history. Aside from descriptions of troop movements, officers' meetings, close-range combat, and all the other things you might except from a battle history, Beevor also intersperses it with material from interviews with survivors, as well as diary fragments and quotes from letters home. The result is a horrifying, in-depth view into what the battle was like for those fighting it, rather than an analysis of anonymous divisions.

I greatly appreciated the human face put on German soldiers. While never ceasing to condemn the brutality of the Nazi regime, "Stalingrad" also reminds us that a large proportion of the army (perhaps even the majority, though I know too little about history to say that - it's just the sense I get from the book) were not rabid, anti-Semitic Nazis (or even members of the party), but human soldiers - and all that implies. In other words, capable of suffering and inflicting suffering (both of which they did in great amounts), capable of giving and accepting mercy (both of which they did in amounts surprising to one accustomed to the all-Germans-evil-people view of WWII).

But the clearest thing I gleaned from this book was the utter perverse, double-edged miracle of it all: The first "miracle:" that Hitler's army's managed to defeat anything at all, considering Hitler's poor military strategies coupled with his obsession with controlling all troop movements from afar and his inability to take advice. The second: the defense of Stalingrad (and the Soviet Union in general), considering Stalin's overbearing impatience and the utter brutality of the Soviet regime. For example, early in the battle for Stalingrad, a secondary line of soldiers was positioned behind the front line, except these were security agency members, and their job was to shot (!?!?) anyone thought to be retreating, In the early weeks of the battle, Stalin provided Hitler with stiff competition for who could kill the most Soviet soldiers.

"War is hell" goes the cliche, and this book shows that, in this particular case especially, we can add to that: "War is [unbelievably stupid, unnecessary] hell."