Russia at War: 1941-1945

I read this book years ago when it came out and recently reread it. It is still as compelling as it was on the first read. Yes Werth was a man of the left and his sympathies lie with the soviet union, but the sense one gets of his leftism is not Stalinism but of a left that harks back to the great men of the left--Jaures comes to mind. I also think that this book is necessary not only to inform people about what Harrison Salisbury called "The Unknown War" and but also to ensure that history will not be able to rewrite the events of WWII in an Orwellian fashion.

At the opening of the D Day museum a few years ago, historian Steven Ambrose made an incredible statement during his remarks. He said the democracies of the United States, Britain, and France (yes France) defeated Nazi Germany. Well...yes, in a way, but.... Of course that statement completely overlooks the horrific sacrifice the people of the Soviet Union made to battle Germany in WWII. If it can't be said that the Allies could never have defeated Nazi Germany without the Soviet Union, it certainly can be said that the casualties on the Western front would have been much much higher (particularly for the United States).For Ambrose, a noted WWII historian, to committ such an oversight is inexcusable. For the average American, it is perhaps understandable. The American perception of the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany has been downplayed at best, grossly distorted at worst, particularly during the Cold War. Werth's massive (but very readable) tome, written during the height of the Cold War, should be required reading for anyone interested in this subject. And who wouldn't be? This is history on a massive scale. The largest armies ever seen battling to the death on a front extending for thousands of miles. A titanic clash of ideologies. Incredible blundering by political leaders on both sides. Incredible bravery on the part of ordinary soldiers (and civilians). And Werth keeps the pace moving, blending an incredibly intricate war into a very readible history.Even this book's shortcomings (the description of the Battle of Leningrad left me strangely unmoved) are more than compensated for by its many achievements (I have never read a better description of the desparation during the Battle of Stalingrad).If you are not familiar with this aspect of WWII history, you owe it to yourself to begin with this book.

Alexander Werth has sometimes been accused of being a Soviet-apologist. But in his superb history of the Eastern Front, it is the Russian (and Belorussian, Siberian, Ukrainian, etc)*people* who are the true heroes. Published in 1964, the work is undeniably free of the Russophobia of an accelerating Cold War period, probably due to its focus on the human drama and trauma of the War. The Russian people endured horrific loss and suffering, no small part of which was brought on by the policies of Stalin himself. But because Stalin was savvy enough to appeal to Slavic pride and national loyalty -- even to simultaneously procuring the blessings of the Orthodox Church and resurrecting the pagan image of Mother Russia -- ordinary Russians were willing to give everything for their "People's Sacred War". This massive book (nearly 1100 pages) is extremely "readable", being divided into numerous small chapters of 10 - 20 page length. Poignant first-person interviews with combatants and civilians, survivors of battle and siege, give the reader appreciation for what the Russians accomplished, and admiration for them as a people. The author has three other books, out of print but worthy of reading, "Russia: Hopes and Fears", "Russia: The Post War Years", and "Russia Under Krushchev".

This incredible book is both a historic overview of the world war and the events that preceded it, and a collection of poignant, compelling, eyewitness accounts of that epic war from the perspective of an English journalist in Stalinist Russia. For me personally this book became a true discovery - I had known very little about the war on the Eastern front prior to reading this book (and all the limited knowledge I had was obtained from usual sources tainted with russophobia, cold-war propaganda and then colored with prejudice). I was stunned by the scale of the conflict, passions behind and enormity of Nazi crimes in Russia. Some of lesser known details of Nazi behaviour in Russia are so bizarre that one cannot stop wondering on how weird (besides being evil) the Nazis were - for example, they designed, manufactured and employed special "agricultural" machinery for destroying crops and so starving rural inhabitants of the occupied Soviet Union; or the Nazi "invention" of special railroad engine that demolished and mangled railroad track: Destruction of Biblical proportions that is bureaucratized, institutionalized and also placed on industrial, "scientific" scale. Disturbing stuff. Werth's account of the Siege of Leningrad and personal stories of the people he interviewed are both extraordinary and very sad. You will not regret buying this book.

Russia at War: 1941-1945 by Alexander Werth is one of the most incredible history books in existence. Eyewitness accounts of the aftermath of barbaric Nazi occupation and interviews with survivors of German captivity are haunting and unforgettable. With its maps, contemporary press clippings and excerpts from memoirs by Nazi and Russian officers the book appears to be an invaluable repository of second world war facts put in concise, popularly accessible form. To a modern day revisionist, Cold War warrior or russphobe, some of Alexander Werth's accounts may seem to be overly pro-Soviet (or rather too unsympathetic to the Nazis - the complaint one hears most frequently) and the style with which he described certain events as insensitive and even callous (like his stunning narration of the last days of the German army at Stalingrad), however to most people reading Alexander Werth's Russia at War will uncover a new honest perspective both on the events leading to the WWII and on the actual meaning of the allied Victory at its conclusion. This fascinating book is so well written, that comparing it to other books on the same subject is difficult and perhaps unfair to their authors, one can compare reading Russia at War: 1941-1945 by Alexander Werth to playing an addictive (computer) game: once started, it is almost impossible to stop.