February 1943: after six weeks of appalling struggle for the city of Stalingrad the German Sixth Army, originally 270,000 strong, finally surrendered. A starved and exhausted remnant of 91,000 German soldiers was taken into captivity. By 1945 only about 6,000 were still alive, and only a handful ever returned from Russia. Heinrich Gerlach was one of them. From the moment of surrender he began to collect the personal stories of his fellow prisoners, everyone from generals to veteran infantrymen to boys who had only just left the Hitler Youth. It was his mission to tell the world how the Sixth Army, loyal to the last, had been sacrificed to the megalomania of one man, Hitler, who refused to order withdrawal even when there was no other possible course. The stories Gerlach collected he wove into this novel of bitter, hopeless betrayal, which relates one of the great events of twentieth century history. Every episode, every character, every detail of description in it is wholly authentic, making for a memorable and deeply moving book – one of the great classics of war literature.

The Forsaken Army: The Great Novel of Stalingrad (Cassell Military Classics) PDF

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