Recommended reading on the Soviet forces

[Baltas]

The Fall of Berlin 1945
by Antony Beevor
# Paperback: 528 pages
# Publisher: Penguin Books; Reissue edition (May 2003)
# Language English
# ISBN-10: 0142002801
# ISBN-13: 978-0142002803
This outstanding book provide detailed studies of forgotten, covered up, or ignored Red Armys bestiality.Beevor is particularly struck by the horrific record of the Soviet forces in that regard. The author reports the estimate that 95,000 to 130,000 Berlin women and children were raped, and another 1.4 million German women and children in Pomerania, East Prussia and Silesia - many, if not most, multiple times.
Good reading
Regard Baltas

[Qvist]

Just for the sake of accuracy, the title of the book is "Berlin - the Downfall 1945".

Also, I'm not sure that I would primarily recommend the book for reading on the Soviet forces, it's focus is far more general.

cheers

[Qvist]

I thought Christopher Duffy's "Red Storm on the Reich" was pretty good, anyone disagree?

I thought Duffy was OK for a general walk-through of the late-war operations that have been sparsely covered elsewhere, but it is rather on the lightweight side in terms of analysis and research, being based entirely on published secondary sources.

cheers

[Andreas]

You absolutely can not go wrong with TM 30-430 Handbook on USSR Armed Forces, which is an immediate post-war publication based on captured German documents.

http://www.xenophon-mil.org/milhist/usarmy/tm30430.htm

Based on this, but using further research, is this book by Zaloga & Ness: Red Army Handbook

Also, remember that by buying books through the bookstore, you support the forum:

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=4972

All the best

Andreas

[Qvist]

Based on Soviet documents captured by the Germans, or on German documents assessing the Red Army and then captured by the Western allies?

cheers

[Andreas]

A bit of both, I think.

All the best

Andreas

[Shoobedoo]

"Moscow To Stalingrad, Decision In The East" and "Stalingrad To Berlin, German Defeat In The East", both are from the Army Historical Series, US Army Center For Military History, by Earl F. Ziemke. A word of warning: these are not "light" reading, both are thorough and lengthy books in excess of 500 pages each, complete with detailed maps and illustrations, and the original hardcover editions can be difficult to find in nice condition, and somewhat expensive, both being out of print for quite some time now.

[Alex Yeliseenko]

New russian book.

Fight for the Sky. 1941. From Dnepr up Finland Gulf.



Tank break. The Soviet tanks in action.1937-1942.



I fighted with Panzerwaffe. " the Double salary - threefold death ".



These are fine Russian books. Why them do not publish in the West? In Russia publish hundreds American, British and German books.

[Qvist]

I don't know these books specifically of course, but I can only agree with the general sentiment. It is a griveous state of affairs that russian historiography remains inaccesible to all but those who have mastered russian as a reading language, they are few, internationally speaking. What we are really talking about is translation into English - there's a fundamental dufference between that and any other language, because it is basically sufficiently mastered by almost all educated people anywhere, and in many countries by most people period. Hence, publication in English equals international impact. It is actually a little bit the same with German historiography, which also appears to have largely passed unnoticed for a large proportion of the anglo-american historians who have written about the war (except, of course, for the small number of books that were translated into English). For example, Klink's "Gesetz des Handelns", which came out in the 1960s if I am not much mistaken, presents an essentially accurate picture of the German strength, losses and so on during Zitadelle. But that did nothing to prevent Jukes et al from painting the big mythical picture of that battle that reigned for decades and was only demolished when Glantz and Zetterling/Franksson published studies of it in English.

To go off at a tangent a little, historiography isn't the only thing I fail to understand why isn't picked up elsewhere. I've seen excellent Russian productions like the fairly recent TV dramatizations of The Idiot and Master and Margarita, Films like Brat, and for that matter entertainment series like Brigada, and can't for the life of me figure out why these aren't snapped up by Western TV stations. Absolutely bloody marvellous stuff.

cheers

[Alex Yeliseenko]

I don't know these books specifically of course, but I can only agree with the general sentiment. It is a griveous state of affairs that russian historiography remains inaccesible to all but those who have mastered russian as a reading language, they are few, internationally speaking. What we are really talking about is translation into English - there's a fundamental dufference between that and any other language, because it is basically sufficiently mastered by almost all educated people anywhere, and in many countries by most people period. Hence, publication in English equals international impact. It is actually a little bit the same with German historiography, which also appears to have largely passed unnoticed for a large proportion of the anglo-american historians who have written about the war (except, of course, for the small number of books that were translated into English). For example, Klink's "Gesetz des Handelns", which came out in the 1960s if I am not much mistaken, presents an essentially accurate picture of the German strength, losses and so on during Zitadelle. But that did nothing to prevent Jukes et al from painting the big mythical picture of that battle that reigned for decades and was only demolished when Glantz and Zetterling/Franksson published studies of it in English.

To go off at a tangent a little, historiography isn't the only thing I fail to understand why isn't picked up elsewhere. I've seen excellent Russian productions like the fairly recent TV dramatizations of The Idiot and Master and Margarita, Films like Brat, and for that matter entertainment series like Brigada, and can't for the life of me figure out why these aren't snapped up by Western TV stations. Absolutely bloody marvellous stuff.

cheers

Many books have technical character. I speak basically about such books. With exact data. An example - here this book. Author Eugene Drig. Mechanized corps Red Army in Action. 830 pages of statistics and descriptions of fights.



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BestRegards.

[AMVAS]

Ye. Drig's book available for sale in Russian e-bookshop OZON.RU
LINK:
http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/24 ... tner=amvas

Regards,
Alex

[Qvist]

Many books have technical character. I speak basically about such books. With exact data. An example - here this book. Author Eugene Drig. Mechanized corps Red Army in Action. 830 pages of statistics and descriptions of fights.

Which you'd think would be particularly easy to get published, yes. After all, you find loads of books about Soviet tanks and so on written by American authors published by houses specialising in this sort of thing.

cheers

[Alex Yeliseenko]

Many books have technical character. I speak basically about such books. With exact data. An example - here this book. Author Eugene Drig. Mechanized corps Red Army in Action. 830 pages of statistics and descriptions of fights.

Which you'd think would be particularly easy to get published, yes. After all, you find loads of books about Soviet tanks and so on written by American authors published by houses specialising in this sort of thing.

cheers

You are right. Such books to us English are. What the western authors about 29 mechanized corps write?

[Qvist]

No idea. But I'd bet money that no-one has written anything remotely so useful about it as an 830-page account crammed with statistics.

cheers

[Imad]

I thought Christopher Duffy's "Red Storm on the Reich" was pretty good, anyone disagree?

I thought Duffy was OK for a general walk-through of the late-war operations that have been sparsely covered elsewhere, but it is rather on the lightweight side in terms of analysis and research, being based entirely on published secondary sources.

cheers

Hmm. It's been a while since I read the book but iirc Duffy also gives a fairly good analysis of early Soviet mobile warfare doctrine of the Tukachevsky era besides the "walk-through of the late-war operations".