Enemy at the Gates

by William Craig

Hardcover, 1973

Call number

947 C

Collection

Publication

Reader's Digest (1973), Edition: Book Club, 462 pages

Description

A New York Times bestseller that brings to life one of the bloodiest battles of World War II--and the beginning of the end of the Third Reich. On August 5, 1942, giant pillars of dust rose over the Russian steppe, marking the advance of the 6th Army, an elite German combat unit dispatched by Hitler to capture the industrial city of Stalingrad and press on to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. The Germans were supremely confident; in three years, they had not suffered a single defeat.The Luftwaffe had already bombed the city into ruins. German soldiers hoped to complete their mission and be home in time for Christmas.   The siege of Stalingrad lasted five months, one week, and three days. Nearly two million men and women died, and the 6th Army was completely destroyed. Considered by many historians to be the turning point of World War II in Europe, the Soviet Army's victory foreshadowed Hitler's downfall and the rise of a communist superpower. Bestselling author William Craig spent five years researching this epic clash of military titans, traveling to three continents in order to review documents and interview hundreds of survivors. Enemy at the Gates is the enthralling result: the definitive account of one of the most important battles in world history. It became a New York Times bestseller and was also the inspiration for the 2001 film of the same name, starring Joseph Fiennes and Jude Law.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member writerssoul2001
This is by far the best narrative non-fiction WWII history book I've ever read. It expresses the profound drama of combat between Germans and Russians and the feelings, motivations and despair of the participants.
LibraryThing member meegeekai
Part of a 4 book set. I did not read this particular edition, but read a paperback edition about the time the movie came out. The movie was a good rendition of Stalingrad, but this book is so much more. The fate of the German and Italians is almost incomprehensible . Stalingrad and El Alamein were
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the turning points of the war and this was way early in the war, the US had just joined at this point.
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LibraryThing member ubutl
A great montage of personal accounts. The events of the film are covered in two pages (the film is actually based on the novel War of the Rats).
Covers from the generals to the soldiers, and fits their memories into a chronological account.
LibraryThing member DrBrewhaha
A collection of personal experiences related to what many consider to be the pivotal event in World War II, the Battle of Stalingrad. The campaign was horrific on a scale that is almost impossible to comprehend. The personal accounts bring the events to life. Maybe not the best written narrative of
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the period but a definite must-read if you are interested in the Eastern Front of WWII.
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LibraryThing member tillywern
A great telling of one of the greatest tragedies in military history. Tragic for the reason it began and how it ended.

I was hoping for a story which followed individuals more closely and was more of a play by play. This is probably an unrealistic expectation given the number of people involved in
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the event. A book with a much detail as I dreamed of would probably be several thousand pages. Also, it seems that, for the most part, other than the large events, days passed in and out with the war following a path leaving those participating almost without the ability to distinguish one day from another as the fought, defended and re-fought for the city.

The book is fairly graphic at points and while difficult matters are addressed, they are done so in an appropriate way. An R rating would be appropriate. There are only so many ways to convey the horror of having a child ripped apart. Like many stories of this time... We must read them and deal with the horror or be doomed to repeat them.
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LibraryThing member BradKautz
What was the pivotal battle of World War II? Pearl Harbor? El Alamein? Midway? D-Day? Iwo Jima? The Bulge? While each of these was important to the overall outcome of the war, perhaps no single battle was as significant as the one between Germany and the Soviet Union at Stalingrad. In fighting that
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lasted over five months the Germany army met its match and was decisively defeated by its one-time friend. The victory of the Soviet Union at Stalingrad decisively changed the momentum of the Allies, setting them on a course that would lead to the end of the Third Reich two years later.

Enemy at the Gates is an account of the fight for Stalingrad. William Craig did an outstanding job in researching the battle, drawing from first-person accounts of witnesses and survivors on both sides. His sources are include every rank, ranging from private to general, as well as the parts played by people who never appeared in t he battle but loomed large over nearly every key decision, particularly Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

While Enemy at the Gates is essentially a work of history, it is also in some ways a tragedy. Reading it 70 years after the battle, with the rise and fall of both the Third Reich and the Soviet Union as established facts of history, we can see in Hitler and Stalin the personality characteristics that drive leaders in a myopic manner, a manner in which the expenditure of literally hundreds of thousands of lives, is seen as fully justified. Unfortunately, the world as a whole seems to have learned little, as the mass horrors of Stalingrad continue to repeat themselves in armed conflict today.

As history, this is a well-written book of a terrible moment in human history. As tragedy, this reminds that when I read the latest accounts from Syria and Iraq, just two of today's points of conflict in the world, it remains as Ecclesiastes wrote: There is nothing new under the sun.
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LibraryThing member Whiskey3pa
A horrible event in human history told well. Writing is engaging and readable. The horrors inflicted on the Russians and their invaders is hard to comprehend. That the Russians fought under the double threat of Nazism and Communism adds another wrinkle to the plot. NKVD troops were gunning down red
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army troops with nearly the same gusto as their German foes. The Germans exhibited foolish arrogance in ignoring all evidence of a soviet counter-offensive. The soviets endured and planned their attack brilliantly. Recommended reading.
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LibraryThing member creighley
Two madmen are engaged in a battle that will cost untold number of lives. The result of this struggle, helped to bring about the downfall of NAZI Germany. (The movie by the same name was a paragraph taken from the book!).
LibraryThing member jonfaith
Another samizdat text. I read this in a hurry, if not a huff. Revealing and self-aware it paused well short of the sentimental and was tactful and illuminating.
LibraryThing member Paul_S
I don't think I ever read a history book with so much energy. You will also need to read the wikipedia article to get the dry facts - this, while not missing on the tactical details altogether, is concentrating on the many personal stories and hundreds of small vignettes. I can't even find a book
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to compare it with and I read a reasonable amount of non-fiction. Initially I was disappointed as I favour more straightforward "field-report" style books but this technique proved amazing in this case, painting a graphic and powerful picture.
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LibraryThing member Castlelass
This book tells the story of the Battle of Stalingrad. It is based on interviews with survivors, along with a great deal of research. It documents both strategy and tactics of the battle, from the perspective of both the Germans and Russians, attempting to provide a neutral account. I recommend it
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to those who want to understand what happened in WWII and, in general, students of history. It is at times difficult to read due to various accounts of the horrors of war and associated atrocities. I had heard of the battle as a turning point in WWII, proving that the Nazis could be defeated, and found it very interesting, yet disturbing. It is hard to internalize such massive death and destruction.
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LibraryThing member ChuckNorton
In "Enemy at the Gates", William Craig presents a gripping narrative account of the pivotal Battle of Stalingrad. While he provides a concise survey of the strategic dimensions of the campaign, the focus of his history is on the lives, and deaths, of individuals who suffered in this epic
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struggle.

He has interviewed hundreds of survivors, or the spouses of those who fought, to knit together an enthralling memoir of the hell on earth that was Stalingrad. The invaders and the defenders are treated with equal measures of sympathy for their common humanity in this nightmare.

Stalingrad was the turning point in the war on the Russian front. Craig shows us how Hitler's indifference to the lives of his own troops condemned the German Sixth Army to a terrible fate. "Enemy at the Gates" is a terrific read.
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LibraryThing member emilymcmc
Ignore the cover models and read this book. You hear that Stalingrad was "the greatest battle" or whatever, but what that means is thousands of people starving to death in holes in the ground, awful military fuckups, battles fought inside buildings literally over hallways, just an inch-by-inch
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muddy slugfest between two countries hell-bent on destroying one another at any cost. I feel like I was there after reading this book. Don't see the movie.
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Pages

462
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