BARBAROSSA & THE BLOODIEST WAR IN HISTORY

THE STORY OF THE MOST EPIC STRUGGLE IN THE HISTORY OF WARFARE TOLD THROUGH THE EYES OF THE SOVIET MEN AND WOMEN WHO FOUGHT IN IT

Author: Stewart Binns Publisher: Headline

Binns brings compassion and intelligence to this account of the Russo-german war that focuses on the conflict as a human tragedy for all those involved. Using mountains of testimony from eyewitnesses on the Soviet side, he takes the reader on a journey that starts with the unlikely alliance between Hitler and Stalin, and ends with the latter’s eventual victory in the ruins of Berlin in May 1945.

Trying to cover such a mammoth subject is a huge challenge, but Binns marshals his material well to paint a picture that isn’t just pins on maps and the movements of armies of millions. He instead presents events through the eyes and actions of ordinary men and women, young and old, who found themselves caught up in a conflict that is a byword for savagery and suffering. The book has a particular focus on the experiences of female participants, be they snipers, pilots, gunners and so on, and this is fascinating given that their contribution to eventual Soviet success has been much neglected by historians.

Covering the entirety of the war, it is the chapters on invasion day – 22 June 1941 – and the subsequent fighting in the summer and autumn of 1941, that stand out and convey something of the magnitude of the human disaster unfolding in the Soviet empire as the Wehrmacht stormed eastwards. The often-horrendous behaviour of both sides is also laid bare, but at its heart the book offers a compelling view of men and women enduring the horrors of a war without pity.