The book was written in 1971. The guy had permition to travel all over the Soviet Union and gathered interviews from Russian military/civilians, Germans, Italians, Romanians and Hungarians and backed it up with official documents. It is trully an excellent read and flows really smoothly. In the end, you even start to feel sorry for the Germans. But the Russian army never attacked like in the movie...past the first 15 minutes of the movie it all goes fantasy..about as realistic as the Patriot. Zatsov was already a renowned sniper when he got to Stalingrad. The hunt with the German was only about 2 weeks long and ended with the German getting a bullet in the eye...but a stupid commisar did provide a nice target for the German to expose himself.
The Russian army fought hard battles close in...in the accounts dozens of men from both sides died in single corridors or stairwells, throwing grenades at each other or rushing each other with pistols and blades.
The strongest check to the Germans in the north came from several defending workers battalions, who walked off the assembly lines with anti-tank rifles and machine guns and stopped 3 armored Wehrmact brigades cold...and really mauled one of them. They held for about 2 weeks till releaved by regulars.
Of course the German mistakes were legion...namely not knowing how to fight in urban centers where maneuver is not an option.
Excellent book. As a matter of fact, the Red Army perfected kill sacks in Stalingrad. They'd let the German tanks by, slaughter the infantry and then hit the tanks from the rear when they tried backing up.
Russian troops would come through sewers and take up positions in the German rear.."cleared" areas.
Thanks for the info, looks like a fascinating read. Yes, movies, even based on true events, are not usually very accurate. But keep in mind that the movie is trying to tell the events of possibly several months in a two hour time frame. But evenso, some movies are more true to the facts than others. Another interesting thing about Stalingrad. There was a documentary about the siege of the city, and why Hitler refused to give up on it. It is commonly thought that it was because of its name, that Hitler would look bad by retreating from a city named for Stalin. Hitler's public announcement for his reluctance to withdraw troops was that it tied up the Red Army and left open the route for the Caspian oil fields, which the German army needed. In private, however, he stated that he feared public support for the war would collapse (and with it the 'legitimacy'of the Nazi regime) if they gave up on the city. The real problem the Nazis had was that they had been spoiled earlier on with the easy battles of western Europe. But then they attacked the Russians...