Good Books About The Eastern Front/ Great Patriotic War

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I just finished John Erickson's The Road To Stalingrad, (and have the companion, The Road To Berlin, on order) which was both very detailed and held a strong 'narrative' (though it desperately needed maps to help clarify the situation- having to refer to my Atlas of 20th Century Warfare got tedious quickly {honestly, as a Westerner, how the fuck am I supposed to know where Rzhev and Krasnaya Polyana are?), and usually I'd already have finished the section on the relevant front and gotten to another by the time I consulted it). And, of course, it makes Stalin look like an Epic Failure of a leader.

Anyway.

I'd like to know if the Historians on this board have any recommendations for good books related to the hefty part of the Second World War. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I think I have a pretty good grounding on the basics of the war, the different operations, etc, so is there anything of note I should check out?

[K. A. Pital]

I have already given some information into the HAB, but l will relist those books for you

EDIT: by all means, check out "iremember.ru". That project is awesome.

D.M. Glantz's works about about the Great Patriotic War military operations:
The Battle for Leningrad 1941-1944, D.M. Glantz.
Zhukov's Greatest Defeat: The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942, D.M. Glantz
August Storm, D.M. Glantz
Stumbling Colossus (Red Army in 1941), D.M. Glantz

And this book
The Soviet partisan movement, 1941-1944, Leonid D. Grenkevich, David M. Glantz

Glantz offers superb work, if you want informative war books, try reading Glantz' series about the Red Army in Great Patriotic War. Information-wise, Glantz is superior to the absolute majority of English Great Patriotic War historiography, including Beevor, Overy, et cetera.

Also, from the HAB:
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A little more Russian stuff which is IMHO quite worthwhile (kudos to RBF and the Russian military forums for pushing for more English translations of Russian works). Look out for those! Russian military history community worked and strove very hard to make them accessible to you, Allies!

Dmitriy Loza.
"FIGHTING FOR THE SOVIET MOTHERLAND: Recollections of the Eastern Front"


Dmitriy Loza.
"COMMANDING THE RED ARMY'S SHERMAN TANKS"


Very good both of them (they're Pt1 and Pt2 of his memoirs respectively), and probably quite interesting to a Western reader since Loza was fighting almost exclusively on lend-lease machines

A. Pyl'cyn PENALTY STRIKE: The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander 1943-45

Want truth about service in a penal squad, from a person who actually served there? Read it. It's harsh, it's about a real person and it (gasp) has real romance. If anything, this is a story of life - not for Hollywood's mythic tales, but for the reality.

E. Mariinskiy RED STAR AIRACOBRA: Memoirs of a Soviet Fighter Ace 1941-45

This book doesn't need any introduction.

A.DRABKIN, O.SHEREMET. T-34 in action

Drabkin is the person behind Russian Battlefield and "I Remember", a longstanding member of the Russian Military-History Forum (VIF2NE), he has done so much work to preserve the past and here's his collection of essays on tank warfare combined from various people's memoirs. There's another one like it on Il-2 but sadly it has not been yet translated to English.

E.BESSONOV. Tank rider into the Reich with Red Army


M.ABDULIN. Red road from Stalingrad


E.EMELIANENKO. Red star against the swastika
The english name is stupid and hated by the Russian publishers 0 but that's what the foreign publisher did. Originally the book was called "Il-2 attacks". It is awesome regardless of the stupid name, don't be misled.


N. Obryn'ba Red partisan. The memoirs of a Soviet Resistance fighter on the Eastern Front (with foreword to english edition by Glantz )

Surprised along with his countryman by Hitler¹s Barbarossa invasion of the Soviet Union, young amateur sketch artist Nikolai Obryn'ba became an instant soldier in the Moscow Opolchenie [People's militia] just in time to join the Red Army and be swallowed up with 350,000 of his fellow Red Army soldiers in the infamous Vyazma encirclement, where he marched westward as a prisoner-of-war. Miraculously surviving the brutal rigors of several SS POW camps, Nikolai escaped to join a Partisan band operating in the German Army's deep rear and, equally miraculously, lived to return to safety behind Red Army lines.

Nikolai's simple and candid yet gripping memoir presents a credible mosaic of vivid images of life in the Red Army during the harrowing first few months of the war and unprecedented details about his participation in the brutal but shadowy partisan war that raged deep in the German Army's rear A must read for those seeking a human face on this most inhuman of Twentieth Century wars.

Hope you like this brief introduction into the Russian soldier-written history of the Great Patriotic War if you do enjoy those books, you can also drop thanks to Artem and his veteran interviewees at the iremember project.
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EDIT 2: some new books were recently transpated to English by i-r.ru, so here are they:

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

A number of the David Gantz books, such as "When Titans Clashed" and "Battle of Kursk" are very good books on the Great Patriotic War.

[weemadando]

I have already given some information into the HAB, but l will relist those books for you ;)
A.DRABKIN, O.SHEREMET. T-34 in action

Drabkin is the person behind Russian Battlefield and "I Remember", a longstanding member of the Russian Military-History Forum (VIF2NE), he has done so much work to preserve the past and here's his collection of essays on tank warfare combined from various people's memoirs. There's another one like it on Il-2 but sadly it has not been yet translated to English.

E.BESSONOV. Tank rider into the Reich with Red Army


E.EMELIANENKO. Red star against the swastika
The english name is stupid and hated by the Russian publishers 0 but that's what the foreign publisher did. Originally the book was called "Il-2 attacks". It is awesome regardless of the stupid name, don't be misled.

I can vouch for those three being excellent. There are also some interesting ones from the German side of things including the Panzer/Infantry Aces series (collections of tales of various medal winners and the like).

But for a really good strategic/tactical view of it, check out: Panzers on the Eastern Front

[thejester]

When Titans Clashed is probably the definitive single volume work of military history. Russia's War is, IMO, the best book kicking around that gives the overall Soviet history - rather than a purely military one - in English.

Check out this website as well for a series of excellent monographs covering various operations, including a few by Glantz.