Last Letters from Stalingrad [Hardcover]

Franz Schneider (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Thirty-nine letters [and fragments of letters] written in the first weeks of 1943, which reached Germany on the last plane to break out of Stalingrad but which, by Hitler's order, were immediately impounded.”–New Yorker

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Hardcover: 127 pages
• Publisher: Greenwood Press Reprint (March 20, 1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0837172403
• ISBN-13: 978-0837172408
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,351,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heart wrenching stories of German soldiers, April 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Last Letters from Stalingrad (Hardcover)

For years in the 1970's & 1980's a local radio celebrity read the "Letters" during the three weeks before Christmas. He added background music of "Little Drummer Boy". We listened every night and "felt the despair and hope of the soldiers who knew they would never return home. The "Letters" have stayed with me through the years. We have searched for a copy of this book and are heartbroken that it is unavailable, even on the secondary market. If you find a copy, you have a treasure.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a book of compelling, riveting letters ., November 8, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Last Letters from Stalingrad (Hardcover)

This book is a selection of letters written by soldiers of the German Sixth Army near the end of its defense of the Stalingrad pocket. The authors of the letters knew that their situation was hopeless, and most did not expect to survive. So the letters are final farewells. The attitudes and viewpoints of the soldier-authors differ widely, but invariably the letters are compelling. Common themes include a widely felt sense of betrayal, hope that the continued struggle in the pocket would have some military benefit elsewhere, and the poignant sense that these letters represent the last words of the soldiers to their loved ones. The letters of these doomed soldiers provide an opportunity to think about not only the Sixth Army's final struggle but war in general as a human experience. Goebbels' propaganda ministry read the letters to determine the attitudes they revealed and then suppressed them. This is a book you will read and re-read.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Last Letters are true in the abstract..., March 7, 2000

By 

Curt (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Letters from Stalingrad (Hardcover)

Although the letters in this book are forgeries, that doesn't mean they aren't true. The man who wrote these letters was a German war correspondent, named Heinz Schroeter, who reported from the Stalingrad pocket. He also wrote the greatest book about that battle, called Stalingrad; To The Last Bullet. Schroeter wrote the letters from the point of view of the German soldiers he had come to know during the siege. He was intimately acquainted with how the soldiers thought and felt in Stalingrad and I believe he accurately portrayed how the "Last Letters from Stalingrad" would have actually sounded, had they been written. For sheer depth of human emotion, nothing comes close to this book. It will personally move you, and isn't that what all great books have in common?