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Russia at War: 1941-1945

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Russia at War: 1941-1945 by Alexander Werth is one of the most incredible history books in existence. Eyewitness accounts of the aftermath of barbaric Nazi occupation and interviews with survivors of German captivity are haunting and unforgettable. With its maps, contemporary press clippings and excerpts from memoirs by Nazi and Russian officers the book appears to be an invaluable repository of second world war facts put in concise, popularly accessible form. To a modern day revisionist, Cold War warrior or russphobe, some of Alexander Werth's accounts may seem to be overly pro-Soviet (or rather too unsympathetic to the Nazis - the complaint one hears most frequently) and the style with which he described certain events as insensitive and even callous (like his stunning narration of the last days of the German army at Stalingrad), however to most people reading Alexander Werth's Russia at War will uncover a new honest perspective both on the events leading to the WWII and on the actual meaning of the allied Victory at its conclusion. This fascinating book is so well written, that comparing it to other books on the same subject is difficult and perhaps unfair to their authors, one can compare reading Russia at War: 1941-1945 by Alexander Werth to playing an addictive (computer) game: once started, it is almost impossible to stop.

Alexander Werth has sometimes been accused of being a Soviet-apologist. But in his superb history of the Eastern Front, it is the Russian (and Belorussian, Siberian, Ukrainian, etc)*people* who are the true heroes. Published in 1964, the work is undeniably free of the Russophobia of an accelerating Cold War period, probably due to its focus on the human drama and trauma of the War. The Russian people endured horrific loss and suffering, no small part of which was brought on by the policies of Stalin himself. But because Stalin was savvy enough to appeal to Slavic pride and national loyalty -- even to simultaneously procuring the blessings of the Orthodox Church and resurrecting the pagan image of Mother Russia -- ordinary Russians were willing to give everything for their "People's Sacred War". This massive book (nearly 1100 pages) is extremely "readable", being divided into numerous small chapters of 10 - 20 page length. Poignant first-person interviews with combatants and civilians, survivors of battle and siege, give the reader appreciation for what the Russians accomplished, and admiration for them as a people. The author has three other books, out of print but worthy of reading, "Russia: Hopes and Fears", "Russia: The Post War Years", and "Russia Under Krushchev".

At the opening of the D Day museum a few years ago, historian Steven Ambrose made an incredible statement during his remarks. He said the democracies of the United States, Britain, and France (yes France) defeated Nazi Germany. Well...yes, in a way, but....

Of course that statement completely overlooks the horrific sacrifice the people of the Soviet Union made to battle Germany in WWII. If it can't be said that the Allies could never have defeated Nazi Germany without the Soviet Union, it certainly can be said that the casualties on the Western front would have been much much higher (particularly for the United States).

For Ambrose, a noted WWII historian, to committ such an oversight is inexcusable. For the average American, it is perhaps understandable. The American perception of the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany has been downplayed at best, grossly distorted at worst, particularly during the Cold War. Werth's massive (but very readable) tome, written during the height of the Cold War, should be required reading for anyone interested in this subject. And who wouldn't be? This is history on a massive scale. The largest armies ever seen battling to the death on a front extending for thousands of miles. A titanic clash of ideologies. Incredible blundering by political leaders on both sides. Incredible bravery on the part of ordinary soldiers (and civilians). And Werth keeps the pace moving, blending an incredibly intricate war into a very readible history.

Even this book's shortcomings (the description of the Battle of Leningrad left me strangely unmoved) are more than compensated for by its many achievements (I have never read a better description of the desparation during the Battle of Stalingrad).

If you are not familiar with this aspect of WWII history, you owe it to yourself to begin with this book.

I have read a fair bit about World War II over the years, including Eastern Front narratives by Alan Clark, Anthony Beevor, William Shirer (which was not limited to the Eastern Front) and others. Of all of them, Werth's history is my favorite. It manages to capture, in a single volume, the breadth and scope of this enormous conflict in a way that no one else has quite been able to do, in my humble opinion. Werth examines all aspects of what the German invasion meant to the Soviet Union, whether diplomatically, militarily, economically, culturally, politically or ideologically. Of course, there is a limit to the depth of coverage in each of these areas, but each is treated to the extent necessary to provide a good overview of Soviet life during the war years.

Werth picks up with the European diplomatic scene in 1939, as the post-purge Soviet regime begins to appreciate the dangers posed by the growing German military threat. The account of the various diplomatic missions and exchanges is relatively well detailed, albeit not so well as Shirer's (which is, in any event, from a completely different perspective). Werth leans a little heavily on Pravda excerpts and the official Soviet history, but that's understandable given the shroud of secrecy that stifled the free flow of information. Werth provides insights into Soviet thinking of the day, both among the leadership and the citizenry, that paint a different picture from what many have learned about Soviet motivations for entering into the non-aggression pact with Germany. While there was some of the traditional "evil empire" mentality as to Poland, the measure was largely self-preservative due to Britain's diplomatic ineptitude during those crucial years.

The military narratives are sweeping in the their scope, and stay generally at the strategic perspective. Major segments of the book focus on large sectors of the front, such as Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad. Troop strengths are frequently measured in armies and hundreds of thousands of men, with only occasional glimpses at the lot of the foot soldier. Werth does this through various "close-ups" to add much needed color and flavor to what might otherwise be a fairly sterile presentation. During some of these, Werth recounts his own personal experiences "on the ground," meeting with both peasants and generals alike (including Chuikov and Malenkov, for example).

Overall, I found this history to be quite objective. Although this is a Russocentric view of the war, it is by no means an apology for the Soviet regime. Werth takes all parties equally to task where appropriate for their bad decisions, but at the same time he is not colored (as we Americans so often are) by an anti-Soviet bias in discussing the successes of the Red Army and its leadership. He is unflinching in his descriptions of Soviet weaknesses and failures, and spends some time discussing the origins of the Stalin personality cult and the myth of his "military genius." While Werth is not as hard on Stalin as some historians have been, he stops far short of adulation. If anything, I think Werth's treatment of Stalin amply conveyed his intense pragmatism, which often expressed itself in brutality toward his opponents, both real and imagined. Take, for example, Stalin's embrace of nationalist propaganda during 1942, only to resume the party's ideological norms in 1943 after the tide had been turned at Stalingrad. Another example is the regime's courting of the various peoples of the Caucasus in 1942, followed by the mass deportations of 1943. Werth also makes no bones about the regime's (and by implication, Stalin's) crass propagandizing of the Soviet people. His portrayal of Stalin is, in a word, objective.

In short, if you want a grand overview of what the Eastern Front was all about, from the perspective of a people that sustained the brunt of the German onslaught, you will find it here. Is it a perfect history? No, of course not, but it's certainly a good one.

This book is by far the most objective book on WWII available in English and written by a Westerner. I was born in Russia and as most Russians was frustrated by the Western interpretation of the WWII and esp. Russia at WWII. Werth, fluent in Russian and born in Russia but who lived and worked in the UK, has this truly unique quality to present this war from two prospectives - Western and Russian. His Western objectivism is combined with a real understanding of what the Great Patriotic war meant for the USSR and its people.

Alexander Werth is a brilliant narrator and he makes such a complex, factual, at times horrific history book, easy to read and understand.

I read this book years ago when it came out and recently reread it. It is still as compelling as it was on the first read. Yes Werth was a man of the left and his sympathies lie with the soviet union, but the sense one gets of his leftism is not Stalinism but of a left that harks back to the great men of the left--Jaures comes to mind.
I also think that this book is necessary not only to inform people about what Harrison Salisbury called "The Unknown War" and but also to ensure that history will not be able to rewrite the events of WWII in an Orwellian fashion.

I read this, as a teenager, a couple of years after it came out in 1964 and was enthralled by it. At the time, there were very few books available about the eastern front - all of them from the German POV(ie Paul Carrel)- Russia at War was the first extensively using russian sources. That, plus Werth's racy, I was there style and eye for detail (40 years later, I still remember the kids using frozen german corpses as tobaggens outside Stalingrad) makes it one the essential books about world war II. It's a terrific combination of history and memoir.
Reading it again, I notice the political bias far more clearly. Werth blames western appeasement for Stalin's non-aggression pact with Hitler and believes dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima had more to do with intimidating russia than ending the pacific war He makes a good case however, for the soviet failure to liberate WarsaW as due to a successful german resistance than because of Stalin's desire to have the germans crush the polish home army. On the Katyn massacre, Werth reluctantly concludes Stalin did it. Werth seems less a Stalinist than pro-russian. I remember, after the 68 Czech invasion, Werth turned bitterly anti-soviet in his writing.
One footnote. Werth includes in his accout of the Korsun encirclemnt battle in Jan.'44, an absolutley hair raising accout of the slaughter of german troops by cavalry and tanks that I have never seen in any other account. Did it really happen or was Werth's informant exaggerating?

This incredible book is both a historic overview of the world war and the events that preceded it, and a collection of poignant, compelling, eyewitness accounts of that epic war from the perspective of an English journalist in Stalinist Russia. For me personally this book became a true discovery - I had known very little about the war on the Eastern front prior to reading this book (and all the limited knowledge I had was obtained from usual sources tainted with russophobia, cold-war propaganda and then colored with prejudice). I was stunned by the scale of the conflict, passions behind and enormity of Nazi crimes in Russia. Some of lesser known details of Nazi behaviour in Russia are so bizarre that one cannot stop wondering on how weird (besides being evil) the Nazis were - for example, they designed, manufactured and employed special "agricultural" machinery for destroying crops and so starving rural inhabitants of the occupied Soviet Union; or the Nazi "invention" of special railroad engine that demolished and mangled railroad track: Destruction of Biblical proportions that is bureaucratized, institutionalized and also placed on industrial, "scientific" scale. Disturbing stuff. Werth's account of the Siege of Leningrad and personal stories of the people he interviewed are both extraordinary and very sad. You will not regret buying this book.

In reviewing this book, I must admit that I have a sentimental bias toward it. It was the first 1,000+ page book I ever read, back when I was in the 9th grade. I read most of it over the summer before starting high school. I should have known then that my calling was to be a historian. This book is so large I won't bother with a detailed review, as I usually do with books. The fact that a history book of over 1,000 pages could captivate a 14-year-old should be enough.

My copy is basically falling apart. It is from the 1984 reprint by Carroll & Graf. It saddens me to see that there doesn't appear to be current version available. This is what history writing in grand style is really like.

There are many books on the Russian-German conflict of the Second World War, but Alexander Werth's RUSSIA AT WAR is one of the longest, the most detailed, and the most comprehensive. It is impossible to read it and not get a sense of the masses of men and machines that bashed into each other for nearly four years. His use of detail, map, and breadth of coverage make his book a worthy complement to the bookshelf of war historians. There is, however, a flaw running throughout that nullifies much of the veracity and objectivity that ought to be intrinsic to a serious work of military history. That flaw is his pro-Soviet bias, in particular his refusal to see First Secretary Joseph Stalin as the murderous thug that he was.
Werth divides his history into seven sections. In the first,called 'Prelude to War,' he discusses the months and years that preceded Operation Barbarossa. To him, Hitler is correctly identified as the architect of the war. Werth analyzes what now seems painfully evident in hindsight--the plans for the invasion of Poland. He is less than truthful with Stalin's role in pre-1941 attempts at European hegemony. Werth writes, 'Throughout, Stalin recalls, the Soviet Union had pursued a policy of peace.' (page 40) In that same paragraph, he adds, 'The Soviet Union wanted peace; she wanted peace and business relations with all countries, so long as they did not impinge on her interests.' It is difficult to read this and not gasp in disbelief at Werth's naivete. Russia gobbled up Finland in 1940 even though the Finns did not 'impinge on her interests.' As for Poland, Werth rationalizes the Russian invasion after the Poles were already thoroughly beaten by the Nazis as 'the Soviet government could no longer be neutral in the face of reigning chaos in Poland or the fact that 'our blood-brothers, the Ukrainians and Belorussians are being abandoned to their fate.'' As Werth progresses in his history, he tends to become somewhat more even-handed, and it is in his middle chapters that his true stengths as a writer and historian are evident. He describes the siege of Leningrad and the assault on Moscow by the Wehrmacht in their bloody horror, even if he allows masses of details of lives lost to punctuate his claims.
Some pertinent analyses are missing. Nowhere does he blame Stalin for the great military purges of 1937 as one of the leading factors that ripped the heart out of the Soviet High Command and left Russia very nearly without competent leadership. Nowhere does he describe the fall of Berlin in 1945, for if he had done so, he would have had to explain the mass rape that was perpetrated on all Berlin women by elements of the Red Army. Nowhere does he even hint at the role the NKVD played as Stalin's personal execution squads, a group that undoubtedly killed more fellow Slavs with a bullet to the back of the neck than it did Germans in defense of the Soviet homeland. As I finished reading this massive history, I paused for a moment to read the publicity comments written on the front cover by William L. Shirer, author of RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH, 'The result...is the best book we probably shall ever have in English on Russia at war.' Werth's book is useful in connecting the myriad of dots that was the war on the Eastern Front, but the best book? I don't think so. It is fatally flawed by his unabashed admiration for a thug who feared his own people more than he did his neighbors.