Stalingrad: The Infernal Cauldron, 1942-1943

This book is more than the single campaign for Stalingrad. The author briefly explains the political atmosphere of Hitler and Stalin and their two countries prior to the war to explain Hitler's over estimation of himself and his under estimation of the Soviet forces. The Russian purges and the killing of Marshall Tukhachevsky as well as Russia's poor showing with the war with Finland were key to Hitler's estimate. The author suggests that Stalin knew of his country's vulernablility and would not have attacked Germany in 1941, discounting the post war claims that Stalin was preparing to attack Germany. That doesn't mean Stalin wouldn't have attacked Hitler in 1942 or 43.The author extends his introduction by mentioning key battles of Barbarossa - Smolensk, Kiev, Uman, Vyazma, Bryansk, Crimea and Moscow which includies the Russian offensive that drove the Germans back. This offensive unnerved Hitler, causing him to be in no hurry to attack it again in 1942. This plus Hitler's quest for oil lead him to plan Operation Blue for the control of the Ukraine and the Caucasus oil fields.Once past the introduction, the remaining chapters are divided into timeframes that last into the first months of 1943. The author begins his journey with the stunning German victory of Kharkov in May and moves on to Voronezh and the implications involved with this battle then Kalach and the Don Bend. The next 5 chapters covers the assault of Stalingrad and the eventual encirclement of 6th Army. The author does a nice job of descrbing the key points of engagement in a brief manner but this is why he doesn't receive 5 stars. Though this is one of the finest overviews published, I would have preferred the author devote more time in describing battle engagements in this horrific battle that completely pulverized such a key city and arguably was the major turning point of the war.The author leaves Stalingrad for a moment to describe AGA in the Caucasus campaign before going back and describing life in the pocket and the final elimination of 6th Army and the surrender of Paulus. In the last chapter, the author explains the ramifications of Germany's loss at Stalingrad for the rest of the war. He mentions Operation Saturn, Gallop, Star and Winter Storm as well. The author ends with an Order of Battle and a Chronology of the campaign. Here again, I believe the chronology is a little anemic and could use further augmentation.The author has a series of simple but effective maps to help the reader follow the progression of the battle. Besides the maps, there are many fine photos to supplement the text. Most of these photos I've haven't seen before and are noteworthy.This book is well done and is ideally suited for beginners or causals who don't have an interest in extensive study of the battle or the war. For those who have a more serious intent, this book would make a strong foundation from which to build on. Since the author doesn't present a reading list, I'll take it on myself to suggest a few authors: David Glantz, John Erickson, Alexander Werth, Paul Carell, Anthony Beevor, Joel Hayward and Edwin Hoyt.

This book serves to capture some of the drama that was the battle of Stalingrad. It fails, however, to leave the reader with an understanding of the horror of war or a clear view of what events were critical."The Infernal Cauldron" is long on detail as to the specific movement of troops but, in so doing, serves to lose the reader from the bigger picture. We are constantly updated as to where particular Armies and Divisions were moving but are shown few maps. The reader is thus easily lost in the minutae without developing a fuller understanding of the battle.Offsetting the flaws of detail, the book has numerous glossy black and white photos that show some of the key players such as Paulus and his generals. It also reproduces other photos of the phenomenal destruction that was unleashed on this one city.Finally, as with all books on the subject of Stalingrad, comparison with Antony Beevor's great work is inevitable. In this regard, Walsh demonstrably fails. Read Beevor if you want to understand and try to comprehend the war for and the siege of Stalingrad.

I have not yet read the text of this book. I bought it solely for the wonderful collection of photographs, many of which I have never seen before, and I've pored through tons of books on the Eastern Front.Given the insightful photo captions I have little doubt the text is on equally high quality. But as it is primarily a photo essay, reading the book is not likely to tell you much that you don't already know about the Battle of Stalingrad unless you are new to the subject, in which case this would not be a bad place to start.

I am not going to repeat observations made by earlier reviewers and which I felt were quite accurate (e.g. nice pictures, dry prose, errors etc..). I am an avid WW2 reader and I must say that this book failed to engage and get my interest. I found the lack of maps which follow the narrative disconcerting given the assumed scholarly background of the author. Few sources are cited, and when they are, it's in trivial statements like "in the words of prof. X, from this point on, the Yth army group didn't have the resources to carry its mission". Finally, I found the way the distances were indicated extremely irritating, e.g., the 6th army only advanced 274m (300 yards)???? Where did all these signifcant digits come from? You should know that ALL the distances mentioned in the book are cited this way. Decent editing should not have allowed this to be.