Product Description

The author, Adelbert Holl, was a 23-year-old infantry Leutnant when he rejoined his unit in Stalingrad after recovering from wounds he suffered in April 1942. This book records his own experiences as a junior infantry commander during Stalingrad. The infantry bore the most laborious and difficult role during the battle. They were not propelled forward by engines, were not protected by armour-plating. They stood eye to eye with the enemy. That is why this report is so impressive, so enthralling, so stirring. It is sobre, factual, without pathos ­ as written by a front-line soldier. Holl was awarded many medals, including the Wound Badge in Gold, which demonstrates that he had never spared himself from the dangers of combat. This book does not glorify the war: it shows the terrible true face of it. 25 photos, 24 maps, 19 aerial photos, 40 supporting documents

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #452609 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-01
• Binding: Hardcover
• 250 pages

Customer Reviews

Exceptional piece of history - a Real Gem
The value of this book is not in that it portrays the full scope of the battle of Stalingrad. Such books can be written by anyone (even you or I)if we wish to access the German and Russian archives. This book's value and unique qualities lie in that it covers one persons memiors and experiences over a part of the battlefield. It can never be replicated, which is especially important given only 5,000 german solidiers surrounded at Stalingrad made it home.

It is well written and easy to read. The original work is enhanced by pictures, maps and historic data provided by the translators. Given it was written about 25 years after the event it is very detailed and accurate. I'm not sure if it was written from a diary but it gives a day by day account of Holl's experiences as a narrative. It doesn't get affected, as other books do, by "visionary" writing such as forboding about possibly being surrounded. It is written as if it were based only on the knowledge of that day, not subsequent events. He is proud soldier but not a Nazi apologist.

It begins with Holl's return and leading of the attack at the mouth of the Tsarita gorge to the banks of the Volga. His unit is then swithed to a quiter zone but called on to clear out a russian pocket. Then the entrapment and the desperate retreat back to the city. The writing is dispassionate; but is still full of feeling for the conditions of the time. Holl leaves his story immediately before his surrender. It would have been nice to know what happened to him (how long was he a POW?) but that is not the purpose of the book.

I have over a 100 2WW memiors. This is one of the best. It is a must have for any one interested in Eastern front combat.

Daily log.
This is a simple daily log of an individual. Interesting, but not alot of detail or opinion. Some may like the book for this reason, I'm neutral.

A soldier's tale
In the wake of Theodor Plievier (1969) the epic battle for Stalingrad has been re-told in the past ten years or so by several eminent historians like Anthony Breevor (1999), Geoffrey Roberts (2002) and Michael Jones (2007). Therefore one might ask what added value there might be in yet another book on the same subject, in this case "An Infantryman in Stalingrad" by Adelbert Holl. My conclusion is that the material offered in this book is interesting enough for reading. Where other books present the full scope of the battle with emphasis on the strategic and operational interactions of armies, divisions and regiments, in which the individual soldier is often reduced to a simple cogwheel in the war machinery, this book tells the day-to-day story of an infantryman in the ruins of the city. As a consequence the horizon of the story is often limited to the factory behind the next block or the houses across the street. The momentous battle of the 6th Army is reduced to the struggle of a Wehrmacht officer to stay alive and to keep his men alive while fulfilling his duty. This book, a diary actually, covers the period of 23 September 1942, when Holl reports back from convalescence leave to his battalion commander, up to and including 1 February 1943, when he is waiting for captivity with a few other survivors.
When I started reading this book I wondered if the author would reveal anything about his motives for serving in the Wehrmacht and to what extent he would justify the invasion of Russia, which brought so much misery to the population. Holl is surprisingly quiet on these moral issues, even in hindsight. He only tells us that he took the oath for Führer, Volk und Vaterland voluntarily at the age of 18 and that he considered it his duty to fulfill this oath in the belief that the free world should be protected from the curses of Bolshevism. It is scary to realize that similar distorted views on certain groups in our society are still the driving forces behind the atrocities that fill our newspapers today. As if nothing has been learned from history. The positive side of this lack of reflection is that the character of the narrative, which is very much matter-of-fact, is not weakened by attempts to justify the actions described in the book.
The publisher deserves credits for the quality of this book. The translation is excellent and the text is richly interspersed with illustrations and maps, many in the form of aerial photographs. Additional information is provided in the form of footnotes. In my experience military history books often suffer from a lack of clear maps in places where they would be helpful for a better understanding of the military movements described in the text. That is not the case in this book where maps are abundant and always on the right spot.
Conclusion: Contents are interesting and presentation is excellent. A recommendation for readers interested in the history of the Nazi-Soviet war from 1941-1945.