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In June 1941, the jaws of the German war machine clamped onto the
Soviet Union, with German soldiers - the Third Reich's teeth -
slicing through the Red Army, encircling and killing and capturing.
Before the end of the year, the Red Army halted the German
blitzkrieg and saved the Soviet Union. It was a defining moment of
World War II and a defining moment of military history - a defining
moment of what it meant to go to war in the twentieth century, with
an army designed to devastate, to kill, to enslave butting heads
with an army decapitated by Stalin's purges. For the next six
months, German armies fought toward Moscow but ultimately failed to
seize that objective, from the Black Sea in the south to Leningrad
in the north. More than just a pivotal moment of World War II, more
than just the beginning of the Eastern Front, the campaign toward
Moscow - Germans versus Soviets in a no-holds-barred battle for the
soul of Europe - speaks to what it meant to be a soldier in World
War II. (Far more soldiers, German and Russian, fought and died on
the Eastern Front than the entire U.S. war effort.) In a book
drawing from hundreds of soldiers' accounts, and thousands of
letter and diaries, Stahel and Luther tell the story of Operation
Barbarossa but also the story of men at war in the twentieth
century.
First published in 1957 and out of print for decades, Moscow Tram
Stop is a classic of World War II on the Eastern Front. Heinrich
Haape was a young doctor drafted into the German Wehrmacht just
before the war began. He was with the spearhead of Operation
Barbarossa, tasked with taking Moscow, when it invaded the Soviet
Union on June 22, 1941. Mere hours into the attack, Haape and his
fellow soldiers learned the hard way that the Red Army fought with
otherworldly tenacity even in defeat. The rapid advance of the
early days slowed during the summer, and Haape's division did not
begin the final push on Moscow until October. It was a hard slog,
plagued first by rain and mud, then by cold and snow. By early
December, German forces had reached the gates of the Soviet capital
but could press no farther. By winter's end, Haape's battalion of
800 had been reduced to a mere 28 soldiers. The doctor's account is
enthrallingly vivid. The drama and excitement never slacken as
Haape recounts his experiences from the unique perspective of a
doctor, who often had to join in the fighting himself and witnessed
the physical and psychological toll of combat.
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