Kiev 1941 cover art

Kiev 1941

Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East

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Kiev 1941

By: David Stahel
Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
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About this listen

In just four weeks in the summer of 1941 the German Wehrmacht wrought unprecedented destruction on four Soviet armies, conquering central Ukraine and killing or capturing three quarters of a million men. This was the Battle of Kiev - one of the largest and most decisive battles of World War II and, for Hitler and Stalin, a battle of crucial importance. For the first time, David Stahel charts the battle's dramatic course and aftermath, uncovering the irreplaceable losses suffered by Germany's "panzer groups" despite their battlefield gains, and the implications of these losses for the German war effort. He illuminates the inner workings of the German army, as well as the experiences of ordinary soldiers, showing that with the Russian winter looming and Soviet resistance still unbroken, victory came at huge cost and confirmed the turning point in Germany's war in the East.

©2012 David Stahel (P)2019 Tantor Europe Germany Military Russia War Soviet Union Stalin Imperialism

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All stars
Most relevant
Well researched, informative and enjoyable account of the events up to and after the Battle of Kiev in 1941. A great victory for the Nazis but it was never going to be enough after Barbarossa failed in June 1941. Stahel writes in a way which doesn’t bog you down in detail and keeps the pace of the book moving.

A great account of the Battle of Kiev

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I definetly got a knew eye on the battle of kiev and all the events surrounding it.

Learning

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Good as far as it went and a change from the countless accounts written about Stalingrad, but it was very much written from a German point of view and contained very few Russian sources. This is perhaps understandable as it is only recently the Russian powers that be have started to allow western authors access to their archives and writers such as Antony Beevor have written more balanced accounts of the conflict in his book Stalingrad. Nevertheless the author and the narrator, despite the imbalance of the sources, have provided a good account of the battle for Kiev in 1941. I would recommend this audible book to anyone interested in the conflict especially given the circumstances prevalent in Kiev at this moment in history.

The stupidity of war.

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Biased towards German hopelessness, for example when first allocating a considerable portion of the book to explaining why and how 1941's Barbarossa constituted the only hope of the Wehrmacht of dealing a decisive blow to the Red Army (due to among many other things the unsustainability of the truck situation and therefore German mobility) the author then continues to criticize the generals for giving it their all. The inconsistency of this narrative leads me to guess that anti-German bias is present in the author's work. Otherwise really detailed and great in its presentation of the battle. Also, the way Guderian is portrayed as unprofessional and rude while this is completely absent in the work of many others, only reinforces my doubts about the complete impartiality of the author. top notch book despite these shortcomings.

Overly Germany-pessimistic but really good

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The title is a bit misleading, as it covers much more of Operation Barbarossa than just a Battle of Kiev, however everything is well written and a good selection of sources was utilised. The only (very) weak point is the narrator - the pronunciation of German names is so bad that I sometimes struggled to identify such a well-known general as Guderian.

Very good book

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