On August 23, 1942, Hitler's 16th Panzer Division halted on the banks of the Volga. To their right, the city of Stalingrad blazed from the first of General von Richthofen's air raids, which ultimately killed 40,000 civilians. Many German soldiers thought the war against Russia was won. But in Stalin's namesake city on the Volga, Hitler had chosen the wrong target. The battle of Stalingrad would be the most pitiless, and perhaps the most important, battle in history. When the fighting was over, the world would begin to believe for the first time that Hitler could be defeated.

About the Author

Antony Beevor was educated at Winchester and Sandhurst. A regular officer in the 11th Hussars, he served in Germany and England. He has published several novels, and his works of nonfiction include The Spanish Civil War; Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, which won the 1993 Runciman Award; Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942—1943; and Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. With his wife, Artemis Cooper, he wrote Paris: After the Liberation: 1944—1949. His book Stalingrad was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Wolfson History Prize, and the Hawthornden Prize in 1999.