Russia's Heroes, 1941-1945 by Albert Axell

From the Publisher

For four years in World War II, out of an unquestioned love for their mother country, the Russian people heroically defended their soil with their blood. This new volume by historian Albert Axell captures in full the valor of the sons and daughters, soldiers and villagers, Cossacks and snipers who battled in Moscow and Stalingrad, in the Caucasus and the Arctic, at the Brest fortress and Kursk Bulge. From the account of the aging Russian general who suffered drenchings in ice-cold water rather than collaborate with his Nazi captors to that of the nineteen-year-old private who flung himself on the gun port of a German pillbox so that his comrades could advance, these pages not only chronicle extraordinary selfless acts of heroism but also rectify an astonishing oversight in innumerable histories of World War II. 16 pages of black-and-white photographs are included. "A cracking read ... it gave me a great deal of pleasure."—Robert Service, author of A History of 20th Century Russia "If German generals ... had read Russia's Heroes before Hitler attacked Russia, they might have had second thoughts."—Robert Overy, author of Russia's War

Library Journal

The Soviet-German war produced, in the words of Marshall Zhukov, "many battalions of heroes" on the Soviet side. Most, if not all, are unknown to Western readers, and Axell (Stalin's War) has done a good service in narrating their exploits. He properly underlines the intense, almost mystical devotion Russians feel for their country, never more so than when Russia is battling for its existence. His sources here are personal accounts, interviews, and published records, and his focus is upon a kaleidoscope of heroism: the defense of the Brest fortress, women fighter pilots, partisans, snipers, pilot "rammers" of Nazi aircraft, Cossacks, and 100 Jewish generals, among others. Some accounts are rather fragmentary, but the overall effect is to provoke wonder and admiration even now, 60 years later. While there are books that say something about individual heroic exploits within a section of the war (e.g., Antony Beevor's Stalingrad, LJ 5/15/98), none so thoroughly examines the subject over the whole canvas of the Soviet-German war. This book should appeal to all those interested in World War II and the almost unbelievable Soviet resistance to Hitler's armies. Robert Johnston, McMaster Univ., Hamilton, Ont. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The greatest generation speaks Russian in this paean to the many courageous figures of what the Slavs call the Great Patriotic War (WWII to us). Even by the bloody standards of WWII, the privations and heroism of the Russian front, where our wartime allies lost, by one estimate, 40 million civilians and military personnel, was stupefying. The centrality of the war still possesses Russian thinking and action to an extent little appreciated on our side of the world. Axell's (Stalin's War, not reviewed) tales of incredible individual exploits and personal courage in defense of Mother Russia are emblematic of the Russian talent for repulsing and pursuing a hated invader. There are stories (including one depicted in the recent film Enemy at the Gates) of snipers' battles in the forests, as well as airborne duels that pitted wooden and canvas aircraft against the Luftwaffe's finest. (Soviet pilots, when their ammunition was exhausted, frequently rammed German craft, often using their propellers as buzz saws-and many survived to repeat the trick.) Mounted Cossacks wielded their sabers with gory ferocity. Partisans fought tanks by hand. Then there were the submariners who were ordered to clean and polish the brass while their vessel was sinking. The pantheon includes extraordinary places, like Stalingrad and Moscow, where citizens tenaciously withstood siege. There is also a chapter devoted to Jewish generals-a singularly unconvincing testament to Russian tolerance. And the author oddly endorses the Kremlin's view that Japan capitulated because the Soviets finally declared war against the Imperial Forces-a declaration that came days after two American atomic weapons were used in Japan.Hagiography reminiscent of some sort of People's Bureau of Heroes of the Motherland may test a reader's endurance, but Axell's text is one attempt to redress some history that has been largely ignored in the West.

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Table of Contents