Hey guys, just finished reading Blood red snow. Written from the diaries/ memories of a German soldier ( machine Gunner) during and after the battle of stalingrad. Regular army , and you can definitely see how the lower guys didn't really wanna be there or criticized the handling of the war, etc.     Basically they weren't all SS.
   With that said, is there any easy reading, story books written from the perspective of a Russian soldier?    Criticism of the highers? Did they all support Communism? Openly hate all germans etc.    Thanks for any recommendations

Ivan's War is a good read

From Stalingrad to Pillau.  Unlike other memoirs, the author, an artilleryman, penned them after becoming a Floriduh Man and there's no heavy hand of the soviet propagandist all over it.

The last paragraph of the book, tho.

What's the last paragraph?   Commie propaganda?

You will probably enjoy Fur Folk und Fuhrer.  1st SS LAH mann.  It's also available on U-toob for free.

Bad memories of friends killed or maimed, the horrible battles and uncertainty of who was next. Survivor's guilt.  Of having to kill, the savagry, the helplessness and the near misses.  We should know better than to wage war.  It makes for great reading, but what a tremendous waste of life and resources.  Send the politicians first.  We won't miss 'em.

Started it yesterday and darn if it's not good reading. Thank you BFish.

Born Under a Lucky Star by Ivan Makarov is very unique.  Makarov wrote in secret and you'll understand if you read it.  He criticizes officers, generals who get their men killed.  He doesn't see the German as an arrogant nazi but as another poor human being cajoled to fight.  He feels sorry for German civilians who are caught up in the war.  Makarov's work is a very refreshing read that is free from propaganda.  He also mentions God and whle not a religious man (he never attended Church) was philosophical about it (there are no athiests in a foxhole kinda thing).

There are some minor things that those familiar with military history can overlook.  One thing that needed clarification for me were the officers' chrome boots.  I was unaware that chrome salts were used to tan the leather.

Love & War Vol I & II.  It's by an American immigrant whose father took the family to the Soviet Union to escape the Great Depression in America.  Son volunteered and was finally accepted (was rejected once b/c he was an American) but Smersh kept an eye on him. As a tanker in a recce platoon, he kept a journal (Tolstoy - not War &  Peace but a relative) told him to keep a journal which his commanding officer ordered him to surrender to him.  He warned that SMERSH was watching him and that keeping journals was illegal and if caught with them he could be in a gulag.  He promised to return them to him if he survived and they meet in Berlin.  

Just got From Leningrad To Hungary.

Bogachev's For the Motherland!  For Stalin!

ETA: Appendix II talks about war dogs.

Lot of unjust awarding or denial of medals w/in the Soviet Army is covered too.

Vlassili Grossman's A Writer at War. Grossman was a writer who reported for Red Star Newspaper.  He embedded himself with the soldiers and wrote for them.  His post war novel on Stalingrad was banned in the Soviet Union.

For something a little different The Unwomanly Face of War is a fascinating read. It's a collection of oral histories from Soviet women.

Otherwise 4v50 is the man to listen to on this topic

I enjoyed The Unwomanly Face of War.  

I have a section that discusses the Soviet woman sniper's experience.  

I managed to score at the library book store 800 Days On The Eastern Front by Nikolai Litvin.  It's too much of "we" and not enough of I or what the writer experienced as a soldier.

Vassili Chuikov's The Fall of Berlin.  I had read of Soviet envoys being sniped at during the surrender talks and Chuikov confirms it.  It was thought to have been the SS who were not so willing to surrender.

Was listening to Sergei Sputnikoff's Ushanka Show and he mentioned that there were no published Soviet Memoirs on WW2 until after Stalin died.  Even then, the heavy hand of Soviet propagandist may be found in Soviet era memoirs.  

I learned that the Soviets were prohibited from keeping diaries because it could be a source of intelligence if captured.  This is pretty universal with most combatants.  Fahey's Pacific War Diary is a good example of one in the USN.  There were Germans who did it too (thankfully).  Keeping a diary was punishable (penal battalion or gulag) in the Soviet Union.  

Stalin must be afraid of criticism for his lack of preparedness, his ignoring of intelligence that told him that the Germans were going to attack and the disasters suffered by the "glorious" Red Army in the early months of the war.  Thoughts?

I read the book Lives of the Great Patriotic War and that led me to the website.  There are plenty of interviews of Soviet Jewish soldiers and there is a transcription for those of us who don't speak rooskie.  I've been spending plenty of hours at that website.

https://www.blavatnikarchive.org/

His book has now been published in the US as Stalingrad (Vol I) and Life and Fate (Vol II). They're very good but huge and take a lot of time.

Personally I'd recommend Road To Stalingrad and Road to Berlin by John Erikson

@TheHorrorTheHorror - Is Life and Fate also fiction like his Stalingrad?  I didn't have time to read the latter because it's fiction and I was too busy doing research.

BTW, my manuscript on sniping is in the editor's hands.  It'll be out next year and it'll be in color (thanks to all the images provided by collectors and images of Soviet postcards).

@4v50 - Yes, Life and Fate is a direct sequel to Stalingrad, same characters. Actually, they were intended to be one large book a la a communist-era War and Peace. In the 30's and 40's Tolstoy's War and Peace was very popular but since it was a story told about the Czarist times, Stalin and co wanted a suitable Communist story that was equal in its epic prose. Grossman was one of a few authors tasked to write something.

Where Stalingrad is a war story told from many viewpoints of the Soviet people, Life and Fate is more of a philosophical story that questions/criticizes the Stalin regime while still paying proper respect to the Soviet war effort and general toughness of the Soviet people. It ends with the surrender of Paulus' forces in Stalingrad.

I don't keep many books in hard copy but I have both of these on my shelf. They're amazing if you're a fan of literature.

Thanks!  Amazing that Grossman should be tasked with that as I heard some of his writings fell out of favor.

Modern book wise I just got Rupert Butler's Stalin's Secret War: The NKVD on the Eastern Front.  I've no time for reading and spent many hours preparing for a talk and working on a flintlock trade gun.

Just got the Red Army Guerilla Warfare Pocket Manual.  Nothing on sniper weapons but it does mention making a partial ghillie suit.  Also where to shoot if you come across a Pzkw II.  On digging in, it covers the depth of the thickness of the material for the shooter to have protection.   This was important at Vicskburg when the Confederates were besieged by Grant.  Vicksburg has loess soil which the engineer manuals didn't cover since it Eastern based.  Cannonballs could penetrate the embankments and strike the soldier sheltered behind it. You ge the point.  Different material, different thickness.

Thanks for this recommendation.  This is the first audio book I've listened to- and although I much prefer reading to listening, this was a great story.

I really enjoyed D-Day Through German Eyes.  

Just started reading The Last Panther last night.  Found out today it's a "historical fiction."  BS.  I don't even want to finish it now.

Free online conference on Jewish soldiers in WW II.  It is hosted by the Blavatnik Archive Foundation which has documented and recorded the experiences of numerous Soviet Jews who served in WW II.  You might want to peruse through their website.

Conference is on Nov. 14-15 and is FREE.   Register here:

https://www.accelevents.com/e/jewishsoldiersinwwii

Barbarossa Seen Through Soviet Eyes.

For a big website, go to https://iremember.ru/  They have an EN or english button that translates it and makes it friendly.  A lot of veteran interviews.

For Stalin and the Motherland or In the Soviet Union without Toilet Paper by Roman Vladimir Skulski

Comrade Sergeant, may I have the last page of your newspaper?



Skulski asks several times to be transferred to the newly created Polish Army.  "Comrade Stalin will handle it."  That was the Soviet way of saying nyet (no).  He and three friends finally desert from their labor battalion (as foreigners they weren't trusted to be in front line combat unit) and escape over 1,000 kilometers to join the Polish Army.  They can't join because they don't have proper discharge papers from the "glorious Red Army" and are rejected.  Finally, they meet a sympathetic junior officer who helps them.  They join other Poles and take a boat to Persia where they are free from the Soviet yoke.

Toilet paper factory not open until 1969

Joseph Pell's Taking Risks.  Pell was a Polish Jew whose family fled east when the Soviets pulled out of their part of Poland.  They resettled in the Urkaine and couldn't get out in time before the Germans came.  His family fell victim to the einsatzgruppen kommando (death squads) and he joined the partisans.  He mentions a suppressed rifle was used for sentry removal (the suppressor is covered in my new sniper book).  Post-war he came to America.

Faye Schulman's A Partisan's Memoirs.  A Polish Jew, she was the sole survivor of a pogom that wiped out most of her family.  Pre-war she learns photography from helping her brother-in-law.  She is initially spared the pogom because of her photography skills but soon a Pole is brought in for her to train.  She knows that once the Polish woman is trained, it's bullet time.  She flees to the woods and is only accepted by the Guerilla because another brother-in-law is a MD and they think she knows something about medicine.  She doesn't but is trained by a Soviet veternarian who serves as the brigade's MD.  He teaches her a lot and she spares no effort to make herself useful (so as to stay alive).  As a female and as a Jew, her life is tenuous and she volunteers a lot just to prove herself again and again.  In one raid on her home village, the Polish woman whom she trained left the camera, the chemicals and a leopard fur coat outside the house.  The Polish woman suspects she would be killed by the guerillas and did it for her own safety.  

Now equipped with a camera, her services are also in demand as a photographer.  When the Soviets liberate the area, she is given a medal and continues her work as a photographer.  They ask her to join the Komsomol (Communist Youth Organization) and she declines, stating in one year she'll be eligble to join the party (which she hates).  She marries and with her husband return to Poland and ultimately immigrates to the U.S.

Notes of a Sniper by Vassili Zaitsev.
Definitely has plenty of the obligatory heroic Soviet archetypes and "for the Motherland" prose, but underneath the Soviet propagandizing is a good story about one of the most celebrated snipers in history.

Here is something different.  A strongly Soviet perspective (read that as propaganda) film on defeating Germany. It's four parts and came out in 1970, making it the Soviet equivalent of the West's World At War series.  The first episode runs 51 min 11 seconds.  

https://archive.org/details/SCV1_1

Part 2: 24 min:

https://archive.org/details/SCV1_2

Part 3:  31:30 min:

https://archive.org/details/SCV1_3

Part IV:  20 min.

https://archive.org/details/SCV1_4
https://archive.org/details/SCV1_4