TY  - BOOK
AU  - Gerlach, Heinrich,
AU  - Gansel, Carsten,
TI  - Breakthrough at Stalingrad
SN  - 1786690624
PY  - 2018///
CY  - [S.l.]
PB  - HEAD OF ZEUS
KW  - World War, 1939-1945
KW  - Fiction.
KW  - Soviet Union
KW  - War crimes
KW  - Fiction
KW  - Personal narratives, German
KW  - Prisoners of war
KW  - Germany
KW  - Stalingrad, Battle of, Volgograd, Russia, 1942-1943
KW  - Volgograd (Russia)
KW  - Autobiographical fiction
KW  - War stories
N2  - Captured by the Soviets after the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, Heinrich Gerlach wrote a novel based on his experiences. In 1949, however, the KGB confiscated his 600-page manuscript. Gerlach returned to Germany in 1950, and, under hypnosis, recalled parts of his narrative. In 1957, it was published under the title The Forsaken Army and became a bestseller. In 2011 Carsten Gansel, an academic, made a sensational find in a Moscow archive: the original manuscript of Gerlach's novel. Breakthrough at Stalingrad differs sharply in tone from the novel published in 1957. Here, a coruscating emphasis on German war crimes and the author's feelings of guilt form a descant to his narrative of the battle and reflections on the pointlessness of war. Breakthrough at Stalingrad includes an appendix by Carsten Gansel, telling the story behind both the 1957 edition of the novel and discovery of its original version. After 70 years, a classic of 20th-century war literature can be enjoyed in its original version.


ER  -