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Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won the War
A gripping account of the Soviet victories of 1944
The year 1944 was the turning point of World War Two, and nowhere was this more evident than on the Eastern Front. For three years, following the onslaught of the German Army during Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Red Army had retreated and then eventually held, fighting to a stalemate while the Germans occupied and ravaged large parts of the Soviet Union and its republics. Finally, following the breaking of the German siege of Leningrad in January 1944, Stalin and his generals were able to consider striking back. In June, they launched Operation Bagration , during which more than two million Red Army soldiers began an offensive, pushing west. The results were almost immediate and devastating. Within three weeks, Army Group Centre, the core of the German Army, had lost 28 of its 32 divisions. The ending had begun.
Drawing on new sources-some previously untranslated-including accounts from ordinary soldiers and witnesses, Jonathan Dimbleby chronicles this decisive year in what was arguably the most crucial front in the war against Nazi Germany, a front extending 1200 miles. He covers the military, political, and diplomatic aspects in his trademark accessible and evocative style, illuminating the major conflicts as well as the roles played by deception, Partisan fighting, and the war within a war in Ukraine.
Endgame 1944 reveals how the Soviet victories enabled Stalin to dictate the terms of the post-war settlement, laying the foundations for the Cold War.
The year 1944 was the turning point of World War Two, and nowhere was this more evident than on the Eastern Front. For three years, following the onslaught of the German Army during Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Red Army had retreated and then eventually held, fighting to a stalemate while the Germans occupied and ravaged large parts of the Soviet Union and its republics. Finally, following the breaking of the German siege of Leningrad in January 1944, Stalin and his generals were able to consider striking back. In June, they launched Operation Bagration , during which more than two million Red Army soldiers began an offensive, pushing west. The results were almost immediate and devastating. Within three weeks, Army Group Centre, the core of the German Army, had lost 28 of its 32 divisions. The ending had begun.
Drawing on new sources-some previously untranslated-including accounts from ordinary soldiers and witnesses, Jonathan Dimbleby chronicles this decisive year in what was arguably the most crucial front in the war against Nazi Germany, a front extending 1200 miles. He covers the military, political, and diplomatic aspects in his trademark accessible and evocative style, illuminating the major conflicts as well as the roles played by deception, Partisan fighting, and the war within a war in Ukraine.
Endgame 1944 reveals how the Soviet victories enabled Stalin to dictate the terms of the post-war settlement, laying the foundations for the Cold War.
640 pages, Hardcover
First published June 3, 2024
About the author
Jonathan Dimbleby
18 books63 followersJonathan Dimbleby is a writer and filmmaker based in England. His five-part series on Russia was broadcast by BBC2 and accompanied by his book Russia: A Journal to the Heart of a Land and its People. Destiny in the Desert was recently nominated for the Hessell-Tiltman History Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 12, 2024
An excellent book that follows on from the author's equally impressive "Barbarossa". Having slightly doubted Mr Dimbleby as a military historian before reading "Destiny in the Desert", I have become a firm fan, this being the fourth of his WW2 books I have read. Highly recommended.
June 15, 2024
Even although I've read about much of the content within this book before, "Behind Closed Doors" and "Hitler & Stalin" both by Laurence Rees, "Berlin: The Downfall" and
”Stalingrad" both by Antony Beevor, with both these events sandwiching and overlapping the events in this book, and biographies of both Stalin and Zhukov, it was certainly the first to lay the case for the Red Army push of 1944, "Operation Bagration", to be the most decisive engagement of WWII and with hindsight, it probably is the correct call.
Obviously that's not to underestimate or malign in any way the importance of the D-Day landings in Normandy of the same year, and the extremely hard fought push through Western Europe by the Allied forces. Stalin’s years of agitation for a Western Front to be opened up, is self evident of this, but as I've always believed and maintained, WWII was won for the most part from the East by the Red Army and it is most satisfying to finally see a Western historian finally recognizing that fact in what should have made this an extremely important body of work.
But unfortunately the author goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid like Ukraine! (apologies for the lyrical parody, but I couldn’t help myself!)
I literally gasped with disbelief and exasperation, when in the Afterword the author, Mr Dimbleby totally undid all of his previous good work in this book by droning on about modern day Ukraine.
After previously spending several chapters telling us the facts about Ukrainian ultra nationalists and the horrors they inflicted on Jews and ethnic Poles among others, when they collaborated with the Nazis during WWII (see the movie "Hatred" directed by Wojciech Smarzowski for a better, if extremely harrowing perspective*). The author then proceeds to egregiously discount any truth to the fact, that when these Ukrainian Nazis overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government in 2014, Russia, understandably in my book, just couldn't have it, and so, for the author to seemingly turn this book into a piece of Ukrainian Nazi propaganda, after just telling us of their historical atrocities, was mind boggling hypocrisy to say the least!
It was bad enough during the week at the D-Day commemorations, having to listen to Joe Biden harp on about Russia "illegally invading democracies", jeezo, that's been the cornerstone of US foreign policy since they dropped the bombs on Japan! Then we had King Charles III spuriously espousing the fallacious involvement of the Royal Family in the fight against Nazism, eh? The Royal Family were all, if not outright Nazis, at least and very much sympathizers, with photographic evidence of among others, the Queen Mother and the future Queen throwing Nazi salutes! Then worst of all, we had slimeball and ubercreep, Volodymyr Zelenskyy fawning all over the last of the rapidly diminishing D-Day veterans while he presides over whole battalions of neo-Nazi paramilitaries! You really couldn’t make this sh*t up! So the last thing I expected or wanted was another dose of nauseating, establishment propaganda at the end of my historical escapism. Especially as the author had been hitting the thoroughly researched nails so squarely on the center of the extremely detailed heads!
It has also been a rarity to read, as opposed to other accounts of events in WWII, that it was the timing of the Warsaw uprising that was to blame for the annihilation of the Polish home army (AK), and not a deliberate and nefarious move by Stalin. Although it was advantageous and somewhat expedient for Stalin, that the AK were all but wiped out, as they answered to the exiled Polish government in London and not Stalin's puppets, the Lublin Poles, it was however, irrelevant, as a full frontal assault on Warsaw by the Red Army, at that moment, just wasn't practical, in logistics, terrain or manpower. They eventually did what they could, when they could, but for the AK, it was too little too late. The AK's premature and ill judged assault on their oppressors proved highly expensive, as it led to the wholesale torture and slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians.
You also have to remember that the Red Army commander of the nearest units, Rokossovsky, was himself a Pole, so hardly likely to deliberately sit back and watch such a slaughter, if it could've been avoided.
I'll finish up on a lighter note, there was also a story of a Russian tank brigade that turned up for battle with it's own brass band in tow, which made me smile as it reminded me of the scene in the Clint Eastwood movie, "Kelly's Heros", where Donald Sutherland's character, "Oddball" turns up with a whole army of musicians trailing after his tank, and when asked, "Who the hell are they?" he replies,
"That's the band!"
*Trailer for the movie ”Hatred”
https://youtu.be/B-nwg693WCE?si=ZgUK7...
”Stalingrad" both by Antony Beevor, with both these events sandwiching and overlapping the events in this book, and biographies of both Stalin and Zhukov, it was certainly the first to lay the case for the Red Army push of 1944, "Operation Bagration", to be the most decisive engagement of WWII and with hindsight, it probably is the correct call.
Obviously that's not to underestimate or malign in any way the importance of the D-Day landings in Normandy of the same year, and the extremely hard fought push through Western Europe by the Allied forces. Stalin’s years of agitation for a Western Front to be opened up, is self evident of this, but as I've always believed and maintained, WWII was won for the most part from the East by the Red Army and it is most satisfying to finally see a Western historian finally recognizing that fact in what should have made this an extremely important body of work.
But unfortunately the author goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid like Ukraine! (apologies for the lyrical parody, but I couldn’t help myself!)
I literally gasped with disbelief and exasperation, when in the Afterword the author, Mr Dimbleby totally undid all of his previous good work in this book by droning on about modern day Ukraine.
After previously spending several chapters telling us the facts about Ukrainian ultra nationalists and the horrors they inflicted on Jews and ethnic Poles among others, when they collaborated with the Nazis during WWII (see the movie "Hatred" directed by Wojciech Smarzowski for a better, if extremely harrowing perspective*). The author then proceeds to egregiously discount any truth to the fact, that when these Ukrainian Nazis overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government in 2014, Russia, understandably in my book, just couldn't have it, and so, for the author to seemingly turn this book into a piece of Ukrainian Nazi propaganda, after just telling us of their historical atrocities, was mind boggling hypocrisy to say the least!
It was bad enough during the week at the D-Day commemorations, having to listen to Joe Biden harp on about Russia "illegally invading democracies", jeezo, that's been the cornerstone of US foreign policy since they dropped the bombs on Japan! Then we had King Charles III spuriously espousing the fallacious involvement of the Royal Family in the fight against Nazism, eh? The Royal Family were all, if not outright Nazis, at least and very much sympathizers, with photographic evidence of among others, the Queen Mother and the future Queen throwing Nazi salutes! Then worst of all, we had slimeball and ubercreep, Volodymyr Zelenskyy fawning all over the last of the rapidly diminishing D-Day veterans while he presides over whole battalions of neo-Nazi paramilitaries! You really couldn’t make this sh*t up! So the last thing I expected or wanted was another dose of nauseating, establishment propaganda at the end of my historical escapism. Especially as the author had been hitting the thoroughly researched nails so squarely on the center of the extremely detailed heads!
It has also been a rarity to read, as opposed to other accounts of events in WWII, that it was the timing of the Warsaw uprising that was to blame for the annihilation of the Polish home army (AK), and not a deliberate and nefarious move by Stalin. Although it was advantageous and somewhat expedient for Stalin, that the AK were all but wiped out, as they answered to the exiled Polish government in London and not Stalin's puppets, the Lublin Poles, it was however, irrelevant, as a full frontal assault on Warsaw by the Red Army, at that moment, just wasn't practical, in logistics, terrain or manpower. They eventually did what they could, when they could, but for the AK, it was too little too late. The AK's premature and ill judged assault on their oppressors proved highly expensive, as it led to the wholesale torture and slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians.
You also have to remember that the Red Army commander of the nearest units, Rokossovsky, was himself a Pole, so hardly likely to deliberately sit back and watch such a slaughter, if it could've been avoided.
I'll finish up on a lighter note, there was also a story of a Russian tank brigade that turned up for battle with it's own brass band in tow, which made me smile as it reminded me of the scene in the Clint Eastwood movie, "Kelly's Heros", where Donald Sutherland's character, "Oddball" turns up with a whole army of musicians trailing after his tank, and when asked, "Who the hell are they?" he replies,
"That's the band!"
*Trailer for the movie ”Hatred”
https://youtu.be/B-nwg693WCE?si=ZgUK7...
June 22, 2024
I found parts very enlightening. Especially the bits about how the big three i.e.Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill were in reality the big two plus one. Churchill struggled to cope with Britain's diminished status. Churchill was not able to win an argument unless Roosevelt or Stalin agreed with him or neither could be bothered "it was not a role he relished".
June 24, 2024
It's amazing what you can achieve if you sit on your backside all day enjoying the sun. Really well researched enjoyable book on the eastern front of Word War II whilst Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin played god.
July 24, 2024
Another fantastic book my Dimbleby.
The book covers the last year of the war in exciting detail. From gaint offensives and politics in Washington. Everything you need to know about the dying months of then war is in this book.
The book covers the last year of the war in exciting detail. From gaint offensives and politics in Washington. Everything you need to know about the dying months of then war is in this book.
July 17, 2024
Detailed but engrossing
July 18, 2024
Briiliant, gripping ,witha lot of new sources, more than highly recommended. Bravo!!!
July 20, 2024
A fascinating - if at times necessarily gruesome - account of the lesser known and lesser taught (at least in the UK) endeavours of the Russian military during the second world war.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews