Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won The War

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A gripping and authoritative account of the year that sealed the fate of the Nazis, from the bestselling historian June 1944. Operation Bagration- the greatest defeat ever suffered by the German Armed Forces. More than two million Red Army soldiers, facing 500,000 German adversaries, finally avenged their defeat in Operation Barbarossa three years earlier. In the ensuing three weeks, Hitler's Army Group Centre lost 28 of its 32 divisions. While the same month saw the Allies triumph on the beaches of Normandy, it was in fact the events on the Eastern Front in 1944 that were the knockout blow in the Second World War. Despite the myths that remain today, it was this brutal struggle from the Baltic to the Black Sea that saw the Wehrmacht crucially defeated. Drawing on previously untranslated German and Russian sources - many from 'ordinary' soldiers - bestselling historian Jonathan Dimbleby describes and analyses with authority and panache this momentous year in the East. He illuminates the bloody battles that raged along the 2000 kilometres-long front, while also explaining the unusual roles played by deception, the partisans, and the war within a war in Ukraine. Dimbleby's gripping, masterly narrative sets the drama of the relationships between the "big three" of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin against the history being created on the battlefield, and shows how his victories in 1944 enabled the Soviet leader to dictate the terms of the post-war settlement and lay the foundations for the Cold War.

Reviews

Titanic . . . This book is his best yet . . . For all their popularity, many books about the world wars are immensely boring and inelegantly written. Dimblebys work is in a different league, told with such skill and judgment that, despite the harrowing subject, it is still a pleasure to read. As in all good narrative histories, it is the human details that linger in the mind. -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *
Jonathan Dimblebys best book yet * Observer *
Pacily written . . . The detail is terrific, and the extracts from diaries, letters and so on make an indelible impression. The description of the last months of the war in Budapest is a tour de force. -- Sir Richard Evans, author of The Third Reich in History and Memory
Dimbleby has unearthed some powerful voices to producing an engaging mix of the familiar and the new. Fascinating stuff. -- Roger Moorhouse, author of The Forgers
Magnificent . . . draws on so much good material. -- Dr David Stahel
Extraordinary . . . Dimbleby paints a unique picture of the vast, unremitting living hell that was the Eastern Front in the final full year of the war. * Frederick Taylor, author of Dresden: Tuesday, 13 February, 1945 *
One of the strengths of this book is the line it draws between the awful then of 1944 and the grim events of today . . . Endgame 1944 is thus as much a primer for the present as it is sound history -- Patrick Bishop * Telegraph *
Endgame 1944 paints a vivid picture of the fighting at both the bayonet end and at high command, but rightly probes the complex relationship between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, powered by different and incompatible visions of the purpose of victory -- Allan Mallinson * Country Life *
Mr. Dimbleby is a sure-footed guide to the labyrinthine military operations alonga front line that extended nearly 2,000 miles, from the Baltic to the Black Sea * Wall Street Journal *

Author Bio

Jonathan Dimbleby's previous books include the highly acclaimed Second World War histories The Battle of the Atlantic and Destiny in the Desert- The Road to El Alamein, which was shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman Prize and was followed by his BBC2 programme Churchill's Desert War. His other books include, Russia- A Journey to the Heart of a Land and Its People, Richard Dimbleby- A Biography, The Palestinians, The Prince of Wales- A Biography and The Last Governor- Chris Patten and the Handover of Hong Kong.