Russia's Heroes, 1941-45 - Albert Axell

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