Antony Beevor
Author of Stalingrad
About the Author
British historian Antony Beevor was born on December 14, 1946. He was educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst and studied under the well-known World War Two historian, John Keegan. Beevor was an officer with the 11th Hussars for five years before becoming a writer. His works have received show more awards including the Runciman Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History, and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. The French government made him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1997, and in 2008 the president of Estonia awarded him the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana. In 1999 Beevor was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the 2014 Pritzker Military Museum and Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. In 2015 he made The New Zealand Best Seller List with his title Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Antony Beevor
Associated Works
A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary (1954) — Introduction, some editions — 1,860 copies
A Writer at War. Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945 (2005) — Translator, some editions — 1,043 copies
What Ifs? of American History : Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (2003) — Contributor — 503 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Autumn 1998 (1998) — Author "Stalingrad" — 14 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Summer 2002 (2002) — Author "Assault on the Reichstag" — 5 copies
A German Life: A Play by Christopher Hampton – Drawn from the Life and Testimony of Brunhilde Pomsel [programme] (2019) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Beevor, Antony
- Birthdate
- 1946-12-14
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- UK
- Country (for map)
- UK
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- London, England, UK
- Education
- Winchester College
Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst - Occupations
- army officer
historian
professor
novelist - Relationships
- Cooper, Artemis (wife)
Beevor, Kinta (mother)
Norwich, John Julius (father-in-law)
Waterfield, Lina (grandmother)
Duff Gordon, Lucie (great-great-grandmother)
Austin, Sarah (great-great-great-grandmother) (show all 7)
Ross, Janet (great-great-aunt) - Organizations
- British Army (11 Hussars)
- Awards and honors
- Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Fellow, Royal Society of Literature - Short biography
- Antony Beevor was born in London, England, to a literary family. His mother Kinta Beevor was an author and the daughter, granddaughter, great-niece, and great-granddaughter of memoirists, journalists, and translators. His father Jack Beevor was a successful lawyer. Antony was educated at Winchester College and the British Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, where he studied under John Keegan. After an early career in the army, he became a full-time writer. He has published four novels, beginning with Violent Brink (1975) and more than 10 nonfiction works, many of them focused on World War II. They include Stalingrad (1998), which won the first Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History, and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature; Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (1991), which won a Runciman Prize; and Paris After the Liberation, 1944-1949 (1994), written with his wife Artemis Cooper. His book Berlin: The Downfall 1945, (2002), a bestseller, received the first Longman-History Today Trustees’ Award.and was accompanied by a BBC program on his research into the subject. With his Russian research assistant, Lyubov Vinogradova, he edited the wartime papers of Vasily Grossman, published as A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941-1945.
Members
Reviews
D-Day: 75th Anniversary Edition by Antony Beevor
Excellent anecdotes and comprehensive history from growth English and German side with American information quite succinct.
Another masterly tone by Sir Antony Beevor. D-Day covers the battle for Normandy and onwards to the Liberation of Paris, and while at times the sheer amount of information Beevor provides on battle formations and tank movements can overwhelm you, what sets Beevor apart from other military historians is his ability to find the personal moments of combatants amongst the carnage of large scale war.
This is my sixth Beevor book, and I am impatient to move towards Berlin, like General Patton, with great haste.… (more)
This is my sixth Beevor book, and I am impatient to move towards Berlin, like General Patton, with great haste.… (more)
Very good book about a very bloody chapter of WW2. Starting from the initial German attack on Russia, initial successes and breakthroughs to finally settling on German 6th Army and attack on Stalingrad we follow deterioration of German military might and ever growing Soviet pressure that would start the major push westwards [that will end in Berlin itself].
Author shows the destruction Germans left in their wake, collusion between army and SS troops tasked with extermination of Slavs and creating the space for future German settlers and duplicity of German generals in these matters (Paulus and Manstein especially). All of this caused a very stubborn resistance (even suicidal in some areas) from Soviet Red Army and partisans troops. Not because they were fighting Germans as Germans but because they were fighting for the very survival. After initial heavy defeats it was clear what Germans had in mind for the entire country. Soviets weren't fighting for Stalinism as such, but organized around Stalin because he was the only rally point available. And it is not that Germans gave much other choice than to fight by tooth and nail.
Where author meanders and then stutters is unavoidable romantic depiction of German armies. This approach to history is a blot on historical cover of WW2 especially from western (and western influenced) countries. Germans by the end of the book are treated as defenders of Stalingrad (!) I mean what? And then there is cliche depiction of Soviets and Russians as ordinary peasants, always drinking, and always lacking something, led by merciless officers, sacrificing huge number of people to stop the Germans.
On the other side only Romanians are depicted as savages [even for their own troops], echo of very brutal feudal times. All other German allies that participated in this conflict - Hungarians, Austrians, contingents from area of Yugoslavia, even Slovaks (this surprised me a lot) - are always poetic souls (same as Germans) to the level it had me vomiting every so often.
What I find interesting is that in majority of books I read this idea that great Soviet casualties were not necessary. I am truly trying to figure out how they came to this conclusion - what was the other option? Surrender and vanish? Because when one fights for mere survival is it strange that drastic measures are used? They are bloody, but they worked - once front stabilized and industry was in full war footing, German armies were running back and at the end Germany was ruined. After Germans tried so much to touch, alter and end life of everyone in Soviet Union is it strange that Soviets decided to return the favor? Events that took place during German advancement were so final, literal point of no return, that to expect anything else but bloody revenge was wishful thinking (and Germans were aware of this).
Should we feel sorry for German army of WW2? No. They were treated in the same way they treated nations they conquered and brutalized during the 6 year period. They got what they deserved and it is truly sad that their ideals (and dehumanizing of the East) are again used and glorified in our times, 80 years later, not just by general propaganda but by the very German nation (that German sociologist/historian explaining on TV how Russians do not have same set of values as rest of Europe because they are Asian "mix" - bliiiimeeeeey! Disgusting).
Despite these shortcomings (which are to be honest shortcomings of majority of popular books in the western historical circles related to Eastern front (unfortunately more critical and objective books exist from 1960s but were never as popular as pro-German line)) book contains a lot of details on ordinary soldier's view of war and utter devastation of Stalingrad through available mail correspondence and diaries found on dead bodies after the major battles. This gives this very brutal theater of military operations a touch of humanity and shows how devastating war truly is (again something that was forgotten after these 80 years).
Recommended.… (more)
Author shows the destruction Germans left in their wake, collusion between army and SS troops tasked with extermination of Slavs and creating the space for future German settlers and duplicity of German generals in these matters (Paulus and Manstein especially). All of this caused a very stubborn resistance (even suicidal in some areas) from Soviet Red Army and partisans troops. Not because they were fighting Germans as Germans but because they were fighting for the very survival. After initial heavy defeats it was clear what Germans had in mind for the entire country. Soviets weren't fighting for Stalinism as such, but organized around Stalin because he was the only rally point available. And it is not that Germans gave much other choice than to fight by tooth and nail.
Where author meanders and then stutters is unavoidable romantic depiction of German armies. This approach to history is a blot on historical cover of WW2 especially from western (and western influenced) countries. Germans by the end of the book are treated as defenders of Stalingrad (!) I mean what? And then there is cliche depiction of Soviets and Russians as ordinary peasants, always drinking, and always lacking something, led by merciless officers, sacrificing huge number of people to stop the Germans.
On the other side only Romanians are depicted as savages [even for their own troops], echo of very brutal feudal times. All other German allies that participated in this conflict - Hungarians, Austrians, contingents from area of Yugoslavia, even Slovaks (this surprised me a lot) - are always poetic souls (same as Germans) to the level it had me vomiting every so often.
What I find interesting is that in majority of books I read this idea that great Soviet casualties were not necessary. I am truly trying to figure out how they came to this conclusion - what was the other option? Surrender and vanish? Because when one fights for mere survival is it strange that drastic measures are used? They are bloody, but they worked - once front stabilized and industry was in full war footing, German armies were running back and at the end Germany was ruined. After Germans tried so much to touch, alter and end life of everyone in Soviet Union is it strange that Soviets decided to return the favor? Events that took place during German advancement were so final, literal point of no return, that to expect anything else but bloody revenge was wishful thinking (and Germans were aware of this).
Should we feel sorry for German army of WW2? No. They were treated in the same way they treated nations they conquered and brutalized during the 6 year period. They got what they deserved and it is truly sad that their ideals (and dehumanizing of the East) are again used and glorified in our times, 80 years later, not just by general propaganda but by the very German nation (that German sociologist/historian explaining on TV how Russians do not have same set of values as rest of Europe because they are Asian "mix" - bliiiimeeeeey! Disgusting).
Despite these shortcomings (which are to be honest shortcomings of majority of popular books in the western historical circles related to Eastern front (unfortunately more critical and objective books exist from 1960s but were never as popular as pro-German line)) book contains a lot of details on ordinary soldier's view of war and utter devastation of Stalingrad through available mail correspondence and diaries found on dead bodies after the major battles. This gives this very brutal theater of military operations a touch of humanity and shows how devastating war truly is (again something that was forgotten after these 80 years).
Recommended.… (more)
1 
Zare | 61 other reviews | Jan 23, 2024 |
Zare | 61 other reviews | Jan 23, 2024 | Lists
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