Doctor at Stalingrad

Rating:
Summary: A Ghastly Reality
Review: This book is a great read and an account that portrays what it was like to fall into Russian captivity after the German surrender at Stalingrad. Be warned, this book is not for the faint hearted as the author descibes the appalling and ghastly conditions experienced as he remained in Stalingrad with the worst cases of the sick and wounded. The author creates a picture of the 'living dead' as the remnants of the Sixth Army waste away with starvation and diease as he and his fellow doctors work unrelentlessly to keep them alive. This is no easy task considering the doctors are suffering under the same conditions as that of the other German prisoners, conditions of a cruel Russian winter, no adequate warm clothing and shelter and near to nothing in way of food and medical supplies. Incredibly the author bears no grudges againsnt the Russians and at times shows them with a compassion and in a more favourable light than some of the German prisoners.

Although this a book of much suffering, death and dispair, it is also a book of survival and shows the grim results of war and how man can endure such terrible conditions. Conditions of living in darkness in the Timoshenko bunker with condensation dripping off the walls, thousands of lice and rampant diseases of typhus, dysentery, scurvy to name a few and of course starvation. These conditions destroyed the soul and will to live of many. Those that survived had the ultimate courage and faith in mankind but would be tormented mentally or physically for the rest of their lives for what they experienced.

A special thankyou should go to the publishers Aberdeen Books for reprinting this rare and tragic account of life after the battle of Stalingrad. This is an essential read.