Stalingrad Battle of the Century

By: Vasily Chuikov

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Vasiliy Chuikov offers a detailed history of the Battle of Stalingrad. He was there. Chuikov's account of the battle was first published in 1962. That book was translated into English and published as The Battle for Stalingrad in 1965. This book, Stalingrad: Battle of the Century, is a translation of Chuikov's 1975 edition, a very different work. I have now re-edited my translation and eliminated some mistakes. No translation is ever perfect.

There is no doubt that Stalingrad was a turning point in World War II. It was, perhaps, a turning point in human history. Adolf Hitler's psychopathic obsession with conquering the stronghold on the Volga made this an event of more than military significance. Chuikov himself wrote that Stalingrad was 'an objective at which all strategic, tactical, political and aspirational goals coalesced.' Indeed. It was the beginning of the end for the Third Reich. It bolstered the stumbling Soviet Union. We live with the consequences of both. The propaganda you will find in this book is quaint and amusing. You can ignore it. Do not ignore the analysis of a preeminent battlefield commander. Chuikov, perhaps, said more than he intended. This book speaks to the nature of war in great detail. It also has something to say about the human condition.

AI narrators suck

I was pretty happy to find Chuikov's memoirs in audio format and leery of robot narration. For good reason, as it turns out. the robot voice is a woman who sounds like she's a barfly or a whiny little soccer mom I can't make up my mind which, but she has this raspy tone going on and its voice squeaks at weird moments to simulate (I can only guess) lighting another cigarette or spluttering after a double shot of vodka), completely out of sorts with the military history it/she is reading. It makes a bit of a mockery of the memoir and that's a damn shame to disrespect a Soviet general who commanded at the most crucial battle of the Eastern Front, to denigrate his experiences, like this. Who the F*** made the decision to have a woman robot voice for this book? Was anyone human in charge on this project at all or was this crap done by email and office memo?

It reflects poorly on Audible as well as the publisher that such a 'creative' choice was made here. This is not an urban fantasy novel; this isn't a tongue in cheek time travel romance novel. This is drop dead serious World War 2 nonfiction and the narrator needs to serve the tone, the topic and the import of the material.

If you can get past the voice, the memoir has some good historical relevance to the battle of Stalingrad and there are many positive takeaways you can glean from a close listening/reading of this story but it's gonna take monumental tolerance and patience to get those moments out of this story because of the Robot Voice.

Good luck to you, should you brave these waters.