Christmas at Stalingrad

Come six o’clock I’ll officially be on holiday, and no doubt stuck in Auckland’s lovely traffic. But what does one do when they have the prospect of 11 days with no work?

For me, I have very modest ambitions.

For one, I want to paint and properly base at least my 1st Grenadier Platoon.

Secondly I’ll finish off Pegasus Bridge (which is making me lean towards contemplating a British Para/Air Landing company as my next big FOW purchase) and read Christmas at Stalingrad.

Antony Beevor's Stalingrad, published by Penguin in 1998, was a worldwide bestseller, telling one of the most harrowing stories of the Second World War and reminding everybody of the power of narrative history in the hands of an expert storyteller. In Christmas at Stalingrad, Beevor takes us back to December 1942 when the German 6th Army was surrounded by the Russians and facing annihilation. Only thoughts of Christmas kept German soldiers' hopes alive.

Of course, reading a 57 page excerpt shouldn’t be too taxing…