Moscow 1941 Audiobook By Rodric Braithwaite cover art

Moscow 1941

A City and Its People at War

 Preview

$0.00 for first 30 days

Try for $0.00
Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.

Moscow 1941

By: Rodric Braithwaite
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.91

Buy for $18.91

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel
The 1941 Battle of Moscow, unquestionably one of the most decisive battles of World War II, marked the first strategic defeat of the German armed forces in their seemingly unstoppable march across Europe. The Soviets lost many more people in this one battle than the British and Americans lost in the whole of the Second World War. Now, with authority and narrative power, Rodric Braithwaite tells the story in large part through the individual experiences of ordinary Russian men and women.

The narrative is set firmly against the background of Moscow and its people, beginning in early 1941, when the Soviet Union was still untouched by the war raging to the west. We hear how, despite a mass of secret intelligence, the breaching of the border by the Wehrmacht in June took the country by surprise, and how, when the Germans pushed to Moscow in November, the Red Army and the capital's inhabitants undertook to defend their city. Finally, in the winter of 1941-1942, they turned the Germans back on the city's very outskirts. Braithwaite's dramatic, richly illustrated narrative of the military action offers telling portraits of Stalin and his generals. By interweaving the personal remembrances of soldiers, politicians, writers, artists, workers, and schoolchildren, he gives us an unprecedented understanding of how the war affected the daily life of Moscow, and of the extraordinary bravery, endurance, and sacrifice, both voluntary and involuntary, that was required of its citizens.

This is a brilliantly researched and realized history, and an essential addition to the literature of World War II.

©2006 Rodric Braithwaite (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc. Europe Military Russia Wars & Conflicts World War II War Soviet Union Red Army Stalin Imperialism

Critic reviews

"Braithwaite delivers a tragically human Moscow of 1941." (Booklist)
"This is an absorbing contribution to what [Braithwaite] considers WWII's turning point." (Publishers Weekly)

Insightful Personal Accounts • Comprehensive Civilian Perspective • Excellent Narration • Detailed Non-military Aspects
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
This is an excellent telling of one of the most dramatic and heart breaking time in history. This book gives the story from several perspectives. Full of no-win situations that turn regular people into heroes or monsters.

Get this book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You do t have to be a history scholar or academic to be touched by this story.

Incredible. Wish I could give it 6 stars.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
a lot of detailed information about many individuals involved in the conflicts of the time. interesting to learn about the various viewpoints.

details

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This book is a very different look at the first 6 months of the German invasion of Russia, specifically that part of the invasion that was targeted at Moscow. It is different in several ways from all other books I have read concerning this part of World War II. First, it concentrates on the actions of individual citizens rather than on the military and the battles. Second, it is much more sympathetic toward the actions of the Soviet government than I have usually seen in other books. And Third, because its focus is different, it covers topics that have almost always been left out of other books. The book is largely the tale of the people involved and their actions, good, bad and indifferent, and why they fought for a regime that many of them felt was oppressive.

The book covers topics like the volunteer detachments that were formed, both for fighting and for defense construction, the Punishment and Blocking Battalions, covered in much more detail than I have previously seen, how the government handled the organization and call ups of civilians, how the rationing system worked, how individual working groups, like actors, writers and other intellectuals formed their own groups of volunteers, the October Panic in Moscow as the Germans approached and many other topics, and all of this was done by a concentration on the individual stories of civilians.

All in all I found this book interesting and very, very informative. There are some reviews that say that the book is "slow" and, if you are looking for details about the battles, this may not your book. But it is a fascinating look at how Russians reacted to the German invasion and how those reactions affected the war effort.

The narration is excellent. As for me, the only adverse comment I could make is that the names of the people involved, bring Russian, were hard for me to remember and so the epilogue at the end, where the fates of the people discussed in the book is covered, lost much of its impact as I could not remember which person did what earlier in the book.

Still I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Eastern European Theater of World War II.

A different view of the German invasion of Russia

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thoroughly enjoyed and repeated multiple sections. I view the 1941 invasion as a struggle between “bad” and “evil”. The evil of the Nazi regime, their goals, the very nature of their war, and the execution of their plans, yields no doubt whatsoever as to who had to be defeated. The moral dilemma imposed by the Stalin regime, the purges, the callous approach to humanity as a grist for communist progress, adds to the calamitous clash of two blood-thirsty regimes. The Russo-German conflict is not for the squeamish.

Each chapter is well-designed, excellently written, and wonderfully told. This is a book that survives multiple listens. It can be difficult, limited by the spoken word, to keep some of the minor characters fates clear, given the breadth of the storytelling, but this is minor! Simon Vance is his usual definition of excellence in the delivery.

I am very much looking forward to exploring more from Mr. Braithwaite!

Excellent! Sweeping and inspiring (or heart-rendering)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Just wish pronunciation of russian names would be better.
Native speaker from snowy chi town.

So far so good, but….

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellent social history of soviet experiences of the attack on Moscow. Very insightful account of personal and wide ranging Russian war experiences - from factory workers, to artists, to nurses, to musicians - afforded this a breath of insight that few other war histories have managed. The width of it really gives you a sense of how all Muscovites experienced the war, from the front lines, to the schools and factories.

The book is more a social, and not military history, so those a bit more militarily inclined will be disappointed. Nevertheless, the narration was faultless and I finished the book with profound feeling of gladness that I had found it.

Wonderful history of a pivotal period of world war 2

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A grabbing listen that is hard to "put down". Narration is superb.

As a native Russian speaker who grew up in Moscow, I appreciated usage of some of Russian terms...However, for a non-Russian speaker, I wonder whether the Russian lingo would make this a litter harder to enjoy. As a result, this is 5 stars for current/former Moscovites/Russians and 4 stars for non-Russian speakers.

Riveting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not a lot of military commentary, especially from a German perspective. More about everyday life prewar and during the battle.

Good read from a Russian citizen perspective...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I absolutely loved it! if only the volume was loser then it would be even closer to perfection.

A source of Russian pride

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews