SACRIFICE ON THE STEPPE: The Italian Alpine Corps in the Stalingrad Campaign, 1942-1943

1-195320

Draws on many interviews with survivors, as well as massive research, in order to provide this first full English-language account of one of World War II's legendary stands against great odds. About 60,000 of the 227,000 Italian troops in Russia were alpini, elite Italian mountain troops. When the Don front collapsed under Soviet hammerblows, it was the Alpine Corps that continued to hold out until it was completely isolated, and which then tried to fight its way out through both Russian encirclement and 'General Winter,' to rejoin the rest of the Axis front. Only one of the three alpine divisions was able to emerge from the Russian encirclement with survivors. By the summer of 1946, 10,000 survivors returned to Italy from Russian POW camps.