War of the Rats (WWII, #1) (2024)

Two snipers, one german and the other russian - square off against one another during the battle of Stalingrad. The german sixth army is decimated.

Gripping!

I read this when it first came out in 2000. It was an excellent read then and has lost nothing. Many of us have read the historical accounts of the massive Soviet counter-offensive on November 19,1942 and the encirclement of the 6th Army.

Mr. Robbins doe an excellent job in describing not only the supposed duel between Zaitsez and Thorvald (which is still being debated by historians) but his ability to paint the picture of a city ravaged by the opposing forces is phenomenal. He puts you in the heart of the dieing city. Can you imagine the closets metropolitan town in your vicinity being decimated to hulks of sagging I-beams, burning timbers and crumbled concrete structures. Yes, it is worse than the current destruction we witnessed in Joplin, Mi and Tuscaloosa,Ala (all weather related).

This book, like the movie Stalingrad traverses every human emotion imaginable. The fortitude of the Russians to fight for the Rodina, not for political ideology but for themselves and the thousands of Russians caught in the grips of the Nazi war machine. He also paints a vivid description of the invaders. The arrogance has been left far behind. Stalingrad is a war unto itself. The once proud Wehrmacht is faced in a titanic struggle for what? Will the battle bring them victory or will is be just another conquered city along with thousands of others? Will the war end or will it continue to drag on taking with it tens of thousands other lives?

Only one way to find out. Get a copy and start the journey to victory or utter defeat.

I remember watching Enemy at the Gates when I was knee high to a grasshopper and loving it. It was gritty, it was dirty, and it had Ed Harris and Bob Hotchkins. In the movie the romance works, it flows. In the book... it does not. In fact it's so misplaced that it distracts the reader. I get it, this is humanity in a time of turmoil, however... the personalities conflict. I can't grasp the romantic relationship of these two. One is an American with ties to Russia through heritage who loves communism but she's arrogant and impulsive to a very dangerous degree. The other is Russian, not impulsive, patient, calculating, and a cautious sniper. I just couldn't see it call me a pessimist.

Now that I've pissed on the romantic dynamic let me tell you how awesome this book is. If you've ever watched Sin City there's the scene where Marv is talking to his councilor and explaining his actions and he says 'this is blood for blood and by the gallons'. That pretty much sums up the awesomeness of this book. It's bloody, it's suspenseful and its just kick ass from beginning to end. This is some fine story telling and reminded me of the mountains growing up. If you have ever been on a camping trip, hunted, whatever this book takes you back which is really strange and I haven't been able to tap into the reason why. Read this damn book its awesome and maybe you can explain to me why it feels that way.

Easy 4 Star story of the Russian supersniper, Zaitzev vs the German supersniper, Thorvald. Fictitious in parts but Robbins has done his homework with a bibliography that includes Beevor, Craig, Glantz, Keegan, etc. You'll recognize scenes from the movie about the sniper duel, Enemy at the Gates but there are enough differences to keep you involved. Plenty of realistic and technically accurate battle scenes. Recommended!

Among my favorite "war stories" and a book to read again.

After listening to an audio version, I also enjoyed reading the print version of the Stalingrad sniper duel. The book ending interview on tape of one of the primary characters was a pleasant surprise and encouraged the print read.

The below review copied from Publishers Weekly :

"Set in the rubble of Stalingrad during WWII, Robbins's second novel hinges on a dramatic mano a mano confrontation between a Russian sniper and his German counterpart during a pivotal stretch of the historic 1942 siege. Vasily Zaitsev is ""The Hare,"" a hunter from the Ural Mountains with deadly skills as a chief master sergeant in the Red Army. His proficiency as a marksman attracts considerable attention from both sides, starting when his Russian bosses put him in charge of a ""sniper school"" to supplement the front-line soldiers. Zaitsev and his students have so much success against the Nazis that the Germans deploy a master sniper of their own, SS Colonel Heinz Thorvald (aka ""The Headmaster""), to assassinate Zaitsev and turn the tide in the battle for Stalingrad. The beleaguered city itself becomes a character in the struggle as Zaitsev and Thorvald attempt to outmaneuver one another. Stalingrad also harbors a pair of lovers, as Zaitsev conducts a passionate affair with fellow sniper Tania Chernova, the headstrong daughter of New York-dwelling Russian immigrants. Tania joins the fight for Russia after she travels to Minsk in hopes of rescuing her grandparents, only to watch them die at the hands of the Germans." Robbins does a brilliant job of dissecting the unique mindset and steely emotions that snipers must possess and painting the battle scenes, but none of the primary characters escapes war novel clich s. The final confrontation takes a while to play out, but once Robbins (Souls to Keep) gets to the heart of the matter, he presents a riveting account of a battle within a battle, and the sniper motif proves an ideal vehicle to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. Agent, Marcy Posner.

Finally I have read a novel by my former creative writing professor! I can stop feeling guilty now.

Wasn't sure if I would enjoy it because it is a war novel, but it is actually a love story masquerading as a war novel - kind of. Also it was about tactics, survival, humanity, good and evil, and some very good characters.

Yet at the same time, by the end, I found myself a little perplexed regarding what it was about - it both began long before and ended after the supposed central conflict of the novel, a sniper's duel. This off-center presentation was very appropriate, since war shouldn't be reduced to a simple high concept narrative, but it was rather noticeable by the end.

Most of the problem is that two characters are given highly unsatisfactory endings, which was not the author's intent - the editor decided to take out the last four chapters for mysterious editorial reasons; they are available on the author's website. When I get around to reading them I suspect I'll feel more satisfied.

Also, I felt like Zaitsev, one of the main characters, didn't become really complex until about halfway through - would've been nice to get to know him earlier.

Generally a beautifully written, high tension, character-driven story by one of the nicest, smartest people I know!

Basically the plot of Enemy at the Gates and just as historically inaccurate as the film, but more entertaining on account of it having more characters and more balance to make it a good choice for a day you don't feel like asking much of your fiction.

I've been trying to branch out in my reading lately, and every time I do, I get reminded why I don't.

The reason I like science fiction and fantasy is that it tends to obey Eleanor Roosevelt's dictum - "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." - and chooses to discuss ideas above all else. 'War of the Rats' ought to at least succeed at the level of discussing an important event and fascinating people, but it doesn't even manage to do that well.

Indeed 'War of the Rats' was surprisingly bad at pretty much every level. As military fiction, I learned nothing about the character or nature of war. None of the things that this novel is praised for felt in evidence anywhere in the text. As historical fiction, I didn't come away feeling like I had some understanding of the Siege of Stalingrad or gained any insight into the real figures that fought there. As fiction, the characters felt flat, almost stereotypes, suitable for a comic book perhaps but nothing else. The female characters were unsurprisingly the worst, and Tania's depiction was annoying at best and misogynist at worst (and I say that as a staunch anti-feminist). As a thriller, the drama never felt intense or exciting, and the finale was an anti-climatic affair which failed to stand up to even its internal logic. The 'villain' character went full Cobra Commander in the end, doing stupid things that made no sense at all even from the character's own reasoning as presented to the reader and which were completely at odds with the superhuman Über sniper presented earlier in the text or even with the character's own description of his plan of action. For example, if Thorvald knew that Zaitsev was accurate to 450 yards, and he was he bragged accurate out to 1000 yards, why did he choose to engage Zaitsev from a static position at a distance of just 250 yards which he scorned as amateur earlier in the book and at which he also knew he'd have no advantage over his enemy? Why did he choose to shoot the fake position first, when he'd already determined where Zaitsev really was? Shouldn't you shoot the real position first, then shoot the fake second to be sure rather than the other way around? Why, having realized he'd been given away, did he not simply duck down and retreat to a better position - preferably one 1km back as he'd set out to do in the first place?

The whole thing was just a mess that felt a waste of my time. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, but between Japanese Destroyer Captain, Victory into Defeat, The Goblin Emperor, and A Face Like Glass I'd been on a real roll lately and this just felt wholly unworthy. I keep trying to branch out from what I know, but every time I do I just feel burned. Either the writer can't write. Or the writer can't tell a story. Or the writer simply has nothing interesting to say. If only two of the three were true, I still might still be able to recommend the work, but in this case I can only say that Robbins offers up a readable work that fails for me to be even good potato chip fiction.

A great read, certainly better than the movie inspired by it (Enemy at the Gates) with a lot more detail on Tania and some of the other characters who don't do much in the movie. The book (and the movie as well) certainly do a good job highlighting just how incredibly driven (often by their own side's bullets) the Russians were to defend Stalingrad, and how hellish and strategically blockheaded urban warfare is, a lesson militaries never seem to learn.

Yes I did just give five stars to a war novel. What has gotten into me?

I loved this book. That's quite something, coming from a person of notoriously squishy sensibilities whose last encounter with what you might call a war novel was a required reading of The Killer Angels in tenth grade.

The writing was beautiful and poignant, the plot hooked me, the characters moved me, the well-researched historical details fascinated me. None of the characters is a wanton, laughing killer, as I think I'd feared I'd find in a war novel; in their own ways, they all recognize the gravity, terror, and tragedy of the war, but without being whiny or unrealistically philosophical. The relationship between Tania and Vasily is genuinely romantic - and it's the historical real deal, not something the author threw in, Hollywood-style. (Indeed, I've read that the movie added a love triangle - as if, "we're in the middle of wartime Stalingrad being hunted by a Nazi supersniper" isn't enough tension for the relationship.)

Interestingly - especially given that the author is a Jewish guy whose parents both served in WWII - none of the Nazis is shown as tied in any way to the specifically Nazi atrocities. There are no concentration camp scenes, no cold-blooded shooting of civilians outside the field of battle (except for in Tania's flashback to her grandparents' deaths), and almost no mention of Jews or Hitler's philosophy. Indeed, most of the few mentions of Hitler refer to him as the commander of the military forces, no more. All this, combined with the horrors of battle, made me really feel sorry for Nikki, the twenty-year-old German soldier who just wants to be back home on his dairy farm.

I loved the descriptions of the bombed-out Stalingrad, jagged and honeycombed and swarming with soldiers. The details of how the two armies worked - like the commissars who kept the Russian army toeing the Communist Party line, using newsletters, loudspeakers, and guns - also intrigued me.

There was a lot to like here. Don't read it if you can't handle some death and gore, but neither is gratuitous, and there's a lot more to the story than that. A fabulous book.

A surprisingly good read. David Robbins has done an excellent job at crafting a very moving and human story from the hellish nightmare of the Battle of Stalingrad. Taking the real life biographies of a number of key actors Robbins delivers a fast paced story of a desperate battle to repel the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, a story with an eye for detail and realisim with some of the descriptions of injury suceeding in turning my stomach. Having recently visited Volgagrad/Stalingrad the places took on an extra sense of reality for me. While it is impossible for anyone who was not stuck in the hell of Stalingrad Robbins does a good job at recreating it on the page. The trap closes around Stalingrad, every seven seconds a German soldier dies dreaming of home, while the Soviet Heros of Stalingrad fight to expell the invader from their land and reclaim their homes. As gripping a read as they come!

By 1942, the war against Russia had resolved itself to the outcome of one battle: that for Stalingrad. The Russians refused to budge and made the Germans pay for every foot of bombed-out city. The horrible bombing and shelling by the Germans turned the city into an enormous maze of dens and hiding places, perfect for snipers. The Russians created a special group of talented snipers who managed to put fear into the German soldiers. In response, the Germans sent a sniper whose job it was to find the leader of the Russian sniper team and kill him. Robbins has written a great story around these historical events. The Battle for Stalingrad became a high-water mark of human destruction. An estimated 1,109,000 soldiers died. Civilians were not immune. “Of a prewar population in Stalingrad numbering more than 500,000, only 1,500 were alive there after the battle.” Three of the four main characters were historical figures and the sniper hunt between the two great snipers is based entirely on historical records. One of these characters was an American woman of New York Russian immigrants. How she got to Stalingrad as part of an elite sniper team is an interesting story in itself. By January 1943, the situation was bleak and the Russians offered to surrender to the Germans, but Hitler refused the terms and the battle continued. The Russians later collected enough strength to attack in force and slaughtered the German Sixth Army, leaving alive only ninety thousand out of an original three hundred thousand German soldiers.

The book moved along well for quite a while then the author was padding the pages, or so I felt. I.E. being too descriptive with the environment or making the characters too introspective on issues that didn't seem to move the story along or add value to the character. I did enjoy the book and would recommend it, I just felt it lost a lot of steam in the last few chapters.

General Overview
A read I've been wanting to delve into for some time. War of the Rats is a wonderfully written and researched piece of historical fiction. Heavy on the former, with enough of the latter to ground what is a deeply emotive story.

Style
I've not read any of Mr David L. Robbins' work before this. I have watched the adaptation of this novel of his of course.

The book is different to this of course, but it is clear his research and understanding of the war in Stalingrad fed well into its adaptation to film.

There is an honest and muted sombreness throughout this piece. Nothing more could be expected from a novel set in one of the bloodiest battles of World War Two. Mr Robbins does a great job selling the bleakness of it all. With this too, he still throws in humour, and light warm moments, as I feel are well needed.

His prose are not overall surprising, but work well for the story he tells.

Story
Vasily Zaitsev is charged with his friend to set up a Sniper School for the Red Army, embattled to defend Stalingrad. They face the might of the so far overwhelming 3rd Reich, and have been given one simple mission. Turn the tide of battle. Not one more step back.

After some initial success, building this school and demoralising the Germans, Zaitsev is faced with the best Sniper the Germans can send to the Eastern Front. Their job. Kill Zaitsev.

Focusing on the small battles of individuals, War of the Rats is a deeply personable story. Slow and sharp like the snipers it covers, we see all the best and worst of those thrown into the Cauldron, as it would come to be known by the Germans.

Telling it from both sides add to this tale, and was a wise move by the author.

Final Thoughts
A great read. I will look out for more of Mr Robbins work in the future. A joy for fans of modern historical fiction.

The battle of stalingrad was a major turning point in the war on the eastern front. The Russian army used snipers (both men and women) to great effect in taking out German officers and anybody else who got careless and exposed themselves to their deadly fire. I enjoyed the book as a work of fiction based on factual events.

3.5, and I will read it again sometime so I can enjoy (maybe not the best word) it properly.

it is a known literary fact that any book about the German siege of Stalingrad in 1942 is automatically awesome. That's because the battle between the colossals, Germany and Russia, became a turning point in World War II and became a war synonym for a host of atrocities like a massive number of deaths, civilian starvation and casualties, incessant bombings and property devastation, prisoner capturing and executions. Instead of driving on to Moscow while the weather was clement, Hitler ordered his army to detour into Stalingrad and claim the city as a Russian trophy. Instead, the Germans got bogged down in a tar pit that became worse when they found themselves under siege and surrounded by the Russian army as the long siege stretched into the fierce Russian winter. The battle claimed countless lives on both sides but it especially sapped the morale of the Germans, already wounded, starving and freezing. Into this cauldron entered a group of Russian snipers so effective they kept notebooks detailing the number of assassination hits they scored. To counter this threat the Germans sent in their best sniper who had one mission: kill the head Russian sniper. "War of the Rats" tells the story of the cat and mouse game between the top snipers as they both seek to expose their counterpart's weakness, and kill him. The only reason I didn't rate this a five star was that there was a love story subplot which didn't seem appropriate for such a bloodthirsty tale. This shouldn't deter you from reading this. It might even give you more of an incentive.

Robbins book had an uncanny parallel to the award winning movie " Enemy at the Gates," which was apparent throughout the novel. Stalingrad was a battle of two large armies and two even bigger ego's, there was a shortage of everything except death, that was everywhere and at anytime. What tended to bother me was the injection of a war/love story into the middle of this gruesome tale. Picture the surroundings, a blasted out basem*nt with a dirt floor, freezing cold, lice, very little food and a man from the wilds who happens to be the best shot in the Russian Army. He falls in love with a woman, as circ*mstance would have it, turns out to be from America and in the middle of this dirt encrusted hole, covered in blood and gore, they start to have an affair, naturally the author has to go into the details of flesh and their state of undress without mention of the lice and rats and hunger for food let alone love ( one of my poem lines.) Personally, it put a sheen unto the book that would not wipe off. I used to have a authentic German correspndents' report of this battle which was very direct and uncensored, he was sent there by the generals and was told to bring back a written report of the actual conditions, this he did, believe me, how this book/report got past the censors of the time was everyone's guess, it was a report without a love scene. I loaned the book and, well you know...'

If you ever seen the movie, Enemy at the Gates, this book's premise is going to sound familiar to you. Of course, there is a logical explanation for that, as it is based on a true story...or it could have just been Soviet propaganda, but it's based on something.

There are four main characters, two Russians and two Germans. The Russian snipers are certainly real. Vasily Zaytsev became famous during World War 2 in the Battle of Stalingrad, the bloodiest battle of the war. He was so successful as a sniper that he eventually started his own sniper school. Tania Chernova was one of his students and lover. The two Germans, not so real. One is a corporal named Nikki Mond, who I think is pure fiction, the other, Heinz Thorvald, is mentioned in Zaytsev's diaries as a main sniper in the German army that he had a duel with. There is no other record of him existing.

All the characters are interesting, if a little bland. I did find Tania's chapters a little annoying, as she came off as a know it all and always sticking her nose into everything.
What I did like was that the book also was about the harsh conditions the soldiers went through at that battle, both Russian and German alike. It gets bleak for the Germans at the end, which is expected considering the entered with 250,000 men and came back with only 30,000.

It's a good read, with some interesting things about the battle.

Nowadays, WAR OF THE RATS is best remembered as the basis for the big-budget movie “Enemy At The Gates” (2001) starring Jude Law, Ed Harris, Joseph Fiennes and the great, recently deceased Bob Hoskins as Nikita Khrushchev. Both novel and film are loosely based on the career of Soviet sniper Vasily Zaytsev (242 confirmed “kills”--the actual total is probably near to 500). Largely because he lived a celebrated life until his death in 1991 and had ample time to write his memoirs, Zaytsev is one of the best-known snipers in history. WAR OF THE RATS is fiction, of course, and a little background reading easily reveals how much of it is factual. The artistic truth of the novel mostly lies in its unforgettable depiction of the Battle of Stalingrad and its human cost. Destruction, suffering and death on a nearly unimaginable scale contrast with the central action of the novel, in which the necessities of pro-Soviet propaganda pit a solitary Russian sniper in a duel with a Nazi “counter-sniper” who was stalking him through the rubble. A half million Red Army soldiers died in the battle, largely due to the callous, coercive practices of “political” officers like Khrushchev, who always considered Stalingrad his proudest moment.

Read this at a friend's recommendation, and enjoyed it. I am not a huge history buff, but I enjoy learning about new things, and War of the Rats did a good job of stoking my interest in Russia's part during WWII, while offering an enjoyable narrative on a more personal scale that's also based in history. I thought Robbins did a good job of depicting the horror of war without glorifying it or being gratuitous just for shock.

Some folks have complained about flat characters. I generally didn't find that to be the case, though I did have issues with Tania's character, especially at first. (That first sex scene was just.... no.) I don't think the characters were the focus of the novel though; the destruction of war is, hence we only get glimpses of who the soldiers are, but those glimpses feel real enough. We don't get to know people in the battle of Stalingrad properly. They die too quickly.

I wouldn't read this if you are looking for a romance or a nitty gritty, detail oriented depiction of WWII. But for an enjoyable story, that gives you the feel and psychology of war and wets your appetite for history, yes. Check it out.

War of the Rats by David L. Robbins is a solid, readable, well researched narrative of the battle of Stalingrad. I've read several books on Stalingrad and found that for the most part, Robbins tried to create a historically consistent environment and setting. The characters in this book are well created, and since Robbins is a good writer, you feel somewhat attached to the protagonist. I also felt somewhat sympathetic for the German intelligence officer, Nikki, and thought Robbins did a good job at not portraying all the Germans at stupid fools. I felt the antagonist, the German super-sniper was also well developed but felt that Robbins could have also introduced him closer to the beginning, instead of focusing on the Russian viewpoint for the first part of the book. The action was varied yet never flagged, the dialogue was well constructed, but most all, the claustrophobic monolith of rubble that was Stalingrad came hauntingly to life. Recommended for historical fiction fans and fans of well written light fiction.

Most of the book was fanciful adventure and believable as history (which, indeed, the cover promised). AFTER ABOUT 300 PP, the action flagged and the author turned to formulaic insertion of sex in the city ruins. I threw the book aside in disgust.

Snipers and Stalingrad, a brutal combination.

Great story well told

Part fact, Part fiction, I really enjoyed this look at the Famous sniper duel during the Battle of Stalingrad.

Great Historical Novel...WWII , Stalingrad, and a sniper duel.

Interesting historical fiction on the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. We don't get a full view of the battle; we get thumbnail sketches through the eyes of Russian snipers - including Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily "Zaitsev" and "Tonia Chernova" - and their counterparts.

Zaitsev's rate of success, and his known proficiency at training others, prompt the Germans to bring in their own "super" sniper and teacher, Heinz Thorvald. Thorvald's only assignment in Stalingrad is to kill Zaitsev. We follow Thorvald's efforts, and get more of an overview of the horror of Stalingrad from Nikki, the German Corporal who is charged with guiding and supporting him.

Robbins uses as touch points a number of known Stalingrad events, including Pavlov's House, the Grain Elevator, Goebbels's Stalingrad "choir," and the Cauldron offensives. Although the figures Tonia (more specifically Tania Chernova, often mentioned in books about the time period but never historically verified) and Thorvald (mentioned in Vasily Zaytsev's book, but again not historically verified) are in doubt, it's known that Russian women were snipers, and there is no doubt that Zaytsev was a sniper of great renown. This book thoroughly expresses the tension edured, physical effort, and mental acuity required of snipers.

Fluid and lawless Stalingrad seems to be an historical fiction favorite of wartime authors. This book focuses on one aspect of Stalingrad, using the Battle as a background. The writing was compelling, the concept of living life day-to-day well expressed, and the conflict between the two snipers very well done.

I would have to say that this was an 'okay' read. It certainly didn't live up to the high expectations I had after reading other people's reviews.
Warning - my review does contain 'spoilers'.
The book did give a fairly good description of the type of warfare that was conducted in Stalingrad, and the author made a good attempt at describing the psychology of the two main characters and how they interacted with each other and their environment.
The book just didn't keep me gripped. The storyline was a bit vague, the supporting cast of characters had little or no depth, there was far too much made of the love story between Zaytsev and Tania, and the finale had some really stupid inconsistencies. Really the only reason the German sniper, Thorvald, lost was because he suddenly became really stupid at the last minute. For a guy who was supposed to be so cowardly that he took no risks, he took a really huge risk in gambling that he could shoot at the dummy target first when he knew that Zaytsev had him in his sights. Why would he do that?
An okay read, but not one that I'd be quick to recommend.

Stalingrad was hell and a huge turning point in the second world war. In only 6 months, 1.9 million people died. All that was left of Stalingrad was rubble. The germans called it Rattenkrieg, War of The Rats. This book with the same name uses all true history mixed in with a little fiction to make it better story wise. The war of Stalingrad was fought with alot of Snipers, the urban environment was perfect for them. This is the story of Vasily Zaytsev, a master sniper who killed 32 people with a standard rifle and a whopping 225 with a sniper rifle. I hate guns personally, but am always fascinated by Snipers for some reason, and to read this book was a blast. Germany sends their own master Sniper to catch Zaytsev, a man who is a bit of a coward but an excellent marksman. The sort of cat and Mouse game they play with eachother is brilliant, and makes this book a very fast paced read. Recommended for history buffs and everyone that enjoys a thrilling story between two master Snipers.

🌟🌟🌟🌟.