With a new foreword by István Deák. The battle of Budapest in the bleak winter of 1944-45 was one of the longest and bloodiest city sieges of World War II. From the appearance of the first Soviet tanks on the outskirts of the capital to the capture of Buda Castle, 102 days elapsed. In terms of human trauma, it comes second only to Stalingrad, comparisons to which were even being made by soldiers, both German and Soviet, fighting at the time. This definitive history covers their experiences, and those of the 800,000 non-combatants around whom the battle raged. 'Ungváry's account of the 100-day siege of Budapest is a gripping story of horror and courage. . . . Ungváry has based his extraordinary tale on archival resources and hundreds of survivor interviews. This is the finest account of this most dreadful incident in a world war filled with dreadful incidents. Recommended for all collections.' - Library Journal; 'As a military history [The Battle for Budapest] is unrivaled. None of the otherwise quite good military histories of the battles of Stalingrad or Warsaw or Berlin comes close to its minute details and to its vivid reconstruction of where and when and how troops moved and fought. Military historians ought to study The Siege of Budapest with jewelers' eyes. So must the people of Budapest, and the diminishing minority among them who experienced its siege sixty years ago (as did I, a historian, who found many details in this superb reconstruction that were new to me). . . . [Ungváry] has written not only a military history par excellence but a civil, political, sociographic reconstruction of a dreadful and sordid (and, on occasion, heroic) drama of a siege of a great capital city. . . . Magisterial.' - John Lukacs, The New York Review of Books; 'A very detailed, well integrated account of the desperate fighting around and later in Budapest in the winter of 1944-1945. . . .Military operations are told in considerable detail. . .and there is a great deal of material on the city's people. . . .A very good book.' - The NYMAS Review; 'This is truly a missing chapter in our understanding of World War II, at last brilliantly filled in by Ungváry.' - Wesley K. Clark, Washington Post Book World; 'Ungváry's research is almost completely new, based heavily on testimony from Hungarian participants who could talk only after the fall of communism. . . . [It] deserves the widest possible readership. . . . The Battle for Budapest is an important book. It restores a forgotten but epic episode to its rightful place in the history of the war, and it does so without imparting any false sheen of heroism to anyone involved in it.' - Robert Citino, HistoryNet.com
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