Antony Beevor Antony James Beevor , FRSL ( born 14 December 1946 ) is a British historian , educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst . He studied under the famous military historian John Keegan . Beevor is a former officer with the 11th Hussars who served in England and Germany for five years before resigning his commission . He has published several popular histories on the Second World War and the 20th century in general . Overview . He is a visiting professor at the School of History , Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck , University of London . He is descended from a long line of women writers , being a son of " Kinta " Beevor ( born Carinthia Jane Waterfield , 22 December 1911 – 29 August 1995 ) , herself the daughter of Lina Waterfield , and a descendant of Lucie Duff - Gordon ( author of a travelogue on Egypt ) . Kinta Beevor wrote " A Tuscan Childhood " . Antony Beevor is married to the Hon . Artemis Cooper , granddaughter of Duff Cooper and of Lady Diana Cooper . Between leaving the Army and starting to write , he was an account executive with the advertising and marketing firm of Masius Wynne Williams , working on campaigns for the food products firm Rank Hovis McDougall . His best known works , the best - selling " Stalingrad " and " " , recount the World War II battles between the Soviet Union and Germany . They have been praised for their vivid , compelling style , their treatment of the ordinary lives of combatants and civilians and the use of newly disclosed documents from Soviet archives . Beevor ' s works have been used as sources and credited as such in many recent documentary films about World War II . Controversy regarding Soviet rapes . " " encountered criticism in Russia . The criticism centres on the book ' s discussion of atrocities , which , according to the historical consensus prevailing in Germany and the West , were committed by the Red Army against German civilians , in particular , the extremely widespread rape of German women and female Russian forced labourers , both before and after the end of the war . The Russian ambassador to the UK denounced the book as " lies " and " slander against the people who saved the world from Nazism " . O . A . Rzheshevsky , a professor and the president of the Russian Association of World War II Historians , has charged that Beevor is merely resurrecting the discredited and racist views of Neo - Nazi historians , who depicted Soviet troops as subhuman " Asiatic hordes " . He claimed that Beevor ' s use of phrases such as " Berliners remember " and " the experiences of the raped German women " were better suited " for pulp fiction , than scientific research " . Rzheshevsky also defended Soviet reprisals against Germans , stating that the Germans could have expected an " avalanche of revenge " . Beevor has responded to Russian claims . He states that he used excerpts from the report of General Tsigankov , the chief of the political department of the 1st Ukrainian Front , to cite the incident . He responded to Rzheshevsky by saying , " Professor O . A . Rzheshevsky even accused me of repeating Nazi propaganda , when in fact the bulk of the evidence on the subject came from Soviet sources , especially the NKVD reports in GARF ( State Archive of the Russian Federation ) , and a wide range of reliable personal accounts " . Beevor stated that he hopes that Russian historians will " take a more objective approach to material in their own archives which are at odds to the heroic myth of the Red Army as ' liberators ' in 1945 " . Other UK historians such as Richard Overy , from the University of Exeter , have criticized Russian outrage at the book and defended Beevor . Overy accused the Russians of refusing to acknowledge Soviet war crimes , " Partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse , and partly it was because they were writing the victors ' history " . Beevor has stated that German women were part of a society that supported Hitler and are thus unable to identify themselves as victims in the same way as Jews , Poles and Russians . Honours . Beevor is a " Chevalier de l ' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres " . He was also awarded an Honorary D . Litt . from the University of Bath in 2010 , and an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent , awarded in 2004 . His book " " for which he won the Runciman Prize , administered by the Anglo - Hellenic League for stimulating interest in Greek history and culture . Published works . He has written thirteen books , novels and non - fiction . Antony Beevor has edited books , including : He has also contributed to several other books , including :