Hitler's War on Russia

If you're a new or casual reader of the Russo-German War this book would make an excellent start to your study for it has a concise and easy to follow overview of the war. This overview will give you a solid foundation if you're a casual reader looking for one book or a solid platform to build on if further study is desired. A quick sampling of coverage includes : prewar history, Russian preparations for war, Operations Barbarossa, Typhoon, Leningrad, the December counterattack, Kharkov, Stalingrad, Operation Mars, Operation Little Saturn, Kursk, Korsun, Operation Bagration, Berlin plus several other smaller campaigns. Coverage also includes the importance of industrial production and the advantage Russia had over Germany in this area, partisan action, intelligence gathering, lend lease assistance Russia was receiving, information on German Death Squads, the air war, key commanders, Warsaw Uprising and more. In addition to these issues the author who enjoys providing statistics create tables on casualties, number of tanks and planes, production etc. I did notice a couple errors on these numbers. The most noticible are the tank numbers provided for the Kursk Offensive. The German count was a little low and the Russian number dramatically too high. In addition to the narrative, eight color maps are provided. Six of them had no troop deployments, just axes of attack. The maps were pretty good but most had full front display. Why show the entire thousand mile + front when you're talking about the Moscow defense or Kursk. You lose precision when displaying over a thousand miles of front. The book closes with Endnotes, a nice Bibliography, a few good photos and Index. I was tempted to give this book five stars for its excellent concise coverage but there are other books available that are also excellent and deliver a more comprehensive story so I lowered this book to four stars on a relative basis. If you like this book but want more, let me suggest supplementing it with Will Fowler's "The Atlas of Eastern Front Battles". It's a larger book with 26 small area maps, additional photos and artwork to study, profiles of key people and has better coverage of Leningrad, the Crimea and the Caucasus. These two books would work well together.

This is a well written and broad book incorporating the latest research available (with considerable footnotes) on the German campaign in the East from its beginning in Barbarosa to its end in Berlin. In about 200 pages it briefly covers all aspects of the campaign albeit primarily from the perspective of ground warfare. Despite its small size it presents numerous facts that even lenghtier books on the topic do not even touch upon. For example, even though it is common for most books on the subject to mention the fact that the allies (especially the Soviet Union) vastly outproduced the Germans in terms of material, this book actually elaborates on why. It spends a few pages on the poor German rationalization of both industry in Germany itself as well as occupied territories. German administration of the French aeropsace industry, for example, was so bad that it was only producing 10% of its pre-war level (which itself left much to be desired). This poor administration is quite enlightening considering that German controlled Europe produced more coal and many other materials than the Soviet Union did and had the potential to produce as much as the Soviet Union but did not. The book is full of these small but very important tangent but associated facts to the ground war. The book gives the reader, as a result, not only a very good overview of how the war unfolded but also why the Soviet Union was able to defeat Germany.

I picked this title up at the local library, but must buy a copy to keep for reference. Mr. Winchester carries you through four grim but decisive years of deluded strategy, inspired tactics and dim tactics, heroism, folly, malice and slaughter in a book so well-written it is hard to put down. He conveys the casual brutality of both sides with objective detachment, without surrending moral awareness. The book gives insight into the dubious and self-defeating motives of Hitler, Stalin, and most of their generals. For example,while admiring Manstein's strategic and tactical ability, the author does not lose sight that, like most of the Wehrmacht general staff, he cooperated in the slaughter of Jews and other innocent civilians, and was justly imprisoned after the war. Nor does the author spare the Soviets, who executed generals for fighting their troops out of encirclements, deposited their own returning prisoners of war in gulags, and sent their airmen to battle in aircraft so unreliable that the bulk of Soviet pilot deaths resulted from accidents, not combat. At the same time, Winchester shows a strong understanding of the tactics and weapon systems that drove the changing balance of the Russian front. The T-34 tank had an odd weakness - the gas pedal worked in reverse, so the driver had to release pressure to make the tank go, and push the pedal to slow it down. This caused many accidents but also meant that, if the driver was incapacitated, his tank would charge into enemy lines, accounting for the impression many Germans had of suicidal charges by damaged T-34s. The author describes the accompanying air war with his characteristic blend of broad perspective and insightful detail. For example, the Luftwaffe recognized that direct bomb hits on tanks were nearly impossible. So they developed cases of tiny cluster bombs that scattered like a shotgun blast, and could penetrate the thin top armor of tanks with shaped charges. The Red Air Force was so inept that the Luftwaffe used the Eastern Front to train pilots before sending them to face the RAF and USAAF. Both the Soviets and Germans dabbled in strategic bombing, but tactical needs took priority, with the Germans dominating the skies until 1944. I found only one minor error on p.181, where the author refers to the V1 as a "ballistic missile." The V1 was, of course, a primitive cruise missile. For a work of this scale, one error is excusable - John Keegan's otherwise excellent military histories have far more. I was left with a lingering impression that, while the Russian front made a decisive impact on the strategic balance everywhere else - the Arctic, North Africa, western Europe, and even in the Pacific - the war in Russia was guided by no strategy at all, but instead by a sick and savage brew of impulse, malice, and ideology from within the Fuhrer's demented mind. Hitler's delusions were nearly exceeded by Stalin's brutal paranoia and unchecked aggression, but in the end the capricious an