The Wehrmacht Retreats

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The Wehrmacht Retreats

Robert M. Citino
The Wehrmacht Retreats Book PDF

Author : Robert M. Citino
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 440 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2016-09-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9780700623433

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The Wehrmacht Retreats by Robert M. Citino Pdf

Throughout 1943, the German army, heirs to a military tradition that demanded and perfected relentless offensive operations, succumbed to the realities of its own overreach and the demands of twentieth-century industrialized warfare. In his new study, prizewinning author Robert Citino chronicles this weakening Wehrmacht, now fighting desperately on the defensive but still remarkably dangerous and lethal. Drawing on his impeccable command of German-language sources, Citino offers fresh, vivid, and detailed treatments of key campaigns during this fateful year: the Allied landings in North Africa, General von Manstein's great counterstroke in front of Kharkov, the German attack at Kasserine Pass, the titanic engagement of tanks and men at Kursk, the Soviet counteroffensives at Orel and Belgorod, and the Allied landings in Sicily and Italy. Through these events, he reveals how a military establishment historically configured for violent aggression reacted when the tables were turned; how German commanders viewed their newest enemy, the U.S. Army, after brutal fighting against the British and Soviets; and why, despite their superiority in materiel and manpower, the Allies were unable to turn 1943 into a much more decisive year. Applying the keen operational analysis for which he is so highly regarded, Citino contends that virtually every flawed German decision-to defend Tunis, to attack at Kursk and then call off the offensive, to abandon Sicily, to defend Italy high up the boot and then down much closer to the toe-had strong supporters among the army's officer corps. He looks at all of these engagements from the perspective of each combatant nation and also establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt the synergistic interplay between the fronts. Ultimately, Citino produces a grim portrait of the German officer corps, dispelling the longstanding tendency to blame every bad decision on Hitler. Filled with telling vignettes and sharp portraits and copiously documented, The Wehrmacht Retreats is a dramatic and fast-paced narrative that will engage military historians and general readers alike.

The Wehrmacht Retreats

Robert Michael Citino
The Wehrmacht Retreats Book PDF

Author : Robert Michael Citino
Publisher : Modern War Studies (Hardcover)
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : History
ISBN : 0700618260

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The Wehrmacht Retreats by Robert Michael Citino Pdf

Details the reasons behind the German Army decisions and actions during the turning-point year of 1943, after which World War II turned to the Allied forces' favor.

Death of the Wehrmacht

Robert M. Citino
Death of the Wehrmacht Book PDF

Author : Robert M. Citino
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2007-10-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9780700617913

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Death of the Wehrmacht by Robert M. Citino Pdf

For Hitler and the German military, 1942 was a key turning point of World War II, as an overstretched but still lethal Wehrmacht replaced brilliant victories and huge territorial gains with stalemates and strategic retreats. In this major reevaluation of that crucial year, Robert Citino shows that the German army's emerging woes were rooted as much in its addiction to the "war of movement"-attempts to smash the enemy in "short and lively" campaigns-as they were in Hitler's deeply flawed management of the war. From the overwhelming operational victories at Kerch and Kharkov in May to the catastrophic defeats at El Alamein and Stalingrad, Death of the Wehrmacht offers an eye-opening new view of that decisive year. Building upon his widely respected critique in The German Way of War, Citino shows how the campaigns of 1942 fit within the centuries-old patterns of Prussian/German warmaking and ultimately doomed Hitler's expansionist ambitions. He examines every major campaign and battle in the Russian and North African theaters throughout the year to assess how a military geared to quick and decisive victories coped when the tide turned against it. Citino also reconstructs the German generals' view of the war and illuminates the multiple contingencies that might have produced more favorable results. In addition, he cites the fatal extreme aggressiveness of German commanders like Erwin Rommel and assesses how the German system of command and its commitment to the "independence of subordinate commanders" suffered under the thumb of Hitler and chief of staff General Franz Halder. More than the turning point of a war, 1942 marked the death of a very old and traditional pattern of warmaking, with the classic "German way of war" unable to meet the challenges of the twentieth century. Blending masterly research with a gripping narrative, Citino's remarkable work provides a fresh and revealing look at how one of history's most powerful armies began to founder in its quest for world domination.

The Wehrmacht's Last Stand

Robert M. Citino
The Wehrmacht s Last Stand Book PDF

Author : Robert M. Citino
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 632 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2020-07-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9780700630387

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The Wehrmacht's Last Stand by Robert M. Citino Pdf

By 1943, the war was lost, and most German officers knew it. Three quarters of a century later, the question persists: What kept the German army going in an increasingly hopeless situation? Where some historians have found explanations in the power of Hitler or the role of ideology, Robert M. Citino, the world’s leading scholar on the subject, posits a more straightforward solution: Bewegungskrieg, the way of war cultivated by the Germans over the course of history. In this gripping account of German military campaigns during the final phase of World War II, Citino charts the inevitable path by which Bewegungskrieg, or a “war of movement,” inexorably led to Nazi Germany’s defeat. The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand analyzes the German Totenritt, or “death ride,” from January 1944—with simultaneous Allied offensives at Anzio and Ukraine—until May 1945, the collapse of the Wehrmacht in the field, and the Soviet storming of Berlin. In clear and compelling prose, and bringing extensive reading of the German-language literature to bear, Citino focuses on the German view of these campaigns. Often very different from the Allied perspective, this approach allows for a more nuanced and far-reaching understanding of the last battles of the Wehrmacht than any now available. With Citino’s previous volumes, Death of the Wehrmacht and The Wehrmacht Retreats, The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand completes a uniquely comprehensive picture of the German army’s strategy, operations, and performance against the Allies in World War II.

The German Way of War

Robert Michael Citino
The German Way of War Book PDF

Author : Robert Michael Citino
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015062848935

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The German Way of War by Robert Michael Citino Pdf

For Frederick the Great, the prescription for warfare was simple: kurz und vives (short and lively) - wars that relied upon swift, powerful, and decisive military operations. Robert Citino takes us on a dramatic march through Prussian and German military history to show how that primal theme played out time and time again. Citino focuses on operational warfare to demonstrate continuity in German military campaigns from the time of Elector Frederick Wilhelm and his great sleigh-drive against the Swedes to the age of Adolf Hitler and the blitzkrieg to the gates of Moscow. Along the way, he underscores the role played by the Prussian army in elevating a small, vulnerable state to the ranks of the European powers, describes how nineteenth-century victories over Austria and France made the German army the most respected in Europe, and reviews the lessons learned from the trenches of World War I.

The Death of Hitler's War Machine

Samuel W. Mitcham
The Death of Hitler s War Machine Book PDF

Author : Samuel W. Mitcham
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2021-02-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781684511846

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The Death of Hitler's War Machine by Samuel W. Mitcham Pdf

It was the endgame for Hitler's Reich. In the winter of 1944–45, Germany staked everything on its surprise campaign in the Ardennes, the “Battle of the Bulge.” But when American and Allied forces recovered from their initial shock, the German forces were left fighting for their very survival—especially on the Eastern Front, where the Soviet army was intent on matching, or even surpassing, Nazi atrocities. At the mercy of the Fuehrer, who refused to acknowledge reality and forbade German retreats, the Wehrmacht was slowly annihilated in horrific battles that have rarely been adequately covered in histories of the Second World War—especially the brutal Soviet siege of Budapest, which became known as the “Stalingrad of the Waffen-SS.” Capping a career that has produced more than forty books, Dr. Samuel W. Mitcham now tells the extraordinary tale of how Hitler’s once-dreaded war machine came to a cataclysmic end, from the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 to the German surrender in May 1945. Making use of German wartime papers and memoirs—some rarely seen in English-language sources—Mitcham’s sweeping narrative deserves a place on the shelf of every student of World War II.

Retreat from Moscow

David Stahel
Retreat from Moscow Book PDF

Author : David Stahel
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 301 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2019-11-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9780374714253

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Retreat from Moscow by David Stahel Pdf

A gripping and authoritative revisionist account of the German Winter Campaign of 1941–1942 Germany’s winter campaign of 1941–1942 is commonly seen as its first defeat. In Retreat from Moscow, a bold, gripping account of one of the seminal moments of World War II, David Stahel argues that instead it was its first strategic success in the East. The Soviet counteroffensive was in fact a Pyrrhic victory. Despite being pushed back from Moscow, the Wehrmacht lost far fewer men, frustrated its enemy’s strategy, and emerged in the spring unbroken and poised to recapture the initiative. Hitler’s strategic plan called for holding important Russian industrial cities, and the German army succeeded. The Soviets as of January 1942 aimed for nothing less than the destruction of Army Group Center, yet not a single German unit was ever destroyed. Lacking the professionalism, training, and experience of the Wehrmacht, the Red Army’s offensive attempting to break German lines in countless head-on assaults led to far more tactical defeats than victories. Using accounts from journals, memoirs, and wartime correspondence, Stahel takes us directly into the Wolf’s Lair to reveal a German command at war with itself as generals on the ground fought to maintain order and save their troops in the face of Hitler’s capricious, increasingly irrational directives. Excerpts from soldiers’ diaries and letters home paint a rich portrait of life and death on the front, where the men of the Ostheer battled frostbite nearly as deadly as Soviet artillery. With this latest installment of his pathbreaking series on the Eastern Front, David Stahel completes a military history of the highest order.

War in the Wild East

Ben Shepherd
War in the Wild East Book PDF

Author : Ben Shepherd
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 327 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2009-06-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674043558

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War in the Wild East by Ben Shepherd Pdf

In Nazi eyes, the Soviet Union was the "wild east," a savage region ripe for exploitation, its subhuman inhabitants destined for extermination or helotry. An especially brutal dimension of the German army's eastern war was its anti-partisan campaign. This conflict brought death and destruction to thousands of Soviet civilians, and has been held as a prime example of ordinary German soldiers participating in the Nazi regime's annihilation policies. Ben Shepherd enters the heated debate over the wartime behavior of the Wehrmacht in a detailed study of the motivation and conduct of its anti-partisan campaign in the Soviet Union. He investigates how anti-partisan warfare was conducted, not by the generals, but by the far more numerous, average Germans serving as officers in the field. What shaped their behavior was more complex than Nazi ideology alone. The influence of German society, as well as of party and army, together with officers' grueling yet diverse experience of their environment and enemy, made them perceive the anti-partisan war in varied ways. Reactions ranged from extreme brutality to relative restraint; some sought less to terrorize the native population than to try to win it over. The emerging picture does not dilute the suffering the Wehrmacht's eastern war inflicted. It shows, however, that properly judging ordinary Germans' role in that war is more complicated than is indicated by either wholesale condemnation or wholesale exoneration. This valuable study offers a nuanced discussion of the diversity of behaviors within the German army, as well as providing a compelling exploration of the war and counterinsurgency operations on the eastern front.

Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm

Robert M. Citino
Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm Book PDF

Author : Robert M. Citino
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 431 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2022-05-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9780700634019

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Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm by Robert M. Citino Pdf

When Germany launched its blitzkrieg invasion of France in 1940, it forever changed the way the world waged war. Although the Wehrmacht ultimately succumbed to superior Allied firepower in a two-front war, its stunning operational achievement left a lasting impression on military commanders throughout the world, even if their own operations were rarely executed as effectively. Robert Citino analyzes military campaigns from the second half of the twentieth century to further demonstrate the difficulty of achieving decisive results at the operational level. Offering detailed operational analyses of actual campaigns, Citino describes how UN forces in Korea enjoyed technological and air superiority but found the enemy unbeatable; provides analyses of Israeli operational victories in successive wars until the Arab states finally grasped the realities of operational-level warfare in 1973; and tells how the Vietnam debacle continued to shape U.S. doctrine in surprising ways. Looking beyond major-power conflicts, he also reveals the lessons of India’s blitzkrieg-like drive into Pakistan in 1971 and of the senseless bloodletting of the Iran-Iraq War. Citino especially considers the evolution of U.S. doctrine and assesses the success of Desert Storm in dismantling an entrenched defending force with virtually no friendly casualties. He also provides one of the first scholarly analyses of Operation Iraqi Freedom, showing that its plan was curiously divorced from the realities of military history, grounded instead on nebulous theories about expected enemy behavior. Throughout Citino points to the importance of mobility--especially mobilized armor--in modern operational warfare and assesses the respective roles of firepower, training, doctrine, and command and control mechanisms. Brimming with new insights, Citino’s study shows why technical superiority is no guarantee of victory and why a thorough grounding in the history of past campaigns is essential to anyone who wishes to understand modern warfare. Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm provides that grounding as it addresses the future of operational-level warfare in the post–9/11 era.

The Path to Blitzkrieg

Robert M. Citino
The Path to Blitzkrieg Book PDF

Author : Robert M. Citino
Publisher : Stackpole Books
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2007-12-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9781461751939

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The Path to Blitzkrieg by Robert M. Citino Pdf

Essential background to the German blitzkrieg of World War II Complements the stories of panzer aces like Otto Carius and Michael Wittmann In the wake of World War I, the German army lay in ruins--defeated in the war, sundered by domestic upheaval, and punished by the Treaty of Versailles. A mere twenty years later, Germany possessed one of the finest military machines in the world, capable of launching a stunning blitzkrieg attack against Poland in 1939. Well-known military historian Robert M. Citino shows how Germany accomplished this astonishing reversal and developed the doctrine, tactics, and technologies that its military would use to devastating effect in World War II.

The Wehrmacht's Last Stand

Robert Michael Citino
The Wehrmacht s Last Stand Book PDF

Author : Robert Michael Citino
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : History
ISBN : 0700624953

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The Wehrmacht's Last Stand by Robert Michael Citino Pdf

The Wehrmacht's Last Stand is a gripping account of German military campaigns during the final phase of World War II, paying close attention to the officers who planned and led them.

Hitler and Stalin

Laurence Rees
Hitler and Stalin Book PDF

Author : Laurence Rees
Publisher : PublicAffairs
Page : 597 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2021-02-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781610399661

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Hitler and Stalin by Laurence Rees Pdf

An award-winning historian plumbs the depths of Hitler and Stalin's vicious regimes, and shows the extent to which they brutalized the world around them. Two 20th century tyrants stand apart from all the rest in terms of their ruthlessness and the degree to which they changed the world around them. Briefly allies during World War II, Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin then tried to exterminate each other in sweeping campaigns unlike anything the modern world had ever seen, affecting soldiers and civilians alike. Millions of miles of Eastern Europe were ruined in their fight to the death, millions of lives sacrificed. Laurence Rees has met more people who had direct experience of working for Hitler and Stalin than any other historian. Using their evidence he has pieced together a compelling comparative portrait of evil, in which idealism is polluted by bloody pragmatism, and human suffering is used casually as a political tool. It's a jaw-dropping description of two regimes stripped of moral anchors and doomed to destroy each other, and those caught up in the vicious magnetism of their leadership.

Blood Red Snow

Gunter Koschorrek
Blood Red Snow Book PDF

Author : Gunter Koschorrek
Publisher : Frontline Books
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2011-04-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9781848325968

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Blood Red Snow by Gunter Koschorrek Pdf

Günter Koschorrek wrote his illicit diary on any scraps of paper he could lay his hands on, storing them with his mother on infrequent trips home on leave. The diary went missing, and it was not until he was reunited with his daughter in America some forty years later that it came to light and became Blood Red Snow. The author’s excitement at the first encounter with the enemy in the Russian Steppe is obvious. Later, the horror and confusion of fighting in the streets of Stalingrad are brought to life by his descriptions of the others in his unit – their differing manners and techniques for dealing with the squalor and death. He is also posted to Romania and Italy, assignments he remembers fondly compared to his time on the Eastern Front. This book stands as a memorial to the huge numbers on both sides who did not survive and is, some six decades later, the fulfilment of a responsibility the author feels to honour the memory of those who perished.

Retreat from Leningrad, Army Group North, 1944/1945

Steven H. Newton
Retreat from Leningrad Army Group North 1944 1945 Book PDF

Author : Steven H. Newton
Publisher : Schiffer Publishing
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : History
ISBN : IND:30000050275324

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Retreat from Leningrad, Army Group North, 1944/1945 by Steven H. Newton Pdf

11) The Tactical Success of Army Group North

Dance of the Furies

Michael S. Neiberg
Dance of the Furies Book PDF

Author : Michael S. Neiberg
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2011-04-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674049543

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Dance of the Furies by Michael S. Neiberg Pdf

By training his eye on the ways that people outside the halls of power reacted to the rapid onset and escalation of the fighting in 1914, Neiberg dispels the notion that Europeans were rabid nationalists intent on mass slaughter. He reveals instead a complex set of allegiances that cut across national boundaries.