Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East (Army Historical)

Rating:
Summary: The definitive study of the Russian War from German records
Review: Excellent operational study of the Russian war from German records. This was the classic way of westerners studying the conflict as the Russian archives had been sealed for decades. This book should be studied with Erickson's work (the Russian side) for a more balanced study.

Rating:
Summary: The definitive study of the Russian War from German records
Review: World War II was not one, but a whole series of wars which raged over a good portion of the planet from 1939 to 1945. We let the existence of this singular noun influence and cloud our perception of the actual situation, the cross-purposes and confusion of those times. Hitler fought wars on various fronts and also at least one behind the lines, against a people he had decided to destroy, that great massacre which we call today the Holocaust. Nazi Germany's war against the Soviet Union was undoubtedly the largest of them all. Did the strategic bombing of Germany and our operations in North-western Europe influence the final decision in the East? Yes, but it was the actual Soviet victory on the ground which made the difference. For that reason both sides deserve an impartial analysis as far as the operational military history is concerned. Let's leave the other considerations aside in this instance.

Professor Earl F. Ziemke's Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East is the second of a planned three volume set of the US Army's historical series of the Russo-German War. The first three chapters of this volume take us up quickly to the failure of the Wehrmacht's Operation Taifun before Moscow. The German Army was the most combat experienced and militarily efficient force in 1941. It consisted of masses of good light infantry but only a thin layer of panzer and motorized troops for long distance movement. The Luftwaffe too was designed and equipped to support short swift wars of annihilation. The Soviets, on the other hand, hadn't fought competent enemies at all before 1941 except for the Finns and had subdued them only with difficulty. Ziemke's story actually starts with Chapter 4, where he describes the Soviet Counteroffensive in detail and the German response to it. All in all this is a good operational history of this period of the war put together overwhelmingly from primary sources. Here one can read of the build up for Manstein's operations in the Crimea, including the deployment of `Dora', the most powerful artillery piece in history. In addition the book provides good history of Soviet Operation Star, the battles along the Finnish border and the combat involving Army Group North (including the capture of Soviet General Vlasov) as well as the German build-up for the Stalingrad campaign. The author uses the official unit war diaries whenever possible for the Germans, but must rely on pre-1991 Soviet official histories for the Russians. Due to the sources, the emphasis is more weighted to the German side, but the author doesn't ignore Soviet development as he describes the evolution of the reeling Soviets of 1941-42 into the unsure practitioners of the vast mobile operations, which nearly destroyed Hitler's southern flank in 1942-43.

A mention of the situation with sources is necessary. Since 1985 when this book was published the former Soviet archives have partially opened. While some interesting information is now available - most importantly perhaps the actual losses that the Soviets suffered - compiling and analysing documents takes time and dedication as well as `distance' on the part of the historian. Ziemke has a good grasp of the German side in this regard from a decades-long thorough study of the archival material. It will be some time yet before we will have someone with as good a view of the Soviet side, perhaps due to nothing else but that their archives were kept secret for so long. The definitive study of this war has yet to be written, but the last volume of this set, that covering the period of June 1941 until the failure of the German drive on Moscow may be the first to combine both the German and Soviet views objectively.

Rating:
Summary: A Solid Operational-Level History of the Russo-German War
Review: World War II was not one, but a whole series of wars which raged over a good portion of the planet from 1939 to 1945. We let the existence of this singular noun influence and cloud our perception of the actual situation, the cross-purposes and confusion of those times. Hitler fought wars on various fronts and also at least one behind the lines, against a people he had decided to destroy, that great massacre which we call today the Holocaust. Nazi Germany's war against the Soviet Union was undoubtedly the largest of them all. Did the strategic bombing of Germany and our operations in North-western Europe influence the final decision in the East? Yes, but it was the actual Soviet victory on the ground which made the difference. For that reason both sides deserve an impartial analysis as far as the operational military history is concerned. Let's leave the other considerations aside in this instance.

Professor Earl F. Ziemke's Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East is the second of a planned three volume set of the US Army's historical series of the Russo-German War. The first three chapters of this volume take us up quickly to the failure of the Wehrmacht's Operation Taifun before Moscow. The German Army was the most combat experienced and militarily efficient force in 1941. It consisted of masses of good light infantry but only a thin layer of panzer and motorized troops for long distance movement. The Luftwaffe too was designed and equipped to support short swift wars of annihilation. The Soviets, on the other hand, hadn't fought competent enemies at all before 1941 except for the Finns and had subdued them only with difficulty. Ziemke's story actually starts with Chapter 4, where he describes the Soviet Counteroffensive in detail and the German response to it. All in all this is a good operational history of this period of the war put together overwhelmingly from primary sources. Here one can read of the build up for Manstein's operations in the Crimea, including the deployment of 'Dora', the most powerful artillery piece in history. In addition the book provides good history of Soviet Operation Star, the battles along the Finnish border and the combat involving Army Group North (including the capture of Soviet General Vlasov) as well as the German build-up for the Stalingrad campaign. The author uses the official unit war diaries whenever possible for the Germans, but must rely on pre-1991 Soviet official histories for the Russians. Due to the sources, the emphasis is more weighted to the German side, but the author doesn't ignore Soviet development as he describes the evolution of the reeling Soviets of 1941-42 into the unsure practitioners of the vast mobile operations, which nearly destroyed Hitler's southern flank in 1942-43.

A mention of the situation with sources is necessary. Since 1985 when this book was published the former Soviet archives have partially opened. While some interesting information is now available - most importantly perhaps the actual losses that the Soviets suffered - compiling and analysing documents takes time and dedication as well as 'distance' on the part of the historian. Ziemke has a good grasp of the German side in this regard from a decades-long thorough study of the archival material. It will be some time yet before we will have someone with as good a view of the Soviet side, perhaps due to nothing else but that their archives were kept secret for so long. The definitive study of this war has yet to be written, but the last volume of this set, that covering the period of June 1941 until the failure of the German drive on Moscow may be the first to combine both the German and Soviet views objectively.

Rating:
Summary: Great book on war in the east
Review: Ziemke must be congraulated for writing a most penetrating book on the Russo-German war, albeit from a German perspective.

Read this together with Paul Carell's 2 volumes and get a feel of the brutal war being fought then.