[Gotthard Heinrici]

I'm not so sure that Manstein was a military genius, he was certainly a brilliant general but the word genius is a word bandied about far too much when talking about some Generals. I'm not saying that he was an incompetant lout, he was by far one of the best Germany had. Comparing him to Rommel or even Guderian and he comes out very favourably. But as regards his book "Lost Victories" he certainly paints a very high picture of himself and I'm not sure I would put him on the same pedestal as he would put himself on. Its universally accepted now that the German General's memoirs, whilst fulfilling the task of providing great insight into the minds of the Wehrmacht High Command, can also be seen as self-serving too. "I was shackled by the lunatic in Berlin" was a theme that runs through many of the memoirs and, yes there is absolutely no question that Hitler impeded his generals. But its also easy to place the reasons for defeat on the head of a dead man, for he cannot refute the allegations. You will also notice in many of these works that the Soviet army is referred to as a Horde, they speak of positions being overrun by "waves and waves" of Soviets "who just kept coming". They give very little credit to the strategic operations that the Soviet army was beginning to develop and towards the end the generals always blame the poor state of the Wehrmacht as opposed to their foe being a better enemy who was better equipped, more numerous and better Commanders. The likes of Rokossovski, Malinovsky and Vatutin would give any German General, yet you wont find any of these being mentioned in a German General's memoirs. I'm not saying that these works are wrong, but you must read them in a particular context and read between the lines. The Eastern Front was not Black and White, and taking any memoirs at face value can be dangerous.