Operation Barbarossa

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by The Scorer, Dec 23, 2014.

  1. The Scorer

    The Scorer Active Member

    Can anyone recommend a good book on the German invasion of Russia and the subsequent campaign of 1941 to 1945, please?

    I know of three books by asking Amazon what they have. These are:

    "War Without Garlands" by Robert Kershaw;
    "Operation Barbarossa" by Christian Hartmann; and
    "Barbarossa" by Alan Clark.

    Does anyone know anything about any of these, and which one they would recommend, please?

    Thank you.
     
  2. Heimbrent

    Heimbrent Well-Known Member

    I can recommend the one by C. Hartmann.
     
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  3. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    I just started reading: David M. Glantz & Jonathan House, "When Titans Clashed, how the Red Army stopped Hitler". Very interesting study with a focus on the operational conduct of the battle from the Russian side. The authors use archival material that became available in the 1990's. Glantz wrote a score of studies on the Eastern Front.

    Available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/When-Titans-Clashed-Stopped-Studies/dp/0700608990/ref=la_B000APOD4O_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419372054&sr=1-4

    See also this lecture of Glantz on You Tube:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Clz27nghIg
     
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  4. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Operation Barbarossa 1941 by Glantz for a book on just that.
    As stolpi says 'When Titans Clashed' for the whole war.
     
  5. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

  6. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Glantz (many titles) and John Erickson (Road to Stalingrad, Road to Berlin) are the leading authorities in English. Glantz is more recent and makes full use of ex-Soviet archives. Of the older generation of English-speaking scholars, Earl Ziemke, Alfred Seaton, and Geoffrey Jukes are all worth reading, though Seaton takes the German generals at their word far too often. Lots of people hate Alan Clark, but I don't. His Barbarossa is based on only the limited information available 50+ years or ago, but it is well written and I think a fair introduction to the Eastern Front.
     
  7. hucks216

    hucks216 Member

    War Without Garlands is a very good book but it only covers up to the winter of 1941/42, i.e. Operation Barbarossa itself and not the subsequent events from 1942 to 1945.
    Barbarossa by Alan Clark is ok but is a little dated now as mentioned above.
    The scope of the huge campaign in Russia is such that there are many many books that cover various aspects, some poor and some exceptional and some books that only cover a section of a particular battle. Glantz's books cover various campaigns in detail, for example the fighting around Smolensk in 1941 stretches to 4 volumes (Barbarossa Derailed.) I find him a dry read but once I get through the first 100 pages or so I find that I can't put his books down!

    There is also Barbarossa to Berlin Vol 1 & 2 by Brian Taylor which covers the whole 1941-1945 period in chronological order with each entry split up into Northern Front, Southern Front etc sections. Not a book that goes into the Whys & Wherefores but just gives the actions that happened on that day/week.

    For books covering aspects of the Operation Barbarossa campaign there are also the following:
    The Retreat by Michael Jones which covers Moscow and the Soviet counter-offensive.
    Kiev 1941 by David Stahel
    The Defense Of Moscow 1941: The Northern Flank by Jack Radey and Charles C. Sharp
    The Viazma Catastrophe, 1941: The Red Army's Disastrous Stand against Operation Typhoon by Lev Lopukhovsky
     
  8. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    David Glantz articles were freely available on the internet.I have them on an XP which I should transfer. I have his paperback on Barbarossa which I obtained quite cheaply...good for bedside reading.

    However I have recently picked up a gem on the reporting of the German assault on Moscow and then the drive on and failure at Stalingrad and the Red Army push all the way to Berlin..all from the Russian side which gives an atmosphere of being there as the conflict affected the soldiers of the Red Army and Russian civilians...as reported by VasIly Grossman an "embedded" reporter with the Red Army for the Red Star,the army newspaper.

    During the 5 month Stalingrad campaign,13500 Red Army personnel were executed for an "extraordinary event" which was the official Soviet term for "betrayal of the motherland". desertion which apparently was more prevalent in the early days of the battle. found unauthorised on the West to East bank "ferries" .....men suspected of self inflicted wounds stood no chance of surviving....the left hand wound being common.....others were shot by blocking detachments under the control of the NKVD,should they indicate a tendency not to obey orders.

    The Germans did not think much of their Romanian allies and there was banter across the battle lines about exchanging Romanians for certain soldiers from Soviet republics who,it would appear, were not held in high esteem by the Red Army.(as I read it)

    Special NKVD blocking detachments up to 200 men kept the common Red Army soldier on his toes.On one occasion,after continual German attacks,the C.O of the No 124 Brigade said to the C.O of the blocking detachment after the seventh attack."Come on that's enough shooting at their backs,Come on and join the attack" the blocking detachment did and the Germans were pushed back.

    The revealing of the disclosures on the Red Army campaigns came about by Antony Beevor who discovered Grossman's notebooks while researching his publication "Stalingrad". He was aided by Dr Luba Vinogradova,a researcher,translator and journalist and received help from the Grossman family.The outcome was the publication A Writer at War with the Red Army 1941-1945 by Vasily Grossman edited and translated by Anthony Beevor and Dr Luba Vinogradova.

    A sobering thought,according the Russian military sources,422700 men died in punishment units during the war.
     
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  9. DavidW

    DavidW Well-Known Member

    Stolpi.

    Thanks for posting the lecture.
     
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  10. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    David - this one by Jonathan M. House, another expert on the Eastern Front, is also interesting:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zinPbUZUHDE
     
  11. DavidW

    DavidW Well-Known Member

    Thanks, I'll watch that when I get up tomorrow morning.

    I'm really a North African devotee, but I'm a sucker for Barbarossa & Bulge!
     
  12. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    I've just started reading some more on the Eastern Front. Desert War is too hot for me.
     
  13. Peccavi

    Peccavi Senior Member

    Avoid Russia's War by Richard Overy - junk and Stalingrad by Beevor, also poor.

    I really liked a much older book "Enemy at the Gate" by William Craig - about Stalingrad and excellent.

    Can't do better that read Stalin the Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore if you want to find out about the spider in the web - puts it all in context..
     
  14. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    What, specifically, is wrong with Overy and Beevor?
     
  15. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    I was wondering what Overy's book was like,Peccavi. Not a good read then??
     
  16. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Barbarossa

    'With his customary literary flair and capacity to master and mobilize very many and varied sources, Jonathan Dimbleby gives us the best single-volume account of the Barbarossa campaign to date' Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny
    'Like a fast-moving juggernaut of horror, Dimbleby's Barbarossa is a page-turning descent into Hell and back. Part warning, part fable, but all too true, this fresh and compelling account of Hitler's failed invasion of the Soviet Union should be on everyone's reading list for 2021' Dr Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire
    _______________________________
    Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of Russia in June 1941, aimed at nothing less than a war of extermination to annihilate Soviet communism, liquidate the Jews and create Lebensraum for the German master race. But it led to the destruction of the Third Reich, and was cataclysmic for Germany with millions of men killed, wounded or registered as missing in action. It was this colossal mistake -- rather than any action in Western Europe -- that lost Hitler the Second World War.
    Drawing on hitherto unseen archival material, including previously untranslated Russian sources, Jonathan Dimbleby puts Barbarossa in its proper place in history for the first time. From its origins in the ashes of the First World War to its impact on post-war Europe, and covering the military, political and diplomatic story from all sides, he paints a full and vivid picture of this monumental campaign whose full nature and impact has remained unexplored.
    At the heart of the narrative, written in Dimbleby's usual gripping style, are compelling descriptions of the leaders who made the crucial decisions, of the men and women who fought on the front lines, of the soldiers who committed heinous crimes on an unparalleled scale and of those who were killed when the Holocaust began. Hitler's fatal gamble had the most terrifying of consequences.
    Written with authority and humanity, Barbarossa is a masterwork that transforms our understanding of the Second World War and of the twentieth century.


    https://books.google.co.uk/books/ab...ad_button&newbks=1&newbks_redir=1&redir_esc=y
     
  17. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    https://podbay.fm/p/dan-snows-history-hit/e/1623124800

    "SHOW NOTES
    The Second World War is often depicted as a straight battle between good and evil but it was perhaps less straightforward than that. Whilst the Nazi regime was undoubtedly barbarous and deserved its fate the consequences of victory were not always the positive they are portrayed to be. Indeed for much of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, the end of the war leads to decades of military occupation and repression under the Soviet Regime. That regime was led by one man; Stalin. Dan is joined by Sean McMeekin, author of Stalin's War, who argues that it was Stalin who really shaped the conflict in order to achieve his own geopolitical aims."

    Stalin's War
     

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