Hitler S Greatest Defeat

How the Nazis lost the war 1944 was a year of trial for the German Army. While the Allies were preparing to invade the Third Reich from the west, Stalin was set on a massive offensive to liberate the last remaining areas of Soviet territory still held by the Germans. Hitler was determined to hold fast. His muddled strategic thinking nullified the undoubted operational ability of his generals, and disaster was the inevitable result. This book is a gripping analysis of the Soviet campaign to capture Byelorussia, the German attempts to counter it, and the final, terrible collapse of Army Group Centre, inflicting even greater losses on the Germans than their earlier defeat at Stalingrad. It was a catastrophe of unbelievable proportions: 28 of 34 divisions, over 300,000 men, were lost. Hitler’s war effort was doomed and broken. An unputdownable history perfect for readers of Antony Beevor or James Holland.

THE STORY OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST AND A STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF WORLD WAR II, AS TOLD FROM THE GERMAN POINT OF VIEW In 1945, the once mighty Wehrmacht was reduced to a pathetic shadow of its former self as the thousand-year Reich lay in ruins. The war in the West had been lost and its protagonists scattered in prisoner of war camps across Europe. Author Milton Shulman joined the Canadian Army HQ three months before D-Day as a major and was promoted to intelligence officer by war's end. As part of his duties, he made close personal contact with the German Army throughout intelligence operations in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. While still in uniform, he also interviewed many of the captured German generals in the following months and years, including Gerd von Rundstedt, ‘Sepp’ Dietrich and Kurt Meyer—26 in all. From them, Major Shulman learnt why it was that such a superbly armed body of fighting men suffered such a calamitous defeat. This absorbing book is the result of those interviews. First published in 1947, it was the first account to reveal the truth of what happened in the war: how Hitler and his General Staff planned their campaigns, how the discipline and ignorance of the German military machine served Hitler well and Germany badly—and why victory finally slipped from their hands. “The best and most vivid account of the German collapse”—Hugh Trevor Roper, The Sunday Times

To both professional soldiers and historians, the causes of the German catastrophe in Eastern Europe in the years from 1941 to 1945 will ever remain an absorbing problem. Why did Hitler’s hitherto invincible Wehrmacht—which between September 1939 and June 1941 had knocked over like tenpins the far from negligible armies of Poland, France, and Yugoslavia, had driven three-hundred-odd thousand British from the continent in a campaign of a few brief weeks, and had spread the rule of Hitler’s Reich from Brest to Crete and from Arctic Narvik to the desert sands of Tripoli—why did this Wehrmacht come to a dead halt before Moscow within six months of launching its all-out assault on the Soviet Union? Why, once again in the autumn of 1942, did the Wehrmacht suffer such an overwhelming defeat at Stalingrad—after occupying nearly half of European Russia, reducing the Red armies to less than two and one half million men at the beginning of 1942, and planting the swastika on Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus, more than 1,000 miles from its advanced base in Poland? These are questions General Anders attempts to answer in the present analytical study of the Russo-German war—and, in my opinion, he succeeds to the full, with amazing clarity and unanswerable logic.-Foreword.

Many have commented upon Hitler's inexplicable behavior during World War II. He failed to invade England; he neglected his air force; he engaged enemies on multiple fronts. Viewed in terms of Germany's struggle against the West, these and other actions made little sense. In truth, however, the war against Western powers had little to do with Hitler's grand plan: to conquer Russia and lands to the east of Germany, eradicate or enslave their populations, and create a vast Teutonic empire. In light of this goal, Hitler's actions were consistent throughout. In line with his dictum of "All or Nothing," once Hitler failed to defeat Russia in December 1941, he conducted the rest of the war with the sole purpose of inflicting maximum bloodshed and desolation, including upon Germany itself. Weakened, sensing defeat, he knew he was a drowning man--and he was determined to take friend and foe alike down with him. This evaluation of Hitler's objectives in World War II expands upon a theory gaining prominence among historians: Hitler's true motive was a crusade against the East, and he had little interest in waging war with England, much less the United States. It examines the different nature of the war on the Eastern and Western fronts; the disparate treatment afforded the two groups of POWs and civilians; and Hitler's scorched-earth policy, adopted after his primary objective proved beyond his grasp. In poignant, painful detail, it recreates the Russians' devastating four-year struggle against Germany, which went much further towards ensuring its defeat than any of the comparatively belated Western efforts.

From the preeminent British military strategist comes this riveting biography of Manstein, Hitler's most controversial general. Among students of military history, the genius of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (1887–1973) is respected perhaps more than that of any other World War II soldier. He displayed his strategic brilliance in such campaigns as the invasion of Poland, the Blitzkrieg of France, the sieges of Sevastopol, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, and the battles of Kharkov and Kursk. Manstein also stands as one of the war's most enigmatic and controversial figures. To some, he was a leading proponent of the Nazi regime and a symbol of the moral corruption of the Wehrmacht. Yet he also disobeyed Hitler, who dismissed his leading Field Marshal over this incident, and has been suspected by some of conspiring against the Führer. Sentenced to eighteen years by a British war tribunal at Hamburg in 1949, Manstein was released in 1953 and went on to advise the West German government in founding its new army within NATO. Military historian and strategist Mungo Melvin combines his research in German military archives and battlefield records with unprecedented access to family archives to get to the truth of Manstein's life and deliver this definitive biography of the man and his career.

"Derek Zumbro chronicles this key military campaign from a unique and fresh perspective - that of the defeated German soldiers and civilians caught in the final maelstrom of the war's western front." "Zumbro chronicles the relentless assault on the Ruhr Pocket through German eyes, as the Allied juggernaut battered the region's cities, villages, and homes into submission. He tells of children pressed into service by a desperate Nazi regime - and of even more desperate parents trying to save their sons from sacrifice at the eleventh hour. He also tells of unspeakable conditions suffered by foreign laborers, POWs, and political opponents in the Ruhr Valley and of the mass graves that gave Allied soldiers a grisly new understanding of their enemy." "Zumbro also recounts the story of Field Marshal Walter Model's final hours. His eventual suicide effectively ended the existence of the Wehrmacht's once-formidable Army Group B after being pursued, methodically encircled, and finally destroyed by U.S. and British forces. Through interviews with surviving members of Model's former staff, Zumbro has uncovered the attitudes of beleaguered officers that official records could never convey." "Other interviews with former soldiers reveal the extent to which Allied bombing contributed to the rapid deterioration of German combat effectiveness and tell of civilians begging soldiers to abandon the war. Zumbro's research reveals the identities of specific characters discussed in previous works but never identified, describes the final hours of German officers executed for the loss of the bridge at Remagen, and offers new insight into Model's acquiescence to Hitler in military affairs."--BOOK JACKET.

One of the most common assumptions about World War II is that the Jews did not actively or effectively resist their own extermination at the hands of the Nazis. In this powerful book, Benjamin Ginsberg convincingly argues that the Jews not only resisted the Germans but actually played a major role in the defeat of Nazi Germany. The question, he contends, is not whether the Jews fought but where and by what means. True, many Jews were poorly armed, outnumbered, and without resources, but Ginsberg shows persuasively that this myth of passivity is solely that--a myth. Instead, the Jews resisted strongly in four key ways: through their leadership role in organizing the defense of the Soviet Union, their influence and scientific research in the United States, their contribution to allied espionage and cryptanalysis, and their importance in European resistance movements. In this compelling, cogent history, we discover that Jews contributed powerfully to Hitler's defeat.