Zhukov S Greatest Defeat

One of the least-known stories of WWII was Operation Mars, a Soviet operation designed to dislodge the German Army from its position west of Moscow. This account of a catastrophe censored from postwar Soviet histories reveals key players and details major events, using sources in German and Russian archives to reconstruct the historical context of Operation Mars and review the entire operation from High Command to platoon level. Includes bandw photos and maps. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Considered by some to be the greatest general of World War II, General Georgi Zhukov served as the Chief of Staff of the Soviet High Command, leading Soviet troops against Germans in key battles of the war. In his account of four major campaigns in the war—the defense of Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk, and the advance on Berlin—Zhukov describes his experiences preparing for German attacks, organizing counter-strikes, assessing the enemy, and issuing the orders that pushed the front west, towards Germany's capital. Zhukov also tells of his extensive arguments with Stalin during the war, and the political alliances and rivalries among the U. S. S. R.'s generals throughout the conflict.

This account of four of World War II's most colossal battles presents these epic conflicts from the perspective of the man largely responsible for Russia's most decisive victories during the Patriotic War.

This breakthrough book provides a detailed reconstruction of Stalin’s leadership from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 to his death in 1953. Making use of a wealth of new material from Russian archives, Geoffrey Roberts challenges a long list of standard perceptions of Stalin: his qualities as a leader; his relationships with his own generals and with other great world leaders; his foreign policy; and his role in instigating the Cold War. While frankly exploring the full extent of Stalin’s brutalities and their impact on the Soviet people, Roberts also uncovers evidence leading to the stunning conclusion that Stalin was both the greatest military leader of the twentieth century and a remarkable politician who sought to avoid the Cold War and establish a long-term detente with the capitalist world. By means of an integrated military, political, and diplomatic narrative, the author draws a sustained and compelling personal portrait of the Soviet leader. The resulting picture is fascinating and contradictory, and it will inevitably change the way we understand Stalin and his place in history. Roberts depicts a despot who helped save the world for democracy, a personal charmer who disciplined mercilessly, a utopian ideologue who could be a practical realist, and a warlord who undertook the role of architect of post-war peace.

Great Military Leaders - A Bibliography with Vignettes

The complete and unredacted autobiography by Stalin’s star general, chronicling his many campaigns throughout WWII. At Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin—as well as virtually all the principal battles on the Eastern Front during the Second World War—Georgy Zhukov played a major role. He was Stalin’s pre-eminent general throughout the conflict, and he chronicled his brilliant career as he saw it in this essential text. Here, Zhukov reveals intriguing insights into who he was, both as a man and as a commander. He also delves into the military thinking and decision-making at the highest level of the Soviet command—making this volume essential reading for anyone studying the conflict in the east. This edition of the memoirs, which were first published in heavily censored form, features an introduction by Professor Geoffrey Roberts in which he summarizes the additional material omitted from previous editions. He also provides, in an appendix, a translation of Zhukov’s account of the 1953-7 period as well as an interview with Zhukov that has previously not been available in English.

An acclaimed WWII historian presents a provocative reassessment of the Eastern Front battles that turned the tide against Hitler’s advance. The epic battles fought at Stalingrad and Kursk were pivotal events in the war on the Eastern Front. After the catastrophic failure of the German offensives of 1942 and 1943, the Wehrmacht was forced onto the defensive. Never again would it regain the initiative against the seemingly inexhaustible forces of the Red Army. The cause of the decisive shift in the balance of military power has intrigued historians ever since. In this original and thought-provoking new study Geoffrey Jukes reconstructs Soviet strategy and operations at Stalingrad and Kursk in vivid detail. He looks behind the scenes at the workings of the Soviet high command, at the roles played by the principal Red Army generals, and at the overriding influence of Stalin himself. Jukes also offers acute insight into German military planning as Hitler's armies prepare for their sequence of massive offensives.

In Absolute War, acclaimed historian and journalist Chris Bellamy crafts the first full account since the fall of the Soviet Union of World War II's battle on the Eastern Front, one of the deadliest conflicts in history. The conflict on the Eastern Front, fought between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945, was the greatest, most costly, and most brutal conflict on land in human history. It was arguably the single most decisive factor of the war, and shaped the postwar world as we know it. In this magisterial work, Bellamy outlines the lead-up to the war, in which the fragile alliance between the two dictators was unceremoniously broken, and examines its far-reaching consequences, arguing that the cost of victory was ultimately too much for the Soviet Union to bear. With breadth of scope and a surfeit of new information, this is the definitive history of a conflict whose reverberations are still felt today.