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I think it would be pretty cool to start a thread where we can share Eastern Front content. There's a lot of good stuff out there and its usually buried by crap. 

I'll start with some of my favorite videos.

1. Mit der Kamera nach Stalingrad 

(With the Camera in Stalingrad):

An hour of self-narrarated footage of 29th Motorized Division's fight starting in Barbarossa and ending in Stalingrad. A lot of good stuff in this one with recognizable landmarks (Like Kharkiv). I havent found anything better than this. Have youtube autotranslate for you unless theres an english version somewhere. 

2. Anton Joly's youtube channel "Armageddon":

Every video he posts is top quality. My favorite videos on his channel are the Suzdal series about the captured (At Stalingrad) high ranking officers of 6th army. It's mostly about Field Marshal Paulus, and ends with his testimony at the Nuremburg trials. 

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Glantz + House's Stalingrad series + audiobook:

Extremely high quality tactical+operational level book. Details every little movement and fight of Army Group South (Later Army Groups A and B ) in 1942-1943.

Book 1: April-August 1942. Starts with detailing the Reichel affair. A storch recon plane from 23rd Panzer Division/XXXX Motorized corps is shot down in Soviet occupied territory two weeks before June 28th 1942 - the beginning of Fall Blau. The storch was carrying a one page plan with objectives for XXXX Motor corps and 4th Panzer army. When Stalin received a copy of these plans, he thought they were a fake. A similar incident happened in Belgium earlier in the war (Emergency landing) and it revealed the German plans for conquering the low countries (Belgium, Nederlands). Hitler was furious by the time of the Reichel affair, and this led to extreme measures of operations security. Only higher HQ's were to receive such plans, and they were not to distribute them to lesser commands. Of course some people didn't follow this. General Stumme, leader of the XXXX Pz Korps was sentenced to death along with a few other officers. After protests from other high ranking officers, Stumme was relieved of command and sent to replace Rommel in Africa while the latter was on leave. Stumme died in North Africa shortly after. 

This is a major part of the book, despite being the first few pages. In the audiobook Glantz/House mention it often.

The book initially begins with three preliminary operations before June 28th. The goal was to straighten up the front so more divisions could be allocated to Blau.

1. Operation Trappenjagt (Bustard Hunt) 8-19th May 1942: The battle for the Kerch straight: In the Eastern tip of Crimea, the Soviets stacked over 259,000 troops in a sector 70km x 18km. Manstein was assigned this axis with his 11th Army (Which was mostly foreign troops). He broke through the initial defensive lines, and 170th infantry division's 213th regiment marched (drove?) 80km in one day to the port of Kerch (don't ask me how.. I guess they had trucks), encircling a massive amount of Soviets. They mostly surrendered. Over 226,000 soviet casualties from February-April 1942.. 170,000 of which were prisoners... versus 8,000 German casualties... insanity. The biggest problem with the Soviets was being assigned a political commissar who was notorious for executing officers for failed operations: Lev Meklis. He bullied high ranking officers and shifted them around causing major disruptions in the Soviet C2 system. Glantz/House blames Meklis, the commander of the Crimean Front: Kozlov, and an inexperienced staff for the disaster.

2. Operation Wilhelm 10-15th June 1942: This was an encirclement battle at Kharkov. It achieved a bridgehead over the Donets river and employed three panzer divisions + a motorized division to encircle and destroy the Soviet 28th army. Already shaken and without replacements from a previously failed attack toward Kharkov. A subsequent German counterattack led to a staggering 266,000 Soviet casualties... 200,000 being irrecoverable... and the destruction of two soviet armies 9th + 57th. Nearly every division commander from Soviet 6th and 9th armies were KIA. Germans lost 20,000 casualties. The failure was pretty well summed up by 38th army: "The failures of the Southwestern Front in May 1942 sharply worsened the situation in the country's south, They weakened our forces here at the very moment when the enemy was preparing his great summer offensive". Operation Wilhelm was based off this failed Soviet attack. Unfortunately for the Germans they were unable to secure the noose tightly. On June 11th heavy rains slowed the advance of the three panzer divisions which were the main attacking component for the plan. Subsequent attacks from a tank brigade helped 38th army escape. This resulted in the capture of only 24,800 soviet prisoners. A far cry from the results of Trappenjagt or the counterattack at Kharkov.

3. Operation Fridericus (Battle for the Donbass) 22-25th June 1942: By this time Army Group South had split into Army Groups A+B. Army Group A was a little too far West and had to push East to come on line with Army Group B before both could participate in Operation Blau I. Hitler insisted on carrying out this operation while Manstein's 11th army U-turned from Kerch and captured the fortress Sevastopol on Crimea's West. Bock, the commander of Army Group A was concerned that Manstein had dive bomber priority, and also thought his men would be better off resting during this time, or even just initiating Blau I altogether. Bock's plan did not account for an encirclement battle, but rather a straightforward march (Mostly). It was carried out by disgrunted German officers with "Considerable internal friction". The same three panzer divisions from Operation Wilhelm were to form the Northern part of this attack. The result was 20,800 Soviet prisoners, and the destruction of three rifle divisions + a cavalry corps.

After this the book goes into the composition of both sides. A few pages of tank strength were devoted to the Kharkiv battles of May 11th (Soviet attack), and a few pages are dedicated to the forces on both sides for Operation Blau I. After this, the book goes into Operations Blau I and II and Edelweiss (drive into the Caucuses by Army Group A).

The book has 87 black and white maps, 23 tables of organization (including tank strengths on important dates), around 100 black and white photographs, and around 1000 notes toward the end of the book offering explanations or sources. The index is well designed and it's easy to find information about particular units down to the regimental/kampfgruppe level. It gets hard to read after the preliminary battles unless you're planning on writing down the organization of every army and tracking their units as they fight. I wouldn't call this the turning point of ww2, but it's certainly one of the most important chapters, along with the battle for Moscow in 1941 and the battle of Prokhorovka in 1943. Putting a ton of sticky notes in this book is recommended to keep track of everything.

It's scenario designer fuel. I rate it a 10/10

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Frank Ellis' The Stalingrad Cauldron:

I haven't finished this one but I'll give my thoughts. It's great for scenario design. The book opens up with temperatures (including wind chill) that the Stalingrad defenders faced. It talks about popular movies (It's where I found the Mit Der Kamera Nach Stalingrad film) and how well they were depicted. The book was published inbetween Glantz/House's 2nd and 3rd (3rd has two books + a third "companion" book, but we're talking about book one) Stalingrad books. I suppose Ellis did not read Glantz's books because he talks about how blocking detachments' responsibility was to shoot retreating soldiers. Glantz calls this a myth, and says the real purpose of the blocking detachments were to collect stragglers so they could reform in the ranks. (I swear but I forgot where he said it. Interestingly his first Stalingrad books says that blocking detachments did shoot stragglers, but I think Glantz or House rescinded this later in a youtube video.. probably one of USAHEC's videos. I believe he said "Penal Units" were responsible for these executions. I forget.)

There is a LOT of random interesting information in this book such as 376th infantry division (The one that fought and died in Stalingrad) had adequate winter clothing in the winter of 1942-1943. Actually the winter of 1941-1942 was a much harsher winter which was colder longer than the 1942-1943 winter. By as early as late September 1942 (The initial major assault on the city of Stalingrad began on the 13th September) a major Menzel reports "The soldiers are exhausted and run down from the exceptional demands of the house-to-house fighting. Nor do they get any rest at night since every man is deployed and the width of the sectors does not permit any withdrawal of reserves". Menzel also reports "A lot of bitterness from infantrymen that their ration requirements are being neglected". It's clear by his report that the supply situation was already terrible from the start. On October 1st a medical officer from the 76th ID (Another unit that fought at Stalingrad, but were assigned to the Don flank instead of the city itself [It's a common myth that the 76th fought in the city]) reported "men reduced to skeletons who could barely stand". Some officers were "So emaciated that he fails to recognize them. When the men are fed, they vomit and can move about only with assistance... For their own good, the medical officer gives the men a morphine injection and they sleep for two days".

On September 18th the 305th's infantry division's commander complained "about the completely insufficient provision of meat and fat rations and the total absence of any spreads for bread... The situation has been like this for weeks on end. The impact is made all the more perceptible byu the fact that no foodstuffs can be gathered up in the region. There is a lack of potatoes and horse fodder... In the long run, soldiers cannot be fed on dry bread for breakfast, soup without potatoes in the evenings, and no spreads for the bread". Pair this with the lack of water in the dry steppe (The book described how the Northern Volga by Moscow is a luscious forested area, and slowly turns into desert by the time the river reaches Stalingrad) and it's obvious the Germans were fighting the elements as much as they were fighting the Soviets.

Holy ****. There's some intense stuff in this book. Glantz's books don't go into this level of personal detail, and you won't find this kind of information on the mainstream internet. Trust me, I've spent more hours than I can track researching on the internet before I started picking up books.

Ellis downplays Beevor for shoddy research and bold baseless claims.. I mean the guy's name is larger than the titles of his books... no big surprise... And he praises LI corps' commander Seydlitz-Kurzbach for noting the serious situation of 6th army. He calls Goring's airlift promise as "wild and reckless". I agree, this was entirely Goring's fault. The chief of staff (iirc) of the luftwaffe who was filling in for Goring initially claimed that he could supply 6th army with the required 700 tonnes of supply a day. After consulting commanders, the chief of staff reversed his claim. When Goring returned from whatever Diva-Trip he was on, he promised Hitler that it could be done (It couldn't).

Seydlitz wanted to pull out of Stalingrad noting it was a German officers' duty "Auftragstaktik" (Loosely translated as Mission Type Command, an old Prussian military theme which allowed commanders to do what they thought was right in order to save an Operation), and even came up with a propaganda plan to back it. Unfortunately the OKH didn't allow this, which doomed the 1942 German Summer offensive. 

I haven't read through the rest of the book yet, but it's a lot of day-to-day information about the Stalingrad battle such as : Red army desertion rates from 13-23 September, NKVD arrests in various tables and number of hiwis attached to particular divisions.

There are three chapters that go over 16th Panzer division, 76th ID and 94th ID during the later months of the battle. The other chapters are pretty random, one about the sniper duel between Zaitsev and Konigs (Nobody is sure if this is a myth or reality). A chapter about hiwis, one about maskirovka, one about the miserable German SOBs that were captured at Stalingrad (Everyone except 300 soldiers survived the encirclement, the march East to Soviet POW camps, and the subsequent imprisonment).

I've yet to read through this book. I imagine the best content is in the beginning, but it's already worth it. Perfect addition to Glantz's Stalingrad series. It will help significantly with scenario design for this time period.

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Videos by John Suprin: Covers Typhoon and the Soviet-Finnish Winter war. Another well spoken speaker who is enjoyable to listen to. I get the feeling he's of a lesser caliber than some of these guys, but his credentials are legit. Former armor officer and works for the government in a good position. I forget which. Quite the jokester. Got a few laughs from me. 

 

 

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Geoffrey Megargee: I never looked him up but I remember this presentation being very enjoyable. Goes over the changing structure of the OKW/OKH throughout the war and the upper level drama that accompanied it.

 

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Robert Citino: A general historian. Lots of good stuff in his lectures but his lack of specialization is a good/bad thing. You get a different look at the war from him. He loves to harp on how terrible the Wehrmacht's intelligence and logistics were. 

 

 

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The WW2TV youtube channel. The host can be soooo annoying. It depends on who his guest speaker is. BUT, he usually has very high quality and accredited guest speakers on his channel. When the host isnt interrupting his guests with his nonsense, the content is realllly good. A gold mine for specific eastern front topics such as: 

6th Panzer Division of Army Group A: Stalingrad Relief Attempt "Wintergewitter":

https://m.youtube.com/@WW2TV

An EXTREMELY DETAILED summary of combat casualties in Barbarossa. This guest speaker did other EF videos and I remember liking them very much. This seems to be the pinnacle of his work Part one of three:

 

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Re: the blocking detachments

In Glantz's Stalingrad audiobook (and probably also the new revised single book) he says that blocking detachments purpose was to return stragglers. 

This makes sense, As Titans Clash (1995) was also revised in 2015 as new information came out. I dont own the revised Stalingrad book but now its probably worth the investment. 

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