Books on the Eastern Front

[Keke]

Originally posted by Foxbat:

Ok, I see that further on the TDI forum Zetterling essentially urges us to NOT read Glantz and that the idea that anything written from the soviet pov/material could be worthwhile should be tossed on the ashheap of history. He then tops that off by saying that:

"Furthermore, the causes behind the eventual Soviet victory in WWII belittled by Dick [adverse climatic conditions, the sheer size of the USSR, overwhelming Soviet numbers, Hitler’s mistakes -foxbat] seem far more plausible than his own statements. Also, as far as I can see, what has come out of Soviet archives since 1990 supports the notion that the Red Army overwhelmed the Germans by numbers and not by skill"

Foxbat, your falsified quoting and strange conclusions made out of TDI forum discussion make you sound like...err..not so intelligent person.

[Michael Emrys]

So what's the true quote? Or better yet, can you give a link to the discussion?

Michael

[Galka]

Originally posted by Magick:

Another title to consider is 'Hell's Gate, The Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket, Jan - feb 1944' by D E Nash. A good read and a beautifully produced book..

If you like that book try the predecessor "God, Honor, Fatherland" also by RZM imports.

It it photo heavy.The captions are loaded with information, and are a great accompanyment to a TO&E.

Any Paul Carell book is a great source of small unit actions, despite the philosiphical debate about the authors background on this forum. Any of his titles can be found in paperback form. The Stalingrad Hardcover by Schiffer is merely "part seven" taken from the 690 page paperback Hitler Moves East, AKA Hitler's War on Russia.

Kurowski's Panzer Aces and Infantrie Aces are not as easy reads. I hope it's the translators fault but often things become disjointed like an SPW becomes a Tank, etc result in loosing track in many stories. For less than $10 the pocketbook nevertheless is a good buy, soon to be joined by Panzer Aces 2.

I haven't played this game yet, but find the screenshots pretty awesome. Maybe some way can be found to aviod the clumsy appearance of advancing infantry in CMBO.

[Keke]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

So what's the true quote? Or better yet, can you give a link to the discussion?

Michael

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Current+TDI+Interests&number=4&DaysPrune=45&LastLogin=

[PJungnitsch]

Glantz has given a reply here.

[Keke]

Originally posted by Paul Jungnitsch:

Glantz has given a reply here.

Seems to me that Mr. Glantz has taken the criticism quite personally...

[Foxbat]

"Had the Erickson/Glantz way been the only one pursued during the last 15 years, I think we would have had a more distorted perception today than we had 15 years ago."

I guess this is the quote that dimwitted old me had a problem with and that led me to uh.. unbelievable idiotic conclusions.

[ December 09, 2002, 11:56 AM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Foxbat]

Me=Moron, end of discussion.

[ December 09, 2002, 11:50 AM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by Keke:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Paul Jungnitsch:

Glantz has given a reply here.

Seems to me that Mr. Glantz has taken the criticism quite personally...</font>

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

So what's the true quote? Or better yet, can you give a link to the discussion?

Michael

This quote [falsyfing abbreviation mine]

Here Dick argued on western perception of the war in the east:

”The Wehrmacht is generally portrayed as immensely superior in every aspect of military endeavour, save at times in strategic leadership. Its failures are ascribed to adverse climatic conditions, the sheer size of the USSR, overwhelming Soviet numbers, Hitler’s mistakes – to everything, in fact, except superior Red leadership and combat performance.”

[..]

Furthermore, the causes behind the eventual Soviet victory in WWII belittled by Dick seem far more plausible than his own statements. Also, as far as I can see, what has come out of Soviet archives since 1990 supports the notion that the Red Army overwhelmed the Germans by numbers and not by skill, and that the Soviet victory was bought at a cost that is not commensurate with a highly developed military skill.

The bits in bold are lies that I put in to decieve.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Paul Jungnitsch:

It is always a good thing to keep in mind that all people have their bias's, and academics can be worse than most in this regard, in my experience. Plus sometimes people can just get things wrong.

For example Glantz has come under a lot of heat in the TDI forum here at the moment for inaccuracies in the 'The Battle of Kursk'. Twenty-six disagreements in the first seventeen pages.

Paul, you are hopefully not trying to compare Glantz and Carrell/Schmidt here?

I agree that everybody has their bias - it is a different thing altogether when you actively try to hide it though, by pretending to have been something you never were, as Carrell/Schmidt did and not tell the truth about what you did.

To Galka - this is not just a philosophical discussion, much as that may pain the Carrell/Schmidt admirers. It is quite important to understand that a large part of the accepted historiography of the war in the east (at least in the English language community) has been defined by people who to large degree were not qualified to pass many of the judgments they made (the German officers in the Marshall's study, Mellenthin), or those who just plain made up things, dropped other things and had a hidden propagandist agenda (Carrell/Schmidt and his Signal excerpts).

[Keke]

With the words of Mr. Glantz (The Red Army at War, 1941-1945: Sources and Interpretations (1998)):

Although thousands of works have been written in German, Russian, and English about the German-Soviet War, historiographical coverage of the war remains woefully inadequate. While German archival materials have been available for decades and have been skillfully exploited, Soviet archival materials have been frozen in a historical limbo. Without the latter, full exploitation of the former cannot occur. Already the testing of German materials againts Soviet open-source accounts and the limited existing quantity of Soviet archival materials has produced a strikingly different picture of the war. When that comparison and testing can be done in full measure, the results will be even more significant. In essence, on the eve of the twenty-first century, we stand not at the end of historiography on the war, but rather at the treshold of a new beginning.

[PJungnitsch]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Havn't read Carrell, so can't really comment. Was just pointing out that everyone tends to have a bias, even very respected researchers. I would like to point out though that a person's history does not necessarily make their writings inaccurate or accurate. Ideas stand on their own. It is of course, as you say, nice to know their background ahead of time.

It is interesting to read your second point as the major strike against Glantz appears to me that he has made far too much uncritical use of Soviet secondary sources, which have a much larger 'hidden propagandist agenda' than the German stuff ever did, due to tighter Soviet control of their society and the fact that this control made it through the war intact and existed for so long afterward.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Paul Jungnitsch:

It is interesting to read your second point as the major strike against Glantz appears to me that he has made far too much uncritical use of Soviet secondary sources, which have a much larger 'hidden propagandist agenda' than the German stuff ever did, due to tighter Soviet control of their society and the fact that this control made it through the war intact and existed for so long afterward.

Paul, no disagreement from me there. I think that Glantz' books could hugely benefit from the use of better German sources (he sometimes uses Carrell/Schmidt, for Christ's sake! ) His use of sources like Piekalkiewicz etc, is very suspect. I think what one has to do is get e.g. Mellenthin, and Scheibert (Panzer zw. Don und Donez), and 'From the Don to the Dnejpr' (and a nice Atlas), and read them in conjunction, forming one's own judgement while going ahead with that little project. That would be very illuminating, and I speak as someone who read all three books at different times.

The major beef I have with many German authors and the generals in Marshall's study is that they had no clue about what went on on the other side of the hill, yet they still pronounced on it, and are still believed for it (classics like 'no major soviet airlanding operations' or 'the Red Army never achieved good ground-air cooperation'). The major beef I have with Glantz is that he is using fairly suspect sources for the german side quite often - then again, that can be corrected for, and he does not appear to make the same sweeping statements about the Germans as the German authors do about the Soviets.

[Andreas]

T'is a good post, but not as good as to read twice...

[ December 09, 2002, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

[Keke]

Originally posted by Paul Jungnitsch:

It is interesting to read your second point as the major strike against Glantz appears to me that he has made far too much uncritical use of Soviet secondary sources, which have a much larger 'hidden propagandist agenda' than the German stuff ever did, due to tighter Soviet control of their society and the fact that this control made it through the war intact and existed for so long afterward.

Usually when this is mentioned, some people will quickly point out that western democracies accepted Nazi views in the schizophrenic atmosphere of Cold War.

[Firefly]

I'll leave sticking the boot into that old Nazi liar Carell to Foxbat and Andreas and content myself with Sven Hassel.

Hassel was a Danish con-man who spent most of WW2 in prison for impersonating a Gestapo officer. His books were pure works of fiction (and not too bad at that), but of course, old con-men never die and he had to pretend they were based on his real life experiences. He never did explain how he came by the super powers that allowed him and his comrades to fight on the Western and Eastern fronts at exactly the same time though.

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by Keke:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Paul Jungnitsch:

It is interesting to read your second point as the major strike against Glantz appears to me that he has made far too much uncritical use of Soviet secondary sources, which have a much larger 'hidden propagandist agenda' than the German stuff ever did, due to tighter Soviet control of their society and the fact that this control made it through the war intact and existed for so long afterward.

Usually when this is mentioned, some people will quickly point out that western democracies accepted Nazi views in the schizophrenic atmosphere of Cold War. </font>

[massimorocca]

Now we have many dead horses (Carrel, Mellenthin, Guderian, Manstein) but what are the good books from the German's perspective? Andreas and Foxbat could you post here your suggestions, please?

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by massimorocca:

Now we have many dead horses (Carrel, Mellenthin, Guderian, Manstein) but what are the good books from the German's perspective? Andreas and Foxbat could you post here your suggestions, please?

That is actually quite hard for me to say now, because ever since I found at that there was moore going on at 'the other side of the hill' then I had been led to believe I have been playing catch-up and I've been reading books with the intent of deepening my understanding of their side of the war.

It also depends a little on what kind of books you want, there is truly an ocean of books on "the german perspective" from books that describe quite literaly the perspective of the german soldier to books on literally every major unit or battle.

[Keke]

Originally posted by Foxbat:

* Soviet official memoirs tend to be laughably bad at times, although there are some good exceptions (IIRC Rokkosovsky's and Zhukov's memoirs are pretty good, what I read of Rotmistrov's memoirs is pure fiction).

In fact, both memoirs have been edited nth times to suit Soviet inner politics (destalinization period, Brehnev´s views etc.).

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by Keke:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Foxbat:

* Soviet official memoirs tend to be laughably bad at times, although there are some good exceptions (IIRC Rokkosovsky's and Zhukov's memoirs are pretty good, what I read of Rotmistrov's memoirs is pure fiction).

In fact, both memoirs have been edited nth times to suit Soviet inner politics (destalinization period, Brehnev´s views etc.).</font>

[lassner.1]

A good starting point for what the Germans did right and wrong at the operational and strategic levels during W.W. II include:

"Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg" a 10-volume series from the Militaergeschichtliches Forschungsamt.

"Hitler's War in the East, 1941-1945: A Critical Assessment" by Rolf-Dieter Müller & Gerd R. Ueberschär.

The three volume series entitled "Military Effectiveness" Allen R. Millett and Williamson Murray eds.

"German Military Effectiveness" by Williamson Murray

"The Roots of Blitzkrieg" by James Corum

"Clash of Arms: How the Allies Won in Normandy" by Russell Hart.

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by lassner:

A good starting point for what the Germans did right and wrong at the operational and strategic levels during W.W. II include:

"Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg" a 10-volume series from the Militaergeschichtliches Forschungsamt.

If that's a starting point I'm afraid to ask what the end point will be

Fortunatly these volumes are being translated to english a volume at a time which should help.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by massimorocca:

Now we have many dead horses (Carrel, Mellenthin, Guderian, Manstein) but what are the good books from the German's perspective? Andreas and Foxbat could you post here your suggestions, please?

Do you need it in English or German?