East Front book talk

[Helpless]

Helpless, if you force me to choose between you and Glantz, I'm going to have to go with Glantz on this.

I'm not asking you to choose between me and whoever. I'm just advising to choose your conclusions more carefully.

Your words:

Not so much in what they say, but in what they don't say and what subjects get ignored

Who are they? What they don't say? What should they say? Sounds like a conspiracy theory.

[Flaviusx]

You've got a link, and you've got a book (Colossus Reborn.) If you want to pursue the subject, you know where to go. You're asking me to argue Glantz's thesis, and I think he's the best person to do this, not me.
 
 

[Helpless]

You're asking me to argue Glantz's thesis

There is no such thesis in Glantz books [;)]

[Flaviusx]

But there is. The forgotten battles is a huge part of Colossus Reborn. Hell, he wrote an entire book on Operation Mars (and the Russians were not at all happy about that book, according to him. Evidently that sensationalist subtitle "Zhukov's Greatest Defeat" was not well recieved...) 
 
Anyways, check out the youtube vid, I think you'll find it interesting.

[Helpless]

Evidently that sensationalist subtitle "Zhukov's Greatest Defeat" was not well recieved

Do you need some sources(in russian) where leading Russian historians agrees with Glantz point of view on Mars?

But there is. The forgotten battles is a huge part of Colossus Reborn. Hell, he wrote an entire book on Operation Mars (and the Russians were not at all happy about that book, according to him. Evidently that sensationalist subtitle "Zhukov's Greatest Defeat" was not well recieved...)

Anyways, check out the youtube vid, I think you'll find it interesting.

I've read almost all books by Glantz and I can sign almost by every word he is saying. I've seen this video as well (which is quite old btw, and some subjects he is mentioning are not true anymore) - and in fact he is fighting more with western myths on SGW. And there is nothing similar in his words what you claimed and then don't dare to comment. [;)]

[wiking62]

Another couple of books that i have read recently, and would recommend are:
 
Black Edelweiss - memoirs from a member of SS Gebirgsjäger Infanterie Regiment 11 "Reinhard Heydrich", 6th SS Gebirgsjäger Division "Nord".
 
Twilight of the Gods: A Swedish Waffen-SS Volunteer's Experiences with 11th SS-Panzergrenadier Division Nordland.
 
Blood Red Snow by G Koschorrek

[Flaviusx]

Helpless, you need to read more carefully. I mean, this is all over the place in his works. Rather than go chapter by chapter and quote stuff, I'll simply go to page xvi-xvii of the introduction of Colossus reborn and quote Glantz:
 
"Although Soviet and Russian historians have written many detailed, scholarly and suprisingly accurate studies of the war and wartime battles and operations, too often government censors have forced them to either skirt or ignore facts and events considered embarrassing to the state, its army, or its most famous generals. General works on the war most accessible to Western audiences tend to be the most biased, the most highly politicized, and the least accurate, and until quite recently official state organs routinely vetted even the most scholarly of these books for political and ideological reasons. Even now, over 10 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, political pressure and limited archival access prevent Russian historians from researching  or revealing many subjects subject to censorship in the past."
 
The various sections discussing the forgotten battles point out the specifics here, which battles have been glossed over and why (and there's lots of them, most infamously Operation Mars) but that is his basic starting point. Nor do historians have full archival access even now, it appears.
 
 

[Helpless]

...The various sections discussing the forgotten battles point out the specifics here, which battles have been glossed over and why (and there's lots of them, most infamously Operation Mars) but that is his basic starting point. Nor do historians have full archival access even now, it appears.

Don't make such conclusion on past decade video..

There is no full access to ALL archives in any country. Access to the biggest Archive of Ministry of Defense in Podolsk (TSAMO) is full and unrestricted.

[Aurelian]

I've never even heard of Operation Mars till Glantz. I don't recall if Zhukov covered it in his book I read back in the 1970's either.

[malfid]

Flavius:

What point are you trying to make? Soviet historiography does not make a great deal of reference to the Rzhev-Sychevka operation (Mars, in operational parlance). But Krivosheev shows that the casualties thereof are freely available to the public (as evidenced in both his opus on Soviet wartime losses, and references thereto in Glantz's own 'When Titans Clashed'). It is not 'hidden'. It's poorly covered. There is a very significant difference.

Soviet historians do not focus on Mars to any great extent for the same reason that German historians choose to overlook a multitude of shattering defeats (like the Lake Balaton operation, for example). A non-decisive strategic engagement that did not in the least alter the military balance, but resulted in casualties. These battles had no drama to them, and their impact was primarily on the units engaged and the strategic reserves. Why else do we concentrate on Kursk, but not on Belgorod-Kharkov, or its sister operation?

I've never even heard of Operation Mars till Glantz. I don't recall if Zhukov covered it in his book I read back in the 1970's either.

Why would either surprise you? Rzhev-Sychevka was Zhukov's brainchild. He surely was not going to be the one to obsess with his costliest failure. That Western audiences would not have information on the operation until Glantz 'uncovered' it (by reading publicly available archives, no less) should be even less surprising... Western access to Soviet archives pre-Perestroika was extremely poor.

Glantz claims that as many as 40% of the battles that took place in the Eastern Front have been systematically ignored by the Russians for a variety of reasons.

The inference (I'm sorry, but this is sounding like conspiracy theory, prima facie) is laughable. Glantz himself would laugh at it, no less. He would say, however, that Russian historians have previously not spent a great deal of time covering operations of lesser strategic importance (either in conception or due to an unfavorable result). Both due to censorship, which only eased in the 80s (and the cult of WW2 is stronger in modern Russia than anywhere else in the world, Germany included), and due to the fact that there is very little popular demand for dry accounts of Soviet failures (and that cult also plays into this). As it stands, the information is available to any serious researcher. Glantz, whose niche is exploring a facet of the Second World War that remains relatively unknown in the West (the Soviet experience of the war) has a ready audience for any material that 'sheds light' on his favorite topic.

Which is why Glantz's 1,000 page account of the Stalingrad fighting (the driest account available, by far) - definitely a brilliant piece of academic research, nonetheless - will sell well. It's not engaging; the information is available in Russian and has been for decades, but Western complete-ist enthusiasts will love the day-by-day narrative of the military action.

Your suggestion, to me at least, seems to be an instance of fitting the facts to the case, rather than the other way around.

[malfid]

Hey man, in retrospect, parts of my post sounded a little belligerent. Don't take any offense - chalk it up to a long day at work...

[Flaviusx]

Really, are you guys even reading the same Collosus Reborn that I have?
 
I'm not going to sit down here and quote every operation that Glantz covers or his own very explicit statements that things are indeed being glossed over for political reasons (yes even now). I quoted his own freaking introduction -- there's no "inference" here. He states this very very plainly numerous times. If you don't want to see this, I don't know what to say. This isn't "conspiracy theory" it's what he himself is saying.
 
I'm not taking offense here. I'm simply gobsmacked. All I can say is: reread the book.
 
 
 

[Eambar]

I also like Panzer Operations, the Memoirs of General Raus (my favourite German memoir) and Tigers in the Mud by Otto Carius.

On the Russian side, The End of the Third Reich by Chuikov and of course Reminiscenes and Reflections by Zhukov are very interesting reads.

On the scholarly side, I have all of the works by Glantz, Erikson, Beevor, Newton etc and find Clark's Barbarossa and the work on the Korsun Pocket by Zetterling and Frankston to be among my favourites.

The question was posed earlier about what Zhukov wrote in R&R about Op Mars. Here's what he said:

" Analysing the reasons for the failure of the offensive taken by the Western Front, we concluded the main factor was underestimation of the rugged terrain in the theatre selected by the Front Command for the main attack...Another reason for the failure sustained in this sector was the shortage of supporting armour, artillery, mortars and aircraft..."

He goes on to say that it was a success though because it drew German reinforcements away from the more important Stalingrad operation. Zhukov devotes about three pages (in my edition) to Op Mars, and in his own words

"However, back to our operations at Stalingrad"

Cheers and good reading,

[chrisdrost]

Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East by David Stahel (though expensive) is the best book I have read concerning the planning and logistics for Barbarossa.

[EdinHouston]

Has anyone mentioned Fugate's work "Operation Barbarossa"? It only covers 1941 but it is quite good.

There was a book called 'The Secret Of Stalingrad' which covered the 1942 campaign and was revealing in terms of the vast reserve forces the Soviet Union could bring to bear, and how they were deployed at the onset of the '42 campaign in the mistaken belief that Germany would attack towards Moscow again.

The chapter on the eastern front in Van Crefeld's book 'Supplying War' is very good too, in that it shows the tremendous logistics problems of the invasion. Basically, it shows that the goals of the campaign were vastly greater than what logistics would allow. In fact, the two great campaigns that led to Germany's defeat in each war, the Schlieffen Plan in 1914 and Barbarossa in 1941, were both doomed from a logistics standpoint.

[FM WarB]

Thanks for the suggestions. Looks like I'll be building onto my bookshelves.

Here is a negative recommendation: Stackpole books Beyond Stalingrad. This poorly written hommage to von Manstein also suffers from useless maps and no oobs.

[oldman45]

I really enjoyed the 3 vol set "History of the Panzercorps GrossDeutschland" written by Helmuth Spaeter. It was a very personable set of books containing after action reports and personal accounts. It went a long way describing the absolute horrors of the fighting on the eastern front.

[JamesM]

Are any of these books available as an ebooks particularly either in mobipocket or pdf format?

Do not have any more room to store books in my unit.

[british exil]

Wasn't Großdeutschland a Panzergrenadier Division?

I have a book at home given to me by a Veteran of this Division. He talked a bit about the things he went through
France, the Balkans and Russia. He only had fond memories to tell comaradarie etc. I could tell by his face he still had bad ugly things in his mind but refused to talk about them.

[MarcA]

Gross Deutschland had many incarnations. By 1945 it had been converted to a PzK.

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1664

Edit: I should say PzGD Gross Deutschland still existed separately to PzK Gross Deutschland