Recommended litterature for eastern front ?

[KarlXII]

Players out there !

Do you have any recommendations of good litterature for the warfare on the eastern front which could be inpirational when playing this game ?
The book should be around the same level (operational) as we are playing the game.

I know the manual is filled with litterature but many of these books probably contains statistics and order of battle etc and not the kind of thing
which is easily and pleasant to read.

I have ordered "When Titans Clashed" since that book got good ratings.

[amatteucci]

"When Titans Clashed" is a very good choice.
If you're gaming the initial period of war, "Barbarossa", also by David Glantz, is worth considering (I myself used its maps to decide the employment of my strategic reserves).
IMHO the best history of the War in the East is Erickson's two-volumes work: "The road to Stalingrad", "The Road to Berlin". In some respect it's dated (it was written before the breakup of the USSR and a lot of archivial info wasn't available) but you can pair it with "Absolute War" by Chris Bellamy (he had Prof. Erickson as supervisor during his PhD, although, after reading both works, you'll be able to tell the master from the apprentice) to fill the "gaps". The only serious drawback of Erickson's books is the lack of decent maps, so it's sometimes difficult to follow the narrative without an external aid.

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: amatteucci

"When Titans Clashed" is a very good choice.
If you're gaming the initial period of war, "Barbarossa", also by David Glantz, is worth considering (I myself used its maps to decide the employment of my strategic reserves).
IMHO the best history of the War in the East is Erickson's two-volumes work: "The road to Stalingrad", "The Road to Berlin". In some respect it's dated (it was written before the breakup of the USSR and a lot of archivial info wasn't available) but you can pair it with "Absolute War" by Chris Bellamy (he had Prof. Erickson as supervisor during his PhD, although, after reading both works, you'll be able to tell the master from the apprentice) to fill the "gaps". The only serious drawback of Erickson's books is the lack of decent maps, so it's sometimes difficult to follow the narrative without an external aid.

Absolute War is a very good introductory overview and the prose is snappy and fun (in an occasionally very appropriately nightmarish way).
Most of the more recent stuff by Glantz is extremely good too. His book on Kursk is a masterpiece as are the two on Operation Blue and Stalingrad (the third isn't out so I hear). The maps are uneven in the Operation Blue books. the maps in Kursk are anywhere from barely okay to excellent.

[Major Bong]

Last year I read Erich von Manstein's "Lost Victories". In my opinion it is a very well written book that describes war from the operational side, while never getting too technical and remaining a good read from a very personal pov.

[dwesolick]

If you are interested in books that "read" very well, you can't do a lot better than Antony Beevor's "Stalingrad" or "Berlin". Both are superb and hard to put down. I have most of Glantz's books, and they are excellent overall, but not very easy reading most of the time. I'm about halfway through "Absolute War" by Bellamy and it is a good read as well. The only drawbacks are that it is from the Russian perspective (it is subtitled: Soviet Russia in the Second World War, in fairness [;)]), and that it takes a fairly pro-Soviet line (Lenin was a "great man", Stalin "deserves a break", Beria has been overly criticized by historians, etc...). He does mention some of the crimes of the regime, but he is too quick to offer excuses and explain other things away...the NKVD often comes across in a positive light. For my two cents, there's not a bit of difference (morally) between Hitler and Stalin's regimes.

Oh, if you are interested in a great video series, check out "Battlefield: Russia, the Eastern Front". It's a 3 DVD set which covers Barbarossa, Stalingrad, and Berlin and is absolutely masterful military history...the documentary footage actually fits the particular battles they are discussing and isn't just a hodgepodge of generic WWII clippings spliced together as you so often see in most recent documentaries.
The Barbarossa DVD has two parts: the first covers the background, leaders (political and military), weapons, plans, armies, air forces, etc and the second part covers the campaign from 22 June 41 through the battles around Moscow. Superbly done. Haven't watched the other two yet. Oh, and I think I paid around $20 or so for it at Amazon!

Also, you might be interested in a DVD set called "Russia's War: Blood upon the snow", which is also outstanding, but more of a history of the Stalin years with an emphasis on the Russo-German War.

[Davekhps]

The first book I ever read on the subject (back in high school) remains among the best: Alan Clark's classic Barbarossa.  While I believe that books published since then, making use of recent historical and archival research, have since surpassed it in accuracy, it remains an extremely readable introduction to the subject.
 
I'll second the Beevor recommendations as great intro books.
 
As for memoirs and autobiographies, both Manstein's Lost Victories and Guderian's Panzer Leader are excellent reads.
 
After this, you'll probably be itching to get into Glantz, who sets the "gold standard" in Eastern Front scholarship.  Both When Titans Clashed and Slaughterhouse are easily "advanced intro" books-- you could even read those to start.  His battle and campaign studies, however, are grad school level stuff: not to scare anyone off, but unless you know A LOT about World War II and military capabilities, you're not going to get a lot out of his books. 
 
As mentioned upthread, his book on Kursk is perhaps the best one-- it was my first Glantz, and remains my favorite.  It's readable, understandable, has great maps, and covers both sides fairly well (many of Glantz's later works are focused, rightly, on the oft-neglected Soviet version of events, but unless you already well understand what the Germans did during those battles, you're not going to get a lot out of those Soviet-centric histories). 

[KarlXII]

Thanks for all recommendations. I´ve read Anthony Beevors Stalingrad (very good) and Berlin (good) as well as Niklas Zetterlings "Kursk" and a few other ones.
I think I will take a go at Mansteins "Lost Victories" as the next step and the look at Glantz books. Too much to read, too little time to play [;)]...and I haven´t even finished the manual yet.

Somewhat off-topic but what new is there about the war at the eastern front that have surfaced in the litterature since the end of the cold war ? Have the view of the Red Army changed and if so, in what way ?
One thing that always struck me when reading books about WW2 Europe is that the Allies very early had the ability to decrypt the German codes and so always knew where and when they would strike, replacements, planned withdrawals etc etc
From the North Africa campaign to the eastern front (Kursk) and Normandy. I don´t feel historians have clearly stated how much that added to the Allies road to victory so to speak. It´s like playing without Fog-of-war while the Germans had it on.

[Flaviusx]

Lots and lots of stuff has surfaced since the end of the cold war and we've come a very long ways since the cold war in terms of understanding the Red Army. Most of the works mentioned here are very badly dated from that perspective. (Although I myself enjoy rereading Clark for purely literary reasons. He wrote very well. Albert Seaton is another favorite of mine for similar reasons.)

If you want to get a good understanding of what's going on with the Soviets, you need to separate the literature into two buckets: the pre Glantz and the post Glantz eras. Even Erickson is dated at this point. (But I still love his books.) The older literature does a good job showing things from the German perspective, but only in the last 20 or so years have we been able to properly balance that with Soviet sources.

[Wikingus]

I haven't read anything too grognardy on the Eastern front yet, but I'm planning to. Currently I have a book on German Eastern Front logistics on stand-by for when I have time. Unfortunately it's in Slovene, but it should be an interesting read. Written by one of my professors, it's largely based on primary sources and original research. So lots of sexy charts, graphs and rows upon rows of numbers. [:D]

[Davekhps]

What Flavius said [:)].
 
Anything written before 1989 is going to be heavily, if not entirely, based on German sources.  This is understandable, perhaps even unavoidable: the captured Germans were available in the West and eager to redeem their defeat with tales of lost victories, the Soviets were still behind the Iron Curtain and either in no mood or place to talk honestly about their successes, let alone their failures. 
 
In that regard, Glantz's scholarship was a revelation: we learned that the Soviets were even larger than we thought, and even more capable (at all levels) than we thought.  It makes the early German victories that much more impressive, but also showcases how foolish they were for thinking they could ever hope to win given their operational and strategic flaws.**
 
Rule of thumb: seek out early British histories or German memoirs for readability and entertainment factor, seek out modern American and Russian works for deeper technical understanding.
 
** For those of you like me who also share a deep love of American Civil War history, the parallels are fascinating: a long period of scholarship (1880s-1960s for the Civil War, 1940s-1990s for the Eastern Front in World War II) dominated by histories written by the losing side leveraging the natural human instinct to be impressed by "lost cause/lost victory" narratives, subsequently followed by revisionist works creating a more accurate picture by finally giving justice to the achievements of the winning sides (Catton/McPherson for the Civil War, Glantz for the Eastern Front).

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Lots and lots of stuff has surfaced since the end of the cold war and we've come a very long ways since the cold war in terms of understanding the Red Army. Most of the works mentioned here are very badly dated from that perspective. (Although I myself enjoy rereading Clark for purely literary reasons. He wrote very well. Albert Seaton is another favorite of mine for similar reasons.)

If you want to get a good understanding of what's going on with the Soviets, you need to separate the literature into two buckets: the pre Glantz and the post Glantz eras. Even Erickson is dated at this point. (But I still love his books.) The older literature does a good job showing things from the German perspective, but only in the last 20 or so years have we been able to properly balance that with Soviet sources.

One exception may be Zeimeke's Stalingrad to Berlin. Published in 1966,but based on microfilms of daily German HQ records and telephone transcripts, it is not one of those self-serving or Romantic German accounts nor is it particularly atmospheric. On the other hand it can be hilarious in an understated way.

It's true there is no coherent Russian viewpoint in Zeimeke, but on the other hand the actual experience of the German HQs certainly reflects a lot of the reality of the Soviet war machine and the strangely problematic efforts of the Germans to hang on.

There are some real gems in Zeimeke and the narrative has some powerful moments.

[Redmarkus5]

All of the above, plus:

1. Panzer Operations by Gen Raus (6th Pz Div) - an excellent first hand account and he tells very clearly how good the Soviets were, even though he was writing just after the war.

2. Thunder in the East by Evan Mawdsley - very well structured and apparently not well known

3. Moscow 1941 by Rodric Braithwaite - really brings to light the desperate nature of the struggle and the fate of the Militia divisions

4. Panzer Leader by Guderian - probably out of print now, but, well... it's by Guderian

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: Davekhps

What Flavius said [:)].

Anything written before 1989 is going to be heavily, if not entirely, based on German sources.  This is understandable, perhaps even unavoidable: the captured Germans were available in the West and eager to redeem their defeat with tales of lost victories, the Soviets were still behind the Iron Curtain and either in no mood or place to talk honestly about their successes, let alone their failures. 

In that regard, Glantz's scholarship was a revelation: we learned that the Soviets were even larger than we thought, and even more capable (at all levels) than we thought.  It makes the early German victories that much more impressive, but also showcases how foolish they were for thinking they could ever hope to win given their operational and strategic flaws.**

Rule of thumb: seek out early British histories or German memoirs for readability and entertainment factor, seek out modern American and Russian works for deeper technical understanding.

** For those of you like me who also share a deep love of American Civil War history, the parallels are fascinating: a long period of scholarship (1880s-1960s for the Civil War, 1940s-1990s for the Eastern Front in World War II) dominated by histories written by the losing side leveraging the natural human instinct to be impressed by "lost cause/lost victory" narratives, subsequently followed by revisionist works creating a more accurate picture by finally giving justice to the achievements of the winning sides (Catton/McPherson for the Civil War, Glantz for the Eastern Front).

One set of factors that may be worth noting is that if you are close to or implicated in a disastrous war, you may want to work hard to romanticize the whole thing: how skillful your side was, how detached and professional you were, how nobody followed your advice etc. etc.

Whereas, if you want to know what happened, its best to go to source documents written as close as possible to the actual war. Such documents are summarized or even presented verbatim in Glantz and Zeimeke and not chez Manstein, Guderian or Raus.

[Steelers708]

ORIGINAL: Davekhps

What Flavius said [:)].

Anything written before 1989 is going to be heavily, if not entirely, based on German sources.  This is understandable, perhaps even unavoidable: the captured Germans were available in the West and eager to redeem their defeat with tales of lost victories, the Soviets were still behind the Iron Curtain and either in no mood or place to talk honestly about their successes, let alone their failures. 

And even then British & American authors didn't believe the Germans and were too idle to check the actual Reports/diaries etc at the Bundesarchiv, the prevailing attitude was "well they would say that, they lost the war", which is why the 'myth' of the "Death Ride of the 4th Pz Army" at Kursk persists even to this day. Those British & American authors just refused to believe that German tank losses during Operation Zitadelle and especially at Prokhorovka were so low and kept peddling the figures the Soviets gave them.

When I was a kid in the 60's, the Germans had lost thousands of tanks at kursk, including hundreds of Tiger I's, we know now that there were only around 159 used during the operation of which only about 12 were lost. The same goes for the fallacy of hundreds of T-34's ramming other tanks.

[Farfarer61]

"Hitler Moves East" and "Scorched Earth" by Paul Carell are fantastic operational/tactical descriptions and stories of battles. You can watch (read) axis or soviet formations fight into oblivion on the Volkov for example. The Russian operations well described too. I used these books to create many scenarios for Squad Leader games - the detail on tactical engagements is nice. Also used them to develop an ASL campaign game generator (using a TRS80 or Fortran even as I recall) in which you took a German armoured infantry company "through" the war in east, with upgrades (e.g. better AFVs) possibly available as time went on and if you survived.

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: Steelers708

ORIGINAL: Davekhps

What Flavius said [:)].

Anything written before 1989 is going to be heavily, if not entirely, based on German sources.  This is understandable, perhaps even unavoidable: the captured Germans were available in the West and eager to redeem their defeat with tales of lost victories, the Soviets were still behind the Iron Curtain and either in no mood or place to talk honestly about their successes, let alone their failures. 

And even then British & American authors didn't believe the Germans and were too idle to check the actual Reports/diaries etc at the Bundesarchiv, the prevailing attitude was "well they would say that, they lost the war", which is why the 'myth' of the "Death Ride of the 4th Pz Army" at Kursk persists even to this day. Those British & American authors just refused to believe that German tank losses during Operation Zitadelle and especially at Prokhorovka were so low and kept peddling the figures the Soviets gave them.

When I was a kid in the 60's, the Germans had lost thousands of tanks at kursk, including hundreds of Tiger I's, we know now that there were only around 159 used during the operation of which only about 12 were lost. The same goes for the fallacy of hundreds of T-34's ramming other tanks.

I don't think these myths were perpetuated by qualified historians. If you read Zeimeke in 1966 you would have had an account based on daily entries in German records.

I don't recall Z's description of Kursk, but the narrative of the collapse that followed it pays attention to all factors that current accounts mention such as the landings of the Western Allies and Model fooling with reinforcements.

[Crimguy]

Carell always brings controversy in these (Matrix) parts . . .

Although of no use as a grad history, I loved Craig's Enemy at the Gates. Very moving recounting of Stalingrad.

[Davekhps]

ORIGINAL: MengJiao
Whereas, if you want to know what happened, its best to go to source documents written as close as possible to the actual war. Such documents are summarized or even presented verbatim in Glantz and Zeimeke and not chez Manstein, Guderian or Raus.

In fairness to Manstein and Guderian, there were many instances of them either not having access to German historical records (the Soviets captured plenty) or those records simply not having survived the war. Even the best personal histories (and I regard them both as being excellent) are inevitably colored by faulty memories, incomplete diaries and records, etc. long before the question of personal biases enter into play.

In short, I think the universal failing, if there was one, of post-war Eastern Front scholarship was that most histories framed the war as between Hitler and his generals instead of between the Germans and the Soviets. Leaders like Manstein and Guderian naturally spent much of their time focused on that struggle, arguing with a dead man about how if only Hitler had listened to them, they might have succeeded where they failed. I don't begrudge those accounts for their failing to include the (again, unavailable) Soviet perspectives so much as their failure to properly acknowledge their absence.

Then again, ultimately I can't even blame the Germans for their failings when it was the British historians (like the wonderfully-readable-yet-lamentable Liddell Hart) and Americans who took what the Germans wrote and either ignored their failings or outright magnified those failings through their own self-serving exagerrations.

Recall that during the Cold War there was tremendous interest in German WWII military success by NATO leaders seeing as they too would have to face the Red Army undermanned and underequipped. There was simply more practical lessons to be learned from the German experience than there was from the Soviets, even if the Russians were sharing their own unvarnished history with the West (which again, they weren't-- as Glantz learned, they weren't even *writing* those histories for themselves, let alone keeping them secret. The Soviets too learned the lessons they wanted to learn).

Anyway, it's a simple situation to remedy: don't get too hung up on what you read first, just read widely and deeply. The truth isn't all in Manstein, it isn't all in Glantz, and it's not a "split the difference"-- it's in a proper and informed balance of many accounts.

[Steelers708]

ORIGINAL: MengJiao

ORIGINAL: Steelers708

ORIGINAL: Davekhps

What Flavius said [:)].

Anything written before 1989 is going to be heavily, if not entirely, based on German sources.  This is understandable, perhaps even unavoidable: the captured Germans were available in the West and eager to redeem their defeat with tales of lost victories, the Soviets were still behind the Iron Curtain and either in no mood or place to talk honestly about their successes, let alone their failures. 

And even then British & American authors didn't believe the Germans and were too idle to check the actual Reports/diaries etc at the Bundesarchiv, the prevailing attitude was "well they would say that, they lost the war", which is why the 'myth' of the "Death Ride of the 4th Pz Army" at Kursk persists even to this day. Those British & American authors just refused to believe that German tank losses during Operation Zitadelle and especially at Prokhorovka were so low and kept peddling the figures the Soviets gave them.

When I was a kid in the 60's, the Germans had lost thousands of tanks at kursk, including hundreds of Tiger I's, we know now that there were only around 159 used during the operation of which only about 12 were lost. The same goes for the fallacy of hundreds of T-34's ramming other tanks.

I don't think these myths were perpetuated by qualified historians. If you read Zeimeke in 1966 you would have had an account based on daily entries in German records.

I don't recall Z's description of Kursk, but the narrative of the collapse that followed it pays attention to all factors that current accounts mention such as the landings of the Western Allies and Model fooling with reinforcements.

It depends on what you call 'qualified historians,' to be honest I no longer have my very early books on Kursk etc, because simply put they were "CRAP" and I can no longer recall the authors. I am sure that somewhere hiding away amongst my huge library I still have my copy of the magazine 'War Monthly' from the early 70's with the very same 'Death Ride' headline and soviet figures.

I can't comment on Ziemke, other than to say I've just looked in the only book of his I've got, 'Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East' and he seems to steer clear of giving figures for losses etc except on the odd occasion, and whilst the chapter on Operation Zitadelle is 22 pages long, the actaul battle only takes up 4 of those 22 pages.

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

Barbarossa by Alan Clark is one of the best.
Stalingrad - Antony Beevor
Generals Manstein, Raus & Guderian's books are interesting. Search for those by author
The German Generals Talk- Lidell Hart
Ivan's War (great insight into life of a Red Army soldier, not for the faint of heart!)
The Secret of Stalingrad
the Green stackpole series of books has some good in depth discussions of various campaigns.
 
 
The more you read of these books, the more you see the conflicting viewpoints and contradictions, but also some truths emerge.  It seems now with the release of the post Cold War documents the German generals were not entirely untruthful after the war, and a lot of their disregarded claims were true. 
 
Definitely enjoyable to read these while playing the campaign!