Download or read book Eastern Front written by Bob Carruthers and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-06-12 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ferocious battles for survival fought by trapped German forces in Russia have become synonymous with that most terrible of all military campaigns. shortly after the war the personal experiences of those who had fought in the battles were collected together as the German report series. These reports include invaluable information from impeccable sources on the pockets formed at Klin, Velikiye Luki, Cherkassy and Kamenets-Podolskiy.??Also included are contemporary reports featuring German encirclement tactics, and an in-depth feature on the Kiev operation. This new compilation is essential reading for anyone interested in discovering the real experience of the German forces trapped in Russia.??This book is part of the 'Hitler's War Machine' series, a new military history range compiled and edited by Emmy Award winning author and historian Bob Carruthers. The series draws on primary sources and contemporary documents to provide a new insight into the true nature of Hitler's Wehrmacht.??The series consultant is David Mcwhinnie creator of the award winning PBS series 'Battlefield'.
Download or read book Battleground Prussia written by Prit Buttar and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engrossing history of the last year of the Second World War, charting the battles fought between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazis across German soil. The terrible months between the arrival of the Red Army on German soil and the final collapse of Hitler's regime were like no other in the Second World War. The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished. From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this book recounts in chilling detail the desperate struggle of soldiers and civilians alike. These brutal campaigns are brought vividly to life by a combination of previously untold testimony and astute strategic analysis recognising a conflict of unprecedented horror and suffering.
Download or read book Korsun Pocket written by Niklas Zetterling and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2011-03-31 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the second half of 1943, after the failure at Kursk, GermanyÕs Army Group South fell back from Russia under repeated hammer blows from the Red Army. Under Erich von Manstein, however, the Germans were able to avoid serious defeats, while at the same time fending off HitlerÕs insane orders to hold on to useless territory. Then, in January 1944, a disaster happened. Six divisions of Army Group South became surrounded after sudden attacks by the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts under command of generals Nikolai Vatutin and Ivan Konev around the village of Korsun (near the larger town of Cherkassy on the Dnieper). The GermansÕ greatest fear was the prospect of another Stalingrad, the catastrophe that had occurred precisely one year before. This time, though, Manstein was in control from the start, and he immediately rearranged his Army Group to rescue his trapped divisions. A major panzer drive got underway, led by General der Panzertruppen Hans Hube, a survivor from Stalingrad pocket, which promptly ran up against several soviet tank armies. Leading the break-in was Franz Baeke with his Tiger and Panther-tanks. Due to both weather and ferocious resistance, the German drive stalled. Ju-52s still flew into KorsunÕs airfield, delivering supplies and taking out wounded, but it soon became apparent that only one option remained for the beleaguered defenders: breakout. Without consulting Hitler, on the night of February 16 Manstein ordered the breakout to begin. Led by the strongest formation within the pocket, SS Wiking, the trapped forces surged out and soon rejoined the surrounding panzer divisions who had been fully engaged in weakening the ring. When dawn broke, the Soviets realized their prey was escaping. Although the Germans within the pocket lost nearly all of their heavy weapons and left many wounded behind, their escape was effected. Stalin, having anticipated another Stalingrad, was left with little but an empty bag, as Army Group SouthÑthis timeÑhad pulled off a rescue. In The Korsun Pocket, Niklas Zetterling, a researcher at the Swedish Defense College since 1995 and Anders Frankson, have provided a highly detailed and often breathtaking account of one of the most dramatic battles of World War II. From grand strategy to soldiersÕ voices on the ground, including expert statistical analysis, the action, and the stakes, of the battle at Korsun are made vividly clear.
Download or read book The Battle of Korsun Cherkassy written by Nikolaus von Vormann and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A primary source account of the WWII Battle of Korsun-Cherkassy written by a Nazi commander who survived the Soviet victory. In 1943, the tide began to turn against Germany on the Eastern Front. Their summer offensive, Operation Citadel, was a failure. The Red Army’s Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive was pushing back on Germany’s Army Group South in a war of attrition. By October, Kiev was liberated, and the Soviets had reached the Dnieper River in Ukraine. After sudden attacks by the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, the Russians achieved a major encirclement of six German divisions, a total of 60,000 soldiers, in a pocket near the Dnieper River. A dramatic weeks-long battle ensued. After a failed attempt led by Erich von Manstein to break into the pocket from the outside, the trapped German forces focused their efforts on escape. Abandoning equipment and wounded soldiers, the survivors rejoined the surrounding panzer divisions. Beginning with the German retreat to the Dnieper in 1943, Generalleutnant von Vormann chronicles the battle and describes the psychological effects of the brutal combat. As one of the few primary source materials that exists on the subject, this volume is of significant historical interest.
Download or read book The German Way of War on the Eastern Front 1943 1945 written by Jaap Jan Brouwer and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2024-11-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early 1943 marked a turning point in the battle on the Eastern Front. After the devastating defeat at Stalingrad, the German army was no longer able to take the initiative and control the battle. In the following years, despite tactical victories, the German army would be gradually pushed back until Soviet units eventually reached Berlin and captured the Reichstag. In the meantime, both enemies had learned a great deal and new weapons were rapidly introduced onto the battlefield. On 8 May 1945, this bloody confrontation between the two giants ended in the unconditional surrender of Germany and a new geopolitical equilibrium was created. This titanic battle is illustrated with witness accounts from generals, soldiers and civilians. Attention is not only paid to the course of the battle, but also to the tactics and organizational dimensions of the armies involved, the challenges of the vastness of the country, the dilemmas for civilians caught between the fighting parties and the flight of millions of Germans to the West in an attempt to escape from the atrocities of the Soviet army. The book also considers the role of the Reichsbahn in the field of logistics, and the importance of the innovation and production capacity of both armies. In also pays attention to the origins of the Cold War that was to follow this confrontation and which would last until 1989.
Download or read book Demyansk 1942 43 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly illustrated account of the battle for the Demyansk Pocket on the Eastern Front in World War II. The fighting around the town of Demyansk was one of the longest encirclement battles on the Eastern Front during World War II, stretching from February 1942 to February 1943. Originally, the German 16. Armee occupied Demyansk in the autumn of 1941 because it was key terrain that would be used as a springboard for an eventual offensive into the Valdai Hills. Instead, the Soviet winter counteroffensive in February 1942 encircled the German II Armeekorps and other units, inside the Demyansk Pocket. Yet despite severe pounding from five Soviet armies, the embattled German troops held the pocket and the Luftwaffe organized a major aerial resupply effort to sustain the defenders. For the first time in military history, an army was supplied entirely by air. In February 1943, Marshal Timoshenko was ordered to launch an offensive to cut off the base of the salient and annihilate the 12 divisions. At the same time, Hitler finally came to his senses after the Stalingrad debacle and authorized the 16. Armee to withdraw from the pocket. This volume will conclude with the drama of a German Army-sized withdrawal under fire in winter, under attack from three sides.
Download or read book Marching from Defeat written by Claus Neuber and published by Pen & Sword Military. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 1944, in Belarus on the Eastern Front, the Red Army launched Operation Bagration, the massive offensive that crushed Hitler’s Army Group Centre. German soldiers who weren’t encircled and captured had to fight their way back towards their own lines across hundreds of miles of enemy territory. This is the story of one of them, Claus Neuber, a young artillery officer who describes in graphic detail his experiences during that great retreat. His gripping account carries the reader through the desperate defensive battles and rearguard actions fought to stem the relentless Soviet advance and to breakout from the cauldrons between Minsk and the Beresina river. After almost seventy days as a fugitive, living in the open, depending on the kindness of villagers, enduring extremes of cold, wet and hunger, and living each day with the ever-present threat of betrayal and imprisonment, he found his way back to the German lines. This unforgettable personal narrative, translated for the first time from the original German, gives a dramatic insight into the impact of the Soviet offensive and the disintegration of an entire German army. It is also compelling reading because it records in day-to-day detail what such a bitter defeat was like and shows how individual soldiers somehow survived through their bravery, ingenuity and endurance – and the companionship of a few loyal comrades.
Download or read book The Initial Period of War on the Eastern Front 22 June August 1941 written by David M. Glantz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, this volume draws upon eye-witness German accounts supplemented with German archival and detailed Soviet materials. Formerly classified Soviet archival materials has been incorporated.
Download or read book The German Defense Of Berlin written by Oberst a.D. Wilhem Willemar and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often written during imprisonment in Allied War camps by former German officers, with their memories of the World War fresh in their minds, The Foreign Military Studies series offers rare glimpses into the Third Reich. In this study Oberst a.D. Wilhem Willemar discusses his recollections of the climatic battle for Berlin from within the Wehrmacht. “No cohesive, over-all plan for the defense of Berlin was ever actually prepared. All that existed was the stubborn determination of Hitler to defend the capital of the Reich. Circumstances were such that he gave no thought to defending the city until it was much too late for any kind of advance planning. Thus the city’s defense was characterized only by a mass of improvisations. These reveal a state of total confusion in which the pressure of the enemy, the organizational chaos on the German side, and the catastrophic shortage of human and material resources for the defense combined with disastrous effect. “The author describes these conditions in a clear, accurate report which I rate very highly. He goes beyond the more narrow concept of planning and offers the first German account of the defense of Berlin to be based upon thorough research. I attach great importance to this study from the standpoint of military history and concur with the military opinions expressed by the author.”-Foreword by Generaloberst a.D. Franz Halder.
Download or read book Soviet Night Operations in World War II written by Claude R. Sasso and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1982 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Reckoning written by Prit Buttar and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in paperback, this book tells the detailed and engrossing account of the fighting in Ukraine in 1944, making use of the extensive memoirs of German and Russian soldiers involved in the fighting, as well as partisans behind the German lines, to bring the story to life. 'The Reckoning is vivid history, the tragic Eastern Front brought to life through the widest range of Russian and German sources I've ever read. Bravo.' – Peter Caddick-Adams, author and broadcaster By the end of 1944 the Red Army was poised on the very frontiers of the Third Reich. How had the once unstoppable, mighty Wehrmacht faltered so disastrously? Certainly it had suffered defeats before, in particular the vast catastrophe of Stalingrad, but it was in 1944 that the war was ultimately lost. It was no longer a case of if but rather when the Red Army would be at the gates of Berlin. Prit Buttar retraces the ebb and flow of the various battles and campaigns fought throughout the Ukraine and Romania in 1944. January and February saw Army Group South encircled in the Korsun Pocket. Although many of the encircled troops did escape, in part due to Soviet intelligence and command failures, the Red Army would endeavor to not make the same mistakes again. Indeed, in the coming months the Red Army would demonstrate an ability to learn and improve, reinventing itself as a war-winning machine, demonstrated clearly in its success in the Iasi-Kishinev operation. The view of the Red Army as a huge, unskilled horde that rolled over everything in its path is just one myth that The Reckoning reassess. Like all myths, they contain many truths, but also a great many distortions, all of which are skilfully unpicked and analyzed in this powerful retelling of 1944 on the Eastern Front.
Download or read book Violence in Defeat written by Bastiaan Willems and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-18 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores how the Wehrmacht's defensive conduct contributed to the radicalisation of behavioural patterns in Germany during the war's final months.
Download or read book The Wehrmacht Experience in Russia written by and published by Coda Books Ltd. This book was released on with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Absolute War written by Chris Bellamy and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-11-26 with total page 867 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Analysis of Deep Attack Operations Operation Bagration Belorussia 22 June 29 August 1944 written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1987 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Operation BAGRATION took place during what the Soviet analysts consider the third period of the war: that of the Soviet strategic offensives which marked the ascendancy of the Soviet armed forces over the German Wehrmacht. During this period, the armed forces of the Soviet Union held the strategic initiative and used it to defeat the Wehrmacht, gain control of Eastern Europe, and invade Germany proper, meeting Allied forces on the Elbe River on 25 April 1945. The period is regarded as beginning January 1944 and ending with the V-E Day, 7 May 1945.
Download or read book Nineteen Forty five written by Newt Gingrich and published by Baen Books. This book was released on 1995 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the world that would have existed in 1945 if Adolf Hitler had not declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor.
Download or read book The Soviet Airborne Experience written by David M. Glantz and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1984 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contents: The Prewar Experience; Evolution of Airborne Forces During World War II; Operational Employment: Vyaz'ma, January-February 1942; Operational Employment: Vyaz'ma, February-June 1942; Operational Employment: On the Dnepr, September 1943; Tactical Employment; The Postwar Years.
