Hitler's Greatest Defeat

Fülszöveg

It was indeed Hjíter s worst defeat! Though he had to move forces to the West to counter the expected Second Front of the Western Allies, the shortest route to the heartland of theThird Reich, the Germán Army faced its greatest odds on the Eastern Front. Stalin was preparing a massive offensive to liberate the last remaining areas occupied by the Germans. However, Hitler's obsession with holding ground dülled his strategic thinking and nullified the efforts ol his own generals to use their undoubted operational ability. In this fine example ol succinct analysis and accurate description, Paul Adair leads the reader through the build up to the campaign with studies of the Germán Army and its command structure and of the Soviet forces under Stalin. He demonstrates, utilising interviews with veterans ol both sides and access to newly released documents, how both sides viewed the situation as the decisive vear ol 1944 began, belore charting the progress of each thrust and counter-thrust.... Tovább

Fülszöveg

It was indeed Hjíter s worst defeat! Though he had to move forces to the West to counter the expected Second Front of the Western Allies, the shortest route to the heartland of theThird Reich, the Germán Army faced its greatest odds on the Eastern Front. Stalin was preparing a massive offensive to liberate the last remaining areas occupied by the Germans. However, Hitler's obsession with holding ground dülled his strategic thinking and nullified the efforts ol his own generals to use their undoubted operational ability. In this fine example ol succinct analysis and accurate description, Paul Adair leads the reader through the build up to the campaign with studies of the Germán Army and its command structure and of the Soviet forces under Stalin. He demonstrates, utilising interviews with veterans ol both sides and access to newly released documents, how both sides viewed the situation as the decisive vear ol 1944 began, belore charting the progress of each thrust and counter-thrust. Faced by a massive Soviet superiority, the hapless Army Group Centre lost somé 30 irreplaceable divisions. It was a loss, to quote three Germán olficers who became generals in the postwar Bundeswehr, which 'greatly accelerated the collapse ol the Germán state' (Niepold), 'an indication that we could no longer win the war' (General von Plató) and 'the beginning of the end' (von Kielmannseg). With the world lollowing the progress ol the Normandy landings, these dramatic happenings on a distant front were for many years destined to be ignored. Now, 50 years later, a full length study of the defeat of Army Group Centre shows that a disaster greater even than the Allied invasion in Francé was inflicted upon the Germans many miles to the East. Vissza