Known to the Germans, and thus many in the Anglo-American speaking world, as the Battle at Tscherkassy (Cherkassy) and to the Red Army as the Korsun-Shevchenkovskii Operation; the January-February 1944 battle centered around the town of Korsun has long attracted tremendous interest from amateur and professional historians alike.
Interest in the battle stems from a number of reasons not least of which, and as authors Niklas Zetterling and Anders Frankson amply demonstrate, because the fighting around Korsun marked one of the rare late war large scale operational level engagements whereby the
There is little doubt that Erich von Manstein had one of the finest military minds of the Second World War. Among his accolades, include, perhaps most famously, his role in creating the plan that lead to the spectacular fall of France in 1940. In addition, came his exploits leading Army Group Don in February and March 1943; when his brilliant "backhand" counterstroke not only brought stability to the German Eastern Front, following the loss of Stalingrad, but also forced the surging Red Army back on to its heels.
The story of the Tirpitz, as presented by military historians Niklas Zetterling and Michael Tamelander, is really a metaphor for the experiences endured by many of Germany's Second World War capital ships and the concomitant Allied efforts to destroy them. It is in this look at the struggle between Allied and German maritime assets in one of the Second World War's most hostile physical environments that helps elevate Zetterling's and Tamelander's work on the Tirpitz to more than just another look at one of the Third Reich's largest surface combatants
The war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union has received an uneven treatment from most popular historians. Perhaps no better example of this is in typical accounts of events taking place during the winter of 1942-1943. Most often, this period of the war in Eastern Europe is described strictly from the perspective of the German Sixth Army's collapse at Stalingrad.
Catherine Merridale's Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945, is a fascinating and necessary look at men all too often reduced to a subhuman status by not only their Second World War foes but nearly fifty years of Cold War propaganda. What most grants Merridale's work its importance lies within what is sometimes forgotten about the Second World War; the reality Hitler and his National Socialist regime were dedicated to fighting a racial war against only the Jew but also against the Slav - humans Hitler referred to as untermenschen
Richard Dinardo's Germany and the Axis Powers: From Coalition to Collapse (Modern War Studies) fills an invaluable niche in the literature currently available on the Second World War's European Theater. In particular, Dinardo has focused on Germany's relationship with Finland, Hungary, Italy and Romania; producing a concise but revealing analysis into the numerous problems that derailed the Axis coalition.
In Germany and the Axis Powers Dinardo has produced a book not only examining how dysfunctional the Axis alliance really was but, more importantly,
Keith Bird's Erich Raeder: Admiral of the Third Reich breaks new ground in exploring one of the pivotal personalities involved in the war at sea during World War II. Remarkably, in the sixty plus years since the War ended no one has produced a complete biographical treatment of German Grand Admiral Erich Raeder. Bird's work fills this gaping hole in the historical narrative and focuses on not just Raeder, but more importantly his stewardship of the German Navy during the critical years of 1928-1943. In Erich Raeder: Admiral of the Third Reich Bird has
Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economyis an extraordinary piece of scholarship and for years to come will no doubt be regarded as essential reading for anyone seeking a greater understanding into Germany's Second World War economy. Tooze's work comprehensively breaks down the how and why of Hitler's quest to establish a German empire in Europe and the role economics played in German defeat.
Just when you thought there was little more to be gleaned from the thoroughly documented armored battles in France between June and September 1944 Tank Tactics: From Normandy to Lorraine (Stackpole Military History Series) emerged in 2001 to thoroughly and thought provokingly redefine what is known about these pivotal events in World War Two.
For anyone interested in the German method of warfare, or for those that just enjoy a good operational history, Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942 (Modern War Studies)ranks among the best of today's scholarship. Conventional wisdom has long posited Hitler played the crucial role in turning Germany's stupendous victories during the spring and summer of 1942, in the Soviet Union and North African Desert, into catastrophic defeat in the fall and winter of that same year.
