In Battlegroup professor and former British Infantry Officer Jim Storr takes his considerable, training, knowledge, and experience and condenses it down toward assessing the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the NATO and Warsaw Pact armies that faced off across the East/West German border during the 1980s. I enjoyed this book and think you will too. Check out my review here.
Organized into nine chapters Red Army Into The Reich provides an excellent general overview of the Red Army's 1944-1945 push into not just Germany, but Scandinavia, Central Europe, and the Balkans as well.
Since the Second World War ended it has been popular to present the Soviet Union as an overwhelming economic and military colossus that was essentially undefeatable by 1942 if not earlier in the war. The groundwork for this belief was laid by German officers who after the war sought to cast blame for their own failures of leadership. American military leaders then latched onto these aguments. Doubtlessly this occured in part as a response to the Cold War era Communist threat.
In examining the how and why of Operation Barbarossa's failure there is still a significant contingent of historians who believe the sheer numerical superiority of the Red Army had doomed Germany to defeat as early as the late summer of 1941. For instance, the vast majority of David Stahel's decade long work posits that the Wehrmacht in general, but the German army (Heer) in particular, had shot their bolt as early as August of 1941. Oftentimes, exhibit A for those making this argument is the manner in which Barbarossa fell apart late in 1941. It is my contention however, that events on
On June 22, 1941 Nazi Germany launched it's invasion of the Soviet Union (codenamed Operation Barbarossa). The Germans concentrated the bulk of their effort in three massive Army Groups (North, Center, and South). In this article, we shall take a look at Army Group South's operations during Barbarossa as well as examine the condition in which the Army Group stood as several key points in the campaign. In this way we can better assess how and why Army Group South fell short in terms of taking its objectives for Barbarossa.
The Red Army in June of 1941 was very much a product of several distinct eras and experiences. In many ways it represented the fourth iteration of the Red Army in less than fifteen years. First, came the Red Army of the late 1920s - a very basic and stripped down organization that had emerged from the Russian Civil War and was reflective of the fact that the first five-year plan for Soviet industry was just beginning. In comparsion we have the seemingly powerful 1936 edition of the Red Army.
For over a decade now, I have sought, via my professionally published work and at this website, to drill down into exactly how and why the Second World War in Europe ended as it did. To that end, the major component of my research has focused on the war fought between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. More specifically, I have sought to show that qualitative elements proved more instructive in determining the outcome of Germany and the Soviet Union's struggle in comparison to other theories that mass/quantitative factors proved decisive in the Red Army's victory.
When most people think of the Red Army circa 1942 they imagine a war machine on the rise, and blessed with fleets of wordclass T-34 medium tanks. On the one hand it's true that by the spring of 1942 Soviet tank factories cranked out far more T-34's than they had during the nadir of Soviet fortunes late in 1941. But, for a number of reasons (including both T-34 losses at the front as well as the decision to parcel out T-34's in independent tank brigades versus concentrating them in the Tank Corps) there were never enough of these reliable, well armed armored fighting vehicles to go around.
Dr. Boris Sokolov's Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky offers a unique look at not only the life of one of the Red Army's top Second World War era senior officers, but also interesting insight into a Red Army at war.
Last month I posted a short write-up on Auschwitz, which I visited in September of last year. In addition, at the website's World War II gallery I posted fourteen photo's I took at Auschwitz, and corresponding detailed descriptions amply illustrating these German initiated crimes against humanity. In addition, I have also published a detailed look at the former German concentration camp at Terezin in the Czech Republic (which I visited in 2013) and repeated articles, book reviews, and pictures amply detailing the horrors of the Holocaust, the individuals who suffered or fought against the
