von Manstein's "Lost Victories"

[Das Rikki]

I know it must be here somewhere in the forum, but I can't find it. Any reviews about von Manstein's book "Lost Victories"? I read a few pages of it on Google books and it looks interesting.

Thanks!

[Jason Pipes]

In a nutshell it's a great book and a must read, especially about the battles in the Crimea on which he obviously spends a great deal of time on. It suffers from some of the same problems all memoirs by high-level German officers tend to suffer from, but Manstein's work is pretty well regarded as one of the more even-handed and well written to come from those who survived the war. Copies should be easy to find and very cheap since many editions have been published over the years.

[Hans]

One thing to remember is that if you read the English version it has been somewhat "doctored".

- Hans

[Uncle Joe]

Are all German editions identical in content for the Finnish translation is from German?

[Ogiwan]

I also thought quite highly of Lost Victories.

Doctored how?

[John Hilly]

Manstein's book is "a Neccessety to read" if you want to learn something about the bittter fightings in Russia.
Grab it in Your hands any means possible.
Believe me, I know!
Greets
Johnny.B.Goode

[Richard Hargreaves]

I also thought quite highly of Lost Victories.

Doctored how?

I think "doctored" is probably the wrong word. "Changed" is more accurate. The chapter on Citadel was taken from a journal article Manstein wrote, rather than his memoirs (which were much longer) and a number of "personal reminiscences" were excised by the translator.

I hope one day there's an unexpurgated version for the sake of completeness, but also because Manstein's memoirs are drier than the Sahara in a drought as it stands and those "personal reminiscences" may reveal something of the man. As it stands, little of his personality comes through in the book - unlike Guderian's and Rommel's memoirs (Guderian's especially give you a flavour of the firebrand!).

[Das Rikki]

Thanks for all this great info friends! I have ordered the book!

[KAKI3152]

I found my copy in a Thrift store for $3.00 in excellent condition.

[Commissar D, the Evil]

I found my copy in a Thrift store for $3.00 in excellent condition.

Probably the best book deal, in terms of price vs. content, that you will get this year.

Bestens,
~D

[Andy H]

Is there an authorative balanced Biography of v.M out there?

LV certainly deserves a place on your shelf though its age is showing now and as mentioned it suffers from the self cleansing attitude of the author.

Regards

[Doug Nash]

I just finished reading "Field Marshal von Manstein - The Janushead (A Portrait)" by Marcel Stein, probably the world's most authoritative Manstein scholar. He states upfront that this is not a biography in the strictest sense of the term, but an attempt to paint a picture of Manstein the man, in totality. This will probably be the closest thing you get to a biography of the man, since his estate still refuses to release his personal papers for review by historians.
After putting it down, I have to say that I will never be able to see Manstein in the same positive light that I used to have. While Stein is unabashed in his admiration of Manstein's military prowess (he states that Manstein was Germany's most brilliant operational commander of the war), he pulls no punches in regards to Manstein's knowing (and perhaps even willing) participation in the Holocaust, particularly in regards to the time spent as commander of 11th Army in the Crimea. I had until now thought that Manstein was relatively clean, but Stein's use of the proceedings from Manstein's warcrimes trial after war make it unmistakenly clear that he knew exactly what was going on, issuing orders to his troops and collaborating willingly with Einsatzgruppen carrying out genocide operations in the area under his command. Stein states that while Manstein could not stop the activities of Ohlendorf and others, the fact that Manstein raised not a peep in protest and in fact facilitated the Einsatzgruppen's operations are pretty damning evidence in and of themselves. Also disturbing to me was Manstein's efforts after the war, not only during his trail but in his memoirs, to whitewash his own culpability in warcrimes but to blame his own particularly operational failings on others who worked under him or adjacent to him. It becomes clear that after the war that Manstein was reviled by his contemporaries who survived the war, seeing in him the deepest hypocrisy. His moral failings extended to his Janus-like attitude towards the Hitler assasination plot; while he knew of it and hid his knowledge of it (at least he didn't rat out his contemporaries who were involved), his lukewarm support of it and his opportunistic offer to serve the new government if it should succeed in the plot were morally reprehensible.
Manstein was a man of his time and of the moment. He embodied some of the finest qualities of the classic German General Staff Officer, as well as the worst of those qualities as they manifested themselves under the peculiar conditions that men such as he were confronted with under the Nazi regime. That he did not rise to a higher level of moral responsibility is a tragedy, which Stein readily concedes, but then again, one comes away with the feeling after reading the book that Manstein betrayed his own country when it needed men with his sterling qualities the most.
Highly recommend this book, though you should expect it to challenge you.
Cheers,
Doug

[Richard Hargreaves]

Thanks for the comprehensive review, Doug, not least because I'd heard rather mixed comments about Stein's book (although I've not seen a copy in the shops so I couldn't judge for myself).

There's also this book in German, which I've not got (funds are, as ever, finite )

http://www.amazon.de/Erich-von-Manstein ... s_ir_all_1

Limited in scope, admittedly, but books from the Schöningh stable are normally first rate and extremely well researched.

[Andy H]

Hi Doug

Thank you for the insightful post. I read Wolfram Wette's Wehrmacht and was somewhat surprised by v.M's complicity in the rather darker actions of the WH in his area of command.

Certainly a book to obtain

Regards

[Das Rikki]

Reading "Lost Victories" now. Sure makes me hope (and wish) he had nothing to do with the holocaust but it is difficult to believe that many officers then had no idea this was going on.

His description of the death of his son and his comrades is emotional and down to earth. A very good read indeed.