David Stahel - Operation Barbarossa & Germany's Defeat

[Lexxx]

Has anyone read David Stahel's book, Operation Barbarossa & Germany's Defeat in the East? It looks interesting, but very expensive. I do not want to take the plunge unless it is good.

[Richard Hargreaves]

I've not read it - the price tag has deterred me too - but I have read a few highly-complimentary reviews by Ostfront experts. It's based, I think, solely on German sources and takes only the performance of the German Army into account. Stahel determines that Barbarossa was over by August 1941 when the Heer became bogged down at Smolensk.

[panzermahn]

I agreed with Richard. The price is quite steep. However I wonder if books dealt with Operation Barbarossa ever comes to discuss the preventive war thesis of Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezun). I noticed that many authors who wrote books in English tends to shy away from discussion of preventive war thesis in detail (the only ones who do so in English is Richard C. Raack and R.F.S. Stolfi).

A good example is the glorious historian such a Richard Evans with his stupendous three volume history of Third Reich (to me it's a literature regurgitation of William Shirer's The Rise & Fall of Third Reich)

Even Russian historians such as Dimitri Volkogonov, Mikhail Meltyukhov and Constantine Peleshkov and Austrian historians such as Heinz Magenheimer and Bianca Petra had discussed this theory deeply.

[Michate]

I do have it.
The good thing of the book is that after an outline of the campaign's planning it provides a lot of primary sourced material, which allows to look at the operations of army group center and especially panzer groups 2 and 3 from the start of the operation through the Bialystok-Minsk and Smolensk battles until the modifications of operational plans in August 1941.

The down side is that it contains even more than the usual share of political correctness driven tendentiousness, and that the guiding hypothesis is (as even the author himself admits) in the end not much more than a rehash of communist propagation history.

[panzermahn]

Hi Michate

Thanks. From what you have said, I think I will crossed this out from my 2010 book's wish list


Panzermahn

[Michate]

Hello Panzermahn,

please do not - it is still a very information rich book, the author clearly knows his sources well and presents a lot of detail. I certainly learned a lot.

My critical remarks on hist style and perspective are anyway all for my own taste.

Also, reading an author with differing points of view can be very thought provoking.

[khananel]

I'm halfway through this book and I can say for certain that's its one of the best books on Barbarossa i've ever read. His focus is narrow, but his information is clear, straightforward and presented in a logical manner. He focuses on the immediate invasion period, and on the drive to Smolensk. As his focus is so narrow he can be more thorough and realistic in his eveluation, and he is.He utilises primary sources for German information, and mostly, but not exclusively, Glantz for the Russian side. I'm glad he uses Glantz because I can't get into Glantz at all but Stahel employs Glantz's info to very good effect.

Stahel balances operational information of a general military nature with spacific issues from KTBs and memoirs and other primary sources. He also uses soldiersc diaries to illustrate his theme from groiund level so to speak. I find his research methodology logical, realistic and relevant. Getting into his book is also an emotional journey because he takes you into the actions and reactions of the staff officers on the German side. I found myself asking time and again 'how could they have been so stupid?'.

So, a highly recommended read.

[panzermahn]

Folks,

I just checked at Amazon and it seems there is a cheaper paperback version of it published this year



http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Barbaro ... =pd_sim_b7#_