Demyansk

Book discussion and reviews related to the German military.

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Helmut
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Demyansk

Post by Helmut »

Servus,
My son who is a cadet at west Point has a paper to do where he analyzes a battle and he chose the siege of Demyansk. He has to have at least 9 references to support his paper. He has the DEMYANSK FROZEN FORTRESS Osprey book and I have given him my copy of Carrell's HITLER MOVES EAST. I have WIE EIN FELS IN MEER but while he cans speak German, sadly he cannot read it. I don't know if the English Language version would help him too much since the German version has limited coverage.

Does someone know of any readily accessible English language books they can recommend especially those which might focus on other units than the Totenkopf Division.

Thanks in advance for any help

Regards,

Helmut
vkun
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Re: Demyansk

Post by vkun »

Charles Sydnor: Soldiers of Destruction (Totenkopf history) has a lengthy account on Demyansk

Earl Ziemke: Moscow to Stalingrad should give at least some kind of coverage (I don't have it so it is a supposition)

David Glantz should cover this battle from the russian side (don't ask me for a title - I don't have it and Glantz wrote dozens of books)

John Erickson: the Road to Stalingrad - see above

for the rest of the sources I would go to the bibliography of the books mentioned above.
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Helmut
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Re: Demyansk

Post by Helmut »

vkun,

Thank you very much!!!!!!

Regards,

Helmut
panzermahn
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Re: Demyansk

Post by panzermahn »

Hello Helmut,

With regards to English-language secondary sources for info related to Battle Demyansk, you may want to try these following:

Werner Haupt: Army Group Center: The Wehrmacht in Russia 1941-1945 (Schiffer Military History)

Department of the Army, Historical Study Operations of Encircled Forces German Experiences in Russia, Pamphlet 20-234, Washington DC, 1952

Also you may want to consider the English language histories of the 3rd SS Panzer division Totenkopf as well as the Freikorps Danmark (the Danish volunteer legion) as the former under the leadership Papa Eicke was probably the major reason why the pocket held against overwhelming odds and the latter was involved in the relieve of the pocket (Operation "Gangway") under the command of General Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach. I believed the Oxford series of the Germany and the Second World War volume IV (The Attack on the Soviet Union) would have references to the Demyansk operations but these are ultra-expensive!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany_an ... _World_War

Panzermahn
Jukka Juutinen
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Re: Demyansk

Post by Jukka Juutinen »

Helmut, since German is a quite phonetic language, how come your son cannot read it? For me a foreign language is always easier to read than speak (apart from Finnish and English, I know some Swedish, German, French (not much) and Spanish (not much)).
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Helmut
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Re: Demyansk

Post by Helmut »

Servus,

Thank you all for your help.

My son can muddle through basic German but reading tomes at the college level where accuracy is a must is beyond him. German is his first language but it was never offered in the schools he attended. BTW he is majoring in Mandarin Chinese where he is carrying 3.65 average.

Thank you again
Regards,

Helmut
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