Feldgrau.net

David Glantz has a brand new book coming out called, "The Battle for Belorussia."

http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Belorussia ... ess+kansas

Hi Klaus

Sorry to say I wouldn't put too much hopes on Glantz's book.

His earlier works are good but not that outstanding but the ones he is currently churning (the Stalingrad trilogy etc) out is just an old rehash using the same old Soviet/Russian sources which we all know it could be questionable at times.

His original thesis of WW2's Eastern Front historiography loop-sided due to over-reliance of German primary & secondary sources are valid but from time to time he became victim to his own thesis where he over-rely on Soviet sources in order to balance the so-called over-reliance on German sources for WW2 Eastern Front military historiography.

He is in fact, the American version of British historian John Erickson who is well known for for the latter's pro-Soviet tendency

Panzermahn

Oh I agree 100 percent. I'm glad there is someone else here who is not a Glantz fanboy. I like some of his books, but his early works were full of mistakes and were obviously biased. I have always felt he was just like Erickson, who to me is the most pro-Soviet historian. Sometime I feel that some of the work that Glantz and Erickson has produced is no different than the Germano-centric Eastern front history from the 1950's-1980's, except the other way around. Most people tend to forget that Manstein and Guderian's self serving memoirs are no different that Zhukov's or Montgomery. The pendulum definitely needed to swing to the middle, to balance out, but unfortunately it has swung too far the other way. Eastern Front historiography needs non-biased historians.

How would you rate his Stalingrad and Smolensk books? And what do you think of David Stahel?

I do not have Glantz's latest books on the Stalingrad trilogy and the Smolensk but i have read the excerpts and I am not particularly impressed since there are no news thesis being espoused by Glantz and just rehash of his older works.

However, I do give credit to Glantz for being able to bring the English speaking readership of WW2 Eastern Front historiography to Soviet sources during the infancy of WW2 studies that begin in late 1970s as well as in the 1980s despite that it is obviously clear that some of the Soviet sources are extremely bias and are intended for glorification and propaganda (i am not saying German sources are free from that as well).

i have Glantz's book Zhukov Greatest Defeat and that is one of his better works. The other one would be Glantz work (co authored with a Russian researcher) on the fate of Soviet generals in WW2.

i have Stahel's Operation Barbarossa, Kiev 1941, Operation Typhoon and the Battle of Moscow. He is one of the newer generation of historians that mostly focused on the researching the operational aspects of Wehrmacht in the Eastern Front. However I personally find Stahel's writting style very plain (just like Ian Kershaw's) and too academic and his books are certainly not for the layman but for more serious students of WW2. IMHO, i think he is the English version of Rolf Hinze.

I would certainly recommend newer studies of WW2 Eastern Front especially those by Frank Ellis (Stalingrad Cauldron & Operation Barbarossa) I have both of them and have read it, just lacking the time to write a proper review which I intended to do so in coming months.

Also, Perry Biddiscombe's work are highly recommended (His last published work was 10 years ago)

Unfortunately the works of historian such as Bogdan Musial had never been translated (his excellent work on the brutalization of the Soviet-German war and its effects on war crimes in the Eastern Front seems to be unknown to those so called experts on Third Reich history like Richard J. Evans). I hope Musial's work will be translated to English one day

I liked Zhukov's Greatest Defeat, Red Storm over the Balkans and the first volume of Stalingrad is pretty good as well, I haven't read the rest. However his Kursk book is not that great as well as his Barbarossa book. I read Stahel's Kiev which I like a lot, but then again I love those very dry books, especially Hinze! I've heard a lot, good and bad, about Ellis. How are his Barbarossa and Stalingrad books?

I have not read Stahel, and it is unlikely that I will due (unless some library accessible to me has them)to the very negative reviews of his books by R. A. Forczyk on Amazon.

I agree with Jochen that Musial's works should be translated into English. There is also a very interesting collection of essays by some younger Russian historians which is available in German but not in English. According to a Finnish review these essays are definitely not standard PC-stuff or Soviet-era propaganda.

Frank Ellis book on Stalingrad and Operation Barbarossa is nothing but brilliant! i am planning to write a review for both of them in future but to summarize some of the good highlights of both these books:

The Stalingrad Cauldron
- a combination of war diaries and memoirs of selected German and Soviet participants
- some info about German POW camps for Soviet POWs captured in Stalingrad
- some info about Soviet blocking detachments in Stalingrad
- some info on the very first Soviet war crimes trials of captured German POWs in 1943
- continued pockets of German resistance for several months after the main German surrender in Stalingrad in February 1943 (I believed Ellis' book is the first English language study that mentioned about this and obviously these are based on NKVD reports)
- Ellis also debunks the story of Unternehmen Lowe and Corporal Nieweg, the breakout from Stalingrad after the German surrender
- the air bridge of Stalingrad and the final air evacuation of the Stalingrad pocket

Operation Barbarossa
- a chapter on German-Soviet diplomatic interaction preceding to Operation Barbarossa
- some info on German sabotage operations few hours before the H hour of Barbarossa (i am looking for english language studies of this topic and i am unable to find it so far)
- one chapter of thorough examination of Suvorov's icebreaker theory (you will be surprised of Ellis' conclusion on Suvorov's thesis on Soviet assault plans on Germany 1941)
- a chapter studying on the Kommissarbefehl and its rescindment (Ellis used a thorough German study to find out how many Soviet Kommissars were shot due this order)
- some info on German and Soviet views on Geneva Convention reciprocity after the start of Operation Barbarossa
- a very good chapter examining the escalating brutalization of eastern front due to NKVD massacre of political prisoners at Ukraine and Baltic nations that resulted horrific war crimes committed by both sides and why West German historians avoidance of this specific topic due to fear of being labelled as revisionist ot denial. This is the thesis of Bogdan Musial's study more than a decade ago in understanding why the Wehrmacht committed numerous war crimes especially in Eastern Front since the conventional belief that the Wehrmacht was totally imbued with Nazi propaganda to commit war crimes against Slavic inferiors. So-called Third Reich experts like Richard Evans did not even discuss this theory in his work on Third Reich history
- several good appendices and a full english translation of Stalin's May 1941 speech


i am pretty sure there are two well known posters in AHF forum will certainly try to debunk what i have said here if they ever read Ellis's book. Not surprisingly that these two AHF forum members (if you know who i am referring to) are (in)famous for their pro-Soviet bias so any academic and historical studies that reasses or reintrepret the role of USSR in WW2 away from the established conventional view will certainly be questioned by them (not for the sake of understanding but for the myopic sake that they can't accept that USSR is not what they think it is) no matter how neutral and objective these studies had been done

Jukka Juutinen wrote:I have not read Stahel, and it is unlikely that I will due (unless some library accessible to me has them)to the very negative reviews of his books by R. A. Forczyk on Amazon.

I agree with Jochen that Musial's works should be translated into English. There is also a very interesting collection of essays by some younger Russian historians which is available in German but not in English. According to a Finnish review these essays are definitely not standard PC-stuff or Soviet-era propaganda.

Hi Jukka

Not sure what Forcyzk wrote about Ellis's books but i have Forcyzk's work Where The Iron Crosses Grow (on German operations in Crimea 1943) and i think it is a well written work. I intend to get his upcoming work We March Against England (about Operation Sealion). The book's title is actually a translation of one the
of the most famous German marches in WW2 (Wir Fahre Gegen Engeland)

PZM

Jochen, my comment on Forczyk's reviews concerned his reviews of Stahel, not Ellis. AFAIK Forczyk has not reviewed Ellis's Barbarossa book (I have the book).

Who is going to publish the Sealion book? When?

Who is going to publish the Sealion book? When?

https://www.amazon.com/We-March-Against ... 472814851/

That's interesting about Forczyk's reviews of Stahel, I'll have to look at those reviews again. Also thanks for the very detailed reply panzermahn! I'll definitely have to buy those two Ellis books, especially the Barbarossa one! And I know for sure who one of the two posters you mentioned is, he also reviews on Amazon....As far as Barbarossa is concerned I preordered Bergstrom's new book on the topic.