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A fully illustrated survey of the German infantryman on the Eastern Front in World War II.The German Army was all-conquering until late 1941 when, only a few miles short of Moscow, it ran out of steam. Maniacal defense, the Russian winter and exhaustion all played their part and, although they didn't realize it, the German forces wouldn't advance further on this front. While they continued their offensives into 1942, Soviet defenses had stiffened. Its equipment – notably the T-34 – had improved and the Germans had lost too many of their best men: the savvy NCOs and experienced junior officers that gave the Wehrmacht its edge over the opposition. They had lost their moral compass as well. Complicity in the massacres of the SS-Einsatzgruppen, the barbarity of the anti-Partisan operations and summary execution for those who flagged, were the hallmarks of the German Army's fight for survival against people it considered less than human.Outnumbered, under attack on many other fronts, their homeland bombarded unceasingly from the air, the German servicemen endured the hell of the Eastern Front until their armies were destroyed in 1945. While the morality of the regime they fought for and its reprehensible actions should never be forgotten, what cannot be denied is the indefatigable courage of the German infantrymen.Fully illustrated with over 150 contemporary photographs and illustrations – and exploring a broad range of topics from uniform, weapons and provisions to tactics and communications – this title provides valuable insights into the Germans'main theater of operations in World War II.

'Doug Nash addresses a crucial pe­riod of December 1944... This latest of his works, which all stand on their own merits, is the best read to date.'— Marine Corps GazetteOne of the most notorious yet least understood body of troops that fought for the Third Reich during World War II was the infamous Sondereinheit Dirlewanger, or the “Dirlewanger Special Unit.” Formed initially as a company-sized formation in June 1940 from convicted poachers, it served under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Oskar Dirlewanger, one of the most infamous criminals in military history. First used to guard the Jewish ghetto in Lublin and support security operations carried out in occupied Poland by SS and Police forces, the unit was soon transferred to Belarus to combat the increasingly active Soviet partisan movement. After assisting in putting down the Warsaw Uprising during August–September 1944, by November of that year it had been enlarged and retitled as the 2. SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger. One month later, it fought one of its most controversial actions near the town of Ipolysag, Hungary, now known by its Slovak name of Šahy, between 13 and 18 December 1944. As a result of its overly hasty and haphazard deployment, lack of heavy armament, and a confusing chain of command, it was virtually destroyed by two Soviet mechanized corps.Consequently, the Wehrmacht leadership blamed Dirlewanger and the performance of his troops for the encirclement of the Hungarian capital of Budapest during late December 1944 that led to the annihilation of its garrison two months later. The brigade's defeat at Ipolysag also led to its compulsory removal from the front lines by General der Panzertruppe Hermann Balck and its eventual shipment to a rest area where it would be completely rebuilt, so thorough was its destruction. Despite its lackluster performance, the brigade was rebuilt once again and sent to East Prussia in February 1945, but never recovered from the thrashing it received at the hands of the 6th Guards Army in December.

The first English translation of a German account of the attempt to relieve the Nazis'Sixth Army at Stalingrad during World War II. In late November 1942, Soviet forces surrounded General Friedrich Paulus'Sixth Army in a pocket at the Russian city of Stalingrad. In response the Germans planned a relief operation, Operation Winter Thunderstorm, intended to break through the Soviet forces and open the pocket, releasing the encircled units. The 6th Panzer Division was the spearhead of the German relief force. The attack started on 12 December 1942 and was aborted on 23 December after heavy Soviet counterattacks. This failure sealed the fate of the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad. This account of the operation was first published in German in 1956, written by the well-respected military historian and retired German officer, Horst Scheibert, who was a tank commander in 6th Panzer Division during the attempt. Utilizing many excerpts from war diaries, and telegrams sent during operations, it is a unique account of the entire operation from the situation in mid-November through the two German offensives, the Soviet counteroffensive, and ongoing fighting until early January. This book includes 16 maps from the original edition and is the first English translation of this important German account.Praise for On to Stalingrad “Rich and detailed like very few of its kind are, with a crisp writing style and critical eye for the events of the battlefield that almost makes you feel as if you were there with Sixth Panzer. On to Stalingrad is a book so compelling that it simply should not be overlooked for your personal and professional enjoyment.” —ARMOR Magazine “Offers a unique viewpoint from an actual veteran who is able to provide an immediate military analysis of this mostly forgotten operation of the Stalingrad campaign.” —New York Journal of Books

Detailed analysis of WWII operations undertaken by Germany's armed forces on the Eastern Front, with illustrative case studies, maps, and diagrams. This volume in the Die Wehrmacht im Kampf series offers detailed analysis of a number of operations on the Eastern Front during World War II to draw out universally applicable principles of counter-strike operations and “agile defense.” The combat examples discussed including delaying operations in Southern Ukraine in March 1944; defensive operations Nikopol and Moldau; and counter-strikes undertaken by panzer divisions and panzerkampfgruppen in operations in November 1943 and May 1944. Combat examples are fully described with maps and diagrams, followed by detailed lessons learned and an explanation of consequences of the operation. The author, F.M. von Senger und Etterlin, himself took part in all of the combat operations described as a young officer leading armored troops. He would later go on to hold the rank of four-star general in the Bundeswehr and his final assignment was CINCENT.

“This is a great work on a small slice of operations on the Eastern Front during the first two years of the [second world] war.” —A Wargamers Needful Things This book discusses a number of operations undertaken by the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps in the direction of the Black Sea in 1941 and 42. It explores the tactics used and why they were successful, based on the detailed combat reports prepared by the corps staff immediately after each battle. Die Wehrmacht im Kampf is a series published in Germany in the 1950s and 1960s. Written by ex-members of the German army in WWII, it provides important information not available elsewhere on the German army's perspective of many crucial campaigns and battles. None of the volumes have previously been available in English. Each volume has a modern introduction by Professor Matthias Strohn, expert on the German army. “... the author is able to both instruct and mentor the reader on elements of operations that only one who has experienced the cauldron and stress of battle can truly appreciate.” —The Military Reviewer

“A veritable tour de force of Eastern Front armored combat replete with slashing counterattacks, defending to the last man, and overcoming odds.” —Mark J. Reardon, author of Victory at MortainOn Christmas Eve 1944, the men of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps and its two divisions—the 3rd SS Panzer Division “Totenkopf” and the 5th SS Panzer Division “Wiking”—were eagerly anticipating what the holiday would bring, including presents from home and perhaps sharing a bottle of schnapps or wine with their comrades.This was not to be, for that very evening, the corps commander, SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Otto Gille, received a telephone call notifying him that the 35,000 men of his corps would begin boarding express trains the following day that would take them from the relative quiet of the Vistula Front to the front lines in Hungary, hundreds of kilometers away. Their mission: Relieve Budapest! Thus would begin the final round in the saga of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps. In Hungary, it would play a key role in the three attempts to raise the siege of that fateful city. Threatened as much by their high command as by the forces of the Soviet Union, Gille and his troops overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their attempts to rescue the city's garrison, only to have their final attack called off at the last minute. At that moment, they were only a few kilometers away from the objective towards which they had striven for nearly a month. After the relief attempt's failure sealed the fate of hundreds of thousands of Hungarians and Germans, the only course of action remaining was to dig in and protect the Hungarian oilfields as long as possible.

The first volume of the tactical and operational history of World War II Germany's fourth SS-Panzerkorps division and its leader. During World War II, the armed or Waffen-SS branch of the Third Reich's dreaded security service expanded from two divisions in 1940 to 38 divisions by the end of the war, eventually growing to a force of over 900,000 men until Germany's defeat in May, 1945. The histories of the first three SS corps are well known—the actions of I, II, and III (Germanic) SS-Panzerkorps have been thoroughly documented and publicized. Overlooked in this pantheon is another SS corps that never fought in the west or in Berlin but one that participated in many of the key battles fought on the Eastern Front during the last year of the war: the IV SS-Panzerkorps. Activated during the initial stages of the defense of Warsaw in late July, 1944, the corps—consisting of the 3. and 5. SS-Panzer Divisions (Totenkopf and Wiking, respectively)—was born in battle and spent the last ten months of the war in combat, figuring prominently in the battles of Warsaw, the attempted Relief of Budapest, Operation Spring Awakening, the defense of Vienna, and the withdrawal into Austria where it finally surrendered to U.S. forces in May, 1945. Herbert Otto Gille's IV SS-Panzerkorps was renowned for its tenacity, high morale, and, above all, its lethality. Often embroiled in heated disputes with its immediate Wehrmacht higher headquarters over his seemingly cavalier conduct of operations, Gille's corps remained to the bitter end one of the Third Reich's most reliable and formidable field formations.

The dramatic story of the Nazis'1941 attempt to take Murmansk, including firsthand accounts of the action on the front line.In the early summer of 1941, German mountain soldiers under the command of General Eduard Dietl set out from northern Norway up through Finland to the Russian border. Operation Silberfuchs was underway. The northernmost section of the Eastern Front would ensure Hitler supplies of nickel from Finnish mines and bring the strategically important port city of Murmansk under German control. The roadless rocky terrain and extreme weather created major challenges for the German troop movements. Despite this, Dietl's men made quick gains on his Russian foe, and they came closer to Murmansk. Despite repeated warnings of a German attack, Stalin had failed to mobilize, and the British hesitated to come to the rescue of the Red Army.But while the weather conditions steadily worsened, the Russians'resistance increased. Three bloody efforts to force the river Litza were repulsed, and the offensive would develop into a nightmare for the inadequately equipped German soldiers.In an exciting and authoritative narrative based on previously unpublished material, Alf Reidar Jacobsen describes the heavy fighting that would lead to Hitler's first defeat on the Eastern Front. With firsthand accounts of the fighting on the front line, this is a dramatic new account of a forgotten but bloody episode of World War II.

It has been more than 60 years since the end of the Second World War, a conflict that shaped the second half of the Twentieth Century. The significance of the war, and its relevance to the lives of so many, has generated a legacy of published material on the topic sufficient to fill a library. Yet disproportionately few publications deal exclusively with the true cauldron of the conflict - the brutal and uncompromising war between Germany and the Soviet Union; and fewer still attempt to provide, in a single volume, a comprehensive overview of that war from the commencement of Operation Barbarossa to the last battle in the rubble-strewn streets of Berlin. Drawing on information from Soviet archives that have only become available since the collapse of the Soviet Union,'Cataclysm: The War on the Eastern Front 1941-1945', is unquestionably the most successful attempt so far to achieve that goal. As Winston Churchill acknowledged, the Red Army tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht, and the story of how that happened, a story in which the events at Stalingrad were just one part, deserves to be told with greater frequency and to be understood more widely. From the enormous amount of detailed information currently available on the military struggle on the Eastern Front, condensing the events of a war of such scale and duration into a succinct narrative in a meaningful and balanced way has long been a challenging task. Yet the mortal conflict between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia is deserving of the effort.'Cataclysm'focuses on the ground fighting along the Eastern Front, for it was overwhelmingly the ground war that determined the outcome of the conflict. With the aid of concise supporting maps, the book provides a clear and comprehensive account of the ebb and flow of a four-year long conflict conducted across a thousand miles of frontline in the vast region between the Elbe and Volga. Describing the conflict in a predominantly chronological manner, the book's narrative nonetheless maintains an easy, flowing style, relating with clarity the sequence of events as the interwoven campaigns on different sectors of the long frontline unfolded. For anyone wishing to understand the war in on the Eastern Front,'Cataclysm'is essential reading, and the book will prove to be an invaluable addition to any bookshelf.

“Remarkable personal journals.. revealing the combat experience of the German-Russian War as seldom seen before... a harrowing yet poignant story” (Military Times). Hans Roth was a member of the anti-tank panzerjager battalion, 299th Infantry Division, attached to the Sixth Army, as the invasion of Russia began. As events transpired, he recorded the tension as the Germans deployed on the Soviet frontier in June 1941. Then, a firestorm broke loose as the Wehrmacht tore across the front, forging into the primitive vastness of the East. During the Kiev encirclement, Roth's unit was under constant attack as the Soviets desperately tried to break through the German ring. At one point, after the enemy had finally been beaten, a friend serving with the SS led him to a site—possibly Babi Yar—where he witnessed civilians being massacred. After suffering through a brutal winter against apparently endless Russian reserves, his division went on the offensive again when the Germans drove toward Stalingrad. In these journals, attacks and counterattacks are described in you-are-there detail. Roth wrote privately, as if to keep himself sane, knowing his honest accounts of the horrors in the East could never pass Wehrmacht censors. When the Soviet counteroffensive of winter 1942 begins, his unit is stationed alongside the Italian 8th Army, and his observations of its collapse, as opposed to the reaction of the German troops sent to stiffen its front, are of special fascination. Roth's three journals were discovered many years after his disappearance, tucked away in the home of his brother. After his brother's death, his family discovered them and sent them to Rosel, Roth's wife. In time, Rosel handed down the journals to Erika, Roth's only daughter, who had emigrated to America. Roth was likely working on a fourth journal before he was reported missing in action in July 1944. Although his ultimate fate remains unknown, what he did leave behind, now finally revealed, is an incredible firsthand account of the horrific war the Germans waged in Russia.

“‘A must read'for Eastern Front fans, as well as anyone seeking to find out more about the titanic struggle between Hitler and Stalin.” —Armchair General This book not only tells the story of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but describes the expertise, skills, and decision-making powers of the men who directed it, including new insights into the invasion's many tactical successes, as well as its ultimate failure. This objective is massive in scope, because Operation Barbarossa was massive in scale, arguably the largest military operation of all time. The campaign also changed the world forever. Before Barbarossa, Hitler's Wehrmacht seemed invincible, like an unstoppable force of nature. No one, it seemed, could check the Führer's ambitions, much less defeat him. Barbarossa changed all of that. By the end of 1941, Allied victory seemed to be a very real possibility. Few would have bet on it sixteen or seventeen months earlier. Pitting Germany in total war against the Soviet Union on a 1,000-mile front, Operation Barbarossa was truly staggering in its magnitude. Wars, however, are not fought by numbers, they are fought by men. In this book we learn of the villains and heroes, famous commanders and unsung leaders, and about those who were willing to stand up to the Führer and those who subordinated themselves to his will. The result is a book that casts a fresh perspective on one of history's most crucial military campaigns.

“A first-rate memoir” from a German soldier who rose from conscript private to captain of a heavy weapons company on the Eastern Front of World War II (City Book Review). William Lubbeck, age nineteen, was drafted into the Wehrmacht in August 1939. As a member of the 58th Infantry Division, he received his baptism of fire during the 1940 invasion of France. The following spring, his division served on the left flank of Army Group North in Operation Barbarossa. After grueling marches amid countless Russian bodies, burnt-out vehicles, and a great number of cheering Baltic civilians, Lubbeck's unit entered the outskirts of Leningrad, making the deepest penetration of any German formation. In September 1943, Lubbeck earned the Iron Cross First Class and was assigned to officers'training school in Dresden. By the time he returned to Russia, Army Group North was in full-scale retreat. In the last chaotic scramble from East Prussia, Lubbeck was able to evacuate on a newly minted German destroyer. He recounts how the ship arrived in the British zone off Denmark with all guns blazing against pursuing Russians. The following morning, May 8, 1945, he learned that the war was over. After his release from British captivity, Lubbeck married his sweetheart, Anneliese, and in 1949, immigrated to the United States where he raised a successful family. With the assistance of David B. Hurt, he has drawn on his wartime notes and letters, Soldatbuch, regimental history, and personal memories to recount his four years of frontline experience. Containing rare firsthand accounts of both triumph and disaster, At Leningrad's Gates provides a fascinating glimpse into the reality of combat on the Eastern Front.