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Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East
On June 22, 1941, Germany launched the greatest land assault in history on the Soviet Union, an attack that Adolf Hitler deemed crucial to ensure German economic and political survival. As the key theater of the war for the Germans, the eastern front consumed enormous levels of resources and accounted for 75 percent of all German casualties. Despite the significance of this campaign to Germany and to the war as a whole, few English-language publications of the last thirty-five years have addressed these pivotal events.
In Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East , Stephen G. Fritz bridges the gap in scholarship by incorporating historical research from the last several decades into an accessible, comprehensive, and coherent narrative. His analysis of the Russo-German War from a German perspective covers all aspects of the eastern front, demonstrating the interrelation of military events, economic policy, resource exploitation, and racial policy that first motivated the invasion. This in-depth account challenges accepted notions about World War II and promotes greater understanding of a topic that has been neglected by historians.
In Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East , Stephen G. Fritz bridges the gap in scholarship by incorporating historical research from the last several decades into an accessible, comprehensive, and coherent narrative. His analysis of the Russo-German War from a German perspective covers all aspects of the eastern front, demonstrating the interrelation of military events, economic policy, resource exploitation, and racial policy that first motivated the invasion. This in-depth account challenges accepted notions about World War II and promotes greater understanding of a topic that has been neglected by historians.
688 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2011
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March 11, 2021
There is a lot in this hefty book and it can be disheartening to read page after page of man’s extreme hostility to his fellow man.
The focus of this book is mostly from the German point of view. There is no doubt that this was a racial war brought on by Hitler’s rapacious Lebensraum – which was based on German entitlement to land in the East. The occupiers of this vast Eastern land were seen by the Germans as sub-human – and the Jews were slated for elimination.
This ideological extreme Darwinist view was expounded down to the German soldier. Jews were slaughtered in every village that the armies passed through. Over two million Soviet prisoners of war of the Wehrmacht died of starvation. Later in the war millions were again rounded up to serve as slave labourers for the German war effort. They were shipped to Germany under excruciating conditions. An entire rail network was formed for the Holocaust.
There are a number of points made by the author:
The initial invasion was to have been a short-term blitzkrieg – similar to the previous invasions of Poland in 1939 and that of Holland, Belgium and France in 1940. The German economy and army were not set-up for a long-term war. With the advent of the United States in the war in December 1941 Hitler knew that he had a limited time to eliminate the Soviet Union. Hence in 1942 he tried to reach the oil fields in Grozny which Germany needed to consolidate their conquests. With the failure at Stalingrad, Hitler’s war was over. As the author succinctly states - beginning in 1943 Germany became the anvil rather than the hammer.
The invasion of the Soviet Union was not a fully mechanized one, which is why they had to reach the Grozny oil fields. Thousands of horses were utilized.
Prior to invasion the German Army never realized how tenuous their supply lines would be in the Soviet Union (in other words poor planning). There was a lack of paved roads, which turned to mush in the fall and spring. The primitive rail lines were inadequate to transport the tank and the fuel required. The ballast supporting the railroad tracks was often inadequate for the demands of the military. This led to constant impediments during the war – and in the winter trucks and tanks required more fuel.
The elimination of the Jewish people was a constant in Hitler’s agenda since the early 1920’s. The German Army was imbued with this racist agenda – and often helped with the logistics of rounding up the Jewish population. This racist dogma can also explain why many Germans kept fighting to the bitter end. They saw themselves as superior to the peoples they were fighting. Many had been indoctrinated in their teenage years by the Hitler Youth and other forms of the pervasive Nazi ideology.
The Soviet Union used poor military tactics. In every battle – more so when they were attacking – they lost significantly more men and equipment (tanks) than the German Army. Men were used as cannon fodder. Any commander who would have done this in the Western Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Canada…) would have been quickly relieved of command. It should be noted that the Soviet Union produced far more tanks than the Germans (Germany underestimated the industrial potential of the Soviet Union; another mistake).
The book can become somewhat tedious with military movements – as in this division moved north, this other division faced strong Soviet opposition…
Nevertheless, this is a profound examination of possibly the most horrible war in human history.
The focus of this book is mostly from the German point of view. There is no doubt that this was a racial war brought on by Hitler’s rapacious Lebensraum – which was based on German entitlement to land in the East. The occupiers of this vast Eastern land were seen by the Germans as sub-human – and the Jews were slated for elimination.
This ideological extreme Darwinist view was expounded down to the German soldier. Jews were slaughtered in every village that the armies passed through. Over two million Soviet prisoners of war of the Wehrmacht died of starvation. Later in the war millions were again rounded up to serve as slave labourers for the German war effort. They were shipped to Germany under excruciating conditions. An entire rail network was formed for the Holocaust.
There are a number of points made by the author:
The initial invasion was to have been a short-term blitzkrieg – similar to the previous invasions of Poland in 1939 and that of Holland, Belgium and France in 1940. The German economy and army were not set-up for a long-term war. With the advent of the United States in the war in December 1941 Hitler knew that he had a limited time to eliminate the Soviet Union. Hence in 1942 he tried to reach the oil fields in Grozny which Germany needed to consolidate their conquests. With the failure at Stalingrad, Hitler’s war was over. As the author succinctly states - beginning in 1943 Germany became the anvil rather than the hammer.
The invasion of the Soviet Union was not a fully mechanized one, which is why they had to reach the Grozny oil fields. Thousands of horses were utilized.
Prior to invasion the German Army never realized how tenuous their supply lines would be in the Soviet Union (in other words poor planning). There was a lack of paved roads, which turned to mush in the fall and spring. The primitive rail lines were inadequate to transport the tank and the fuel required. The ballast supporting the railroad tracks was often inadequate for the demands of the military. This led to constant impediments during the war – and in the winter trucks and tanks required more fuel.
The elimination of the Jewish people was a constant in Hitler’s agenda since the early 1920’s. The German Army was imbued with this racist agenda – and often helped with the logistics of rounding up the Jewish population. This racist dogma can also explain why many Germans kept fighting to the bitter end. They saw themselves as superior to the peoples they were fighting. Many had been indoctrinated in their teenage years by the Hitler Youth and other forms of the pervasive Nazi ideology.
The Soviet Union used poor military tactics. In every battle – more so when they were attacking – they lost significantly more men and equipment (tanks) than the German Army. Men were used as cannon fodder. Any commander who would have done this in the Western Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Canada…) would have been quickly relieved of command. It should be noted that the Soviet Union produced far more tanks than the Germans (Germany underestimated the industrial potential of the Soviet Union; another mistake).
The book can become somewhat tedious with military movements – as in this division moved north, this other division faced strong Soviet opposition…
Nevertheless, this is a profound examination of possibly the most horrible war in human history.
November 18, 2017
Ostkrieg: Hiter's War of Extermination in the East, by Stephen G. Fritz, is an interesting book examining in depth the invasion of Poland and Operation Barbarossa, as well as the Final Solution, from a German perspective. Hitler's main aim in WWII was the annexation of Lebensraum - living space for the German people akin to colonization, as well as the removal of the Jewish population from German territory. These two objectives meant Germany needed to go to war both with Poland and Russia, to destroy what the Nazi's termed as the Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. This meant that, after the swift defeat of France in 1940, Germany began to look to the east and build up for Operation Barbarossa, an invasion of the Soviet Union. From the outset, German aims were driven by ideological motives and by economic requirements. Germany was beginning to suffer from blockading of goods by Britain, and the Soviet Union was becoming increasingly demanding in terms of trading supplies to Germany. The Nazi leadership recognized the increasingly dangerous situation, as the myth of the 1918 collapse in Germany after WWI again reared itself in the minds of Nazi planners.
The solution appeared to be war with the Soviet Union. The Schwerpunkt for the war - the main purpose - was ambiguous, as different leaders had different objectives. The German OKH (the war ministry) proposed a swift punch toward Moscow - forcing the Soviet's to throw their forces into difficult defensive maneuvers and increasing the German chances of surrounding and annihilating Soviet divisions. Hitler prioritized economic and ideological objectives. He advocated for the conquest of both the Baltic states and southern Russia/Ukraine - in order to rectify the supply issues facing the German armies in terms of food and fuel, and to increase supply lines into central Russia through the Baltic ports. Further, these areas were heavily industrialized, and the loss of industrial infrastructure would make the supply situation more difficult for the Soviets. Hitler has largely been blamed for the military failure of Operation Barbarossa, as he ultimately watered down the main thrust and split the German army into three divisions each with not enough soldiers, panzer groups and supplies to achieve its massive objectives. However, Fritz mentions that the logistical planning from the OKH was always flawed, as German army leaders had little accurate intelligence on on-the ground factors relating to Soviet strength. Also, Hitler's push to improve the economic situation in Germany was potentially necessary, as rationing at home was leading to disquiet amongst the German population in 1940. Germany desperately needed both the oil and grain of Ukraine/The Caucus, and required better supply routes into Russia to supply its forces in the push for Moscow.
The book also goes in depth about the development of the Final Solution from a policy perspective. Germany originally intended to exile its Jewish population to a remote area - Eastern Russia, the General Government in Poland, and Madagascar were all options proposed. However, due to opposition from Nazi officials in Poland, and the British blockade, these options ceased to exist. This led to an increasing radicalization of ideals as Germany began to ponder eliminating its Jewish population through more nefarious means. The war in Russia was initially brutal, as German SS divisions swept in behind advancing German troops to round up and execute Jewish peoples suspected of insurgency. SS divisions were also accompanied by occupying police forces, and assisted heavily be the military, so all levels of German military command seemed to be aware of ethnic cleansing attempts. Furthermore, this move to eliminate potential partisan activities led to a hardening of opinion by German soldiers, as they frequently witnessed and participated in executions and massacres. This was fertile ground for the development of Final Solution policies.
At its onset, Operation Barbarossa was quite successful. German troops achieved their objective of pushing forward to the Dnieper River - some 300 miles into Russia - on time. The Baltic states quickly fell, potentially improving supply lines. However, in the South and Centre, German troops became bogged down at the Pripyat Marshes and in the Smolensk region. This soon became a slog, as the originally surprised and disorganized Soviet forces soon recovered and began fighting a brutal war of attrition. Counter attacks began to wear down the morale of German forces who expected a quick victory, and stretched already incompetent German supply logistics to their breaking point. Although the German's continued to advance toward Moscow and the Caucus, victories became Pyrrhic, trucks and tanks began to fall apart, and supplies of replacement parts, ammunition, fuel and food, as well as warm weather clothing, were inadequate to supply German forces. The slog through the remaining years of the war was one of an increasingly slow advance, followed by a total reversal as German troops "won themselves to death" - meaning their successes has overstretched their supply limits, and attrition had gotten the better of them. The positions began to reverse, and the Soviets utilized their superior manpower numbers and their rapid evacuation of industrial equipment to the Urals to force the Germans to halt, and ultimately reverse the invasion as Soviet troops recaptured territory and eventually invaded Eastern Europe.
Throughout all of this, Hitler's fanatical prophecy on the elimination of Europe's Jewish population became a desperate struggle for the Nazi's. Plam's to eliminate Europe's Jewish and Slavic populations began with the consideration of food supplies. Germany was struggling in 1940 and onward to feed their own population. How could they gain more supplies with a blockade on in the West? Furthermore, their rapid conquests of France, Poland and Eastern Europe had given them more mouths to feed in terms of occupied territory. Their solution was to deliberately starve the populations of Russia and Poland by taking food supplies out of these regions and importing them to Germany. This starvation policy solved two of Germany's policy problems: how to feed the German population, and how to ethnically cleanse future Lebensraum of unwanted populations. This policy developed before Barbarossa, and Fritz proves through meeting minutes and documentation that the Nazi's genocidal thoughts certainly took root at this time. As the war began to seem inevitably won, Hitler fast tracked his policy of ethnic cleansing by encouraging subordinates to increase efforts to remove the Jewish populations from areas of conquest. This led to a radicalization of methods, ultimately leading to programs where Jewish prisoners and populations were executed purposefully, and the eventual industrialization of this process through the construction of Concentration Camps, Death Camps, and the continued policy of violent repression by SS units in occupied territories.
Fritz has written an interesting account of the war, focusing on the complicates of the German Wehrmacht, the political, economic and military means the war was fought, and disrupting the myth that the inadequacies of the German military actions in Russia were the fault of upper leadership. Fritz believes the German Wehrmacht was implicit completely, both in the military failure of Operation Barbarossa, and in developing and participating in Final Solution policies. The book is well written, sourced, and offers an interesting perspective on the War in the East. Confusion and conflicting military objectives in the upper echelons of the German Army are well documented, and Fritz wishes to communicate this. One small complaint about the book is its lack of in-text citations, which would make fact checking easier and more convenient. Another is the sometimes repeated points. Fritz takes pains to reiterate his main points over and over, chapter after chapter, to the point where it seems possible to skip parts of the book - as the topics had already been covered. Even so, this is a very interesting and original book on Ostkrieg, and is certainly worth a read for WWII buffs everywhere.
The solution appeared to be war with the Soviet Union. The Schwerpunkt for the war - the main purpose - was ambiguous, as different leaders had different objectives. The German OKH (the war ministry) proposed a swift punch toward Moscow - forcing the Soviet's to throw their forces into difficult defensive maneuvers and increasing the German chances of surrounding and annihilating Soviet divisions. Hitler prioritized economic and ideological objectives. He advocated for the conquest of both the Baltic states and southern Russia/Ukraine - in order to rectify the supply issues facing the German armies in terms of food and fuel, and to increase supply lines into central Russia through the Baltic ports. Further, these areas were heavily industrialized, and the loss of industrial infrastructure would make the supply situation more difficult for the Soviets. Hitler has largely been blamed for the military failure of Operation Barbarossa, as he ultimately watered down the main thrust and split the German army into three divisions each with not enough soldiers, panzer groups and supplies to achieve its massive objectives. However, Fritz mentions that the logistical planning from the OKH was always flawed, as German army leaders had little accurate intelligence on on-the ground factors relating to Soviet strength. Also, Hitler's push to improve the economic situation in Germany was potentially necessary, as rationing at home was leading to disquiet amongst the German population in 1940. Germany desperately needed both the oil and grain of Ukraine/The Caucus, and required better supply routes into Russia to supply its forces in the push for Moscow.
The book also goes in depth about the development of the Final Solution from a policy perspective. Germany originally intended to exile its Jewish population to a remote area - Eastern Russia, the General Government in Poland, and Madagascar were all options proposed. However, due to opposition from Nazi officials in Poland, and the British blockade, these options ceased to exist. This led to an increasing radicalization of ideals as Germany began to ponder eliminating its Jewish population through more nefarious means. The war in Russia was initially brutal, as German SS divisions swept in behind advancing German troops to round up and execute Jewish peoples suspected of insurgency. SS divisions were also accompanied by occupying police forces, and assisted heavily be the military, so all levels of German military command seemed to be aware of ethnic cleansing attempts. Furthermore, this move to eliminate potential partisan activities led to a hardening of opinion by German soldiers, as they frequently witnessed and participated in executions and massacres. This was fertile ground for the development of Final Solution policies.
At its onset, Operation Barbarossa was quite successful. German troops achieved their objective of pushing forward to the Dnieper River - some 300 miles into Russia - on time. The Baltic states quickly fell, potentially improving supply lines. However, in the South and Centre, German troops became bogged down at the Pripyat Marshes and in the Smolensk region. This soon became a slog, as the originally surprised and disorganized Soviet forces soon recovered and began fighting a brutal war of attrition. Counter attacks began to wear down the morale of German forces who expected a quick victory, and stretched already incompetent German supply logistics to their breaking point. Although the German's continued to advance toward Moscow and the Caucus, victories became Pyrrhic, trucks and tanks began to fall apart, and supplies of replacement parts, ammunition, fuel and food, as well as warm weather clothing, were inadequate to supply German forces. The slog through the remaining years of the war was one of an increasingly slow advance, followed by a total reversal as German troops "won themselves to death" - meaning their successes has overstretched their supply limits, and attrition had gotten the better of them. The positions began to reverse, and the Soviets utilized their superior manpower numbers and their rapid evacuation of industrial equipment to the Urals to force the Germans to halt, and ultimately reverse the invasion as Soviet troops recaptured territory and eventually invaded Eastern Europe.
Throughout all of this, Hitler's fanatical prophecy on the elimination of Europe's Jewish population became a desperate struggle for the Nazi's. Plam's to eliminate Europe's Jewish and Slavic populations began with the consideration of food supplies. Germany was struggling in 1940 and onward to feed their own population. How could they gain more supplies with a blockade on in the West? Furthermore, their rapid conquests of France, Poland and Eastern Europe had given them more mouths to feed in terms of occupied territory. Their solution was to deliberately starve the populations of Russia and Poland by taking food supplies out of these regions and importing them to Germany. This starvation policy solved two of Germany's policy problems: how to feed the German population, and how to ethnically cleanse future Lebensraum of unwanted populations. This policy developed before Barbarossa, and Fritz proves through meeting minutes and documentation that the Nazi's genocidal thoughts certainly took root at this time. As the war began to seem inevitably won, Hitler fast tracked his policy of ethnic cleansing by encouraging subordinates to increase efforts to remove the Jewish populations from areas of conquest. This led to a radicalization of methods, ultimately leading to programs where Jewish prisoners and populations were executed purposefully, and the eventual industrialization of this process through the construction of Concentration Camps, Death Camps, and the continued policy of violent repression by SS units in occupied territories.
Fritz has written an interesting account of the war, focusing on the complicates of the German Wehrmacht, the political, economic and military means the war was fought, and disrupting the myth that the inadequacies of the German military actions in Russia were the fault of upper leadership. Fritz believes the German Wehrmacht was implicit completely, both in the military failure of Operation Barbarossa, and in developing and participating in Final Solution policies. The book is well written, sourced, and offers an interesting perspective on the War in the East. Confusion and conflicting military objectives in the upper echelons of the German Army are well documented, and Fritz wishes to communicate this. One small complaint about the book is its lack of in-text citations, which would make fact checking easier and more convenient. Another is the sometimes repeated points. Fritz takes pains to reiterate his main points over and over, chapter after chapter, to the point where it seems possible to skip parts of the book - as the topics had already been covered. Even so, this is a very interesting and original book on Ostkrieg, and is certainly worth a read for WWII buffs everywhere.
August 11, 2025
The Eastern Front was truly the most destructive theatre of the Second World War, in which two opposing ideologies fought a brutal fight to the death. this book highlights how brutal this struggle was, specifically showing the German side of the war.
This truly was Hitlers War; the western allies declared war on him after he invaded Poland in 1939. Hitler did not want to fight England, he wanted them as his ally. Being forced into a corner, he decided to launch an invasion of the Soviet Union, his ultimate enemy. This conflict was a deep-seated ideological desire that went back to the 1920's, when Hitler was fringe politician in Munich. By 1941, Hitler had multiple reasons in his mind to invade the Soviet Union: 1. When Germany started the war in 1939, the British navy enacted a blockade against Germany, similar to the one they did in World War One. The Nazi leadership remembered the blockade of 1914-1918, and thus were conscious of the fact they needed to break free from the blockade; therefore they invaded the Soviet Union. 2. Germany was faced with an oil crisis; Hitler saw the oil rich area of the Caucasus as a way to break free from this crisis. This would allow him to motorize the German army. 3. Hitler ideologically felt he needed to invade the soviet union to secure "Living Space" for the German peoples. This entailed colonizing lands west of the Urals with Germans, while ruthlessly exploiting and enslaving the lands and people conquered. 4. Hitler saw in his conquest of the Soviet Union his vision of creating a continental empire that would be able to compete with united states in apocalyptic struggle. 5. In Hitlers mind, he saw the Soviet Union and communism as a "Jewish" conspiracy, which he had believed since the 1920s. This conspiracy, he believed, sought to destroy Germany and he therefore saw this invasion as the chance to defeat his mortal enemy. In Hitlers mind, both of his enemy were controlled by "the jews", a racist and outlandish conspiracy theory. All of these things combined, one learns the reasonsing for why Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
This book runs through the course of the conflict, explaining how Germany gambled on a quick victory against an underestimated opponent who fought with determined resistance. Each encirclement action the ostheer made may have knocked out hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops, but the Red Army had a inexhaustible supply of manpower that it could field. The Red Army had a military industrial complex; it may have lost its factories west of the Urals, but it had a huge complex of factories that could still pump out armaments; in fact, in 1941-42, despite the loss of its factories in the invasion, it was able to produce more than the Germans were. The Soviet state was ran in a stalinist regimen, which allowed the Red Army to mobilize massive reserves, and produce armaments at an unprecedented rate. People boast about an armanents miracle in Germany in 1943 under Albert Speer, but the real armaments miracle occured east of the Urals with the Soviet Union.
Germany failed in its quick victory of Operation Barbarossa, so now Hitler placed hope in 1942; he gambled on the idea of sucess in the southern front: siezing the caucasus and neutralizing the Red Army at Stalingrad on the Volga river. After declaring war on America, Hitler knew he was in a race against time; if he could not win in 1942, he would face down the industrial might of America, and if he couldn't secure soviet oil, he'd be unable to survive in this two front war. Operation Blau, this attempt to secure victory failed because Hitler incessantly meddled in operations, split his army group in two, and instead of neutralizing the volga threat first, with his whole army group, he divided his resources in two and launched simultaneous attacks towards the Volga and the Caucasus. This ended in defeat; with the Red Army throwing its full weight on the 6th army at Stalingrad; encircling them and pushing the Germans dangerously back towards Rostov. This was the death of the Wehrmacht.
1943 saw the Nazis radicalize their conduct of the war; although a stalemate or negotiated peace was possible, Hitler clung onto his Lebensraum beliefs, and believed the Soviets were running out of momentum. We see the Nazi leaders adopt a radical, apocalyptic viewpoint of the war. No repetition of 1918, the Germans would fight to the very end. 1943 saw the Germans attempt one last time to retake the initiative in the east, only to lose it at Khursk, and face the full onslaught of the red army, which retook massive amounts of land in the Ukraine. After this, the story remains the same, Germany attempted to hold against the Red Army in a vain effort.
In the backdrop of this was the Nazi genocide against the Jews of Europe and the Slavic peoples. As the war radicalized, so did Nazi attitudes and actions towards these two groups, especially the Jewish peoples. As the war turned against Germany, the Nazis hatred for Jewish people grew and their actions became more genocidal. To the Nazis, If the Nazis couldn't win the war, not only would they go down fighting to the end, but they would take the Jews with them.
I feel like this book illuminates and illustrates the magnitude of this war, and explains just how destructive and unmerciful the war in the east was. We as a people must be weary of hyper nationalism, racism, militarism, and strongmen who make grandiose promises, and scapegoat a certain group of people. Its important we study history.
This truly was Hitlers War; the western allies declared war on him after he invaded Poland in 1939. Hitler did not want to fight England, he wanted them as his ally. Being forced into a corner, he decided to launch an invasion of the Soviet Union, his ultimate enemy. This conflict was a deep-seated ideological desire that went back to the 1920's, when Hitler was fringe politician in Munich. By 1941, Hitler had multiple reasons in his mind to invade the Soviet Union: 1. When Germany started the war in 1939, the British navy enacted a blockade against Germany, similar to the one they did in World War One. The Nazi leadership remembered the blockade of 1914-1918, and thus were conscious of the fact they needed to break free from the blockade; therefore they invaded the Soviet Union. 2. Germany was faced with an oil crisis; Hitler saw the oil rich area of the Caucasus as a way to break free from this crisis. This would allow him to motorize the German army. 3. Hitler ideologically felt he needed to invade the soviet union to secure "Living Space" for the German peoples. This entailed colonizing lands west of the Urals with Germans, while ruthlessly exploiting and enslaving the lands and people conquered. 4. Hitler saw in his conquest of the Soviet Union his vision of creating a continental empire that would be able to compete with united states in apocalyptic struggle. 5. In Hitlers mind, he saw the Soviet Union and communism as a "Jewish" conspiracy, which he had believed since the 1920s. This conspiracy, he believed, sought to destroy Germany and he therefore saw this invasion as the chance to defeat his mortal enemy. In Hitlers mind, both of his enemy were controlled by "the jews", a racist and outlandish conspiracy theory. All of these things combined, one learns the reasonsing for why Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
This book runs through the course of the conflict, explaining how Germany gambled on a quick victory against an underestimated opponent who fought with determined resistance. Each encirclement action the ostheer made may have knocked out hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops, but the Red Army had a inexhaustible supply of manpower that it could field. The Red Army had a military industrial complex; it may have lost its factories west of the Urals, but it had a huge complex of factories that could still pump out armaments; in fact, in 1941-42, despite the loss of its factories in the invasion, it was able to produce more than the Germans were. The Soviet state was ran in a stalinist regimen, which allowed the Red Army to mobilize massive reserves, and produce armaments at an unprecedented rate. People boast about an armanents miracle in Germany in 1943 under Albert Speer, but the real armaments miracle occured east of the Urals with the Soviet Union.
Germany failed in its quick victory of Operation Barbarossa, so now Hitler placed hope in 1942; he gambled on the idea of sucess in the southern front: siezing the caucasus and neutralizing the Red Army at Stalingrad on the Volga river. After declaring war on America, Hitler knew he was in a race against time; if he could not win in 1942, he would face down the industrial might of America, and if he couldn't secure soviet oil, he'd be unable to survive in this two front war. Operation Blau, this attempt to secure victory failed because Hitler incessantly meddled in operations, split his army group in two, and instead of neutralizing the volga threat first, with his whole army group, he divided his resources in two and launched simultaneous attacks towards the Volga and the Caucasus. This ended in defeat; with the Red Army throwing its full weight on the 6th army at Stalingrad; encircling them and pushing the Germans dangerously back towards Rostov. This was the death of the Wehrmacht.
1943 saw the Nazis radicalize their conduct of the war; although a stalemate or negotiated peace was possible, Hitler clung onto his Lebensraum beliefs, and believed the Soviets were running out of momentum. We see the Nazi leaders adopt a radical, apocalyptic viewpoint of the war. No repetition of 1918, the Germans would fight to the very end. 1943 saw the Germans attempt one last time to retake the initiative in the east, only to lose it at Khursk, and face the full onslaught of the red army, which retook massive amounts of land in the Ukraine. After this, the story remains the same, Germany attempted to hold against the Red Army in a vain effort.
In the backdrop of this was the Nazi genocide against the Jews of Europe and the Slavic peoples. As the war radicalized, so did Nazi attitudes and actions towards these two groups, especially the Jewish peoples. As the war turned against Germany, the Nazis hatred for Jewish people grew and their actions became more genocidal. To the Nazis, If the Nazis couldn't win the war, not only would they go down fighting to the end, but they would take the Jews with them.
I feel like this book illuminates and illustrates the magnitude of this war, and explains just how destructive and unmerciful the war in the east was. We as a people must be weary of hyper nationalism, racism, militarism, and strongmen who make grandiose promises, and scapegoat a certain group of people. Its important we study history.
March 11, 2012
The last sentence of this book summarizes the power of the volume (Page 488): "The legacy of the Third Reich, however--the awareness of what can result from that explosive mixture of hatred, hypernationalism, racism, and authoritarianism--remains as a constant warning to us, challenging our notions of loyalty, honor, morality, and justice." This book provides a narrative of the German invasion of Russia (Ostkrieg=Eastern war).
The author uses a variety of sources to explore the move toward this struggle between two authoritarian societies, each of which was willing to be brutal in its treatment of people. We are not speaking of two compassionate societies and their leadership. Stalin and Hitler were two very tough customers.
The book begins my noting that one can only understand the ferocity and horror of the Russian (or eastern) front by understanding the almost incomprehensible German perspective on lebensraum (living room) and race. Hitler appears to have genuinely believed that, in the end, there had to be a war of extermination with Russia. The horrific deaths in the struggle point out what is at stake (The Soviet Union suffered unimaginable numbers of deaths; the German army suffered greatly as well).
The book discusses the structure of combat, the reverses and triumphs of each side. It also notes how the Germans had inadequate resources for the overambitious moves that it wished to make. The economic side is well covered--how the German industrial output simply was going to become overwhelmed when the United States entered the war. Germany underestimated the capacity of the Soviet Union.
The book also speaks to the inexpressible atrocities--against Jews, against, Poles, against Russians, and against others-that the Germans created. Was the German Army complicit? Or innocent? The book also discusses that.
A powerful work. There are some questions, though, that I do have. For instance, it would have been helpful if there were more maps, to show the reader what was happening and where it was happening.
If one is interested in the war in the east in World War II, this is a fine resource.
The author uses a variety of sources to explore the move toward this struggle between two authoritarian societies, each of which was willing to be brutal in its treatment of people. We are not speaking of two compassionate societies and their leadership. Stalin and Hitler were two very tough customers.
The book begins my noting that one can only understand the ferocity and horror of the Russian (or eastern) front by understanding the almost incomprehensible German perspective on lebensraum (living room) and race. Hitler appears to have genuinely believed that, in the end, there had to be a war of extermination with Russia. The horrific deaths in the struggle point out what is at stake (The Soviet Union suffered unimaginable numbers of deaths; the German army suffered greatly as well).
The book discusses the structure of combat, the reverses and triumphs of each side. It also notes how the Germans had inadequate resources for the overambitious moves that it wished to make. The economic side is well covered--how the German industrial output simply was going to become overwhelmed when the United States entered the war. Germany underestimated the capacity of the Soviet Union.
The book also speaks to the inexpressible atrocities--against Jews, against, Poles, against Russians, and against others-that the Germans created. Was the German Army complicit? Or innocent? The book also discusses that.
A powerful work. There are some questions, though, that I do have. For instance, it would have been helpful if there were more maps, to show the reader what was happening and where it was happening.
If one is interested in the war in the east in World War II, this is a fine resource.
February 26, 2017
This is a good account of the German war against the east and the Soviet Union, what part of Hltler's ideology drove it, how his racial policies shaped the willingness to bring about the deaths of 30+ million civilians as totally acceptable in their hunger wars.
I would not recommend this as a first read about the Eastern Front as it does not follow a liner path which I found awkward, it goes from the winter battles of 1941 and 42 to the politics of 1939 and post war references back to Stalingrad in 41.
What it dies make clear is the way that Hitler and his racial theories and dreams of creating space for a grand eastward German agrarian utopia where the sub-human slavic races would be either annihilated or driven east to Siberia except for a group that would become virtually slaves to the Volk. Goebbels created a propaganda war that allowed the Germans to accept the sub-human category for hundreds on millions of people that allowed policies to be inacted that were so inhumane as to be barely believable.
The Wehrmacht was as implicated in the slaughter of civilians as the Einstatzgruppen that swept behind the German advances killing civilians in a brutal way and leaving others to starve. The books written immediately post war were revisionist for the most part making the regular German Officer and soldier appear to be a just warrior who behaved within the normal conventions of war, who were shocked by the SS activities that followed in their wake. This was dispelled by most texts written after the fall of the Soviet Union when both captured German and Soviet war documents became available.
Some of the battle scenes are very gripping, others are staid lists of actions, creating an un-evenness. It still contains information not covered in other texts. Like most histories of war the author will look at any set of documents and be taken by certain aspects which get greater emphasis than another author who might put emphasis on another aspect. In truth one could write an eight or ten volume account of the Second World War in the European theater and not cover everything that occurred
The utter carnage of what occurred on the Eastern Front, the sheer number of deaths, both civilian and military are numbers that are still difficult to grasp even though we have the data. That the earth could even absorb that number of corpses stretches the imagination.
An excellent book which points to the utter folly of a war waged on politics, ideology, and delusions is made apparent, when a lowly corporal decided to micro manage a war from his narrow perspective as a participant in WWI. The victories enjoyed by Army Groups A and B, in part happened with the cooperation of their enemy which was also micromanaged by Stalin and his political officers. Germany much like Japan had neither the manpower or natural resources, or industrial capacity to wage a true global war. They had a slim window to wage a war that had to be settled within a short window, and any analysis would have shown that if an overwhelming victory could not be had within the first year all would be lost.
I would not recommend this as a first read about the Eastern Front as it does not follow a liner path which I found awkward, it goes from the winter battles of 1941 and 42 to the politics of 1939 and post war references back to Stalingrad in 41.
What it dies make clear is the way that Hitler and his racial theories and dreams of creating space for a grand eastward German agrarian utopia where the sub-human slavic races would be either annihilated or driven east to Siberia except for a group that would become virtually slaves to the Volk. Goebbels created a propaganda war that allowed the Germans to accept the sub-human category for hundreds on millions of people that allowed policies to be inacted that were so inhumane as to be barely believable.
The Wehrmacht was as implicated in the slaughter of civilians as the Einstatzgruppen that swept behind the German advances killing civilians in a brutal way and leaving others to starve. The books written immediately post war were revisionist for the most part making the regular German Officer and soldier appear to be a just warrior who behaved within the normal conventions of war, who were shocked by the SS activities that followed in their wake. This was dispelled by most texts written after the fall of the Soviet Union when both captured German and Soviet war documents became available.
Some of the battle scenes are very gripping, others are staid lists of actions, creating an un-evenness. It still contains information not covered in other texts. Like most histories of war the author will look at any set of documents and be taken by certain aspects which get greater emphasis than another author who might put emphasis on another aspect. In truth one could write an eight or ten volume account of the Second World War in the European theater and not cover everything that occurred
The utter carnage of what occurred on the Eastern Front, the sheer number of deaths, both civilian and military are numbers that are still difficult to grasp even though we have the data. That the earth could even absorb that number of corpses stretches the imagination.
An excellent book which points to the utter folly of a war waged on politics, ideology, and delusions is made apparent, when a lowly corporal decided to micro manage a war from his narrow perspective as a participant in WWI. The victories enjoyed by Army Groups A and B, in part happened with the cooperation of their enemy which was also micromanaged by Stalin and his political officers. Germany much like Japan had neither the manpower or natural resources, or industrial capacity to wage a true global war. They had a slim window to wage a war that had to be settled within a short window, and any analysis would have shown that if an overwhelming victory could not be had within the first year all would be lost.
January 21, 2023
Things the US Media will never tell you: “Eight out of ten German soldiers who died (in WWII) were killed in the East.” “From June 1941 on, in no single month of the war did more Germans die in the west than in the east.” “The scale of fighting there (in the east) dwarfed anything in the west.” Why so much violence? Because Nazi Lebensraum required that the Soviet Union’s land be taken settler-colonial style, by either killing off or removing the inhabitants by force and taking their place because you mistakenly think you are a superior race (just like the US did to Native Americans and Zionists are doing in Israel). Hitler noticed the British “hunger” blockade in WWI had killed off 750,000 people and wished to emulate it. “His notion of Lebensraum harbored from the beginning murderous impulses.”
Hitler saw the US got its power through stealing tons of land by force to live and wanted in on the lucrative settler-colonialism racket. Seizing Russia, Hitler thought, offered the fewest risks because it was no threat to the British Empire. Thus, Hitler wrote, “If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can have in mind only Russia and her vassal states.” Taking Russia, would provide him with “the resources to lift Germany out of its economic misery.” Hitler was influenced by social Darwinism, and the brutal methods of British Imperialism, US settler-colonialism and Jim Crow laws, and the successful scramble for Africa by entitled white nations. Nations can get into some sick shit, once they start labelling other people inferior, backward, or uncivilized. “Life as a Darwinian struggle.” Nazi killing units were called Einsatzgruppen; top commanders were told by Hitler, “Have not pity. Brutal attitude. The strongest has the right.” “No one was going to be punished for being too ruthless.”
Poland: “On 9 September, Franz Halder confided to Major Helmuth Groscurth the chilling news that ‘it is the intention of the Fuhrer and Goering to destroy and exterminate the Polish people’.” “The spectacular military triumph in Poland left them with perhaps two million Jews under their control, a number that promised to overwhelm the already feeble strategy of emigration.” Despite the new land taken, “the Germans found themselves starved of food, coal, and oil.” Meanwhile, “for Britain, survival as a great power required continuing in the war.” By 1940, Britain “making peace on Hitler’s terms now meant recognition of German hegemony on the Continent and the likely end of Britain as a major power.”
Deciding to invade USSR: When Hitler choose invasion of the Soviet Union over invading Britain via crossing the English Channel he said, it was “not just a river crossing, but the crossing of a sea dominated by the enemy.” Intensifying US support for Britain made Hitler feel “if he was to realize his goal of Lebensraum in the east, he needed to do so quickly.” He felt that the Soviet Union alone had “the raw materials needed to sustain the war economy.” Hitler wrote in his diary, “With Russia smashed, Britain’s last hope would be shattered. Attack serves its purpose only if Russian state can be shattered to its roots with one blow. Resolute determination to eliminate Russia.” He said, all continental problems would have to be solved in 1941 “since the United States would be in a position to intervene from 1942 onwards.”
“The choice now was between destruction of the Soviet Union and Germany’s ruin.” Halder wrote, “Once England is finished, he would not be able to rouse the German people to a fight against Russia; consequently Russia would have to be disposed of first.” Operation Barbarossa was on. Hitler “simply expected the Soviet state to collapse” because he saw how fast France had collapsed. “From the beginning, the concept of annihilation constituted an integral part of Operation Barbarossa.” This was the largest military operation in history. The Red Army was larger though – it had five million soldiers.
Silly rabbit: So Hitler envisioned a Blitzkrieg/Cakewalk into Russia, yet he clearly didn’t have the vehicles and so “half of the units entered Russia the way Napoleon’s grand Army did, on foot with horse-drawn supply wagons.” “Only one quarter of the invading force consisted of motorized units.” So, instead of conjuring up fleets of black Mercedes trucks speeding with Colonel Klink towards the border, envision a scene from the black & white TV show Wagon Train, with wooden wheels lumbering through endless muddy ditches. A child can out-run that. Russian rail gauges didn’t match German ones, so rail transport was out. And so 2/3 to ¾ of each truck was filled with fuel, rations and ammunition. Since the vehicles varied so much in make and model, carrying spare parts for them all was a logistical nightmare. And they only brough fuel for 2 months of conflict. In Gilligan speak, that’s a “three-hour tour, a three-hour tour.” Yet, Germany knew in August 1940 that the Soviets had extensive armament factories past the Urals, so it wouldn’t make peace even if you took its biggest cities. The Wehrmacht would have to take the Urals as well. Germany knew that invasion would take out “normal harvests for two years.” This meant Germany would have to starve the local population, to use remaining food to feed invading Germans and Central Europe.
A German hunger policy stated, “tens of millions of people will undoubtedly starve to death if that which we require is taken out of the country.” “Goering dismissed their (Russian) starvation as essential for the German war effort.” Rosenberg wrote, “We certainly do not see that we have any duty to feed the Russian people.” Hitler insisted National Socialism would raise the German living standard, but only through taking out Russia. Originally Hitler thought only of removing Jews from Germany, but after victories he started seeing Jews removed from Europe. He planned on Jews being deported to inhospitable parts of Russia. Non-Germans were seen as “superfluous eaters.”
The Nazis projected their plans onto those they opposed; pretending all opponents were hate-filled, cruel and inhuman, made it easier for all to act that way toward all opponents. The Nazis however knew that “average Germans wanted an end to the war.” Hitler said, “Right or wrong we must triumph… once we have won, who will ask us about our methods?”
“By 1940, an astonishing 94 percent of German oil imports came from Rumania.” Germany relying on horse transport, put procurement of fodder and replacement animals at a premium. Hitler thought superior people had an obligation to simply take what was needed. “Living meant killing.” Hitler replaced class distinctions with racial distinctions. “Hitler had little interest in colonies” preferring to follow US settler-colonialism, and so he said, “Here in the east a similar process will repeat itself as in the conquest of America.” “Our Mississippi must be the Volga, not the Niger.” Envisioned were slave labor camps doing “enormous construction projects” and the deaths or relocation of “31 to 51 million people”. “So, genocide was implicit in Generalplan Ost.”
There was a problem with “execution tourism” as Wehrmacht “soldiers would often flock to scenes of executions and snap photographs.” I can just picture a German execution ad, “Trust your memories to Agfa film!” Babi Yar was a massacre of 33,000 by the Germans. Hitler was emulating Britain in his quest to create “Our India.” He said, “This is best done by shooting anyone who even looks sideways at us.” Goebbels saw that a Jew wrote in a new book that all Germans should be sterilized so then Goebbels told Germans if they lost, the plan was all Germans will be sterilized or killed. Once the Blitzkrieg failed, Hitler changed plans, opting to kill all Jews during the war, instead of after it. Some Nazi’s like Himmler were nauseated by the brutal killing and suggested gas vans. Even, “members of firing squads suffered from frequent nervous breakdowns.”
Russia: Had Hitler destroyed the Soviet Union, German estimates were 30 to 45 million dead Russians and some said to double that figure. If that happened, now we’d be talking about the Soviet Holocaust. But, the Soviets were fighting only on one front, and “almost four out of five German military deaths came at the hands of the Red Army.” And “Stalin far more effectively mobilized the Soviet populations for the war effort than did Hitler.” Soviet tanks were heavier and far superior to German tanks. Most Russian roads were unpaved, and even paved roads were “often ruined after a few days.” Bad roads meant poor fuel consumption. After 2,000,000 of the Red Army died, there was no sign of them slowing down. Time favored Russians because they were closer to supplies and resources. Back in Germany Goebbels noted food was scarce.
In 1939, Nazis started killing handicapped infants, and Hitler thought adult mental patients should be killed so hospital staff could then tend wounded soldiers. Nazi cruelly thinned out their 3.3 million alive Red Army prisoners to 1 million in 1941. Hunger was so bad, German’s didn’t have to guard the marching rear, just put a kitchen at the front and Red Army prisoners would follow. Thus, Red soldiers began to die en masse well before the Russian people did. Soon even the Russian people were so hungry that they were digging up dead horses to eat them. Goering said the Russians faced “the greatest mortality since the Thirty Year’s War.” From 1941 on, the Soviet Union was outproducing the Germans in weaponry. But to counter that, the Germans were still making more accordion beer drinking songs that no one wanted to listen to.
At this point Pearl Harbor happens and it becomes a World War. Nazis became a one-trick pony, focused only on “the Jew”. Now, “every Jew in Europe was to be killed.” Only one German soldier in five had winter clothing; apparently Hugo Boss wasn’t so Boss back then. German sentries for weeks were forced to a regime of one-hour sleep, then one hour of duty. As one Landser said, “You try coming out and dropping your trousers when it’s 40 below zero!” In a comedy of errors, German steam locomotives (unlike Russian ones) had their water pipes outside their boilers so when it got cold – oops, the lines froze and trains didn’t move. Germany knew it had to get its Lebensraum in the next year but then the tide turned against Germany at the end of 1942 with the Battle of Stalingrad. Now time was working against Hitler.
Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler were experts at projecting: Himmler said, “We had the moral right …the duty to our people, to destroy this people which wanted to destroy us.” Hitler said, “Why did the Jews start this war?” Goebbels said, “If we didn’t defend ourselves, the Jews would exterminate us.” Sounds a lot like the US projection rationale during its war on communism, and its Phoenix Program. Or today’s US military mantra; we fight them over there, so they can’t come over here. They wanted to keep killing everyone who looked at them sideways, but also now realized the war could not be won without foreign labor. Imagine not having to kill everyone – such restraint was needed. Back home Germans had to add horse meat to their diet. Imagine Wilbur eating Mr. Ed.
The Germans had the world’s largest artillery piece: an 800-millimeter gun named Dora. It required a modest “crew of two thousand, a sixty-car train, and six weeks to assemble.” Each shell weighed five tons and could travel 48 miles. Germans sent old people and children to “retirement villages” where “they would starve to death.” Himmler had envisioned an Empire that stretched to the Urals. Generalplan Ost (which was Himmler’s settler-colonial plan) envisioned all local Jews dead and 30-40 million Slavs dead or at least deported. But now Nazis saw they “could have racial purity or an effective war economy, but not both.” How about neither? The Soviets had shown that they were better at converting “their remaining resources into the weapons of war than did the Germans.” And the Allies together were then producing four to six times more armaments than Germany. Hitler after losing the Caucasus realizes his Ostkrieg will fail, and US intelligence sees the German failure is now irreversible. Once the US got involved, Germany no longer had a single front where to concentrate its resources. And, the Soviets now controlled the eastern battlefield.
Quality German Engineering: More German Panther and Tiger tanks died from mechanical failure and abandonment than from battle. Worker treatment by Nazis: The word from above was “pay no attention to the human cost.” That led to this: “Each morning, SS guards punched workers in the face; those who did not fall were considered fit for work.” One out of three workers would die at these work farms.
Why did Hitler keep fighting? Because unconditional surrender meant the end of him in power. He knew he couldn’t win but hoped against hope to stalemate. “Stalemate” was probably Eva Braun’s pet name for him. 75 to 85% of the Holocaust happened between spring 1942 and the early summer of 1943. Allied terror bombing of Germany only “brought the Volksgemeinschaft closer together.” Only in November 1943, did Hitler finally give precedence to the war in the west. Goebbels changed the Nazi propaganda story from Lebensraum for Aryan Civilization to “defense of European civilization against the onslaught of the Jewish-Bolshevik hordes.” After almost 900 days of fighting, the Red Army ends the Siege of Leningrad which alone had killed 1.6 to two million Russians. In May 1944 the Germans still had 2,243,000 soldiers left but the Soviets had six million.
Red soldiers when they entered Germany couldn’t understand why Germans would leave a life of such elegance to go invade Russia. It was hard for them to go back to Russia after seeing such finery and plentiful food in their occupier’s own country. In the end, 27.5 million Soviets died so that the Allies could win WWII and “the Soviet Union was left physically in ruins.” Soviet GDP fell by 34% between 1940 and 1942. In return for the massive Soviet contribution, Harry Truman starts a Cold War against all of them just to get elected and continue military Keynesianism. What an amazing book. As you can see, I learned a lot of cool stuff.
Hitler saw the US got its power through stealing tons of land by force to live and wanted in on the lucrative settler-colonialism racket. Seizing Russia, Hitler thought, offered the fewest risks because it was no threat to the British Empire. Thus, Hitler wrote, “If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can have in mind only Russia and her vassal states.” Taking Russia, would provide him with “the resources to lift Germany out of its economic misery.” Hitler was influenced by social Darwinism, and the brutal methods of British Imperialism, US settler-colonialism and Jim Crow laws, and the successful scramble for Africa by entitled white nations. Nations can get into some sick shit, once they start labelling other people inferior, backward, or uncivilized. “Life as a Darwinian struggle.” Nazi killing units were called Einsatzgruppen; top commanders were told by Hitler, “Have not pity. Brutal attitude. The strongest has the right.” “No one was going to be punished for being too ruthless.”
Poland: “On 9 September, Franz Halder confided to Major Helmuth Groscurth the chilling news that ‘it is the intention of the Fuhrer and Goering to destroy and exterminate the Polish people’.” “The spectacular military triumph in Poland left them with perhaps two million Jews under their control, a number that promised to overwhelm the already feeble strategy of emigration.” Despite the new land taken, “the Germans found themselves starved of food, coal, and oil.” Meanwhile, “for Britain, survival as a great power required continuing in the war.” By 1940, Britain “making peace on Hitler’s terms now meant recognition of German hegemony on the Continent and the likely end of Britain as a major power.”
Deciding to invade USSR: When Hitler choose invasion of the Soviet Union over invading Britain via crossing the English Channel he said, it was “not just a river crossing, but the crossing of a sea dominated by the enemy.” Intensifying US support for Britain made Hitler feel “if he was to realize his goal of Lebensraum in the east, he needed to do so quickly.” He felt that the Soviet Union alone had “the raw materials needed to sustain the war economy.” Hitler wrote in his diary, “With Russia smashed, Britain’s last hope would be shattered. Attack serves its purpose only if Russian state can be shattered to its roots with one blow. Resolute determination to eliminate Russia.” He said, all continental problems would have to be solved in 1941 “since the United States would be in a position to intervene from 1942 onwards.”
“The choice now was between destruction of the Soviet Union and Germany’s ruin.” Halder wrote, “Once England is finished, he would not be able to rouse the German people to a fight against Russia; consequently Russia would have to be disposed of first.” Operation Barbarossa was on. Hitler “simply expected the Soviet state to collapse” because he saw how fast France had collapsed. “From the beginning, the concept of annihilation constituted an integral part of Operation Barbarossa.” This was the largest military operation in history. The Red Army was larger though – it had five million soldiers.
Silly rabbit: So Hitler envisioned a Blitzkrieg/Cakewalk into Russia, yet he clearly didn’t have the vehicles and so “half of the units entered Russia the way Napoleon’s grand Army did, on foot with horse-drawn supply wagons.” “Only one quarter of the invading force consisted of motorized units.” So, instead of conjuring up fleets of black Mercedes trucks speeding with Colonel Klink towards the border, envision a scene from the black & white TV show Wagon Train, with wooden wheels lumbering through endless muddy ditches. A child can out-run that. Russian rail gauges didn’t match German ones, so rail transport was out. And so 2/3 to ¾ of each truck was filled with fuel, rations and ammunition. Since the vehicles varied so much in make and model, carrying spare parts for them all was a logistical nightmare. And they only brough fuel for 2 months of conflict. In Gilligan speak, that’s a “three-hour tour, a three-hour tour.” Yet, Germany knew in August 1940 that the Soviets had extensive armament factories past the Urals, so it wouldn’t make peace even if you took its biggest cities. The Wehrmacht would have to take the Urals as well. Germany knew that invasion would take out “normal harvests for two years.” This meant Germany would have to starve the local population, to use remaining food to feed invading Germans and Central Europe.
A German hunger policy stated, “tens of millions of people will undoubtedly starve to death if that which we require is taken out of the country.” “Goering dismissed their (Russian) starvation as essential for the German war effort.” Rosenberg wrote, “We certainly do not see that we have any duty to feed the Russian people.” Hitler insisted National Socialism would raise the German living standard, but only through taking out Russia. Originally Hitler thought only of removing Jews from Germany, but after victories he started seeing Jews removed from Europe. He planned on Jews being deported to inhospitable parts of Russia. Non-Germans were seen as “superfluous eaters.”
The Nazis projected their plans onto those they opposed; pretending all opponents were hate-filled, cruel and inhuman, made it easier for all to act that way toward all opponents. The Nazis however knew that “average Germans wanted an end to the war.” Hitler said, “Right or wrong we must triumph… once we have won, who will ask us about our methods?”
“By 1940, an astonishing 94 percent of German oil imports came from Rumania.” Germany relying on horse transport, put procurement of fodder and replacement animals at a premium. Hitler thought superior people had an obligation to simply take what was needed. “Living meant killing.” Hitler replaced class distinctions with racial distinctions. “Hitler had little interest in colonies” preferring to follow US settler-colonialism, and so he said, “Here in the east a similar process will repeat itself as in the conquest of America.” “Our Mississippi must be the Volga, not the Niger.” Envisioned were slave labor camps doing “enormous construction projects” and the deaths or relocation of “31 to 51 million people”. “So, genocide was implicit in Generalplan Ost.”
There was a problem with “execution tourism” as Wehrmacht “soldiers would often flock to scenes of executions and snap photographs.” I can just picture a German execution ad, “Trust your memories to Agfa film!” Babi Yar was a massacre of 33,000 by the Germans. Hitler was emulating Britain in his quest to create “Our India.” He said, “This is best done by shooting anyone who even looks sideways at us.” Goebbels saw that a Jew wrote in a new book that all Germans should be sterilized so then Goebbels told Germans if they lost, the plan was all Germans will be sterilized or killed. Once the Blitzkrieg failed, Hitler changed plans, opting to kill all Jews during the war, instead of after it. Some Nazi’s like Himmler were nauseated by the brutal killing and suggested gas vans. Even, “members of firing squads suffered from frequent nervous breakdowns.”
Russia: Had Hitler destroyed the Soviet Union, German estimates were 30 to 45 million dead Russians and some said to double that figure. If that happened, now we’d be talking about the Soviet Holocaust. But, the Soviets were fighting only on one front, and “almost four out of five German military deaths came at the hands of the Red Army.” And “Stalin far more effectively mobilized the Soviet populations for the war effort than did Hitler.” Soviet tanks were heavier and far superior to German tanks. Most Russian roads were unpaved, and even paved roads were “often ruined after a few days.” Bad roads meant poor fuel consumption. After 2,000,000 of the Red Army died, there was no sign of them slowing down. Time favored Russians because they were closer to supplies and resources. Back in Germany Goebbels noted food was scarce.
In 1939, Nazis started killing handicapped infants, and Hitler thought adult mental patients should be killed so hospital staff could then tend wounded soldiers. Nazi cruelly thinned out their 3.3 million alive Red Army prisoners to 1 million in 1941. Hunger was so bad, German’s didn’t have to guard the marching rear, just put a kitchen at the front and Red Army prisoners would follow. Thus, Red soldiers began to die en masse well before the Russian people did. Soon even the Russian people were so hungry that they were digging up dead horses to eat them. Goering said the Russians faced “the greatest mortality since the Thirty Year’s War.” From 1941 on, the Soviet Union was outproducing the Germans in weaponry. But to counter that, the Germans were still making more accordion beer drinking songs that no one wanted to listen to.
At this point Pearl Harbor happens and it becomes a World War. Nazis became a one-trick pony, focused only on “the Jew”. Now, “every Jew in Europe was to be killed.” Only one German soldier in five had winter clothing; apparently Hugo Boss wasn’t so Boss back then. German sentries for weeks were forced to a regime of one-hour sleep, then one hour of duty. As one Landser said, “You try coming out and dropping your trousers when it’s 40 below zero!” In a comedy of errors, German steam locomotives (unlike Russian ones) had their water pipes outside their boilers so when it got cold – oops, the lines froze and trains didn’t move. Germany knew it had to get its Lebensraum in the next year but then the tide turned against Germany at the end of 1942 with the Battle of Stalingrad. Now time was working against Hitler.
Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler were experts at projecting: Himmler said, “We had the moral right …the duty to our people, to destroy this people which wanted to destroy us.” Hitler said, “Why did the Jews start this war?” Goebbels said, “If we didn’t defend ourselves, the Jews would exterminate us.” Sounds a lot like the US projection rationale during its war on communism, and its Phoenix Program. Or today’s US military mantra; we fight them over there, so they can’t come over here. They wanted to keep killing everyone who looked at them sideways, but also now realized the war could not be won without foreign labor. Imagine not having to kill everyone – such restraint was needed. Back home Germans had to add horse meat to their diet. Imagine Wilbur eating Mr. Ed.
The Germans had the world’s largest artillery piece: an 800-millimeter gun named Dora. It required a modest “crew of two thousand, a sixty-car train, and six weeks to assemble.” Each shell weighed five tons and could travel 48 miles. Germans sent old people and children to “retirement villages” where “they would starve to death.” Himmler had envisioned an Empire that stretched to the Urals. Generalplan Ost (which was Himmler’s settler-colonial plan) envisioned all local Jews dead and 30-40 million Slavs dead or at least deported. But now Nazis saw they “could have racial purity or an effective war economy, but not both.” How about neither? The Soviets had shown that they were better at converting “their remaining resources into the weapons of war than did the Germans.” And the Allies together were then producing four to six times more armaments than Germany. Hitler after losing the Caucasus realizes his Ostkrieg will fail, and US intelligence sees the German failure is now irreversible. Once the US got involved, Germany no longer had a single front where to concentrate its resources. And, the Soviets now controlled the eastern battlefield.
Quality German Engineering: More German Panther and Tiger tanks died from mechanical failure and abandonment than from battle. Worker treatment by Nazis: The word from above was “pay no attention to the human cost.” That led to this: “Each morning, SS guards punched workers in the face; those who did not fall were considered fit for work.” One out of three workers would die at these work farms.
Why did Hitler keep fighting? Because unconditional surrender meant the end of him in power. He knew he couldn’t win but hoped against hope to stalemate. “Stalemate” was probably Eva Braun’s pet name for him. 75 to 85% of the Holocaust happened between spring 1942 and the early summer of 1943. Allied terror bombing of Germany only “brought the Volksgemeinschaft closer together.” Only in November 1943, did Hitler finally give precedence to the war in the west. Goebbels changed the Nazi propaganda story from Lebensraum for Aryan Civilization to “defense of European civilization against the onslaught of the Jewish-Bolshevik hordes.” After almost 900 days of fighting, the Red Army ends the Siege of Leningrad which alone had killed 1.6 to two million Russians. In May 1944 the Germans still had 2,243,000 soldiers left but the Soviets had six million.
Red soldiers when they entered Germany couldn’t understand why Germans would leave a life of such elegance to go invade Russia. It was hard for them to go back to Russia after seeing such finery and plentiful food in their occupier’s own country. In the end, 27.5 million Soviets died so that the Allies could win WWII and “the Soviet Union was left physically in ruins.” Soviet GDP fell by 34% between 1940 and 1942. In return for the massive Soviet contribution, Harry Truman starts a Cold War against all of them just to get elected and continue military Keynesianism. What an amazing book. As you can see, I learned a lot of cool stuff.
March 14, 2016
This book provides an excellent synthesis of sources to recount the war in the east, as well as describing German war aims, the rationale behind the decisions made and the ideological framework of the German actors. It also shows how the Final solution evolved and how it was affected by the events in the war. It is also a relatively easy read, but very informative.
The main points I got out of the book were:
1. Germany's weaknesses in manpower, raw materials, and armaments made the whole invasion a wild gamble at best. Indeed, the earlier conquest of Western Europe created as many problems as it solved.
2. Germany's military leadership were not only complicit with Nazi war aims (which were genocidal on an unprecedented scale) but were pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing. I had read a lot of German memoirs in the past and the white washing that was used is incredibly thick.
3. The Red Arm's eventual triumph seemed to owe more to huge numbers than improved skill. This does fly in the face in a lot of recent books arguing that the Red Army's performance improved dramatically over time. Based on the hard numbers I would have to say the improvement was only in an operational sense. Tactically, the loss ratios make pretty much every battle look like a massacre for the Russians.
The main points I got out of the book were:
1. Germany's weaknesses in manpower, raw materials, and armaments made the whole invasion a wild gamble at best. Indeed, the earlier conquest of Western Europe created as many problems as it solved.
2. Germany's military leadership were not only complicit with Nazi war aims (which were genocidal on an unprecedented scale) but were pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing. I had read a lot of German memoirs in the past and the white washing that was used is incredibly thick.
3. The Red Arm's eventual triumph seemed to owe more to huge numbers than improved skill. This does fly in the face in a lot of recent books arguing that the Red Army's performance improved dramatically over time. Based on the hard numbers I would have to say the improvement was only in an operational sense. Tactically, the loss ratios make pretty much every battle look like a massacre for the Russians.
November 17, 2025
A detailed account of the Eastern Front, largely from the German perspective, that stresses the war in the East was one of annihilation and genocide from the outset.
This book debunks the “clean Wehrmacht” myth and emphasizes that this was a war to colonize the East (in a similar fashion as the U.S did to the Native Americans) and transform the racial demographics of Europe to create a self sufficient state capable of challenging the United States for hegemony.
The book also emphasizes how the Eastern front was the decisive theater of the war, accounting for up to 80% (depending on the metric used) of all German casualties suffered in WWII.
This book debunks the “clean Wehrmacht” myth and emphasizes that this was a war to colonize the East (in a similar fashion as the U.S did to the Native Americans) and transform the racial demographics of Europe to create a self sufficient state capable of challenging the United States for hegemony.
The book also emphasizes how the Eastern front was the decisive theater of the war, accounting for up to 80% (depending on the metric used) of all German casualties suffered in WWII.
March 7, 2014
A thorough history of Hitler's horrific "war of annihilation" against Russia. For me there were a lot of surprises. The Germans were not defeated by the Russian winter, although that inflicted serious losses on them. Their major mistakes included a strategic error of splitting their forces, underestimating Russian determination, their unwillingness ever under any circumstances to accept defeat, and underestimating Russia's enormous industrial capacity.
It really brought home something that I've half-believed for a few years now, namely, that the real war was in the east, and World War II was won mainly by the Russians, with D-Day and its aftermath playing a supporting role. The figures alone are revealing: Russians lost between 12 and 20 million soldiers (plus even more civilians), while the western Allies lost 750,000.
I did find the narrative a little difficult to follow. It often told the story in a very detailed way, focusing on quite small actions in quite obscure locations. My maps were not able to find all the places where important events took place. I often felt the need for one or two maps per page in order to truly take in what the author was describing. It sometimes became a blur of names of obscure towns, rivers, regiments, etc.
It really brought home something that I've half-believed for a few years now, namely, that the real war was in the east, and World War II was won mainly by the Russians, with D-Day and its aftermath playing a supporting role. The figures alone are revealing: Russians lost between 12 and 20 million soldiers (plus even more civilians), while the western Allies lost 750,000.
I did find the narrative a little difficult to follow. It often told the story in a very detailed way, focusing on quite small actions in quite obscure locations. My maps were not able to find all the places where important events took place. I often felt the need for one or two maps per page in order to truly take in what the author was describing. It sometimes became a blur of names of obscure towns, rivers, regiments, etc.
August 20, 2023
Ostkrieg is an account of the Eastern Front of World War II from the German point of view. The object of the book is not to present new information but to synthesize the recent historiography such as the 15,000 page, 10 volume work put out by the Military History Research Office of the German Bundeswehr (I think we can all be thankful for that).
Fritz argues that Hitler tied his two “great” causes together, the quest for Lebensraum in the east for the German people, the stab in the back myth by the Jews in 1918. While it wasn’t necessarily planned to be a holocaust from the start, all of the elements for it were there. In securing the land to the east Hitler was also securing the resources the Germans, and in his mind a realigned Europe, would need for a final confrontation with the United States. More than any other book I’ve read, Ostkrieg points to that final confrontation as being the endgame.
The narrative outlines the decisions by Hitler and his top commanders, their disagreements, their blunders and successes, it breaks down missed opportunities and a few myths, always keeping an eye on both the military side and the extermination policies. Ultimately for the Germans it was often a case of realizing an opportunity too late.
“the genocidal imperative triumphed over the pragmatic”
“Nazi officials had begun to realize their conundrum: they could have racial purity or an effective war economy, but not both.”
One of the most head shaking moments occurs in 1944. A belated realization that could have saved millions of lives.
“Amazingly, since his desire for Lebensraum has been a prime reason for the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Führer could now state, ‘If the territory that we now possess can be held, that is an area that will enable us to live, and we don’t have this giant rear area.’”
The tragedy is that living wasn’t enough. The allure of power and infection of racism took hold far too strongly.
The only disappointment I had with the book was the lack of maps. There are seven very basic maps at the front but none interspersed throughout the text.
The experienced World War II reader will still benefit from this account as the bibliography (52 pages long) and the aforementioned Bundeswehr tomes are collated into a manageable 500 page account plus supplementary materials.
Someone who has read one book on the war and wants to know more about the eastern front will do well with picking up Ostkrieg and a very similar account of the Soviet side of things by Richard Overy, Russia’s War.
Anyone who is unfamiliar with World War II entirely would do well to look towards Max Hastings Inferno, Antony Beevor’s The Second World War as a starting point with Ostkrieg as a strong recommendation for subsequent pickup.
Fritz argues that Hitler tied his two “great” causes together, the quest for Lebensraum in the east for the German people, the stab in the back myth by the Jews in 1918. While it wasn’t necessarily planned to be a holocaust from the start, all of the elements for it were there. In securing the land to the east Hitler was also securing the resources the Germans, and in his mind a realigned Europe, would need for a final confrontation with the United States. More than any other book I’ve read, Ostkrieg points to that final confrontation as being the endgame.
The narrative outlines the decisions by Hitler and his top commanders, their disagreements, their blunders and successes, it breaks down missed opportunities and a few myths, always keeping an eye on both the military side and the extermination policies. Ultimately for the Germans it was often a case of realizing an opportunity too late.
“the genocidal imperative triumphed over the pragmatic”
“Nazi officials had begun to realize their conundrum: they could have racial purity or an effective war economy, but not both.”
One of the most head shaking moments occurs in 1944. A belated realization that could have saved millions of lives.
“Amazingly, since his desire for Lebensraum has been a prime reason for the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Führer could now state, ‘If the territory that we now possess can be held, that is an area that will enable us to live, and we don’t have this giant rear area.’”
The tragedy is that living wasn’t enough. The allure of power and infection of racism took hold far too strongly.
The only disappointment I had with the book was the lack of maps. There are seven very basic maps at the front but none interspersed throughout the text.
The experienced World War II reader will still benefit from this account as the bibliography (52 pages long) and the aforementioned Bundeswehr tomes are collated into a manageable 500 page account plus supplementary materials.
Someone who has read one book on the war and wants to know more about the eastern front will do well with picking up Ostkrieg and a very similar account of the Soviet side of things by Richard Overy, Russia’s War.
Anyone who is unfamiliar with World War II entirely would do well to look towards Max Hastings Inferno, Antony Beevor’s The Second World War as a starting point with Ostkrieg as a strong recommendation for subsequent pickup.
June 26, 2025
toto je asi jedna z najlepších kníh ktoré som čítal o východnom fronte, fakt na úrovni trilógie od Robert Citino, stovky strán kvality najvyššej akosti. odporúčam ale nie ako materiál pre začiatočníkov lebo autor očakáva od čitateľa dosť silné poznanie druhej svetovej vojny a mapy bojisk.
November 20, 2020
A good book trying to synthesize previous work rather than trying to invent the wheel from same old sources. The books main focus is on the eastern front and on the German side, but it's not just a recount of battles but the whole grand strategy behind it. Fritz tries to explain the thought processes behind seemingly brutal and stupid decisions made by German leaders and does a great job at that. Even after reading Alexander Hill's The Red Army, Glantz' & House's When Titans Clashed and Shirer's Rise and Fall during past 12 months, I still found some refreshingly new viewpoints to the war in the east. The whole war gets a balanced treatment instead of being over detailed on the just biggest battles. On the narrative aspect it's more closer to Shirer than to either Beevor or Glanz. We get eyewitness accounts from Landser, but nothing in the style of Beevor or Hastings. Although it's not as "light" as Beevor, the lack of it means, the text flows nicely and keeps mostly on subject, and the book is relatively short considering the subject.
Loses the five star mark because it lacks proper maps. Although the focus is on grand strategy, we get to read enough corps level movements that would've been a lot better with more detailed maps situated in the text rather than in the beginning of the book. Also in the early phase of the book, it somewhat loses it's focus into the extermination of Jews. Although Fritz argues that these things are not separate, it still felt somewhat too detailed that I was occasionally waiting the final argument to tie the current prose to the eastern front, but it didn't always come.
I would recommend this book as a pair to Alexander Hill's The Red Army and the Second World War until at least the John Rutherfords German army and the Second world war is published.
Loses the five star mark because it lacks proper maps. Although the focus is on grand strategy, we get to read enough corps level movements that would've been a lot better with more detailed maps situated in the text rather than in the beginning of the book. Also in the early phase of the book, it somewhat loses it's focus into the extermination of Jews. Although Fritz argues that these things are not separate, it still felt somewhat too detailed that I was occasionally waiting the final argument to tie the current prose to the eastern front, but it didn't always come.
I would recommend this book as a pair to Alexander Hill's The Red Army and the Second World War until at least the John Rutherfords German army and the Second world war is published.
May 19, 2017
Ostkreig occupies one of the rare categories of books on WW2 that is both easy to read, entertaining, factual, and detailed. Too often books of late dealing with WW2 are more fictional novel than historic reference. And those that are true to fact, tend to be dry and tedious to read. Fritz has managed to provide not only detail on the Eastern front that was new, but present it in a way that made the book easy to read, and synthesized the narratives so that it was easy to get the "big picture" of what the war in the Eastern front was about while still providing fascinating details.
He also managed to remain as objective as I have seen on the issue, presenting both the Nazi and Soviets in their brutal outline. This is a must read for many who like to call WW2 "The Good War". The military, economic, political, and civilian paradigm are all given and the reader is in swept from the conference with Hitler, to Stalin's ad hoc decisions in a Moscow rail yard, to the front line soldiers views, and civilian workers all in a few pages. This breathtaking sweep of incorporating all angles is remarkable, and Fritz should be commended on the scope of the work alone.
His unflinching look at the barbarous treatment and evolution of the Shoah for the Jews is particularly interesting, and a must read for those that attempt to both whitewash history in Europe and the "soft denialism" currently en vogue by attempting to equate a similar system in Asia during the same time period. Despite having studied the Shoah for decades, I found Fritz was able to piece a timeline and provide shocking new details that filled in the picture for me.
I could find few flaws with his work and would highly recommend it for any scholar of the Eastern Front, WW2, Jewish, or European Historical Studies.
He also managed to remain as objective as I have seen on the issue, presenting both the Nazi and Soviets in their brutal outline. This is a must read for many who like to call WW2 "The Good War". The military, economic, political, and civilian paradigm are all given and the reader is in swept from the conference with Hitler, to Stalin's ad hoc decisions in a Moscow rail yard, to the front line soldiers views, and civilian workers all in a few pages. This breathtaking sweep of incorporating all angles is remarkable, and Fritz should be commended on the scope of the work alone.
His unflinching look at the barbarous treatment and evolution of the Shoah for the Jews is particularly interesting, and a must read for those that attempt to both whitewash history in Europe and the "soft denialism" currently en vogue by attempting to equate a similar system in Asia during the same time period. Despite having studied the Shoah for decades, I found Fritz was able to piece a timeline and provide shocking new details that filled in the picture for me.
I could find few flaws with his work and would highly recommend it for any scholar of the Eastern Front, WW2, Jewish, or European Historical Studies.
July 16, 2014
The best single volume history of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union.
February 3, 2016
Best single volumen on the Eastern front. Must have and read book: great book!
April 11, 2022
This book is fine, but I didn't learn anything new. Some of the information isn't entirely accurate. I've read so much material concerning WW2 and the events around it that I can spot minor issues. I only gave 3 stars because the book is very poorly written. I actually wondered if English was the author's second language. He uses constant run-on sentences with erratic comma use. Some passages don't even make sense. The information is also very repetitive and poorly organized.
December 27, 2023
More of the details of this much discussed episode of insanity, megalomania and the Soviet style of total war, to borrow the other guy’s phrase. If I was on a game show and I had to pick an historical period to be questioned on, it would probably be ww2. Yet even steady reading since yr 11, so much more to understand
July 8, 2025
Przyznaję, że gdybym nie wybrała audiobooka, nie zdecydowałabym się na tę lekturę. Ponad 20 godzin słuchania o froncie wschodnim było moją pierwszą pozycją tak dogłębnie analizującą zderzenie 2 dyktatorów. Lektura nie jest bynajmniej męcząca, nastawiona na czytelnika takiego jak ja, z przeciętną znajomością tematu. Polecam, warto.
April 16, 2022
A Clear-Eyed View Of Evil
Hitler’s war against Russia was an exercise in genocide from the beginning. This book makes the clearest case for that of any you will ever read. Well written and very well researched.
Hitler’s war against Russia was an exercise in genocide from the beginning. This book makes the clearest case for that of any you will ever read. Well written and very well researched.
February 7, 2025
such a dense book but very informative. highly recommend getting into historical nonfiction to educate yourself and understand how these past issues are reflective of the 21st century. history minor is destroying me a bit but its a good challenge
July 20, 2019
4.5
Buen libro sobre el frente oriental de la SGM. Motivaciones, desarrollo y repercusiones. Desde la perspectiva alemana.
Buen libro sobre el frente oriental de la SGM. Motivaciones, desarrollo y repercusiones. Desde la perspectiva alemana.
March 26, 2020
A valuable addition to the literature on the Russian front in WW2.
January 9, 2022
Great book about the Eastern Front from the German perspective. This book helps to dispel the myth that the Soviets only won due to superior numbers.
February 5, 2025
Worth reading
August 30, 2024
This very good book is a reminder that there is a lot more to learn about World War II, in large part due to the information historians are finding after the fall of the USSR. Scholarship in the west has had to dig out from immediate postwar mythology as well, some of which persists, like our tendency to overlook how central to the Nazi regime it was to obliterate resistance in the east in order to establish Hitler’s huge new world order, to secure its Lebensraum. (The Allies also went along with the postwar German generals’ myth making about their and the Wehrmacht’s lack of involvement in genocidal violence, which the author notes.)
I have a much clearer idea of the war in the East now. A couple of notable points: the author acknowledges the accuracy of Stalin’s claim that, in fighting the war, “England provided the time, America the money, and Russia the blood”.
In discussing the rapid radicalization of Nazi racial policy, he notes its delineation of the struggle as one of “survival or annihilation”.
I have a much clearer idea of the war in the East now. A couple of notable points: the author acknowledges the accuracy of Stalin’s claim that, in fighting the war, “England provided the time, America the money, and Russia the blood”.
At times, indeed, the Ostkrieg often seemed more murder than war. That it took the most murderous regime in Europe’s history to defeat its most genocidal certainly tarnishes Western notions of the good war.
In discussing the rapid radicalization of Nazi racial policy, he notes its delineation of the struggle as one of “survival or annihilation”.
This insistent desire to prevent the destruction they imagined their enemies were about to visit on them produced in the Nazis a feeling of liberation from conventional morality and a willingness to use maximum violence.”It’s something we should remember in a world that’s edging toward authoritarianism again.
February 14, 2025
Bu kitap, savaş tarihinin en acımasız ve kanlı olanı olan Doğu Cephesi'nin çatışma hikayesini eşsiz ve gerçekten dikkat çekici bir şekilde anlatıyor. Stephen G. Fritz, kitabında çift yönlü bir strateji benimsiyor. Hem Almanların Rusya'yı işgali olan Barbarossa Harekatı'nı hem de Nazi ideolojisini ve Holokost'un gerçekleştirilmesini ele alıyor.
Kitap, Hitler'in Lebensraum (yaşam alanı) takıntısının, dünya çapında bir Yahudi komplosu ve Bolşeviklerle bağlantısının, I. Dünya Savaşı'nda Almanya'nın teslimiyetine dayandığını açıklıyor. Savaş sonrası Almanya'da, özellikle Versay Antlaşması sonrasında, pek çok kesimi etkileyen "sırtından bıçaklanma" hissi, İkinci Dünya Savaşı'na giden yolda açık bir yara bıraktı.
Fritz, Nazilerin tamamen Sovyet Rusya'yı yok etme arzusunu ortaya koyuyor. Bu, Sovyet savaş esirlerinin kitlesel açlık çekmesinden, Barbarossa Harekatı'nın ardından gönderilen Einsatzgruppen (ölüm mangaları) gibi birçok düzeyde gerçekleşiyor. Ayrıca, Barbarossa'dan Berlin'e kadar olan tüm kampanyayı görüyoruz.
Barbarossa Harekatı hakkında iki kitap okuduğum için birçok şey tanıdık geldi. Diğer savaşlar ve operasyonlar hakkında daha fazla şey öğrenmeye ilgi duydum. Sevastopol kuşatması ve savaşı çok ilginçti; Almanların şehrin bombalanması için tarihin en büyük toplarından bazılarını nasıl kullandığı ve Luftwaffe'nin yol açtığı tahrip edici saldırılar korkunç yıkımlara neden oldu ve on binlerce kayıpla sonuçlandı. Kitabın en güçlü yanlarından biri, Sovyetlerin yaşadığı büyük kayıplar. Sayıca üstün olsalar bile veya sonunda Berlin Savaşı'nda yaşlı ve çocuklardan oluşan Alman birimlerine karşı savaşıyor olsalar da, Sovyet kayıpları devam etti.
Bu kitabı okumak oldukça tatmin ediciydi ve Doğu Cephesi'ndeki İkinci Dünya Savaşı çatışmalarıyla ilgilenen herkese içtenlikle tavsiye ediyorum.
Kitap, Hitler'in Lebensraum (yaşam alanı) takıntısının, dünya çapında bir Yahudi komplosu ve Bolşeviklerle bağlantısının, I. Dünya Savaşı'nda Almanya'nın teslimiyetine dayandığını açıklıyor. Savaş sonrası Almanya'da, özellikle Versay Antlaşması sonrasında, pek çok kesimi etkileyen "sırtından bıçaklanma" hissi, İkinci Dünya Savaşı'na giden yolda açık bir yara bıraktı.
Fritz, Nazilerin tamamen Sovyet Rusya'yı yok etme arzusunu ortaya koyuyor. Bu, Sovyet savaş esirlerinin kitlesel açlık çekmesinden, Barbarossa Harekatı'nın ardından gönderilen Einsatzgruppen (ölüm mangaları) gibi birçok düzeyde gerçekleşiyor. Ayrıca, Barbarossa'dan Berlin'e kadar olan tüm kampanyayı görüyoruz.
Barbarossa Harekatı hakkında iki kitap okuduğum için birçok şey tanıdık geldi. Diğer savaşlar ve operasyonlar hakkında daha fazla şey öğrenmeye ilgi duydum. Sevastopol kuşatması ve savaşı çok ilginçti; Almanların şehrin bombalanması için tarihin en büyük toplarından bazılarını nasıl kullandığı ve Luftwaffe'nin yol açtığı tahrip edici saldırılar korkunç yıkımlara neden oldu ve on binlerce kayıpla sonuçlandı. Kitabın en güçlü yanlarından biri, Sovyetlerin yaşadığı büyük kayıplar. Sayıca üstün olsalar bile veya sonunda Berlin Savaşı'nda yaşlı ve çocuklardan oluşan Alman birimlerine karşı savaşıyor olsalar da, Sovyet kayıpları devam etti.
Bu kitabı okumak oldukça tatmin ediciydi ve Doğu Cephesi'ndeki İkinci Dünya Savaşı çatışmalarıyla ilgilenen herkese içtenlikle tavsiye ediyorum.
February 18, 2015
A great book, well researched and one that took me time to digest. One of the best I've read on the Eastern Front that focused on Hitler's philosophy of a war against Jews and Bolsheviks and total war. Great analysis on the war Hitler got (multi-front and miscalculation with Western Allies- the British sticking it out) and the war he wanted (annihilation of the Soviets after buying time). Also, Fritz does an excellent job in taking the reader through war time economy mobilization, how the Stalin implemented a ruthless war footing up front (really had no choice), and how Hitler didn't implement until '44-45...too late. Finally, although Stalingrad was the turning point and 'decision in the East' was key, the author doesn't downplay the importance of the Western Allies efforts: Lend-Lease, opening up fronts (Africa, Med., France) which drew much needed German resources away from where it was really needed.
Only other comment, and not a criticism, is that there's barely any mention of the Soviet/Russian contribution to genocide/total war. For example, one would think the USSR layer no role in invading, murdering Poles and annexing part of their country. Fritz does mention Katyn forest massacre of 3K+ Polish officers.
For the mil historian as well as the general reader who wants to learn more about Die Ostfront.
Only other comment, and not a criticism, is that there's barely any mention of the Soviet/Russian contribution to genocide/total war. For example, one would think the USSR layer no role in invading, murdering Poles and annexing part of their country. Fritz does mention Katyn forest massacre of 3K+ Polish officers.
For the mil historian as well as the general reader who wants to learn more about Die Ostfront.
May 20, 2012
An excellent look at the War in the East, 1941-1945, in the light of German sources uncovered in the 1980s and Russian sources since the end of the Cold War. The premise is that a war of extermination was fundamental to Nazi ideology, and, in fact, made an invasion of Russia an inevitability.
The actual fighting is covered in detail. Considering the scope of Ostkrieg, Stephen Fritz does an admirable job recreating the highlights of campaigns from the opening of Barbarossa to the Fall of Berlin. He describes the toll the intense fighting in the opening months of the war took on not only the Red Army but also the Wehrmacht, quoting an unnamed German divisional commander after one particularly vicious battle that if they kept on like this, they would be winning themselves to death. Especially eye-opening for me was his re-examination of the Battle of Prokhorovka, the climax of the 1943 Battle for Kursk.
An epic read, well worth it for the reader interested in learning more about the pivotal theater of World War II.
The actual fighting is covered in detail. Considering the scope of Ostkrieg, Stephen Fritz does an admirable job recreating the highlights of campaigns from the opening of Barbarossa to the Fall of Berlin. He describes the toll the intense fighting in the opening months of the war took on not only the Red Army but also the Wehrmacht, quoting an unnamed German divisional commander after one particularly vicious battle that if they kept on like this, they would be winning themselves to death. Especially eye-opening for me was his re-examination of the Battle of Prokhorovka, the climax of the 1943 Battle for Kursk.
An epic read, well worth it for the reader interested in learning more about the pivotal theater of World War II.
May 23, 2012
There are few books that depict the military operations on the Eastern front in World War II that could be described as anything other than horrific. Fritz's work here is no exception. It produces a surreal sensation to experience vicariously the maddening cruelties of that area of operations, to participate from a distance in its insane violence and the inevitable roll-back and defeat of the Nazis. This work seems like a counterpoint to Guy Sajer's (perhaps contested work, in terms of authenticity, but undeniably convincing in its raw and always detailed depictions) "Forgotten Soldier." Fritz, at the outset, emphasizes the fine-tuning of how specific battles are presented based on relatively new availability of records from both East German and Soviet sources. I can't say I encountered anything that struck me as particularly noteworthy in its freshness, but the general tenor of unconstrained viciousness upholds the value of the work's contribution to an extensive literature.
November 7, 2014
Probably would have given this book 5 stars if the editing had been a little tighter. There are times when the same point is made within a couple pages or even a couple paragraphs, making the reader think, "didn't he just say this?"
But overall very good coverage of WWII in the east. The author has two main hypotheses, both of which he backs up with huge amounts of data. First, as you would gather from the subtitle, that the German war on the USSR was inextricably linked with the Holocaust. The old idea that the Wehrmacht was a professional organization that operated purely in the military sphere and had nothing to do with the ongoing genocide is blown away. The other hypothesis is that Germany could have only triumphed over the Soviets in a short war, as they did in France. Once the initial blitzkrieg failed, they had no hope of winning as they were not economically or logistically prepared for a long war in Russia.
But overall very good coverage of WWII in the east. The author has two main hypotheses, both of which he backs up with huge amounts of data. First, as you would gather from the subtitle, that the German war on the USSR was inextricably linked with the Holocaust. The old idea that the Wehrmacht was a professional organization that operated purely in the military sphere and had nothing to do with the ongoing genocide is blown away. The other hypothesis is that Germany could have only triumphed over the Soviets in a short war, as they did in France. Once the initial blitzkrieg failed, they had no hope of winning as they were not economically or logistically prepared for a long war in Russia.
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