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The Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943
Arthur Goodzeit AwardThroughout 1943, the German army, heirs to a military tradition that demanded and perfected relentless offensive operations, succumbed to the realities of its own overreach and the demands of twentieth-century industrialized warfare. In his new study, prizewinning author Robert Citino chronicles this weakening Wehrmacht, now fighting desperately on the defensive but still remarkably dangerous and lethal. Drawing on his impeccable command of German-language sources, Citino offers fresh, vivid, and detailed treatments of key campaigns during this fateful the Allied landings in North Africa, General von Manstein's great counterstroke in front of Kharkov, the German attack at Kasserine Pass, the titanic engagement of tanks and men at Kursk, the Soviet counteroffensives at Orel and Belgorod, and the Allied landings in Sicily and Italy. Through these events, he reveals how a military establishment historically configured for violent aggression reacted when the tables were turned; how German commanders viewed their newest enemy, the U.S. Army, after brutal fighting against the British and Soviets; and why, despite their superiority in materiel and manpower, the Allies were unable to turn 1943 into a much more decisive year. Applying the keen operational analysis for which he is so highly regarded, Citino contends that virtually every flawed German decision—to defend Tunis, to attack at Kursk and then call off the offensive, to abandon Sicily, to defend Italy high up the boot and then down much closer to the toe—had strong supporters among the army's officer corps. He looks at all of these engagements from the perspective of each combatant nation and also establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt the synergistic interplay between the fronts. Ultimately, Citino produces a grim portrait of the German officer corps, dispelling the longstanding tendency to blame every bad decision on Hitler. Filled with telling vignettes and sharp portraits and copiously documented, The Wehrmacht Retreats is a dramatic and fast-paced narrative that will engage military historians and general readers alike.
438 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2012
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489 people want to read
About the author
Robert M. Citino
21 books112 followersRobert M. Citino is an American history professor, scholar and writer currently teaching at the University of North Texas. He specializes in German military history and has earned acclaim by writing several historical books on the subject. He has appeared as a consultant on the History Channel several times on the subject of World War II and German military tactics.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
July 13, 2022
I managed to read this book in 5 days, and I really enjoyed it. It picks off where Robert Citinos previous book left off, and talks about the 1943 campaign as a whole. Citino calls 1943 the forgotten year of the war, and frankly, I agree. A great deal happened in this year, the encirclement of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, the retreat of the Afrika Korps from El Alamein to Tunis; Mansteins back hand blow, and the lead up to the failed offensive at Kursk. Really, it goes all the way to December 1943, where the Wehrmacht fights a slogging battle in Italy, and it loses Kiev and Kharkov. 1943 was a year that really saw the initiative be lost from the Wehrmacht. Citino really intertwines the eastern and western front to recreate the situation in which the Wehrmacht was truly fighting a losing war. No more Bewegungskrieg (War of movement), no more abilities to conduct offensives like they used to, it was a forlorn hope. I love how Citino dispels the myth of the inferior Red Army, and how he shows it wasn't entirely Hitler's fault for the loss of the war.
July 23, 2019
Carrying on his study of a cultural German way of war, Dr. Citino takes a look at the forgotten year of WW2: 1943.
Covering campaigns in the Soviet Union, North Africa, Sicily and Italy, Dr. Citino makes a very good case that the Wehrmacht, while still a decidedly lethal and dangerous opponent, was no longer the dynamic, trailblazing army of 1939 or 1940, but an army mired and stuck in it's own dogmatic doctrine and way of warfare.
And Citino does an excellent job, as always, of showcasing his point. In every circumstance, strategic, operational, and tactical, the German response was to attack. And whenever they did, at least at first, they tended to do well.
No other army was quite as ferocious at the small unit level, and even relatively small German formations could punch well above their weight class as both the Russians and Americans learned. In fact, the Americans, who were routed in their first main event with the Germans, developed a psychological inferiority complex vis a vis the Wehrmacht that, while not as great as that of the Imperial Russian Army vis a vis the Imperial German Army in WW1, was strong enough that this may explain the near morbid fascination Americans still hold for the Wehrmacht.
And to look at it from a tactical perspective, one can see where so many still admire the Wehrmacht as an Army.
Following the disaster at Stalingrad, von Manstein holds the southern front together in a long fighting withdrawal, even if just, and when the Red Army is overstretched, and with reinforcements in the guise of the II SS Panzer Corps, Manstein inflicts a punishing defeat on the Red Army at the Third Battle of Kharkov.
In Tunisia, the Germans quickly establish a bridgehead around Tunis, then win the race for the Eastern Dorsal range, soundly whipping the Allied forces in a series of engagements throughout most of the winter. In February, Rommel and von Arnim lash out against the Americans in central Tunisia, and quickly drive them into Algeria, and come so very close of rolling up the entire Allied position.
In the spoiling offensive against the Kursk salient (Citino makes a very convincing case that the Germans weren't seeking a decisive battle at Kursk, but merely to straighten the front, and grind up the Red Army's Strategic Reserve in the process), while the 9th Army in the north is rapidly stopped, the south of the salient sees a break in the Soviet lines, and at Prokhorovka, the Waffen-SS does indeed massacre the Soviet Strategic Reserve, only to be recalled to Italy once the Allies land in Sicily.
In Sicily two German divisions, fighting alone as Italy abandons the war, stage one of the most brilliant fighting withdrawals in history, and falls back, intact, to Italy with a confounded Allies left bruised and wondering what the hell just happened. In Italy itself, at Salerno, again by focusing on the American weak link, the Germans nearly drive the Allies into the sea, saved only by naval gunfire.
And in the Ukraine, von Manstein holds the Wehrmacht together in yet another epic fighting retreat, inflicting horrendous losses on the Red Army in the process.
That has always been the main narrative. And it is true, but it also leaves a lot out and misses some crucial details.
The Tunisian bridgehead became Tunisgrad, and the Italian Army was essentially destroyed there, all but knocking Italy out of the Axis. Tunisia also taught the US Army modern warfare, harsh though the lessons were.
At Kursk, the Germans threw away their strategic reserves in a failed offensive gamble, and didn't destroy enough of the Soviet reserves, despite a 5-1 kill ratio in the Germans favor, to have a decisive impact on the future. It also fatally weakened the entire Eastern Front, leaving it open for the series of battering Red Army summer and autumn offensives.
Sicily was indeed brilliant, but the collapse of Italy forced the Germans to expend yet more shrinking resources to occupy the country, and even if the Salerno beachhead was only saved by Allied Naval and Air power, those were assets the Germans couldn't themselves call upon. And despite numerous defensive successes, one cannot win a war on the defense.
And the Red Army campaigns in the Ukraine in 1943 ground down the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in a series of enormous battles that, even if the Germans did well tactically, still translated into operational defeats and retreat.
Citino concedes that the Germans really were the most adept and gifted in terms of tactics and small unit warfare during the war. But sheer fighting power cannot prevail against the sins of a faulty, and most often utterly absent, strategy, and a deadly lack of resources.
Quality is indeed a fearsome opponent, but quantity has a quality all of it's own.
One final point that Dr. Citino hammers home, that is a badly needed corrective, is to the switch from worshipping the Wehrmacht to worshipping the Red Army in the buffdom of WW2.
The Red Army, like the Wehrmacht, was a good army, a very good one, especially from mid 1943 onwards. But it was as equally wedded, to its own detriment, to it's own dogmatic doctrine of Deep Battle. It often fought till utterly played out, bled white, showcased little in the way of flexibility, expended men's lives as though they were a dime a dozen, and belonged to a regime equally as evil as the Nazis.
To hammer the point home, he points out that at the point of breakthrough, the Red Army had a habit of simply bringing forward the second echelon if the first was shot entirely to hell. And kept doing so, in a rigid display of bloody mindedness that, if the breakthrough worked, looked brilliant. But if it failed, as it did all too often, it looked like a turkey shoot from the German perspective.
And if the Germans, and Russians, castigate the Americans especially for a way of war that was overly reliant upon technology and material resources and firepower, consider that the American way of war was honed during the Civil War, against an opponent who was tactically brilliant, and relied upon maneuver and shock (hmmm, much like the Prussians) to overcome numerical odds.
And one thing the US Army learned in that war was that your opponent may outfight you man for man, march faster and more agile than you can. But he can still be blown to hell with massed artillery.
And the US Army relearned the very same lessons against the Germans a couple of generations later.
There are some complaints on my end as the reader. Citino tended to focus on the Western Allies in this one, and so much of the Eastern Front gets left out. The Rzhev Salient battles are entirely ignored, as are the epic encounters in the north around Leningrad. And the chronicling of the bloody, though decisive, Red Army march through the Ukraine back to the line of the Dnepr, seemed largely skimmed through.
Still, all in all, this an excellent read, and a very illuminating volume to have in one's library. Even if you don't agree with all of his conclusions, you will be forced to reevaluate what you thought you knew.
Very highly recommended.
Covering campaigns in the Soviet Union, North Africa, Sicily and Italy, Dr. Citino makes a very good case that the Wehrmacht, while still a decidedly lethal and dangerous opponent, was no longer the dynamic, trailblazing army of 1939 or 1940, but an army mired and stuck in it's own dogmatic doctrine and way of warfare.
And Citino does an excellent job, as always, of showcasing his point. In every circumstance, strategic, operational, and tactical, the German response was to attack. And whenever they did, at least at first, they tended to do well.
No other army was quite as ferocious at the small unit level, and even relatively small German formations could punch well above their weight class as both the Russians and Americans learned. In fact, the Americans, who were routed in their first main event with the Germans, developed a psychological inferiority complex vis a vis the Wehrmacht that, while not as great as that of the Imperial Russian Army vis a vis the Imperial German Army in WW1, was strong enough that this may explain the near morbid fascination Americans still hold for the Wehrmacht.
And to look at it from a tactical perspective, one can see where so many still admire the Wehrmacht as an Army.
Following the disaster at Stalingrad, von Manstein holds the southern front together in a long fighting withdrawal, even if just, and when the Red Army is overstretched, and with reinforcements in the guise of the II SS Panzer Corps, Manstein inflicts a punishing defeat on the Red Army at the Third Battle of Kharkov.
In Tunisia, the Germans quickly establish a bridgehead around Tunis, then win the race for the Eastern Dorsal range, soundly whipping the Allied forces in a series of engagements throughout most of the winter. In February, Rommel and von Arnim lash out against the Americans in central Tunisia, and quickly drive them into Algeria, and come so very close of rolling up the entire Allied position.
In the spoiling offensive against the Kursk salient (Citino makes a very convincing case that the Germans weren't seeking a decisive battle at Kursk, but merely to straighten the front, and grind up the Red Army's Strategic Reserve in the process), while the 9th Army in the north is rapidly stopped, the south of the salient sees a break in the Soviet lines, and at Prokhorovka, the Waffen-SS does indeed massacre the Soviet Strategic Reserve, only to be recalled to Italy once the Allies land in Sicily.
In Sicily two German divisions, fighting alone as Italy abandons the war, stage one of the most brilliant fighting withdrawals in history, and falls back, intact, to Italy with a confounded Allies left bruised and wondering what the hell just happened. In Italy itself, at Salerno, again by focusing on the American weak link, the Germans nearly drive the Allies into the sea, saved only by naval gunfire.
And in the Ukraine, von Manstein holds the Wehrmacht together in yet another epic fighting retreat, inflicting horrendous losses on the Red Army in the process.
That has always been the main narrative. And it is true, but it also leaves a lot out and misses some crucial details.
The Tunisian bridgehead became Tunisgrad, and the Italian Army was essentially destroyed there, all but knocking Italy out of the Axis. Tunisia also taught the US Army modern warfare, harsh though the lessons were.
At Kursk, the Germans threw away their strategic reserves in a failed offensive gamble, and didn't destroy enough of the Soviet reserves, despite a 5-1 kill ratio in the Germans favor, to have a decisive impact on the future. It also fatally weakened the entire Eastern Front, leaving it open for the series of battering Red Army summer and autumn offensives.
Sicily was indeed brilliant, but the collapse of Italy forced the Germans to expend yet more shrinking resources to occupy the country, and even if the Salerno beachhead was only saved by Allied Naval and Air power, those were assets the Germans couldn't themselves call upon. And despite numerous defensive successes, one cannot win a war on the defense.
And the Red Army campaigns in the Ukraine in 1943 ground down the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in a series of enormous battles that, even if the Germans did well tactically, still translated into operational defeats and retreat.
Citino concedes that the Germans really were the most adept and gifted in terms of tactics and small unit warfare during the war. But sheer fighting power cannot prevail against the sins of a faulty, and most often utterly absent, strategy, and a deadly lack of resources.
Quality is indeed a fearsome opponent, but quantity has a quality all of it's own.
One final point that Dr. Citino hammers home, that is a badly needed corrective, is to the switch from worshipping the Wehrmacht to worshipping the Red Army in the buffdom of WW2.
The Red Army, like the Wehrmacht, was a good army, a very good one, especially from mid 1943 onwards. But it was as equally wedded, to its own detriment, to it's own dogmatic doctrine of Deep Battle. It often fought till utterly played out, bled white, showcased little in the way of flexibility, expended men's lives as though they were a dime a dozen, and belonged to a regime equally as evil as the Nazis.
To hammer the point home, he points out that at the point of breakthrough, the Red Army had a habit of simply bringing forward the second echelon if the first was shot entirely to hell. And kept doing so, in a rigid display of bloody mindedness that, if the breakthrough worked, looked brilliant. But if it failed, as it did all too often, it looked like a turkey shoot from the German perspective.
And if the Germans, and Russians, castigate the Americans especially for a way of war that was overly reliant upon technology and material resources and firepower, consider that the American way of war was honed during the Civil War, against an opponent who was tactically brilliant, and relied upon maneuver and shock (hmmm, much like the Prussians) to overcome numerical odds.
And one thing the US Army learned in that war was that your opponent may outfight you man for man, march faster and more agile than you can. But he can still be blown to hell with massed artillery.
And the US Army relearned the very same lessons against the Germans a couple of generations later.
There are some complaints on my end as the reader. Citino tended to focus on the Western Allies in this one, and so much of the Eastern Front gets left out. The Rzhev Salient battles are entirely ignored, as are the epic encounters in the north around Leningrad. And the chronicling of the bloody, though decisive, Red Army march through the Ukraine back to the line of the Dnepr, seemed largely skimmed through.
Still, all in all, this an excellent read, and a very illuminating volume to have in one's library. Even if you don't agree with all of his conclusions, you will be forced to reevaluate what you thought you knew.
Very highly recommended.
January 28, 2019
Citino’s analytic Schlagpunkt, as it were:
"Fighting a lost war, the old Prussian-German officer corps was gambling on its own history. After all, this was a caste that had managed to survive the rise of absolute monarchy with its influence intact. It had managed to survive, and eventually subdue, the French Revolution and Napoleon. It had survived the rise of modern industrial capitalism and mass politics, arguably with its power increased. It had even survived defeat in World War I and the revolution of 1918, surely its greatest institutional triumph of all. Perhaps, many officers felt at the time, they would survive even Hitler and this latest catastrophe."
"Fighting a lost war, the old Prussian-German officer corps was gambling on its own history. After all, this was a caste that had managed to survive the rise of absolute monarchy with its influence intact. It had managed to survive, and eventually subdue, the French Revolution and Napoleon. It had survived the rise of modern industrial capitalism and mass politics, arguably with its power increased. It had even survived defeat in World War I and the revolution of 1918, surely its greatest institutional triumph of all. Perhaps, many officers felt at the time, they would survive even Hitler and this latest catastrophe."
April 22, 2016
Dr Citino did not hit a home run with this book. It's merely average, with a few nuggets of insight.
He claims the German officer corps was bound by tradition, education and culture. While this is true to a large extent, every officer corps, including the US, UK and USSR, faced the same challenges within their respective Army.
He examines every campaign between the Allies and the Germans throughout 1943, including Kursk, Kharkov, Kasserine Pass/North Africa, and the Sicilian/Italian campaigns. He does a nice job, from a planner's perspective, of highlighting the rapidly changing operational environments in Russia, Tunisia, Sicily and Italy...which in many cases were occurring simultaneously.
But the German Army was essentially spent by Kursk. Even if the Germans were successful at Kursk, their losses would have been so prohibitive that they would be forced to trade time for space in any event. Even with Manstein's "backhand" approach that produced a tactical victory at Kharkov, the German Army did not have the armor reserves, nor the infantry reserves to radically slow the Soviet advance.
As stated before, a few interesting nuggets do emerge throughout the book. By the end of the 1943, Eisenhower had sacked three of the six US Corps Commanders, showing that operational command was something learned by experience as the US advanced into the "underbelly of Europe." Citino also provides good insight to the Italian collapse and the German Plan (Operation Axis) to defeat their close ally in case they defected. And in fact, they executed the plan, the Italians did collapse, and the Allies were now stuck trying to drive up the extremely restrictive terrain on the Italian peninsula. It is a subject worth greater study - Citino claims that it is literally the only example in history of a close ally attacking a former ally that had defected...quite a lofty statement.
Overall, I didn't like the writing style of the book. It became very casual at certain points, and this detracted from the overall bulk of the book. It is a decent read, but do not expect to glean any major insights from this book.
He claims the German officer corps was bound by tradition, education and culture. While this is true to a large extent, every officer corps, including the US, UK and USSR, faced the same challenges within their respective Army.
He examines every campaign between the Allies and the Germans throughout 1943, including Kursk, Kharkov, Kasserine Pass/North Africa, and the Sicilian/Italian campaigns. He does a nice job, from a planner's perspective, of highlighting the rapidly changing operational environments in Russia, Tunisia, Sicily and Italy...which in many cases were occurring simultaneously.
But the German Army was essentially spent by Kursk. Even if the Germans were successful at Kursk, their losses would have been so prohibitive that they would be forced to trade time for space in any event. Even with Manstein's "backhand" approach that produced a tactical victory at Kharkov, the German Army did not have the armor reserves, nor the infantry reserves to radically slow the Soviet advance.
As stated before, a few interesting nuggets do emerge throughout the book. By the end of the 1943, Eisenhower had sacked three of the six US Corps Commanders, showing that operational command was something learned by experience as the US advanced into the "underbelly of Europe." Citino also provides good insight to the Italian collapse and the German Plan (Operation Axis) to defeat their close ally in case they defected. And in fact, they executed the plan, the Italians did collapse, and the Allies were now stuck trying to drive up the extremely restrictive terrain on the Italian peninsula. It is a subject worth greater study - Citino claims that it is literally the only example in history of a close ally attacking a former ally that had defected...quite a lofty statement.
Overall, I didn't like the writing style of the book. It became very casual at certain points, and this detracted from the overall bulk of the book. It is a decent read, but do not expect to glean any major insights from this book.
April 18, 2024
I'm probably not the person who this book is aimed at, as I've already read a significant portion of Citino's bibliography. However, for the reader seeking to move beyond the chestnuts of the popular historiography of the Second World War this is a very useful book indeed, as Citino makes the fruits of the new operational history of the last twenty or so years accessible to a wider public. In particular, Citino is very interested in strategic culture and always ties events back into the Prussian aspiration to short and lively wars where larger opponents were kept off-balance by mean of audacious movement and cold nerve; this is except for the small problem of facing a larger enemy willing to fight to the bitter end and with no shortage of their own will. If nothing else the events of 1943 represent the death of a way of life for Citino, and he writes about this in an entertaining and trenchant fashion.
Originally written: May 20, 2013.
Originally written: May 20, 2013.
April 29, 2018
Most historians discover something such as idea or concept and then make career out of selling it. Citino is one such historian. He discovered "German way of war" and is now selling it for all it's worth. If you've read his previous works "The German Way of War" and "Death of the Wehrmacht" you can pretty much know what to expect. It's 1943 seen through lens of German approach to war. Short & sharp, movement and when in doubt attack. But 1942 (and his previous book covering that year) has shown that such approach doesn't work anymore, or at least it didn't work in WW2.
So how did Germany deal with twin crises that faced them in late 1942, Stalingrad and Torch/El Alamein? By attacking where possible, of course. So we got Kasserine, Winter Storm, Kharkov and Zitadelle. The problem was that while "quality over quantity" and "innovative ways to fight" worked they worked only for a while. By late 1942 Allies were learning how to fight, how to counter German moves and backed that by massive amounts of equipment.
These German moves are analyzed through above mentioned "German way of war". While Citino makes a good case for each there are two issues that pop up early in the book, both related to von Manstein. One is his criticism on how Manstein treats Stalingrad kessel, by comparing it to Thermopylae. Sacrifice so others can live etc. While Manstein can get a bit carried away his argument is solid. Funny thing is that Citino admits that few pages alter, even if inadvertently. Citino admits that Soviets were surprised by scale of Stalingrad pocket and that its continued existence tied up significant forces. Which in turn allowed evacuation of troops from Caucasus and prevented Soviets form following Uranus with Saturn and further operations. so sacrifice and stand of 6th army was necessary to tie down Red army and "allowed others to live". Second is his analysis of Manstein as general. He tries to dismiss his "genius" as mere product of German war schooling. But Manstein went through same schools as Paulus and look at them. While I agree that Manstein as a person is not as nice as he tries to portrait himself we can't deny his skill in fighting battles. Something Citino does, grudgingly, admit later.
Overall book delivers what it promises to deliver, analysis of 1943 through already established lenses. If you enjoyed Citino's previous work this one makes nice addition and logical continuation of it. It doens't provide shocking and revolutionary discoveries, all of the ground work has been done in previous books.
So how did Germany deal with twin crises that faced them in late 1942, Stalingrad and Torch/El Alamein? By attacking where possible, of course. So we got Kasserine, Winter Storm, Kharkov and Zitadelle. The problem was that while "quality over quantity" and "innovative ways to fight" worked they worked only for a while. By late 1942 Allies were learning how to fight, how to counter German moves and backed that by massive amounts of equipment.
These German moves are analyzed through above mentioned "German way of war". While Citino makes a good case for each there are two issues that pop up early in the book, both related to von Manstein. One is his criticism on how Manstein treats Stalingrad kessel, by comparing it to Thermopylae. Sacrifice so others can live etc. While Manstein can get a bit carried away his argument is solid. Funny thing is that Citino admits that few pages alter, even if inadvertently. Citino admits that Soviets were surprised by scale of Stalingrad pocket and that its continued existence tied up significant forces. Which in turn allowed evacuation of troops from Caucasus and prevented Soviets form following Uranus with Saturn and further operations. so sacrifice and stand of 6th army was necessary to tie down Red army and "allowed others to live". Second is his analysis of Manstein as general. He tries to dismiss his "genius" as mere product of German war schooling. But Manstein went through same schools as Paulus and look at them. While I agree that Manstein as a person is not as nice as he tries to portrait himself we can't deny his skill in fighting battles. Something Citino does, grudgingly, admit later.
Overall book delivers what it promises to deliver, analysis of 1943 through already established lenses. If you enjoyed Citino's previous work this one makes nice addition and logical continuation of it. It doens't provide shocking and revolutionary discoveries, all of the ground work has been done in previous books.
September 7, 2019
Robert M. Citino has written a series of books on the war in Europe and North Africa, starting with The Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942 (2007). This is the second book in the series. They are based on his ideas about the German way of war, which in turn derives from his reading of German literature, since hie speaks fluent German. If you want to write military history, and you don't want to be restricted to that of English-speaking countries, then you should seriously consider learning another language.
The Germans have a rather rich vocabulary when it comes to military matters. Prussia (and later Germany) lie in central Europe, with potential enemies on all sides. This cultivated a certain perspective, which is not shared by people from English-speaking countries, for whom war normally means expeditionary warfare. The Germans evolved a fast-moving form of warfare known as Bewegungskrieg (maneuver warfare). Occasionally it worked. So there is a kernel of truth in the notion of a German way of war.
The book is written in a style which tries to address both the scholar and the mundane reader at the same time. Sources are mostly secondary ones, in English and German. (Many of the latter are available in English.) This doesn't really work. The book is divided into seven chapters, each about a different campaign from late 1942 or 1943. Four are about Northwest Africa and Italy, while the other three are about the campaigns in southern Russia and Ukraine. Because of the scale of operations on the Eastern front, the narrative is sketchier. The book comes off as something akin to a monologue.
Of Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, the commanding general of the US Fifth Army, Citino asks: "Was generalship an issue at Salerno? Clark's presents us with a classic historical question, and judging him is a tough call. It has not been easy to find many historians saying good things about him. The indictment is a lengthy one..." (p. 266) The consensus is that Clark got his army into an entirely avoidable near-disaster situation. Citino's defence is lame. He notes correctly that many of Clark's failings were those of the US Army, which was being rapidly expanded, and was ill-prepared for the conflict. He notes correctly that Clark was not as rapidly promoted as Eisenhower, and that he was not as egotistical as Patton (few people were). Other charges against Clark that he mentions are left unanswered.
The armchair strategists may enjoy these books though.
The Germans have a rather rich vocabulary when it comes to military matters. Prussia (and later Germany) lie in central Europe, with potential enemies on all sides. This cultivated a certain perspective, which is not shared by people from English-speaking countries, for whom war normally means expeditionary warfare. The Germans evolved a fast-moving form of warfare known as Bewegungskrieg (maneuver warfare). Occasionally it worked. So there is a kernel of truth in the notion of a German way of war.
The book is written in a style which tries to address both the scholar and the mundane reader at the same time. Sources are mostly secondary ones, in English and German. (Many of the latter are available in English.) This doesn't really work. The book is divided into seven chapters, each about a different campaign from late 1942 or 1943. Four are about Northwest Africa and Italy, while the other three are about the campaigns in southern Russia and Ukraine. Because of the scale of operations on the Eastern front, the narrative is sketchier. The book comes off as something akin to a monologue.
Of Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, the commanding general of the US Fifth Army, Citino asks: "Was generalship an issue at Salerno? Clark's presents us with a classic historical question, and judging him is a tough call. It has not been easy to find many historians saying good things about him. The indictment is a lengthy one..." (p. 266) The consensus is that Clark got his army into an entirely avoidable near-disaster situation. Citino's defence is lame. He notes correctly that many of Clark's failings were those of the US Army, which was being rapidly expanded, and was ill-prepared for the conflict. He notes correctly that Clark was not as rapidly promoted as Eisenhower, and that he was not as egotistical as Patton (few people were). Other charges against Clark that he mentions are left unanswered.
The armchair strategists may enjoy these books though.
April 18, 2018
Citinio reviews and discusses the major campaigns in Europe in 1943--spring in the East (Kharvkov), Tunisia and Operation Torch, Kursk, Sicily, Kursk and collapse in the East, and finally the slow slog in Italy. There's relatively little detail on the battles involved in these campaigns themselves, and rather he focuses on broader questions like the performance of each side, and the larger significance as well as influences of events in one campaign on decisions in others.
One of the overarching strands between these battles that Citino discusses is how the fundamental historical constraint of Prussian and later German warfare shaped how German commanders approached 1943. Outnumbered and outproduced, Prussian/German generals had always been in a position in which they could not win a war of attrition. The response they evolved was a hyper aggressive war of movement (Bewegungskrieg vs Stellungskrieg) and a very aggressive and independent officer corps willing to take risks to exploit operational opportunities in order to decisively defeat enemy forces. The mantra was for short and intense wars.
In 1943 this came up against the reality that Germany was now on the defensive and did not have the reserves anymore to reverse their defensive position. Yet again and again, the instinctive response was to gamble what increasingly precious forces could be gathered in attacks and counterattacks, thus setting the stage for the collapse in 1944.
For anyone familiar with the broad course of World War 2 and the specific major campaigns in 1943, this book offers interesting insights on the strategic and operational calculations of some of the major players in 1943. For example, the geographic and strategic constraints that led both sides to engage in a campaign in Italy that neither side really wanted are laid out very well. The writing is a bit too familiar and witty at times, but overall a good read.
One of the overarching strands between these battles that Citino discusses is how the fundamental historical constraint of Prussian and later German warfare shaped how German commanders approached 1943. Outnumbered and outproduced, Prussian/German generals had always been in a position in which they could not win a war of attrition. The response they evolved was a hyper aggressive war of movement (Bewegungskrieg vs Stellungskrieg) and a very aggressive and independent officer corps willing to take risks to exploit operational opportunities in order to decisively defeat enemy forces. The mantra was for short and intense wars.
In 1943 this came up against the reality that Germany was now on the defensive and did not have the reserves anymore to reverse their defensive position. Yet again and again, the instinctive response was to gamble what increasingly precious forces could be gathered in attacks and counterattacks, thus setting the stage for the collapse in 1944.
For anyone familiar with the broad course of World War 2 and the specific major campaigns in 1943, this book offers interesting insights on the strategic and operational calculations of some of the major players in 1943. For example, the geographic and strategic constraints that led both sides to engage in a campaign in Italy that neither side really wanted are laid out very well. The writing is a bit too familiar and witty at times, but overall a good read.
July 5, 2020
The second volume by Citino covering the operational art of warfare (generally from the Wehrmacht's perspective, though the Americans & British sometimes are analyzed as well) in the European Theater of the Second World War. He intentionally starts the book noting that he does not want to take the role of an armchair general, critiquing and criticizing the generals that served in WWII, nor does he seek to give his views on 'the right answer', i.e. how this or that campaign could have been won. And he does a fine job living up to his promise.
Citino's scholarship is excellent and his writing style lends itself to a quick read, much like volume 1. He also does a fantastic job threading the needle on sticking to the operational art of warfare, steering clear of getting too far down into the details of any particular battle or the other extreme of analyzing the Wehrmacht and the OKW at the strategic level. These details may be mentioned, but generally only to stress a point. The emphasis is around how the evolution and the psychology of the German general and the German/Prussian way-of-war, highlighting the early successes and the later failures of applying the tried-and-true Prussian formula of breakthrough, envelopment, and concentric reductions.
Again, I would stress the quality of Citino's writing style. It is crisp, to the point, and incredibly easy to read. I would generally recommend this book, but not necessarily for the WWII novice: certainly anyone interested in the operational aspects of warfare will find a reservoir of fascinating information, but these books are not, nor or they intended to be a history of WWII in the European theater.
Citino's scholarship is excellent and his writing style lends itself to a quick read, much like volume 1. He also does a fantastic job threading the needle on sticking to the operational art of warfare, steering clear of getting too far down into the details of any particular battle or the other extreme of analyzing the Wehrmacht and the OKW at the strategic level. These details may be mentioned, but generally only to stress a point. The emphasis is around how the evolution and the psychology of the German general and the German/Prussian way-of-war, highlighting the early successes and the later failures of applying the tried-and-true Prussian formula of breakthrough, envelopment, and concentric reductions.
Again, I would stress the quality of Citino's writing style. It is crisp, to the point, and incredibly easy to read. I would generally recommend this book, but not necessarily for the WWII novice: certainly anyone interested in the operational aspects of warfare will find a reservoir of fascinating information, but these books are not, nor or they intended to be a history of WWII in the European theater.
June 27, 2019
This is the second book in the trilogy Robert Citino has written about the German Army in World War II (WWII). I gave it 5 stars because it provides very readable insights to the decision-making process and the decisions made by NAZI Germany during 1943. While the perspective of the Germans is the primary focus of this book, there is a fair amount of insight into the thinking of their Axis partner, the Italians; as well as the Allies. While covering the military campaigns of 1943, the author makes the case that the defeats suffered by the Wehrmacht in 1943 were not all Hitler’s fault. The German High Command often agreed with Hitler and at times even led Hitler into the direction they wanted to go. Also, the author does not let the German generals off the hook for their culpability in the war crimes committed by the NAZI regime. The problems the Germans faced in 1943, as laid out in this book were daunting and the author presents his conclusion that by 1943 the war was a lost cause for the Germans.
May 18, 2025
Citino continues his analysis of the German campaigns in WWII. This covers the "forgetten year" 1943. And he provides a lot of analysis of the US and UK armies performance in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno. He relies heavily on Glantz for the Soviet side.
As in his previous book, the informal chatty style got on my nerves. For example:
"Surely this or that point of the Fredendall indictment might need qualification. Chain Smoking? This was the 1940s. Pretty much everyone from Private on up smoked in this era. Despairing words? Every General utters a few from time to time."
Also, I could have done without the gratuitous F-Bomb or other profanites. Did he write the book or dictate it into a tape recorder?
Otherwise, his analyis is based on a deep knowledge of the subject matter and a balanced judgment.
As in his previous book, the informal chatty style got on my nerves. For example:
"Surely this or that point of the Fredendall indictment might need qualification. Chain Smoking? This was the 1940s. Pretty much everyone from Private on up smoked in this era. Despairing words? Every General utters a few from time to time."
Also, I could have done without the gratuitous F-Bomb or other profanites. Did he write the book or dictate it into a tape recorder?
Otherwise, his analyis is based on a deep knowledge of the subject matter and a balanced judgment.
March 1, 2018
A scholarly historical account of the Wehrmacht in 1943. Doesn't rely upon personal narratives like amateur historical writers do, but rather documents, as a professional historian would. Loaded with German phrases that are not always translated, he summarizes the current military historians while adding his own interpretation of the military events of 1943. Reads more like a series of essays than a single account of the year. His chapter on Kursk questions the Soviet "greatest tank battle ever" narrative that has dominated amateur history since WWII. The chapter on Salerno was interesting in that he defends Mark Clark as a general of his time, where many before have only looked at his shortcomings. Overall, a clear, concise read. Well documented.
May 7, 2020
Robert M. Citino es un gran experto en el modo alemán de hacer la guerra. Este libro es sencillamente maravilloso para comprender todas las campañas en las que se vio inmersa la Alemania de Hitler en 1943. Mis únicas críticas seguramente sean al capítulo dedicado al Kursk, no por el estilo sino por algunos datos. Desde que apareció «Kursk, 1943» del autor Roman Töppel todo lo sabido sobre esta batalla ha quedado trastocado.
La traducción es también digna de mención. Sin duda un gran trabajo de Citino y de Ediciones Salamina por traerlo al castellano.
La traducción es también digna de mención. Sin duda un gran trabajo de Citino y de Ediciones Salamina por traerlo al castellano.
August 2, 2023
Continuing his series, Citino presents a thoroughly 21st-century military history: instead of tracking the progress of armies on a map and great commanders, he uses diligent research to document a "way of war," and, never losing sight of the absolute amorality of the particularly German conduct of war in 1943, documents how that way of war contributed to the particular course-- militarily, socially, and politically-- of the Second World War during what he persuasively argues is an unjustly neglected year.
January 13, 2025
A great 2nd entry to the trilogy which I'm excited to start the 3rd book. Does a great job of methodically going event to event that shaped the German army in 1943 when they seemingly face defeat after defeat while the allies become more powerful and confident by the day. While it may not revolve around the most famous battles of the war, it still touches on important events for one reason or another as the German army begins to slowly wither away.
April 19, 2020
The series tracing back German military decisions and actions in 1943. Robert indicates the inability of German military to be able to wage a broad war and the infallible flaw in winning against Allied power as US entered the war in 1943 with huge industrial strength compared to the Germans. A good overview of Soviet tactics and peeled the longstanding cold war myth of Soviet strategy in WW2.
October 4, 2024
Con este libro Citino demuestra que es uno de los mejores historiadores sobre la IIGM. Tiene notas brillantes y se permite dar pinceladas sobre cuestiones que van más allá del propio análisis histórico. Sin duda demuestra con sus acertados análisis como conoce y domina todo el arte operacional.
March 20, 2022
See comments on earlier book. Here again too few references and some to the author's prior works. Like a pleasant read from a knowledgeable internet poster- for better or worse.
Only read later halfof this title.
Only read later halfof this title.
April 18, 2025
uwaga kur(wi)sko
May 30, 2016
The Wehrmacht Retreats is Robert M. Citino’s sequel to The Death of the Wehrmacht. In the earlier book, he wrote of the operations on the Eastern Front and North Africa. He revisits those theaters and expands the newer book to cover Sicily and Italy. A major point of the book is that operations on all these theaters were intertwined and cannot be understood in isolation. Succinctly put, the three primary takeaways from this book are:
1. The Russians learned to retreat strategical, leaving German encirclements hitting open air. More importantly, they revived and practiced “Deep Battle”. Developed by Stalin victim Tukhachevskii, this doctrine advocated a crushing all-arms blow on a narrow front followed by equally large follow-up forces. Frequently confused with human waves, the Red Army initially overextending the first attack, leaving it vulnerable to a “back-hand” blow like Manstein delivered at Kharkov. The Soviets learned.
2. The American army was green early on with brittle infantry and questionable corps commanders. However, they were fast learners with incredibly good artillery and mobility. The Italian terrain hampered the assets.
3. Citino, of course, concentrates on the Germans and wanders into psychology. The officers who were so successful early in the war were so wedded to the traditions of Bewegungskrieg that they couldn’t grasp they no longer had the means for operational mobility. Hitler, for all his stupid micromanagement, understood this and replaced the mobility-obsessed with men who had no problem going onto the defensive. Indicative of this switch is that a Luftwaffe general, Kesselring, proved the best defensive general, not the dashing Rommel.
Citino also emphasizes how fronts, seemingly separate, were intertwined. The best example of this was how the Sicily landings halted the over-rated Battle of Kursk. He uses a nice literary convention, “Nine Days That Shook the World” to make this point, using short paragraphs to describe daily events on different fronts to show their connections. He also excoriates post-1946 historiography for white-washing the German military.
Despite a small propensity for repetition, Citino’s prose continues to be lucid and accessible. We hope he writes about 1944-45 in the same vein.
1. The Russians learned to retreat strategical, leaving German encirclements hitting open air. More importantly, they revived and practiced “Deep Battle”. Developed by Stalin victim Tukhachevskii, this doctrine advocated a crushing all-arms blow on a narrow front followed by equally large follow-up forces. Frequently confused with human waves, the Red Army initially overextending the first attack, leaving it vulnerable to a “back-hand” blow like Manstein delivered at Kharkov. The Soviets learned.
2. The American army was green early on with brittle infantry and questionable corps commanders. However, they were fast learners with incredibly good artillery and mobility. The Italian terrain hampered the assets.
3. Citino, of course, concentrates on the Germans and wanders into psychology. The officers who were so successful early in the war were so wedded to the traditions of Bewegungskrieg that they couldn’t grasp they no longer had the means for operational mobility. Hitler, for all his stupid micromanagement, understood this and replaced the mobility-obsessed with men who had no problem going onto the defensive. Indicative of this switch is that a Luftwaffe general, Kesselring, proved the best defensive general, not the dashing Rommel.
Citino also emphasizes how fronts, seemingly separate, were intertwined. The best example of this was how the Sicily landings halted the over-rated Battle of Kursk. He uses a nice literary convention, “Nine Days That Shook the World” to make this point, using short paragraphs to describe daily events on different fronts to show their connections. He also excoriates post-1946 historiography for white-washing the German military.
Despite a small propensity for repetition, Citino’s prose continues to be lucid and accessible. We hope he writes about 1944-45 in the same vein.
May 19, 2012
The book begins with a scenario: German General Paulus getting bad news on the disposition of forces at Stalingrad. In the end, he learne3d that he was surrounded--and that his army was likely doomed.
From there, the book looks at the Germans (using the subtitle of this volume) "Fighting a Lost War, 1943." This was a difficult year for the German war machine. There was the decline and fall of Northern Africa, as General Erwin Rommel's forces slowly got ground to bits. Sicily--and the Allies moving with ineluctable force toward taking the island. And then the mainland. In a sense, though, above everything else was the fate of the German Army min the Soviet Union. Hitler had rolled the dice, thinking that he could take down the Russian Bear. 1943 was the year when the world saw that his bet had gone badly.
The volume, well documented, shows how the German forces were simply outnumbered and outequipped (the productive capacity of the German war industry was simply not up to the American and Soviet sectors). And the inept strategy and tactics of the Russian forces earlier on were mitigated by the learning curve taking place. Not a good position for German military forces.
This book traces the military consequences of the changing dynamics of the war. The German military could still have success, but they appeared to be slowly being forced back, in a stubborn but inevitable retreat. The volume traces the frustrations of key actors, from Adolf Hitler to Generals such as Manstein. Hitler was not a military man of much consequence, and the book explores that dimension.
But the generals themselves were hardly blameless. Manstein, for instance, tended to underestimate his Soviet foes, for instance.
In the final analysis, a nice exploration of the beginning of the end for Germany in the Soviet Union. . . .
From there, the book looks at the Germans (using the subtitle of this volume) "Fighting a Lost War, 1943." This was a difficult year for the German war machine. There was the decline and fall of Northern Africa, as General Erwin Rommel's forces slowly got ground to bits. Sicily--and the Allies moving with ineluctable force toward taking the island. And then the mainland. In a sense, though, above everything else was the fate of the German Army min the Soviet Union. Hitler had rolled the dice, thinking that he could take down the Russian Bear. 1943 was the year when the world saw that his bet had gone badly.
The volume, well documented, shows how the German forces were simply outnumbered and outequipped (the productive capacity of the German war industry was simply not up to the American and Soviet sectors). And the inept strategy and tactics of the Russian forces earlier on were mitigated by the learning curve taking place. Not a good position for German military forces.
This book traces the military consequences of the changing dynamics of the war. The German military could still have success, but they appeared to be slowly being forced back, in a stubborn but inevitable retreat. The volume traces the frustrations of key actors, from Adolf Hitler to Generals such as Manstein. Hitler was not a military man of much consequence, and the book explores that dimension.
But the generals themselves were hardly blameless. Manstein, for instance, tended to underestimate his Soviet foes, for instance.
In the final analysis, a nice exploration of the beginning of the end for Germany in the Soviet Union. . . .
January 30, 2014
If you have read Rick Atkinson’s best-sellers on the U.S. WWII campaigns in North Africa, Italy, and Western Europe, and value his journalist’s/historian’s review of “old news”—the warts-and-all objectivity he brings to the myths and accepted perspectives on these events, Dr. Citino’s works on the German way of war will provide a deep-dive into the other side’s reaction to those campaigns. “The Wehrmacht Retreats,” however, reviews the canon on World War II history and provides a more informed look at the bloody nose that the U.S. Army received at Kaserine (“Still, even Fredendall deserves his day in court.”) and the much-touted “apocalyptic battle" at Kursk/Prokhorovka. I enjoyed the way Citino, in Chapter Six, pulled it all together with his “Nine Days that Shook the World” vignette, a pause to sit down, look around, and listen to the strategic moment in early July 1943--when Hitler and his generals realized they had just fed a couple of armies into a buzz-saw at Kursk and the Anglo-American coalition was suddenly crawling up the Italy boot and Germany’s alliance with Mussolini’s people was falling apart in response. All the aggressive Prussian Bewegungskrieg military doctrine since the 18th Century and all the land and booty stolen since 1933 weren’t going to put Humpty back together again, and Dr. Citino makes that clear in his analysis of this significant historical moment. As someone who has studied the Soviet/Russian way of war for 25 years, I also particularly liked the author’s superlative analysis of “Soviet Army—version 2.0” and the way its Operational Art way of war overwhelmed the Wehrmacht’s own revolutionary Blitzkrieg doctrine during the “Citadel-Kutuzov operational sequence” and afterwards. It is the recognition, pulled from accounts by people like Erich von Manstein, that Citino elucidates in this fine book. Recommend.
June 21, 2013
Robert Citino's latest work on the Wehrmacht matches, perhaps even surpasses, the scholarly brilliance of previous works on The German Way of War and The Death of the Wehrmacht.
There are two particularly outstanding elements to The Wehrmacht Retreats. Firstly, in his narrative, Citino manages to renew the well-worn historical path of the 1943 campaigns in the USSR, North Africa, and Italy through a fresh approach that brings new insights to the planning and conduct of operations in these theatres, and not only from the German perspective. Secondly, his use of the available sources is a masterclass in historical scholarship. Citino leaves no stone unturned in his search for primary and secondary sources. His footnotes are meticulous and are an object lesson in how they should be incorporated into a work of this kind.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the historian's craft. Citino is truly a master of his trade. I do hope he is planning a work on the year 1944.
There are two particularly outstanding elements to The Wehrmacht Retreats. Firstly, in his narrative, Citino manages to renew the well-worn historical path of the 1943 campaigns in the USSR, North Africa, and Italy through a fresh approach that brings new insights to the planning and conduct of operations in these theatres, and not only from the German perspective. Secondly, his use of the available sources is a masterclass in historical scholarship. Citino leaves no stone unturned in his search for primary and secondary sources. His footnotes are meticulous and are an object lesson in how they should be incorporated into a work of this kind.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the historian's craft. Citino is truly a master of his trade. I do hope he is planning a work on the year 1944.
February 22, 2016
Robert Citino does it again with a classic analysis of the german war fighting machine.
He rips up established history with a cogent analysis of just how the german army fought and why it had no chance against the big players by 1943
For just one example :
Prokorovka has been written up as the greatest tank battle but that may only be because rotmistrov lost most of his tank corps in suicidal attacks on the advancing 2nd SS Corps.
He claimed kills of 400 german tanks and 40 tigers (2nd SS only had about 190 tanks at this time and there were no tigers present at the battle).
Thus a myth was born.
My first 5 star book of the year
He rips up established history with a cogent analysis of just how the german army fought and why it had no chance against the big players by 1943
For just one example :
Prokorovka has been written up as the greatest tank battle but that may only be because rotmistrov lost most of his tank corps in suicidal attacks on the advancing 2nd SS Corps.
He claimed kills of 400 german tanks and 40 tigers (2nd SS only had about 190 tanks at this time and there were no tigers present at the battle).
Thus a myth was born.
My first 5 star book of the year
March 31, 2012
As usual, Citino brings a lively and straightforward style to his writing on the subject that makes his works so valuable for the layman. This volume takes up where his DEATH OF THE WEHRMACHT: THE GERMAN CAMPAIGNS OF 1942 leaves off. The focus bounces back between the Mediterranean and the Eastern Front but Citino manages to weave both together into a coherent whole. His analysis on the impact of the Sicily landings on the Battle of Kursk is one of the highlights of the book. He also does a great job characterizing the Salerno landings in Italy.
May 20, 2016
Una historia de las campañas militares del año 1943 en Europa, centrada en estudiar las diferentes culturas o tradiciones militares (principalmente la Bewegungskrieg alemana, pero también la tradición rusa y la estadounidense). Explica cómo surgieron estas tradiciones y como determinaron la evolución de los conflictos, más allá de la importancia de factores coyunturales.
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