Ostfront Hitler's War on Russia 1941-45

164 Pages·2000·23.29 MB·English

by  Charles Winchester Osprey

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I
HITLER'S WAR ON RUSSIA 1941-45
CHARLES WINCHESTER
T
heRusaianfiollrrr#m-rh.rcd
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army and Luftwgt n,ldrlimIwh*Y Cr
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in baking summer heat a d 4
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the war. Had the Germans- k k - a Rd-ir
World War I1 would have bsg & b&nb. Yh ak
Soviet armed forces and sr~lar w A I* I.b
dthe Gcrrnan Blitzkrieg. L iW1 rLcGkAuum&mitLdr
f i n t ~ t d e f k a t a t t h c ~ d ~ . ~ ~
later, despite another d h
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over a million German wUksa raPid a hlgr &dm
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deieated. Fmm then on, I& -.C lraaa.l h
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dock the Soviet tide. For e,ck l lr9r &m Y
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forces were tom apart dimkg b 1bW rd e d y 1 W5 8
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Desperate rearguard Pcsar LjDbd w rrs* b
G e r m a n h o m e l a n d , P n d i n l W r L c U ~ ~
Berlin itself, ending the mr iE uep. TL Ima +&wm
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First published in Great Britain in 1998
by Osprey Publishing. Elms Court. Chapel Way,
Botley. Oxford, OX2 9LP. UK.
O 1998 Osprey Publishing Liniited
All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the
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the Publishers.
ISBN 1 85532 71 1 2
Military Editors: Lee Johnson and Nikolai Bogdanovic
1)ecign:The Black Spot
Origination by Valhaven Ltd, Isleworth. UK
Printed thmugh World Print Ltd, Hong Kong
READERMSA Y WISH TO STUIW THIS BOOK IN
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OF RELATED OSPREY TITLES:
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Men-at-Arms 34 ntr Wafin-SS
Men-at-Arms 124 Genr~a~Cro ntmat~drrso f WWII
Men-at-Arnis 131 Gen~tatty'rE asarn Fmtrr Allies
Men-at-Arnis 142 Rnisan IVa&rr 1941-45
Men-at-Arms 147 Forr(qtt Vobrnrrrrs ofrltc Wrltrmarl~r
Men-at-Arms 216 RdA mty qfrl~rC rrnr Parriorir IVar
Men-at-Arms 229 L!frzt@c Field Divisions 1941-45
Men-at-Arms 31 1 Grnr~atrA nny 193e4.5 (1)
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Men-at-Arms 326 Crrman Amy 1939-45 (3)
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TITLE MGE A Russian
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FORCES
b~rp://z~a~ar~~~sp~y-p~thIisI~i~~q.ro.~~k (Bllndesnrchiv)
AUTHOR'S NOTE
lthough the Germans referred to their Statistics are at once unavoidable and unreli-
opponents as 'Russian', the Soviet army able.The War in the East was won as much on the
.was drawn from all the constituent factory floor as on the battlefield, but few studies
republics of the USSR. It seems perverse to label of German and Soviet wartime production agree
them all 'Russian' today, now that so many of them on manufacturing totals. And when they do
are independent nations.The USSR's ground forces concur, further investigation sometimes uncovers
were still officially known as the Red Army until a bogus source accepted for so long it has become
1944 when they were re-titled the Soviet army. On 'fact'. In the city of London it has been said that
the other hand, even President Gorbachev could there are three sorts of economists: those that can
slip up in public and say 'Russian' when it was count, and those that can't. In his prescient analysis
politically correct to say 'Soviet', and the following of late 20th century politics, All tl~cT ro~rhlci n tllc
account errs the same way. World, PJ. O'Rourke notes how the OECD
Place names present further difficulty. Since accepts (with a straight face) figures for population
the Polish frontier was shifted westwards by Stalin growth in Bangladesh to a hundredth decimal
after the war, many towns and cities now have point. It is 'the first law of the social sciences,"The
different names.The Soviets seized the Konigsberg more precise the figure, the more general the lie".'
area for then~selvesa, nd the Kaliningrad enclave is If absolutely accurate production fiffures ever
a geographic anomaly waiting to be resolved emerge, authors can stop going cross-eyed trying
today. Many German names in the Baltic republics to read old microfiche. Until they do, the
have changed too; and of course, Leningrad has following fi<guresa re as fair a comparison as can be
reverted to St. Petersburg. Modern maps of the assembled. In any case, the salient point is that the
independent Ukraine have Ukrainian names, not USSR built moreT-34s than all the Pz. IIs, Pz. Ills,
the traditional Russian ones. The industrial city Pz. IVs, Panthers and Tigers put together. The
known to western readers as Kharkov is more USA built more M-4 Shermans than the
correctly rendered Char'kov from Russian, and combined total of German tank production too.
becomes Harkiv when transliterated from With almost all European industry under its
Ukrainian. So, with an inconsistency that only an control, the German war econonly fiiled miser-
editor can really appreciate, I have tried to use the ably to provide the weapons its army needed.
names most familiar to western readers.

CONTENTS
Introduction 9
,.;--- -
-, r
Hitler and the Wehmacht 19 41 I3
. --
~ m y
The Red 23
-
r d P :-rp _ n
To the Gates of Moscow 33
L~ ,A, I T - - ~CIL,
Attack and Counter-attack 48
- -
I, r r
Verdun on the Volga: Stalingrad 62
( , 1 - T - -
The correlation of Forces 82
-
"
I <)L ,,-.I
The Last Blitzkrieg 101
- - -
r -7
The Writing on the Wall 117
- -
i ' "- I * 1
Prussian Roulette I2 8
r .ha?-- -;*I
Goodbye to Berlin 139
Notes 151
Index 154
Select Bibliography I5 9