Description
Book SynopsisOn 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.
Trade ReviewStephen Fritz has made a major statement. There are many books dealing with military operations in the East and many others that highlight the atrocities, the murders, and the Holocaust. Not until now has a single volume attempted to incorporate both, seeking the nexus between military operations and mass murder. The result is as complete a history of the GermanSoviet war as one could desire, and it is an achievement that is likely to be unequaled for some time to come." Robert M. Citino, - author of
Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942"Fritz has written a topflight strategic/operational level analysis of the RussoGerman War. His text is solid and impeccably supported." – Dennis Showalter, author of
Hitler's Panzers: The Lightning Attacks that Revolutionized Warfare"Of all the hundreds of books on the Russian campaign, Mr. Fritz's is the first I have seen that demonstrates the nexus between mass murder and military operations." -
Washington Times"Stephen Fritz brought to his sources his considerable analytical skills and clarity of expression. The product is a very readable consideration of the European war's most important front, and one that expresses a new understanding of its causes and effects." -
New York Journal of Books"Fritz seeks to synthesize and build upon earlier scholarship while exclusively focusing on the struggle as seen from Berlin.... Ostkrieg will be a significant addition to any academic library." -
Choice"It is truly a magnificent work of military history integrating ideological, economic, political, and military dimensions of this theater of war." -
Waterline"Perfect for instructors and students." -
Teaching History"An ambitious and impressive synthesis of two vast and often mutually exclusive fields of scholarship: the historiography of the Holocaust and that of the war on the Eastern Front.... [it] should serve as the starting point for all historians and students of World War II interested in the relationship of war and genocide." -
Journal of Military History"We are given a superb vantage point from which to view how the Nazi regime's obsessions trapped Germany into ultimately fatal dilemmas.” -
Historian"We now have a comprehensive, clearly written and affordable study incorporating recent research on the Eastern Front.” -
European History QuartterlyTable of Contents
- Maps vii
- Abbreviations and Foreign Terms xv
- Preface xix
- 1. Dilemma 1
- 2. Decision 31
- 3. Onslaught 77
- 4. Whirlwind 135
- 5. Reckoning 199
- 6. All or Nothing 241
- 7. Total War 303
- 8. Scorched Earth 359
- 9. Disintegration 405
- 10. Death Throes 439
- Conclusion 473
- Acknowledgments 489
- Appendix: Supplementary Data 491
- Notes 499
- Bibliography 555
- Index 609
- Photographs follow page 234
