Retreat from Moscow A new history of Germany's winter campaign, 1941-1942

Military scholar Stahel (The Battle for Moscow) draws on German military records, diaries, letters, and memoirs to recreate the Battle of Moscow in this vivid revisionist history. Describing the Soviet counteroffensive that forced Germany to retreat in January 1942 as a "Pyrrhic victory," Stahel contends that the Germans were able to thwart the Red Army's strategic goals and better prepare for spring and summer fighting. He combines a soldier's-eye view of the campaign with analysis of high-level strategic planning, and reveals the tensions and contradictions between the German Army's philosophy of empowering subordinates to take initiative and the Nazi Party's ideology of obedience. Stahel credits German field marshal Günther von Kluge with preserving the Army Group Center despite Hitler's amateurish interference in military planning, and takes Soviet commanders to task for overextending their forces and losing six times as many soldiers as the Germans. Stahel wrangles a staggering amount of primary source material into a cohesive narrative and writes clearly and efficiently. The depth of analysis and sheer volume of information may be overwhelming for generalists, but readers with a deep interest in the subject matter will deem this an invaluable resource. (Nov.)

The hair-raising follow-up to the author's The Battle for Moscow (2015).Stahel (European History/Univ. of New South Wales) has written an intensely researched account of three months of brutal fighting under awful conditions on the Eastern Front whose deaths and cruelty dwarfed whatever Britain and American endured in the west throughout the war. Never short of strong opinions, the author maintains that Germany had lost within months of its June 22, 1941, invasion when it became obvious that the Soviet Union would not collapse. Once the fighting "passed from being a blitzkrieg to a slogging war of matriel, which was already the case by the end of the summer, large-scale economic deficiencies spelled eventual doom for the Nazi state." Germany's advance stalled in early December, the result of increasing resistance, exhausted, freezing troops, and the impossibility of supply over immense distances and primitive roads. At the same time, a long-planned Soviet offensive began, regaining about 15% of its lost territory before running out of gas in February. Most of the new Red Army divisions were hastily assembled, poorly trained, and lacked heavy fire support. They suffered casualties that shocked even the Soviet high command. Both Hitler and Stalin made matters worse. No Russian general dared refuse Stalin's orders to attack, and many were shot until Georgy Zhukov convinced the Soviet leader to back off. Ignorant of conditions at the front and convinced that Aryan fighting spirit trumped any deficiency, Hitler repeatedly forbade retreating. Historians still debate how much damage this caused because senior commanders did not always obey. Stahel's blow-by-blow, unit-level analysis will appeal to military scholars, and his vivid anecdotes will draw in some general readers. He concludes that the Soviet offensive failed in its strategic goals and endured catastrophic losses, but it contributed to the steady erosion of the Wermacht.A page-turner for World War II buffs but likely more than most readers want to know about an awful campaign. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.