Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany’s Winter Campaign, 1941-1942

With 439 pages of text and 60 pages of Notes, this is a meticulous, detailed, and graphic account of the German retreat from Moscow and the Soviet Union after Germany's attempt to conquer the latter beginning in late June of 1941. While it is true that an earlier than expected winter helped the Russians achieve the expulsion of German forces, the overall picture is not as simple as that. There are many reasons why Germany ultimately failed in its attempted conquest.1) The original start date for what was called Operation Barbarossa was to have been early to middle May at the latest. However, an ill conceived venture by Mussolini into the Balkans in 1940 in a desire to conquer Greece required a German rescue operation and support. The diversion of German troops to finish what Mussolini started ultimately delayed OB by a full month. As fate would have it, the beginning of the assault on the SU (June 22) was the same as Napoleon's equally ill fated attack more than a century earlier. Unlike Napoleon's ultimate retreat, the German retreat was a backward and forward process and not as continuous. Applying a principle of "Offensive Defense", the Germans hurled the Russians back again and again causing enormous casualties to the enemy. But herein lies yet another problem.2) The Germans greatly underestimated the totality of manpower that Stalin could throw at them. A decade later Americans experienced the same problem when China entered the Korean war and poured millions of Chinese troops into the fray (the official number of Chinese dead has varied from 152,000 to one million killed). It was only the heaps of dead and a lack of ammunition that detained the Chinese wave, but only temporarily. So, too, the situation during OB. Stalin had far more reserves than were supposedly assumed and didn't care how many Russian lives and those of its allies would be lost in its retaliatory response to the German intrusion.Apparently, even in 1941, the Germans lacked an accurate assessment of sheer Russian manpower numbers. Back in 1914, Russia - in the words of Barbara Tuchman in The Guns of August - was already the "largest piece on the chessboard". Not only in total population, but in geographical area. The perimeter line of defense on the part of the Germans from east to west was as long as the distance across the widest part of Florida from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico. The Germans never fully understood or were appreciative of the vastness of European Russia and this was certainly part of their undoing. The phrase "Never get into a land war in Asia" coined supposedly by either Montgomery, Bradley, or Eisenhower can even be applied to Russia west of the Urals.3) The logistical problem for such a martial adventure was way underestimated, especially since the Russo-German conflict was expected to be a short one. Yet the Germans held firm and repelled a considerable number of Russian attacks on German positions; and Russian casualties far outnumbered German ones. But what seemed like a limitless supply of Russian troops took its toll on German positions which could not afford the continued diminishment of their own troop numbers and arms. At times, the many Russian dead were piled high by the Germans as a defensive embankment. The later appearance of the T-34 Russian tanks and fresh Russian soldiers in winter garb also proved to be an insurmountable obstacle to victory. The Germans lacked the protective garb not just for battle, but for their very survival. Frostbite could be instant. The ground was frozen and could not be dug into. Equipment of all kinds could not function in the face of an early and especially cold winter onslaught. Nevertheless, the German ability to improvise and fight back up to a point was not forgotten and added another dimension to this titanic struggle.4) German officers were not quick to help each other when it came to replacement needs. Each wanted to protect his own turf as a first priority. There was some cooperation, but limited. Hitler's edict that no retreat was allowed was not as absolute as many have thought. Several German officers who knew better disregarded that order and repositioned themselves accordingly. Nevertheless, Hitler's order compounded confusion on the battlefield with a no win situation facing the Eastern Front leadership. Eventually, what was always expected to be a brief war on the part of the Germans turned out to be a draining stalemate at times eventually leading to a total and costly withdrawal. The Russian victory proved to be a type of Pyrrhic victory. Tens of millions perished on the Russian side. Even so, the Soviet army was eventually able to reconquer lost eastern possessions and enable the SU to gain control of a huge portion of Central Europe with new conquests that it controlled for nearly 50 years. The Soviet-Nazi pact that was signed at the end of the 1930s came home to roost for both parties. In the end, it was sheer population and geographical size along with the determination of Russian troops and climate as well as American and British materiel support that saved the SU.Stahel's writing is excellent and creates a vivid imagery of what transpired on the Russian front. At times, this page turner, reads like a detective mystery. If we didn't already know the outcome, we might not be certain of what it would be while reading this book.Epilogue: Declassified documents in more recent times reveal that Stalin had intended to invade Central Europe and conquer Germany if war broke out, the assumption being that Germany would be worn down and severely weakened by a long war with the Western powers. The quick collapse of France leaving Britain to face Nazi Germany alone changed all that. Hitler merely beat Stalin to the punch. Also, in desperation, Hitler's belated attempt to persuade his Japanese ally to attack the SU in the Far East came to naught. Hitler's failure to bring the Japanese in on his plan to attack the SU was considered to be an insult by them; and along with the Neutrality Treaty signed by Japan with the SU earlier, they said "thanks, but no thanks" having already turned their attention primarily to the south. This kept Stalin from having to fight a two-front war which he could very well have lost. By not acceding to Hitler's entreaties, it cost the Japanese much later on...But that is another story.

I thought this was an excellent analysis of the winter battles in December 1941 – February 1942. Stahel uses original German Army records as well as recently published Russian data on their losses in their counterattack to show that the Germans inflicted six times the number of casualties (dead + wounded + prisoners) on the Soviet Army than they experienced themselves. The Soviets suffered approximately 1.6 million casualties in those three months while the Germans suffered approximately 260 thousand, and not all of those were combat casualties. At the end of the campaign, the Soviet Army was worse off than the German Army.There were several comments throughout the book that I thought were interesting:• Page 4: “… it was absolutely essential for Germany to end any prospective war against the Soviet Union as quickly and as decisively as possible – there was simply no economic or military contingency for anything else.”• Page 5: “In its ruthless pursuit of victory, the German Ostheer (eastern army) became a very blunt instrument, and there was simply no way of reconstituting this offensive power without a very long period of inactivity that the unrelenting warfare in the east would never permit. As .. Halder acknowledged … ‘An Army, like that of June 1941, will henceforth no longer be available to us.’ ”• Page 136: “By 1942 the shortage of officers for the Red Army meant that the only requirements for receiving a commission were six years of education and no criminal record…”• Page 141: “German commanders reserved for themselves a degree of autonomy that Soviet officers could not have imagined…. The Red Army … had no such culture of independent appraisal or questioning of orders, and the strictly hierarchical structure meant that even the most foolhardy orders were faithfully carried out.”• Page 232: “… the sum of the [German] army group’s December retreats equaled just 3 percent of the total ground won in the Soviet Union since the start of Operation Barbarossa.”

Stahel has become my favourite military historian. He is very thoroughand writes very clearly. He uses a lot of personal accounts and discusses how the various German commanders interact with each other. I own and have read some of his other books. All of them are very good. My favourite is "Operation Barbarossa and Hitlers Defeat in the East". In that book, he argues convincingly that Germany pretty well lost the war in the first 3 months. I am part way into, "Retreat from Moscow", and I am very impressed. I think it ranks with his Barbarrosa book. If you have not read any of his books, I would suggest trying this one.

This is the fourth in the series detailing the aftermath of the final Wehrmacht offensive against Moscow & the Red Army’s faltering response. Importantly the myth that by ordering that no unit to retreat effectively saved the Army Group Centre from catastrophic collapse he shows Hitler to be out of touch even at that stage of the war. Clinging to the National Socialist idea that if only sufficient will power existed on the part of the soldiers & generals that victory against Stalin would be assured.The issues that led to the eventual dismissal of Guderian are also covered & the politicking in the OKH which greatly weakened the flexibility of the ground commanders from here forward.Well worth a read!

an absorbing account of a key period in the russo-german conflict

This will give you a different perspective on the Nazi invasion of the USSR. The German army were masters of strategic withdrawal (Italy is another prime example of this) and made the Russians pay dearly for their advance. A very good study of the campaign that goes into a lot of detail.

Amazing book by David Stahel. I must read book if your wanting to understand the eastern front and the Soviets winter offensives of 41-42