ISBN 0-7524-1979-X
256 pages

Preface; photos; maps; Conclusions; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Appendices: German Planning Documents; Soviet Planning Documents; Summary Orders of Battle; Detailed Opposing Orders of Battle

   Eventually David Glantz, who has already put much ink and paper to good use exploring the Russian front, will write the definitive history of German and Soviet forces in Operation Barbarossa down to division/brigade/regiment/battalion level in a multi-volume series which will sell surprisingly well and receive much praise, but because of its immensity will remain mostly unread. Until then, we have his new Barbarossa from Tempus Publishing. Considerably shorter than the imaginary multi-volume treatment, Glantz's real book should also sell well and generate much praise—but it's also exceedingly readable.
   For such a well-covered topic, Barbarossa contains many fresh perspectives and insights. Glantz manages to pack quite a wallop into fewer than 200 pages of actual narrative which cover the invasion from 22 June through the initial stages of the Soviet counter-strike at Moscow in December. By comparison, how do other "standard" English-language works stack up when it comes to Operation Barbarossa?

• Despite its title, Alan Clark's Barbarossa covers the entire Russo-German war, with about 180 pages devoted to June through December 1941.
• In Hitler Moves East, Paul Carell expends about 400 pages on this period.
• Albert Seaton's The Russo-German War uses its first 250 pages or so to describe the events from June through December.
• The English edition of The Great Patriotic War devotes only about 100 pages to those months.
• The Road to Stalingrad by John Erickson contains about 300 pages on this time frame.
• Another of Glantz's volumes (co-written with Jonathan House), When Titans Clashed, covers the entire war and includes about 100 pages on this period.

   The prolonged struggle in the Ukraine with its dramatic and catastrophic encirclements at Uman' in late July and at Kiev in September seriously damaged the Red Army and destroyed the coherence of Soviet strategic defences. Over a period of almost three months, German [sic] eliminated upwards of 1 million soldiers, the entire Southwestern Front, and the better part of the Southern Front from the Red Army's order of battle. By late September, Kiev and the entire Ukraine eastward to the Dnepr river were in German hands, and German forces had captured Poltava north of the Dnepr bend and were pressing into the Crimean peninsular [sic].
   Numerous historians have since argued that, tangentially, the Kiev encirclement produced distinctly positive results for the Soviet Union. First and foremost, they claim that the stubborn defence of Kiev during July and August, particularly by Potapov's 5th Army, convinced Hitler to shift his main strategic offensive effort to the south to destroy a more lucrative target - the Southwestern Front - and capture the economically vital Ukraine. Further, they argue, Guderian's southward turn and subsequent operations east of Kiev delayed the German advance on Moscow for roughly one month, perhaps fatally.
   While true in part, it is only part of the answer, since an impatient Hitler also diverted sizeable forces from Army Group Centre to assist in the capture of Leningrad. In fact, Hitler decided to complete his self-ordained tasks at Leningrad and in the Ukraine at least in part due to the fierce Soviet resistance Army Group Centre encountered at and east of Smolensk along the Moscow axis. Thus, in retrospect, the delay in Army Group Centre's advance along the Moscow axis seemed to pave the way for the subsequent German defeat at Moscow.
   At the same time, however, Guderian's Kiev diversion also removed from the battlefield most of the impediments to German Operation Typhoon. First and foremost, it eliminated four armies and over 600,000 men that, had they not been destroyed, would have threatened Army Group Centre's extended right flank as it advanced on Moscow. Furthermore, by late September Timoshenko's Western, Zhukov's Reserve, and Erermenko's Briansk Fronts had shot their bolts in futile and costly offensives north and south of Smolensk. If unaided from other quarters, these severely weakened forces could scarcely resist the renewed German offensive onslaught. Worse still, Guderian's path toward Moscow via Briansk was also virtually clear. Finally, the destruction of the Southwestern Front and dismemberment of the Southern Front left Rundstedt's army group virtually unopposed as they began their equally dramatic advance toward Khar'kov and across the southern Ukraine through the Donbas to Rostov.
   In every respect, the Wehrmacht's [sic] achieved signal victories at Uman' and Kiev, victories that in no way diminished German hopes or capabilities for success in Operation Barbarossa. If Barbarossa were to fail, the blame did not belong to Hitler's Kiev venture.

   Similarly, the final chapter, "Conclusions," offers ruminations about the course of the campaign as a whole. In particular, Glantz discusses the reasons for Soviet successes as well as German failures. Unlike some commentators who mostly analyze "how the Germans lost the campaign" rather than "how the Soviets won it" and attribute the German defeat to factors such as lack of roads, differing railway gauges, inhospitable terrain, and harsh weather, here the blame goes more directly to the Germans for failing to prepare themselves to fight the kind of war that would be necessary. "The sad fact for the Germans was that Hitler and the German Army had embarked on its Barbarossa crusade employing forces, military techniques and a logistical structure perfected to prosecute war in western and central Europe. The German Army was not suited to wage war in the vast 'peasant rear' of the eastern theatre, militarily or psychologically." Even more, however, Glantz systematically proves the Soviet Army was not merely an inert punching bag. Stalin, his generals, and his forces certainly were not always successful, but they as much as the Germans planned and executed their own operations during the campaign in accordance with their own doctrine and strategy. Operation Barbarossa was far, far from a game of solitaire played by the Germans against passive masses of insentient clones. Few other books bring this fact home so clearly.
   In his Conclusions, Glantz also explains how halting the Germans before Moscow "...created the first great turning point in the war. Thereafter, it was clear that Germany could not destroy the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa failed at Moscow and with that failure, Hitler's hope of destroying the Soviet Union forever faded." Glantz later reminds readers how tough it is to speculate about various possibilities when he quotes "What has been has been" and "Speculation remains pure speculation." Nevertheless, it would have been interesting for him to address the other side of the equation.
   If the failure of the Germans to take Moscow meant Hitler could not win, what would it have meant if the Western Front and the Kalinin Front had during the final push on Moscow utterly collapsed like so many other Russian forces in 1941? Given a decisive German victory at Moscow, would it have meant an end to the war in the East? Barbarossa is silent on this point. Based on everything Glantz tells us about Stalin, the Soviet Union, and the Red Army, however, it appears the fate of the Bolshevik state would have been sealed, and Hitler would have been victorious. In this scenario, even with the United States entering the war, it becomes very difficult to see how the western Allies could have defeated Germany without the Red Army to do the heavy lifting on the Russian front. Given such an alarming alternative, the significance of the Soviet victory against the German invasion by the end of 1941, and the means by which it was achieved, loom extraordinarily large in the study of the Second World War. Kudos to David Glantz for doing such a succinct and enlightening job of spelling it out.
   This is a splendid book. The only fly in the ointment comes from sloppy copy-editing which often makes it necessary to read and re-read sentences to make sure they're understood correctly: missing prepositions, dropped articles, singular nouns with plural verbs, duplicated words, and similar errors not readily detected with a word processor's spell-check routines.
   Otherwise, in all the areas that really matter (as well as, incidentally, well-chosen photos, suitable maps, detailed OBs, and rigorous endnotes), this is a potent book and absolutely deserving of consideration as one of the best of the year. Highly recommended to anyone with any interest in the Russian front.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Tempus Publishing.
   Thanks to Tempus for providing this review copy.