Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East

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Authors: David Stahel

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Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East

Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began the largest and most costly campaign in military history. Its failure was a key turning point of the Second World War. The operation was planned as a blitzkrieg to win Germany its
Lebensraum
in the east, and the summer of 1941 is well known for the German army's unprecedented victories and advances. Yet the German blitzkrieg depended almost entirely upon the motorised panzer groups, particularly those of Army Group Centre. Using previously unpublished archival records, David Stahel presents a new history of Germany's summer campaign from the perspective of the two largest and most powerful panzer groups on the eastern front. Stahel's research provides a fundamental reassessment of Germany's war against the Soviet Union, highlighting the prodigious internal problems of the vital panzer forces and revealing that their demise in the earliest phase of the war undermined the whole German invasion.

DAVID STAHEL
is an independent researcher based in Berlin.

Cambridge Military Histories

Edited by

Hew Strachan

Chichele Professor of the History of War, University of Oxford, and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford

Geoffrey Wawro

Major General Olinto Mark Barsanti Professor of Military History, and Director, Center for the Study of Military History, University of North Texas

The aim of this new series is to publish outstanding works of research on warfare throughout the ages and throughout the world. Books in the series will take a broad approach to military history, examining war in all its military, strategic, political and economic aspects. The series is intended to complement
Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare
by focusing on the ‘hard’ military history of armies, tactics, strategy and warfare. Books in the series will consist mainly of single-author works – academically vigorous and groundbreaking – which will be accessible to both academics and the interested general reader.

For a list of titles published in the series, please see
end of book
.

Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East

David Stahel

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title:
www.cambridge.org/9780521768474

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2009

Third Printing 2010

First paperback edition 2010

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Stahel, David, 1975–

Operation Barbarossa and Germany's defeat in the East / by David Stahel.

p. cm. – (Cambridge military histories)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-521-76847-4 (hardback)

1. World War, 1939–1945 – Campaigns – Eastern Front. 2. World War, 1939–1945 – Tank warfare. 3. Soviet Union – History – German occupation, 1941–1944. I. Title. II. Series.

D764.S795 2009

940.54′217 – dc22 2009016993

ISBN 978-0-521-76847-4 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of illustrations

List of maps

Acknowledgements

Glossary of terms

Tables of military ranks and army structures

Introduction

Part I Strategic plans and theoretical conceptions for war against the Soviet Union

1 Fighting the bear

The evolution of early strategic planning

Two ways to skin a bear – the Marcks and Lossberg plans

Crisis postponed – from war games to Directive No. 21