Hitler's Last Offensive

By Peter Elstob

Book Overview

This is the full story of the Battle of the Ardennes. in the last weeks of 1944 the German armies in the west, after a continuous retreat since the battle of Normandy five months earlier were regrouping in what they thought was to be the last battle in defense of the Fatherland. But Hitler had other plans - to mount an offensive through the Ardennes that would deal such a blow to the Western Allies that they would be willing to negotiate a separate peace. This is the offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge.

Could Hitler's gamble have succeeded? Could he have reached his objective, the port of Antwerp? Peter Elstob unfolds the whole panorama of the "last offensive" which was one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World war, punctuated with many acts of individual acts of heroism and many errors of judgment by the firebrand General George Patton, the superb German generals and others. Paradoxically, all it ensured was that the Russians would reach Berlin first.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0850529840
• ISBN13: 9780850529845
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
• Length: 413 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Best Book on the subject. Very in depth. Well researched!

This book presents the Battle of the Buldge in great detail. The author did a spectacular job in research, and bringing that information to you. Because of the detail, it is not an easy book to read. But, you will walk away from this book knowing the battle inside and out, from both the German and Allied point of view. The book starts with detailed preparations that Hitler took prior to the battle, then followed a chronology of how the battle unfolded at the division level, on both the German and the Allied sides. You are taken to each town and village, and get to see the circumstances, how each battle was fought, and the outcome. The author also describes what the commanders of both sides were thinking, and how strategies changed as battle continued on from one day to the next. The book concludes with the overall outcome of the battle, the losses, and what (if anything) was accomplished from this. It was a bitter, bloody, and vicious battle, that costed 30,000 men their lives, and it repainted for me a completely different impression of what the Battle of the Buldge was really like. My only complaint about the book: despite the fact that the author did provide detailed maps, I wish their were more maps that I could have used to follow the battles in greater detail.