To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (Modern War Studies)

By David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House

Book Overview

The confrontation between German and Soviet forces at Stalingrad was a titanic clash of armies on an unprecedented scale--a campaign that was both a turning point in World War II and a lasting symbol of that war's power and devastation. Yet despite the attention lavished on this epic battle by historians, much about it has been greatly misunderstood or hidden from view--as David Glantz, the world's foremost authority on the Red Army in World War II, now shows. This first volume in Glantz's masterly trilogy draws on previously unseen or neglected sources to provide the definitive account of the opening phase of this iconic Eastern Front campaign. Glantz has combed daily official records from both sides--including the Red Army General Staff, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, the German Sixth Army, and the Soviet 62nd Army--to produce a work of unparalleled detail and fresh interpretations. Jonathan House, an authority on twentieth-century warfare, adds further insight and context. Hitler's original objective was not Stalingrad but the Caucasus oilfields to the south of the city. So he divided his Army Group South into two parts-one to secure the city on his flank, one to capture the oilfields. Glantz reveals for the first time how Stalin, in response, demanded that the Red Army stand and fight rather than withdraw, leading to the numerous little-known combat engagements that seriously eroded the Wehrmacht's strength before it even reached Stalingrad. He shows that, although advancing German forces essentially destroyed the armies of the Soviet Southwestern and Southern Fronts, the Soviets resisted the German advance much more vigorously than has been thought through constant counterattacks, ultimately halting the German offensive at the gates of Stalingrad. This fresh, eye-opening account and the subsequent companion volumes--on the actual battle for the city itself and the successful Soviet counteroffensive that followed--will dramatically revise and expand our understanding of what remains a military campaign for the ages.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0700616306
• ISBN13: 9780700616305
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Length: 678 Pages
• Weight: 2.17 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellent

This book re-writes the history of the German Offensive in 1942 known as operation Blue. Previous histories of the campaign have broadly stated that after the failure of the Kharkov offensive the Soviets adopted a cautious policy of withdrawl. The Germans did not have the big successes that they did in the previous year of surrounding big bags of prisoners. Rather Stalin thinking that the main German attack would be towards Moscow carefully safeguarded his forces untill the Stalingrad counter offensive. All this it turns out was wrong. Whilst the Soviets did not have the same disasters as they had in the first year of the war they lost plenty. The idea of the peaceful March to Stalingrad is also a myth. Rather what happened was after Kharkov the Germans had two intial offensives to set up their break though operation Blue 1. After that success they started to move in two directions. One was to conquer the Caucus oil fields as a means of strategically winning the war. The other was to move towards Stalingrad to cover the Caucus operations and to take out the main transport hub in Southern Russia. The advance was far from peaceful with the Soviets launching attack after counter attack on the German covering force the Sixth Army. Although the Sixth Army won all of these battles it suffered ongoing attrition. In addition its advance was also slowed by the need to obtain fuel and ammunition. The Soviets were able to generate new armies to cover their losses whilst the German strength fell away the further they moved into Russia. It will be interestign to read the next two volumes to see if there is further changes to what has been accepted so far as history of the period. The book illustrates the ongoing poor performance of the Red Army due to the inexperiance of its troops and serious issues around command. The Germans performed far better but the strategy they adopted streched their rescources. As they advanced they became more dependant on the allied troops, Italian, Roumanian and Hungarian to cover their flanks. One of the ominous developments in this period was the relative ease the Soviets had in offensive operations against the Italians. The book is a boost for the reputation of Paulus as a commander. He was able to mount offensive operations despite the fact that he was always outnumbered and he had to fight each step of the way. Hitler and Stalin also come out as considerably more intelligent and on top of militiary issues than as sometimes portrayed.

Operation Blau - Hitler's Summer Offensive Spring/Summer 1942

Having just finished reading Glantz's latest offering I feel compelled to offer my opinions. Previously I have found Glantz's books on Operation Mars & Zitadelle to be among his best works & I must admit to not entirely looking forward to this widely covered subject & to being sceptical about any new information that could emerge. However although this is only volume 1, I couldn't have been more wrong. Most books on Stalingrad gloss over Operation Blau (in it's many phases) & arrive pretty quickly at the battle for the city itself, such as Anthony Beevor's "Stalingrad" book. Glantz bring to life many relatively unknown parts of the summer offensive & splits it down in to smaller phases such as Wilhelm, Blau I, Blau II, Blau III. It starts on the front-line after the failed Soviet Kharkov offensive, where the objective was Voronezh. Here the fighting was extremely fierce & the Soviets far from running to escape & avoiding battle threw large amounts of men & material to stop the Germans & suffered huge losses. But due to a lack of armour & infantry the Germans failed to bag large amounts of prisoners as they had done in 1941. This was because the Soviets this time did not, follow a policy of not retreating & allowing no territory to be captured. Still they lost over 150,000 men. Glantz now explains Hitler's folly having already launched the offensive with barely enough men, splits his army group into two & diverts part into the Caucasus, prematurely. With the Soviets wearing down the Germans in a battle of attrition & constantly raising new armies & equipment, the inevitable had to happen. This books gives the most comprehensive covering of the Operation Blau that I have come across to date. It is recommended reading to anyone enthusiast of the Soviet/German struggle in WWII. While probably not for the casual reader, it offers in depth analysis of this phase of the war & I for one cannot wait for volume II.

Required Reading For Readers Interested in the Eastern Front

Frankly, this is the best book that Glantz (with House) has written. He/They usually approach Eastern Front operations from the Soviet side, but this one is fairly even-handed. What makes these volumes so outstanding today is their incorporation of recently released records and materials from the Soviet side as well as the official German history of WWII, "Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg", most specifically, Volume 4, Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion, with its accompanying maps in a separate binding. Two factors stand out: that if the German Army was unable to destroy/capture large formations of the Red Army in the summer campaign of 1942 as well as capturing the resources necessary to continue the war (in particular, working or repairable oil fields and refining capacity) then the war was lost, and secondly, not until the fall of 1942 was the Red Army able to effect proper combined arms coordination and develop its combat leadership sufficiently to win battles under non-winter conditions. The first was specifically spelled out in "Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg", and the second in Glantz's publications based on releases from the Russian archives. But here these aspects are presented and developed so as to reach the average reader. Excepting the victory by Manstein in the Crimea (Operation Bustard Hunt) that was reported by him as a true battle of annihilation (Vernichtungskampf), none of the German victories in 1942 resulted in large numbers of Soviet prisoners as in 1941. The Soviet armies were defeated but not annihilated and were able to fight another day (although the Soviet victories in the fall of 1942 were won by new formations.) The German weakness in infantry allowed large numbers of Soviet soldiers to escape encirclement and capture, and this weakness was endemic and not to be solved subsequent to the German losses in the winter of 1941. Time and again, this fatal defect shows up in Glantz's discussions of the battles of 1942. In addition, the Soviets learned readily from the Germans in 1942 and were able to turn the tables on an ever-weakening Wehrmacht in the later Stalingrad battle and post-Citadel operations in 1943. A side point on this excellent volume is that the German formations were blessed with extremely good leadership, particularly the armored units. The extreme cohesiveness in the German units and their sticking together under very adverse conditions time and again pulled victory out of what threatened to become a catastrophy. Although this phenomenon haas been studied at length by the American military, our political structure and policies have prevented the introduction of the training and unit cohesion needed to achieve a similar high level of effectiveness in the American Army. German units often experienced open flanks and non-continuous lines yet were still able to persevere under the most adverse conditions. The review by David Shrank is excellent in

Toward Stalingrad

Glantz, a veritable book producing factory, has definitely set a new standard in literature on Stalingrad. This book, the first of three, follows the Wehrmacht after the Moscow-Counter offensive of 1941/1942 through the Soviet Kharkov offensive and into Operation Blau. In doing so Glantz aims to establish three facts that have been glossed over in general histories of both the Eastern Front and the battle for Stalingrad specifically: Soviet forces did not simply retreat when confronted with Army Groups South, and after Army Groups A and B, to take the fight to Stalingrad, as if pre-planned; STAVKA did not abandon the Donbas region to preserve its forces; and the Red Army soldiers that the Sixth army finally met inside Stalingrad were not the same troops who retreated throughout the summer and finally decided, or were forced, to stand and fight. In reality the Red Army put up resistance to German advances from day one. Glantz takes the time to go through many of these operations and point out exactly how much damage Soviet troops were able to inflict on the Wehrmacht and why the Germans were still able to overcome forces that more often than not outnumbered them in either men, artillery, or armor, and sometimes in all three categories. Of personal interest to myself was the chapter on Army Group A's incursion into the Caucasus region. This is an entire campaign long ignored due to the limelight Stalingrad encompasses. In the end it seems the Red Army was still committing mistakes they should have learned from in 1941; piecemeal attacks by mechanized and tank forces, lack of command and control in the field, failure to institute combined arms operations utilizing artillery, tanks, infantry, engineers, and the air force, etc. The Germans, however, are also guilty in that they once more overestimated their abilities and underestimated that of the Red Army. The final result is a detailed and highly needed study that not only provides context to the eventual clash that occurred in Stalingrad, but also highlights the actions that led up to the battle and the many battles, and even campaigns, that have gone long ignored due to Stalingrad's ever growing shadow.

Comprehensive coverage of Operation Blue

I don't usually use superlatives but its hard not to with this book. This book has amazing coverage of the military aspects of the first phase of Operation Blue. The book ends just as the bulk of 6th Army reaches Stalingrad limits where the fighting for the city intensifies. The book is broken down into ten chapters by chronological order. The first two chapters state the condition of each army as of the end of January 1942. Both sides were hurting but were determined to regroup and prepare for the spring and summer offensives. The two sides start making plans. It also gives background info on key commanders on both sides. The appointment to command the 6th Army and his promotion to general was Paulus's first major combat field command. Working under Hitler was not easy but I seriously wonder if it was a mistake for Paulus to be the commander of 6th Army. Manstein or Guderian were available and were certainly more experienced and more aggressive than Paulus. There's much more to say about Paulus's command ability but it will have to wait until the 2nd volume is out. The third chapter covers preliminary actions that lead up to Operation Blue. The Germans wanted to eliminate several Russian strongpoints that might interfere with the success of Operation Blue. This includes the Crimea, Kharkov, the elimination of the Southwestern Front west of the Oskol River and several smaller engagements. The Germans had inflicted heavy casualties on the retreating Southwestern Front but they had failed to encircle entire armies as they did the prior year. It was an ominous precedent that would haunt Paulus as he nears Stalingrad. Hitler, by this point, had already decided the Red Army was finished and begin considering changing the battle plan. The fourth chapter covers the Voronezh battle and the ramifications of the battle concerning Hitler, Bock, Paulus and the Russian Army. The fifth chapter concerns AG A and the Donbas battles as the German war machine moves south and east. The engagements include Millerovo and the advance on Rostov to the south. It also describes Hitler's changing attitude toward the retreating Red Army and changing of Operation Blue time table by issuing his infamous Directive 45 which will play a big part in 6th Army's destruction.. Hitler also fires Bock for being argumentative and too cautious. In the end, Bock will be proven right in most of his arguments The sixth chapter deals with the confrontations in the Don Bend in late July. Even though the Russian defenses at the river were poorly planned and their counterattacks poorly timed and coordinated, the resistance of the 62nd Army at the Bend and the 64th Army to the south increased against 6th Army to the point that Paulus had to ask for reinforcements. This was another bad omen that taking Stalingrad would be difficult but Hitler didn't seem to notice. The seventh chapter concludes the Don Bend battles with the capture of the important city of Kalach. It also includes the moving