What’s everyone reading?

[TheMadBaron]

It seems you liked Stahlberg?

I recently finished "Until the Eyes Shut" and I enjoyed it. Similar to "Blood Red Snow".

I'll be reading Blood Red Snow next, and just realized Koschorrek is still alive.

[TWS]

I'll be reading Blood Red Snow next, and just realized Koschorrek is still alive.

Hope you enjoy it like I did.

[bigschuss]

Thanks! I'll add Stahlberg to my reading list.
Luckily I didn't buy von Manstein's book and read the Fort Knox library's copy for free.

Just a side note, the U.S. Army War College is at Carlisle Barracks, PA. West Point is the location of the United States Military Academy (USMA).

Yeah, Manstein was just way over my head! Thanks for the correction on the War College. I just assumed it was a West Point thing. Not even sure what goes on there? I picture a bunch of officer's reading, analyzing, and discussing books like Lost Victories.

[Bob Lyons]

Just finished this on the Normandy campaign, and thought it extremely well done,
it also expands on the issues with Charles De Gaulle and the Allies prior to and after
the landings.... (Roosevelt detested him).

Bob

Normandy
The Landings to the Liberation of Paris
Olivier Wieviorka
Translated by Malcolm DeBevoise

The Allied landings on the coast of Normandy on June 6, 1944, have assumed legendary status in the annals of World War II. But in overly romanticizing D-day, Olivier Wieviorka argues, we have lost sight of the full picture. "Normandy" offers a balanced, complete account that reveals the successes and weaknesses of the titanic enterprise.

In addition to describing the landings with precision and drama, Wieviorka covers the planning and diplomatic background, Allied relationships, German defensive preparations, morale of the armies, economics and logistics, political and military leaders, and civilians' and soldiers' experience of the fighting. Surprisingly, the landing itself was not the slaughter the general staff expected. The greater battle for Normandy--waged on farmland whose infamous hedgerows, the bocage, created formidable obstacles--took a severe toll not only in lives lost, but on the survivors who experienced this grueling ordeal.

D-day, Wieviorka notes, was a striking accomplishment, but it was war, violent and cruel. Errors, desertions, rivalries, psychological trauma, self-serving motives, thefts, and rapes were all part of the story. Rather than diminishing the Allied achievement, this candid book underscores the price of victory and acknowledges the British, American, and Canadian soldiers who dashed onto the Normandy beaches not as demigods, but as young men.

[johann mor]

I am just reading "Stalin's silver" Or how America shafted Britain. It's a really enlightening read.

Oh and the "Tanks of Tog".

Jon

[stgeorge64]

I am just reading "Stalin's silver" Or how America shafted Britain. It's a really enlightening read. Jon

I read this last year and it certainly highlights the 'special' relationship the USA held towards Britain. As you say an enlightening read and recommended to all.

[Bob Lyons]

Just finished reading this book, a real eye opener on how the Brits were forgotten once the evacuation was over, and how brutally the Germans treated them right from the time they were captured and had to endure forced marches from France all the way to Germany, with anyone falling out shot or bayoneted, and then the brutal 5 years of forced labor in the camps, and then more forced marches in the bitter winter of 1944 – 45 to escape the Russians before final liberation.



Bob

[509thPIB]

One doesn't live by WW II alone. A new release to help get through the corona virus lock down.

[509thPIB]

Another new release.

[TOMEGA]

Mein Kampf 1939 Hurst & Blackett version

[jacquesf]

Mein Kampf 1939 Hurst & Blackett version

Why?

[PaulW]

The Willing Flesh (Cross of Iron)

Have just finished reading "The Willing Flesh" (aka Cross of Iron), a 1956 dated hardback as I wanted to make sure it hadn't been 'sanitised' when reprinted in later years. A superb read IMHO, fiction but based closely on fact (i.e the details etc not the fictional storyline itself) I suspect as the author Willi Heinrich served in the unit the book is based around, the 101st Jager Division and it's time in the Kuban pocket, or bridgehead as the German's preferred to call it at the time. Also, that he wrote it relatively soon after the war when his memory must have been quite fresh.

I have read alternately that the author Heinrich was an Oberjager and a Company officer, quite possibly both of course if he progressed through the ranks! He was wounded 5 times which is less surprising having read that the 101st Jager sustained 700% casualties during it's existence. Even during the Kuban period it had to be taken out of the line due to it's terrific casualties, including Regimental commanders.

I have no proof of course, but couldn't help but suspect that the dialogue and even the characters themselves may have been based upon real people he had known and their conversations he had with them, and that writing the book may have been a catharsis for him.

Sorry to ramble, but this book had quite an effect on me, much more than i was expecting and has awakened an interest in the Kuban Campaign, something of a 'Forgotten Campaign', and in some ways this book and the 1977 film "Cross of Iron" (the book is better) have helped to memorialise the Kuban and bring it to life for history enthusiasts.

Incidentally, many have called it a failed Campaign, yet because 250,000 German and Romanian troops were positioned dangerously close to the Maikop Oilfields Stalin hurled vast numbers of his troops at heavily entrenched German troops with their backs to the sea who knew that retreat mean't probable death, so they fought like animals. The defence of the village of Borisovka where Oberleutnant Lump earned his Knight's Cross with 50 men defending against a Guards Rifle Division supported by tanks, additional artillery and airpower is mind blowing and illustrates how the German defenders were able to inflict a 7:1 casualty rate against the Russians, they literally bled them white. Heinrich's book puts you right there, I recommend it.

Regards, Paul

[TWS]

Good review Paul. I read "Cross of Iron" as a kid and loved it. I have Robert Forczyk's "The Kuban 1943" and am coincidently in the midst of his "Case White: The Invasion of Poland, 1939" which is excellent so far. It's a much lengthier volume than his book on the Kuban Bridgehead.

I have a grouping of documents and photos to RKT Dietmar Wahl who fell in the bridgehead, so it's brings me a tangible element of the fighting.

[eubank]

Why?

Punishment.

Dunkirk and The Willing Flesh sound interesting, cheers Bob & Paul.

[IanC]

Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East by David Stahel

A superb book that closes with its damming verdict about the men that were in control of the German armies that are so often lionised in the English speaking world.

Along with this book I can recommend his others on Barbarossa; Kiev 1941, Operation Typhoon, The Battle for Moscow and Retreat from Moscow.