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Rezension Über: David Stahel, Kiev 1941. Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East, Cambr Citation style Edele, Mark: Rezension über: David Stahel, Kiev 1941. Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, in: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas / jgo.e-reviews, jgo.e-reviews 2015, 2, S. 38-39, https://www.recensio.net/r/d228729bc96d411aa5715b7f94c5c570 First published: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas / jgo.e-reviews, jgo.e-reviews 2015, 2 copyright This article may be downloaded and/or used within the private copying exemption. Any further use without permission of the rights owner shall be subject to legal licences (§§ 44a-63a UrhG / German Copyright Act). 38 Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. jgo.e-reviews 5 (2015) 2 träge keinesfalls die Genozid-These, für die gemäß vielfältigen Aspekte des Phänomens analysiert und den Kriterien der UNO Intentionalität und eine Ver- beleuchtet worden sind. Jede einzelne Phase der nichtungsabsicht aus ethnisch-nationalistischen bzw. Hungersnot ist in ihren Besonderheiten erforscht rassistischen Zielsetzungen die Voraussetzungen bil- worden. Und alle Autorinnen und Autoren sind sich den. Dafür lassen sich bis dato keine unumstößli- einig, dass der Holodomor sowohl bezüglich der chen Beweise finden. Dass die Ukrainer seit Petljuras Opferzahlen wie seiner rigorosen Instrumentalisie- UNR immer unter dem Generalverdacht standen, rung durch die verantwortlichen sowjetischen Täter antibolschewistische Aversionen zu pflegen und se- eine auf dem Territorium der UdSSR singuläre Er- paratistische Absichten zu hegen und dass die ukrai- scheinung war. Darüber sind sich auch die in der nische Bauernschaft privates Wirtschaften viel höher deutschsprachigen Osteuropaforschung tätigen Wis- schätzte als die russische, sie daher den Sowjetisie- senschaftler einig. Ihre Arbeiten wurden von Klid rungen und Kollektivierungen viel stärkeren Wider- und Motyl weitestgehend ignoriert, was sicherlich stand entgegensetzte als andere Gruppen, machte sie den in den USA abnehmenden Fremdsprachen- zwar zu Feinden der bolschewistischen „Modernisie- kenntnissen und weniger der kritischen Haltung der rungen“, hatte aber mit Rassismus nichts gemein. deutschen historischen Forschung gegenüber der Dessen ungeachtet zeigen die Untersuchungsex- Genozid-These geschuldet ist. zerpte sehr deutlich, welche Qualität die Forschung Rudolf A. Mark, Lüneburg zum Holodomor inzwischen erreicht hat und welche DAVID STAHEL: Kiev 1941. Hitler’s Battle for Su- Overy, or Tooze. The Wehrmacht, he contended, premacy in the East. Cambridge [etc.]: Cam- was doomed “Long before the first snows of winter bridge University Press, 2012. XVI, 468 S., began to fall, […] even before the first autumn rains 21 Abb., 13 Ktn., 2 Tab. ISBN: 978-1-107-01459-6. brought most movement to a halt, in fact as early as the summer of 1941” (Operation Barbarossa, p. 2). When did the Germans lose the war against the So- While Smolensk can serve as a convenient shorthand viet Union? In 1944, when Army Group Center was for the timing of the German demise, it was not the destroyed? In 1943, when the battles of Stalingrad result “of any one decision or battle, but rather as and Kursk ended with victories of the Red Army? In the general consequence of many factors broadly late 1941 and early 1942, when first the advance got represented by the harsh terrain, vast distances, stuck in the mud, and then Stalin’s army went on the fierce Soviet resistance and internal German weak- counter offensive in the battle of Moscow? Or on 22 ness” (Operation Barbarossa, p. 24). This thesis June 1941, when the Wehrmacht attacked a numeric- prompted the eminent historian of the Soviet ally and economically superior enemy with a determ- Union’s war effort, Ewan Mawdsley, to point out ined and ruthless leadership not likely to budge? that “Smolensk was […] followed by two or three Economic historians like Mark Harrison, Richard more overwhelming German victories, at Kiev in Overy, or Adam Tooze have argued for the latter in- September, at Viaz’ma-Briansk in October, and terpretation: that the entire project of the war north of the Sea of Azov in November” (English against the Soviet Union was ill-conceived and Historical Review 75 [2010], pp. 773–776; here doomed to failure from the start. Historians of milit- p. 776). The book under review is Stahel’s answer to ary operations, by contrast, often opt for later turn- such criticism, a book-length elaboration of what he ing points, giving the Germans some chance for vic- had sketched in the conclusion of Operation Barbar- tory, speculations which make writing detailed battle ossa. histories worthwhile to civilians in the first place. In this renewed blow against “the myth of the The most likely candidates for a decisive turning Wehrmacht’s unbroken series of victories in the east point – if one is willing to give the Wehrmacht a … to the very gates of Moscow” (p. 9), Stahel again chance at all – are the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, argues against historians such as R.H.S. Stolfi, An- and Kursk. David Stahel argues for an earlier de- drew Nagorski, and John Mosier, who assume that cision, symbolised by the (first) battle of Smolensk the Germans could have won in 1941. Their ac- in July and August 1941. In his first book, Operation counts, he contends, reflect the German generals’ Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East (Cambridge, postwar mystifications. German military files, he New York 2009), he developed the operational equi- adds, instead support the Soviet version of fierce valent to the economic arguments of Harrison, resistance of Stalin’s army in 1941. Here, he expli- Hrsg: Martin Schulze Wessel u. Dietmar Neutatz i. A. des Instituts für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung Regensburg Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. jgo.e-reviews 5 (2015) 2 39 citly builds on the work of David Glantz and John contaminated water; thirst and hunger; terrible injur- Erickson. The basic argument he develops is three- ies and festering corpses; dysentery, cholera, malaria, pronged: first, he summarises the economic debate and typhus; forced marches and harrowing battles – which conclusively shows the slim chance of the it is all there. The result is a vivid account of the Germans in the long run; second, he documents the hopelessness of the entire operation, the battle of heavy losses and the fierceness of fighting, using Kiev yet another exemplification of the overarching German archival files and witness accounts; finally, point: what looked like victories were indeed won at he stresses the poor use the Soviet leadership made extremely high cost against an enemy of vastly su- of the considerable resources at its disposal, which perior resources. helps explain why the Wehrmacht did so well despite Stahel’s study is based on wide reading in second- the odds. The battle of Kiev of August and Septem- ary sources in German and English, on research in ber 1941, he contends, was not so much a German the German military archive in Freiburg, and on victory than a Soviet defeat, prompted by ill-con- study of published letters, diaries, and memoirs. The ceived decisions by Stalin himself. Like in his first German side is much better developed than the So- book, he stresses the brutality of the fighting from viet war, an imbalance which not only reflects Sta- the first days of the war, the tenacity of many Soviet hel’s training as an historian of Germany, but also units, and the policy of ceaseless counter-attack, the unequal development of the historiography. His- which hemorrhaged German forces from the get go. torians of the Soviet war have simply not produced a While the losses of the Soviets were apocalyptic, the literature of the same breadth, depth, and subtlety as Germans also suffered from large-scale destruction their counterparts concerned with Hitler’s army. Sta- of people and materiel, which thinned Hitler’s hel at times gets trapped by the contradictions within already inferior fighting forces: by the end of the existing historiography. In chapter one, for ex- September, they had lost over half a million men in ample, he follows those who believe in the over- the east, or “16 per cent of the total Barbarossa in- whelming loyalty and the determined fighting spirits vasion force” (p. 311). of the Soviet people; some two hundred pages later Kiev picks up the story where Operation Barbarossa he cites the evidence of severe discontent, desertion, left off, in the late summer of 1941, and follows it to and even outright rebellion a competing interpreta- the start of Operation Typhoon, the attack towards tion of the Soviet war effort has collected. These Moscow in early October. There are considerable tensions never get resolved, which leaves the undeni- overlaps in argument with Barbarossa, but in Kiev Sta- able tenacity of the Soviet forces something of a hel’s operational-cum-economic history is embedded mystery. to a much larger extent in a “military history from Overall, then, the book can be recommended for below”, a view from the trenches which makes the anybody interested in this war. Even those readers entire account more graphic and concrete. Stahel’s who were already convinced by the argument of Sta- narrative is animated with well chosen quotations hel’s first book will find a wealth of new material il- from participants’ recollections, letters, and diaries. lustrating its point. The combination of fluid writ- His description of the road to Kiev, the battle itself, ing, colourful sources, and a polemical edge make and its aftermath is military history with the war left this stimulating reading for specialists and non-spe- in: suffering and dying; war crimes of both sides; cialists alike. rats, lice, mosquitoes and flies; dirt, mud, dust, and Mark Edele, Crawley, Western Australia ALFRED GALL: Schreiben und Extremerfahrung Prof. Dr. Michał Kuziak (Universität Warschau), – die polnische Gulag-Literatur in komparatisti- Prof. Dr. Izabela Surynt (Universität Wrocław) und scher Perspektive. Berlin [usw.]: LIT, 2012.
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