Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76847-4 - Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East David Stahel Frontmatter More information
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 Using previously unpublished archival records, David Stahel presents a new history of Germany’s summer campaign from the perspective of the two largest and most powerful panzer groups on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.
© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76847-4 - Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East David Stahel Frontmatter More information
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.
A full list of titles in the series can be found at: www.cambridge.org/militaryhistories
© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76847-4 - Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East David Stahel Frontmatter More information
Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East
David Stahel
© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76847-4 - Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East David Stahel Frontmatter More information
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521170154