The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943

The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943

by Robert M. Citino
The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943

The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943

by Robert M. Citino

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

Arthur Goodzeit Award

Throughout 1943, the German army, heirs to a military tradition that demanded and perfected relentless offensive operations, succumbed to the realities of its own overreach and the demands of twentieth-century industrialized warfare. In his new study, prizewinning author Robert Citino chronicles this weakening Wehrmacht, now fighting desperately on the defensive but still remarkably dangerous and lethal.

Drawing on his impeccable command of German-language sources, Citino offers fresh, vivid, and detailed treatments of key campaigns during this fateful year: the Allied landings in North Africa, General von Manstein's great counterstroke in front of Kharkov, the German attack at Kasserine Pass, the titanic engagement of tanks and men at Kursk, the Soviet counteroffensives at Orel and Belgorod, and the Allied landings in Sicily and Italy. Through these events, he reveals how a military establishment historically configured for violent aggression reacted when the tables were turned; how German commanders viewed their newest enemy, the U.S. Army, after brutal fighting against the British and Soviets; and why, despite their superiority in materiel and manpower, the Allies were unable to turn 1943 into a much more decisive year.

Applying the keen operational analysis for which he is so highly regarded, Citino contends that virtually every flawed German decision—to defend Tunis, to attack at Kursk and then call off the offensive, to abandon Sicily, to defend Italy high up the boot and then down much closer to the toe—had strong supporters among the army's officer corps. He looks at all of these engagements from the perspective of each combatant nation and also establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt the synergistic interplay between the fronts.

Ultimately, Citino produces a grim portrait of the German officer corps, dispelling the longstanding tendency to blame every bad decision on Hitler. Filled with telling vignettes and sharp portraits and copiously documented, The Wehrmacht Retreats is a dramatic and fast-paced narrative that will engage military historians and general readers alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780700623433
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Publication date: 09/16/2016
Series: Modern War Studies
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 440
Sales rank: 224,215
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Robert M. Citino is professor of history at the University of North Texas and author of eight books, including Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942; The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich; Quest for Decisive Victory: From Stalemate to Blitzkrieg in Europe, 1899–1940; and Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm: The Evolution of Operational Warfare, which won both the Society for Military History's Distinguished Book Award and the American Historical Association's Paul Birdsall Prize.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

1. The Last Victory? The Race to Tunis

2. Manstein, the Battle of Kharkov, and the Limits of Command

3. The Limits of Fighting Power: Triumph and Disaster in Tunisia, 1943

4. The Battle of Kursk: A Reassessment

5. Smashing the Axis: Operation Husky and the Sicilian Campaign

6. Manstein’s War: Bewegungskrieg in the East, July - December 1943

7. Kesselring’s War: Italy, 1943

Conclusion: Fighting a Lost War

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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