A couple of excellent imminent Ostfront books

[Reb]

Marc

I've climbed all over the Soviet tanks at Aberdeen Proving Ground and while they certainly have an ominous, almost asiatic look to them, they also come across as poorly constructed junk. I subsequently had the chance to serve in a tank unit with Soviet post war (barely) machines - T55. And yep - they were utter crap.

But...and its a big one. I had the exciting (and terrifying) opportunity to actually face Russian T-34 tanks (probalby Cubans in side - don't know for sure) one dark night in Mozambique and while they may be crap - they are damned intimidating. The squealing of the wheels in the dark, probing fire from the impossibly fast machine gun (12.7) and that hollow boom from the big gun. Yeah, crap or not you can break a line with those babies.

i think the genius of the Soviet high command was their ability to take troops with limited tactical ability and somewhat junky gear and get the absolute best out of both. A hundred tanks at the point of contact can bust a line (usually) and so what if they break down twenty miles down the road eh? While the Soviets may not have had the overwheliming superiority Guderian and others claim - they had that way of concentrating their forces to make it matter at the point of contact.

I shudder to think what an army would be like that was as tactically adept as the Whermact with the Strategic / Operational skills of the Soviets. Damn near unbeatable. Throw in American equipment and you have a winner.

cheers
Michael (Reb)

[Kelvin]

I've now just finished reading Deathride. However controversial Mosier and his ideas are, I do think he's largely right. He concludes that just because someone stated something for the record (Guderian in his memoirs, or Stalin in his speeches), that doesn't mean it was really so. But to date, these statements have mostly been taken at face value.

In fact, Mosier claims, German generals mounted a postwar campaign to create the impression that they could have won the war, if Hitler hadn't interfered. And in the Soviet Union, Stalin was told what he wanted to hear, whether about agricultural yields, German casualties, or the numbers of tanks emerging from Soviet factories. These were all wildly exaggerated, because to deliver bad news to Stalin could be fatal.

This all seems reasonable to me. It helps explain mysteries of the war, such as why the Soviets made such extensive use of supposedly shoddy British and American tanks. Their own production was much lower than they claimed, and the tanks were manufactured to a very poor quality, which more than offset their superior drawing-board design.

One of Mosier's key points is that Manstein had essentially defeated the Soviet forces on the sout side of the Kursk bulge by July 15 or so, 1943. At that point, Hitler started to send reserves, and pulled-out Ostheer elements, to Italy. Had they instead been used to reinforce Manstein, Model could have used his forces to contain the Soviet Orel offensive, while Manstein drove into the Soviet rear.

Instead, Hitler continued a trend that began in the spring of 1943, sending air and ground elements from the east to other fronts, where they mostly weren't really needed until mid-1944. He was content to keep bleeding the Red Army white, but hadn't counted on the lend-lease help the Soviets would receive, or the amount of military resources that would be required to defend Italy, defend France, and defend the air space over Germany. This stretched the Germans so thin that eventually, years of enormously bloody offensives finally brought the Soviets to Berlin. But without the lend-lease aid and the opening of new fronts, the Soviets would have been forced to capitulate, as had already happened in 1917.

Of course there's a lot more to it than this, but again, it makes sense to me. Now, talk amongst yourselves

I always suspected Soviet tank production figures and many T-34 were of low quality. Soviet had many guns but were less powerful and less harmful to German as the former lacked the advance fire control device, like US.
To some extent,in mid 1944, Hitler focused too much on the Western front and the the equipment status of panzer divisions were better than those in Russia like Panzer Lehr, 2. Panzer and Hitlerjugend.On the other hand, the status of those divisons in the East were terrible, like 3. Panzer division only had 13 Pz IV operational and its armored infantry battalion and panzeraukflaurung abteilung were all missing on June 1 1944 . Both 13. and 14. Panzer divisions had few tank. Other panzer divisions only had several dozens tanks and most of them missing their Panther abteilung.After Normandy, Hitler kept on reinforcing his favoured panzer divisions for the Ardennes and Nordwind offensives and the defence in the east was highly neglected. The production of fighter was favoured instead of bomber production under the menace of allied air power. And this action affected the bomber force in Russian front. Allied attack on synthetic oil plants at Lutzkendorf, Brux, Politz,Blechhammer, Bohlem and Ludwigshaven crippled German oil supply. Attack on Schweinfurt Ball Bearing plant affected German arms production, also Destruction of Molybdenum ore in Knaben in Norway and Heavy water plant in Norway affected seriously German armor industry and atomic bomb invention.

[panzermahn]

Another interesting Ostfront title on the way

Richard, what's your take on this? The title is in German but according to the Amazon link below, it is in English language and has 400 pages!



http://www.amazon.com/FESTUNG-POSEN-BAS ... d_sim_b_86

[Richard Hargreaves]

I'm assuming it will lean heavily on this

http://www.librarything.com/work/6566908/book/38086769

and the newsletter of the veterans' association which was very good.

I know Festung Posen also features in Mike Jones' impending book, Total War.

[Stephan H.]

Mike Jones

--the same author as Leningrad? What is the scope of the book. . .fortress/city fighting?

The Posen book looks interesting (both the one you posted below in German and the L&E production). I was more impressed with SS-Panzer-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 11 "Nordland" then I was with their production of Warzawa II The Tank Battle at Praga. Hopefully their Posen book contains some good first person accounts.

[panzermahn]

Perhaps there would be a series of in-depth studies on the ostfestungen auf der endkampf, Posen (upcoming), Breslau (Richard's upcoming work), Kolberg, Memel, Kuestrin (Le Tissier's), Konigsberg etc

[Jan-Hendrik]

Another interesting Ostfront title on the way

Richard, what's your take on this? The title is in German but according to the Amazon link below, it is in English language and has 400 pages!



http://www.amazon.com/FESTUNG-POSEN-BAS ... d_sim_b_86

Seems rather like a translation of the publications by the Verband of the Posenkämpfer

Perhaps there would be a series of in-depth studies on the ostfestungen auf der endkampf, Posen (upcoming), Breslau (Richard's upcoming work), Kolberg, Memel, Kuestrin (Le Tissier's), Konigsberg etc

I don't believe that



Jan-Hendrik

[Richard Hargreaves]

Mike Jones

--the same author as Leningrad? What is the scope of the book. . .fortress/city fighting?

The Posen book looks interesting (both the one you posted below in German and the L&E production). I was more impressed with SS-Panzer-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 11 "Nordland" then I was with their production of Warzawa II The Tank Battle at Praga. Hopefully their Posen book contains some good first person accounts.

The same Mike Jones, Stephan. Bit sure what else the book covers - I'll have to ask him, but I know Posen definitely features because I sent him an image I have from the battle and recommended the Tiger von Posen to him as well as Baumann's excellent volume.

There's also a trilingual picture book on the battle recently out in Poland in Polish, German and English. I'll be investing when I have some bloody money again.

[Richard Hargreaves]

Perhaps there would be a series of in-depth studies on the ostfestungen auf der endkampf, Posen (upcoming), Breslau (Richard's upcoming work), Kolberg, Memel, Kuestrin (Le Tissier's), Konigsberg etc

Well with Prit's book and Kamen's impending work, plus Breslau out in November, most of the fortresses are now fairly well covered in English, although there's still room for more Endkampf books such as my next book but one.

[Stephan H.]

Richard - Outside of the more well known Festungen like Küstrin, Frankfurt a.d.O., Stettin, Posen, and Danzig, I noted a series of others like Schneidemühl, Thorn, Graudenz, and Elbing. Saft covers them to one extent or another in Krieg im Osten (which is currently the only source I have on them) so I was curious to see if Mike’s book covered more than Posen.

Cheers

[Richard Hargreaves]

Pretty certain it's only Posen from my chats with Mike.

There's definitely material on Elbing in the last four volumes of Kempowski's Echolot - just haven't got around to translating it. There's also some good stuff on Konigsberg in there too from the PK Gunther Heysing.

Jan-Hendrik kindly sent me an account of Schneidemühl from BA-MA files (which I've filed 'somewhere' and might re-discover one day ) and there's a few books on the subject (chiefly about the fate of the civilian populace):

http://is.gd/kdW2a

http://is.gd/kdW9u

and

http://is.gd/kdWj7

Frankfurt's covered excellently in Brandenburg im Jahr 1945 by Werner Stang (good luck finding a copy under 200 € ).

As for Stettin, these two are the most useful:

http://www.amazon.de/Stettin-Szczecin-1 ... 263&sr=8-2

http://www.librarything.com/work/6566917/book/38086806

For Danzig there's quite a lot:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Ric ... g+endkampf

Plus 4 Pz Div history and Schaufler's excellent too.

I think this covers Memel, although it's a memoir-cum-novel a la Sajer:

http://www.librarything.com/work/9643743/book/57245526

For Pomerania in general:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Ric ... ern%201945
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Ric ... ch=pommern

Can't help with Thorn and Graudenz specifically I'm afraid, but otherwise that should keep everyone busy.

[Richard Hargreaves]

Jan-Hendrik kindly sent me an account of Schneidemühl from BA-MA files (which I've filed 'somewhere' and might re-discover one day )

Found it - It's from the BA Ost Dok series, 8-Po Nr.700, and written by Oberst von Bonin, one of the Festung Abschnitt commanders in 1945.

[drGreen]

I had the pleasure of buying Le Tisier's "Slaughter at Halbe: The Destruction of Hitler's 9th Army, April 1945
Tony Le Tissier" for only 11 euro's on Amazon.de last week.

[neumark6]

Hi,

Some more books concerning Posen'45 topic.



They were released in Poznan (Posen) by ,,Pomost" Association. They are based on some German as well as Russian data (plus some memories of Poles that lived in Poznan during those days). Some of the books are translations of memories of German or Russian soldier, others concern fights in some parts of the city or German/Soviet units.

Cheaper and easier to buy than G. Baumanns ,,Bastion an der Warthe" and Nachrichtenblaettern der Hilfsgemeinschaft ehemaliger Posenkaempfer, which are IMO still the best source to Posen'45.

Cheaper and easier to buy, but you still have to read in Polish

All the best,
neumark6

[paul_atrydes]

This all seems reasonable to me. It helps explain mysteries of the war, such as why the Soviets made such extensive use of supposedly shoddy British and American tanks. Their own production was much lower than they claimed,

Very ridiculously.

One of Mosier's key points is that Manstein had essentially defeated the Soviet forces on the sout side of the Kursk bulge by July 15 or so, 1943.

It's not true.

At that point, Hitler started to send reserves, and pulled-out Ostheer elements, to Italy.

It's not true again.

Instead, Hitler continued a trend that began in the spring of 1943, sending air and ground elements from the east to other fronts, where they mostly weren't really needed until mid-1944.

And how many divisions were sent from the east to other front.

But without the lend-lease aid and the opening of new fronts, the Soviets would have been forced to capitulate, as had already happened in 1917.

Why this not happened in 1941 or 1942?