Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941-1945

by Anthony Tucker-Jones

Overview

In the summer of 1941, a collective madness overtook Adolf Hitler and his senior generals. They convinced themselves that they could take on and defeat a superpower in the making – the Soviet Union. Foolishly, they thought in a swift campaign they could smash the Red Army and force Stalin to sue for peace, despite dire warnings that Stalin was amassing a reserve army of more than 1 million men on the Volga. The end result would be such carnage that it would tear the German forces apart. In his major reassessment of the war on the Eastern Front, Anthony Tucker-Jones casts new light on the brutal fighting, including such astounding German defeats as at Stalingrad, Kursk, Minsk and, finally, Berlin. He controversially contends that from the very start intelligence officers on both sides failed to influence their leadership resulting in untold slaughter. He also reveals the shocking blunders by Hitler, Stalin and even Churchill that led to the appalling, needless destruction of Hitler’s armed forces as early as the winter of 1941–42. Step by step, Tucker-Jones describes how the German war machine fought to its very last against a relentless enemy, fully aware that defeat was inevitable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780750992695
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	11/06/2019
Edition description:	Second Edition,New edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

ANTHONY TUCKER-JONES spent nearly twenty years in the British Intelligence Community before establishing himself as a defence writer and military historian. He has written extensively on aspects of Second World War warfare, including Hitler’s Great Panzer Heist and Stalin’s Revenge: Operation Bagration.

Table of Contents

Stalin's Gathering Armies 7

Introduction: Collective Madness 11

1 Enemies of the People 17

2 Zhukov Pulls No Punches 30

3 Hitler's Will-o'-the-Wisp 41

4 Shameful Intrigue 57

5 Everything is Normal 67

6 Provoking War 76

7 Redbeard and Beyond 87

8 The Typhoon Falters 97

9 Operation Blue 114

10 Disaster on the Don 128

11 No Champagne or Cognac 142

12 Zeitzler's Comeback Plan 153

13 Prokhorovka Bloodbath 162

14 Stalin's D-Day 173

15 Hitler's Last Triumph 190

16 Axis Turncoats 201

17 Final Stand 211

18 Madmen in Berlin 223

19 Hitler Youth 234

20 Stalin's Vengeance 245

21 Slaughter on the Eastern Front 259

Appendices

1 Glossary of Key Military Operations 1941-45 271

2 Estimates of Hitler's Principal European Eastern Front Allies 280

3 Estimates of Hitler's Principal Soviet Eastern Front Allies 281

4 German Losses and Replacements, December 1941-September 1942 282

5 Stalin's Reserve Armies, Spring 1942 283

6 Axis Losses on the Eastern Front 1941-45 284

7 Red Army and Soviet Allied Forces' Losses on the Eastern Front 1941-45 285

8 Red Army Losses by Operation 1941-45 286

Notes 288

Bibliography 299

Acknowledgements 308

Index 309