The Eastern Front

by Lloyd Clark, Duncan Anderson

Overview

The conflict on the Eastern Front in World War II was colossal in both scale and intensity, as the two infamous dictators of the twentieth century – Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin – vied for supremacy in Eastern Europe. On 22 June 1941 it was Hitler's fateful decision to launch the largest invasion ever seen, Operation Barbarossa, when 138 German divisions attacked the Soviet Union. Four years later, some two million German and eleven million Russian soldiers had ben killed in the course of their struggle, and names like Stalingrad and Kursk had been burnt into the world's consciousness. The Eastern Front is a detailed account of this epic clash, the greatest continuous land battle in history. The book explores in detail the state of the German and Soviet armies in 1941, and the planning and preparation of both sides for the German attack. Campaigns covered include Operation Barbarossa, the rapid German advance on Moscow and the first Soviet winter offensive in 1941–42. The race for the Caucasian oilfields in Operation Blue, as the 1942 German campaign was known, is also described, as is the fight for Stalingrad and the infamous destruction of the German Sixth Army, the Soviet success in early 1943, and the resultant German counter at Kharkov. The book details Hitler's last major offensive in the summer of 1943 that led to the world's largest tank battle at Kursk, and the significant Soviet victories that followed, with Operation Bagration in 1944 capturing huge numbers of German prisoners. Finally, the book looks at the Soviet advance onto German soil, the capture of Berlin itself and the subsequent suicide of Adolf Hitler as shells rained on his bunker. Written by three leading military historians, the Eastern Front is a superb history of the cataclysmic struggle between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781908696557
Publisher:	Amber Books
Publication date:	07/16/2012
Series:	Military Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	932 KB
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Lloyd Clark is a senior academic in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Professorial Research Fellow in War Studies, Humanities Research Institute, University of Buckingham. He is the author of several books. He is a frequent guide to battlefields on four continents and often works on radio and television as both historical adviser and interviewee.
Dr Duncan Anderson is head of the Department of War Studies at Sandhurst. His main interests are military and diplomatic history, from the mid eighteenth century to the present. His books include the 'Fall of the Reich' (2000).

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Preparing for Barbarossa

Chapter Two: The Drive East

Chapter Three: The First Winter

Chapter Four: The Advance to Stalingrad

Chapter Five: The Battle of Stalingrad

Chapter Six: Duel in the South

Chapter Seven: Kursk and its Aftermath

Chapter Eight: Winter Storm

Chapter Nine: Stalin’s Summer Offensive

Chapter Ten: From the Vistula to the Oder

Chapter Eleven: The Fall of Berlin

Index