Stackpole Military History
14 total works
The battles for the Germans' last line of defence in World War II, including Arnhem, Aachen, the Huertgen Forest, and Metz. Built as a series of forts, bunkers, and tank traps, the West Wall - known as the Siegfried Line to the Allies - stretched along Germany's western border. After D-Day in June 1944, as the Allies raced across France and threatened to pierce into the Reich, the Germans fell back on the West Wall. In desperate fighting - among the war's worst - the Germans held off the Allies for several months.
In a series of battles marked by daring raids and quick armored thrusts, Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps waged one of World War II's toughest campaigns in the North African desert in 1942. In June the Desert Fox recaptured Tobruk, a triumph that earned him a field marshal's baton and seemed to put all of North Africa within his grasp. By fall, however, after setbacks at Alam Halfa and the battles of El Alamein, the Afrika Korps teetered on the brink of destruction.
The Luftwaffe began World War II as a deadly efficient part of the German blitzkrieg in 1939-40, its Stuka dive bombers and Messerschmitt fighters unleashing terror across Europe. But its superiority would not last long. Fuel shortages, a numerically superior enemy, and--most critically, argues Samuel W. Mitcham--mismanagement by its leaders left the German air force increasingly unable to mount offensive campaigns or even protect its homeland from Allied bombings. Focusing on men like Hermann Goering, Albert Kesselring, and Adolf Galland, Mitcham chronicles the Luftwaffe's battles, both in the sky and behind the scenes.
In North Africa in 1941-42, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps won immortality while battling and usually defeating numerically superior enemies at places like Tobruk. Until now, historians have overlooked the talented--and colorful--cast of characters who supported the Desert Fox during this pivotal campaign. This entertaining and enlightening volume recounts Rommel's battles through the officers who served under him--soldiers like Ludwig Cruewell and Walter Nehring, two of Germany's best panzer commanders, and Ernst-Guenther Baade, who wore a kilt and carried a broadsword into battle.
The Allied landings on D-Day, June 6, 1944, marked the beginning of the German defeat in the West in World War II. From the experiences of soldiers in the field to decision-making at high command, military historian Samuel Mitcham vividly recaptures the desperation of the Wehrmacht as it collapsed amidst the brutal hedgerow fighting in Normandy, losing its four-year grip on France as it was forced to retreat back to the German border. While German forces managed to temporarily halt the Allied juggernaut there, this brief success only delayed the fate that had been sealed with the defeat in France.
On July 10, 1943, American, British, and Canadian forces launched a massive amphibious and airborne assault on Sicily. After a five-week campaign--during which American Gen. George Patton and British Gen. Bernard Montgomery conducted their famous race to Messina--Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had been deposed, and the island lay in Allied hands. Yet total victory eluded them. With only four divisions, the Germans held off the invaders for thirty-eight days and then escaped, dooming the Allies to a prolonged battle of attrition for Italy.
Gen. Erwin Rommel arrived in Africa's Western Desert in February 1941 to lead the elite German Afrika Korps in its efforts to support the battered Italians. Disobeying orders to remain on the defensive, Rommel attacked, nearly pushed the numerically superior British out of Libya, and besieged the critical port of Tobruk. Unable to capture it for the time being, Rommel's forces defeated two British attempts to relieve the garrison before withdrawing at the end of 1941. Seasoned by these months of desert warfare, Rommel stood ready to achieve his greatest successes in 1942.
German Order of Battle is the definitive reference on the German Army in World War II, covering the organization, combat history, and commanders of each division. Volume One covers the 1st through 290th Infantry Divisions; Volume Two, the 291st through 999th Infantry Divisions, Named Infantry Divisions, Jaeger and Light Divisions, Mountain Divisions, Parachute Divisions, Luftwaffe Field Divisions, Flak Divisions, and Miscellaneous Divisions; and Volume Three, Panzer Division, Motorized and Panzer Grenadier Divisions, and SS Divisions.
Generals like Heinz Guderian have received most of the credit for devising and executing the German blitzkrieg, but without the field commanders who led armored corps, divisions, and regiments, the lightning offensive that overtook France in 1940 could not have triumphed. Nor could the Germans have lasted as long as they did against the Allied onslaught in northwest Europe in 1944-45. Mitcham profiles five of these panzer leaders, from the fall of France to Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and the final struggle for Germany.
The last place a German soldier wanted to be in 1944 was the Eastern Front. That summer, Stalin hurled millions of men and thousands of tanks and planes against German forces across a broad front. In a series of massive, devastating battles, the Red Army decimated Hitler's Army Group Center in Belorussia, annihilated Army Group South in the Ukraine, and inflicted crushing casualties while taking Rumania and Hungary. By the time Budapest fell to the Soviets in February 1945, the German Army had been slaughtered--and the Third Reich was in its death throes.
Before dawn on December 16, 1944, German forces rolled through the frozen Ardennes in their last major offensive in the west, thus starting the Battle of the Bulge, which would become the U.S. Army's bloodiest engagement of World War II. Catching the Allies by surprise, the Germans made early gains, demolished the inexperienced U.S. 106th Infantry Division, and fought hard, but American counterattacks--and tenacious resistance in towns like Bastogne--combined with mounting German casualties and fuel shortages to force the German Army into a retreat from which it never recovered.
Drawing on years of research and covering all of the German Army's panzer divisions from their creation through their destruction or surrender, Samuel Mitcham chronicles the combat histories of the tank units that formed the backbone of the Nazi war machine. He also details the careers of the divisions' commanders, men like Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian who revolutionized modern warfare. In-depth and comprehensive, this is an essential resource on German armor in World War II.
In July 1944, after fighting in Poland, the invasion of France, and Russia and then serving as Heinz Guderian's troubleshooter, General of Panzer Troops Heinrich "Hans" Eberbach took command of Panzer Group West near the vital city of Caen in Normandy. During the next two months, Eberbach led German tank units in an ultimately vain attempt to stop the Allied breakthrough into France's interior. One of Germany's best panzer commanders, even Eberbach could not overcome supply shortages, flagging morale, and murderous Allied fighter-bombers. The British captured him at the end of August.
One of the most famous soldiers to fight in World War II, Erwin Rommel achieved immortality as the Desert Fox in the sands of Africa, but his first field command was the 7th Panzer Division, the so-called Ghost Division. During the 1940 campaign in France, the unit suffered more casualties than any other German division and at the same time inflicted heavy losses on the Allies, taking almost 100,000 prisoners. The Ghost Division's success owed much to Rommel's subordinates, who aided Rommel more than he admitted in his papers and whom historians have generally overlooked. This book remedies that oversight.