Kershaw strives for a Stephen Ambrose-like, magisterial perspective on the Russian campaign of World War II. The title translates the German troops' term for the campaign,
ohneblumen Krieg, or war for which no one throws celebratory flowers. Kershaw makes it abundantly clear that the Germans inflicted more damage in less time on their opponents than had any other army in history, but overextended themselves so greatly in doing it that victory, barring a Russian collapse, was impossible. He also makes it clear that, though all German soldiers must be considered accomplices in war crimes, individual soldiers' attitudes ranged from loathing the commissars to loathing Jews and other
untermenschen. The Russian campaign was fought under conditions that, for sheer nightmarishness, probably surpass any others recorded in the annals of war. Kershaw doesn't neglect the mud, heat, rain, snow, freezing cold, lice, disease, and lack of shelter and medical care, let alone the damage inflicted by the enemy, in this significant addition to the historiography of the World War II Russian front.
Roland GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Kurzbeschreibung
Operation Barbarossa 1941-42 . The German invasion of Russia in 1941 - Operation Barbarossa - was shrouded in the utmost secrecy. Using German sources, the author has investigated an important aspect of the pre-attack deception, the degree to which the German public and armed forces were themselves caught unawares.
