German Report Series: German Campaign in Russia - Planning and Operations 1940-1942

This American Department of the Army publication is important to any study of the German campaign in Russia because it is one of the German Report Series which was issued after the Second World War, written by the German officers who had the most knowledge of the campaign. The publication looks above all at the planning for Operation Barbarossa in detail. The first discussions of July 1940, when Hitler ordered the German General Staff to prepare plans for the operation was followed by the genesis of a number of ideas for its execution. The Operations Order of February 1941 was followed by a number of changes. This led to the movement of the necessary troops to the east, and the strategic concentration of air and land elements prior to the attack. All of this is described in detail in the book. Operations are then shown in detail, with supporting maps, and the treatment is chronological. The halt before Moscow, and the indecision of 1942 is shown to have been the basis for the subsequent failure of the whole war against Russia. The effects of the Russian winter counter attack in 1942, the German summer offensive, the stagnation in the autumn of 1942 and the lead up to the Stalingrad debacle are all described in detail. The book is illustrated with a number of charts and 17 situation and planning maps. This publication is fundamental to a study of Operation Barbarossa partly because it sets the scene so well, and also because the failings of 1941 and 1942 are shown to be building into a cumulative disaster from which the German Army was unable to recover.