Operation Barbarossa: Nazi Germany's War in the East, 1941-1945

The author gets too judgemental in a book that masquerades as a historical narrative.. There r never good people or bad people in a war of this scale.. So its useless trying to demonise the combatants sitting in the leisure of posterity's chair.. The imperialists, Communists, Nazis neither had the right to claim the moral high ground no matter who won or lost.. History is written by the victors.. Nd historians of all people should therefore be objective about history..

I should have guessed that 166 pages dealing with the entire German/Russian conflict would be very general. In fact, it was well over a third of the way in that he actually began to deal with the conflict itself. Overall I was a tad non-plussed.

Gutes Buch, um etwas zu lernen. Abgesehen von Englisch da Geschichte ja wichtig ist.

As stated, we cannot review it, never having read the book. Hopefully, we will have a review in the future.

As a post-graduate student who studied Russian history for most of his undergraduate degree, I was immediately drawn to this book, as it focused on three of my favourites sections/parts of history: the Second World War, and the Nazi and Soviet regimes from 1941 to 1945, as well as the fact that it was quite short.The text as a whole is a useful introduction to a quite complex and detailed topic - it considers the years building up to Barbarossa (the political aspects as well as the military aspects) and is quite interesting in its contrasting of Nazi/Stalinist ideology, policy and strategy. The war itself is the main focus of the book, and goes into a decent amount of detail regarding the actual Nazi invasion, as well as the Soviet fight-back. Rather neatly, the book also covers the state of Soviet society and Soviet land immediately prior to the invasion - something that is often overlooked by some historians.Whilst I do not think it is possible to truly cover this topic in 166 pages, the author has provided us with a good source of information, which would be a useful tool for students to refer to for a good, reliable source of subject knowledge. Whether or not it adds anything in terms of theory is another matter.The author himself works as a 'historian at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, and is Senior Lecturer at the Staff College of the German Armed Forces in Hamburg. A board member of the German Committee for the History of the Second World War, he is also a historical adviser to the History Channel in Germany.' As a source of information then, Hartmann's book is very good (most OUP books are quite reliable), however, it is by no means a comprehensive outline of Operation Barbarossa (though as I've said, it would be useful to students seeking a quick read for subject knowledge and context, as well as the average person looking for some information about the invasion).However, theoretically, it does not really add anything new, but what do you expect in a book that is only 166 pages? A good read, an excellent source of information (subject knowledge and context) for undergrad students/people interested in the Second World War/Soviet/Nazi military history, but for a more complete view on Barbarossa, you might want to look at other books. That is not to say that this book isn't useful; on the contrary, it is quite unusual to come across a German perspective on Operation Barbarossa. I would recommend it as a general introductory text, but certainly not as a KEY text. It doesn't claim to be a theoretical text and as such shouldn't be criticised because of that; it is still a useful text.

This is an effective and powerful little book that captures the essence of the defining clash of totalitarianisms that wrought such havoc in the core of the 20th century. Whilst it would be churlish to criticise this book too heavily for not being a massively comprehensive account, as a first step in engaging with the totality of the Nazi Soviet clash that defined the Second World War, it is an excellent starting point. Without wishing to be unpleasant, one of its defining functions is to finally usurp the position of Alan Clark's Barbarossa, which for too long has been a false start for a study of the campaign for the casual reader, when its engagement with German and Russian sources is strictly limited. The next step to an accessible overview of the conflict would be to look at Robert Kershaw's War without Garlands, before progressing to John Erikson's Road to Stalingrad and Road to Berlin. There is lots to praise in this account such as the candid, authoritative and highly troubling chapter on German war crimes and atrocities-especially moving, when it is the work of such a respected German academic author. It's a pity that there wasn't a comparable chapter on and analysis of the Soviet method of war and its implications for casualties. There is an awful lot packed into this account of 166 pages, but given the size of the topic it's hardly surprising that this reader was left with an undeniable feeling of wanting more.