Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
By the time Pearl Harbor had ripped apart America's peacetime pretensions, the German blitzkrieg had already blasted the Red Army back to the gates of Moscow. Yet, less than four years later, the Soviet hammer-and-sickle flew above the ruins of Berlin, stark symbol of a miraculous comeback that destroyed the German army and shattered Hitler's imperial designs.
Told in swift stirring prose, When Titans Clashed provides the first full account of this epic struggle from the Soviet perspective. David Glantz, one of the world's foremost authorities on the Soviet military, and Jonathan House present a fundamentally new interpretation of what the Russians called the Great Patriotic War. Based on unprecedented access to formerly classified Soviet sources, they counter the German perspective that has dominated previous accounts and radically revise our understanding of the Soviet experience during World War II.
Placing the war within its wider political, economic, and social contexts, the authors recount how the determined Soviets overcame their initial disasters to defeat the most powerful army ever assembled. As they vividly show, this truly was war waged on a titanic scale, sweeping across a half-million square miles from Moscow to Berlin, featuring monumental offensives and counteroffensives, and ultimately costing both sides combined a staggering forty million casualties.
Their work offers new revelations on Soviet strategy and tactics, Stalin's role as supreme commander of the Red Army, the emergence of innovative and courageous commanders in the crucible of combat, numerous previously concealed or neglected military operations, German miscalculations on the road to the Red capital, the effect of D-Day and the second front on the Soviet effort, and the war's devastating impact on the Soviet economy and civilian population.
An essential volume for anyone interested in World War II or Soviet history, When Titans Clashed will change forever how we look at one of the greatest military confrontations in world history.
Table of Contents
List of Maps and Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prelude: 1918-1941
1. The Red Army, 1918-1939
2. Armed Truce, 1939-1941
3. Opposing Armies, 1941
First Period of War: June 1941-November 1942
4. German Onslaught
5. Soviet Response
6. To Moscow
7. Rasputitsa, Spring 1942
8. Operation Blau: The German Drive on Stalingrad
Second Period of War: November 1942-December 1943
9. Operation Uranus: The Destruction of the Sixth Armym
10. Rasputitsa and Operational Pause, Spring 1943
11. Kursk to the Dnepr
Third Period of War: January 1944-1945
12. Third Winter of War
13. Operation Bagration: The Death of Army Group Center
14. Clearing the Flanks
15. Battles in the Snow, Winter 1945
16. End Game
17. Conclusion
Appendixes: Statistical Tables
Archival Sources
Notes
About the authors
Index