Death of the Wehrmacht, Robert M. Citino
Death of the Wehrmacht, Robert M. Citino
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Death of the Wehrmacht
The German Campaigns of 1942

Author: Robert M. Citino

Narrator: Tom Beyer

Unabridged: 16 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/25/2024


Synopsis

For Hitler and the German military, 1942 was a key turning point of World War II, as an overstretched but still lethal Wehrmacht replaced brilliant victories and huge territorial gains with stalemates and strategic retreats. In this major reevaluation of that crucial year, Robert Citino shows that the German army's emerging woes were rooted as much in its addiction to the "war of movement"—attempts to smash the enemy in "short and lively" campaigns—as they were in Hitler's deeply flawed management of the war.

From the overwhelming operational victories at Kerch and Kharkov in May to the catastrophic defeats at El Alamein and Stalingrad, Death of the Wehrmacht offers an eye-opening new view of that decisive year. Building upon his widely respected critique in The German Way of War, Citino shows how the campaigns of 1942 fit within the centuries-old patterns of Prussian/German warmaking and ultimately doomed Hitler's expansionist ambitions. He examines every major campaign and battle in the Russian and North African theaters throughout the year to assess how a military geared to quick and decisive victories coped when the tide turned against it. More than the turning point of a war, 1942 marked the death of a very old and traditional pattern of warmaking, with the classic "German way of war" unable to meet the challenges of the twentieth century.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Creighton on July 08, 2022

I got recommendations to read this series by several people, and one of them is a Youtuber who goes by the name of “TIK-History”, whose videos about the Eastern Front are the most informative on the whole platform. His videos are in-depth, and one of the few channels on YouTube that cites sources an......more

Goodreads review by Heinz on June 29, 2019

In a previous work, Dr. Robert Citino had made a very good case towards a uniquely German Way of War. Taking this examination from the macro scale of several centuries of history, to more of a micro approach with a single year, Citino looks at 1942 and declares that this was the year that the tradit......more

Goodreads review by Sean on May 04, 2025

Citino does for Germany in World War II what Tocqueville did for the French Revolution, depicting the Wehrmacht not as a radical new military force, but one very much in the German tradition. The force failed both as their opponents improved (and amassed more material) and as the military increasing......more

Goodreads review by Jaap on July 10, 2022

Interesting book, describes the campaigns of the Wehrmacht in 1942. The Wehrmacht started that year with impressive victories, but 1942 ended with the destruction op the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad and El Alamein. According to Citino, this marked the end of a particular way of German warfare (Bewegungsk......more

Goodreads review by Morgan on January 08, 2024

Un lavoro di “immersione” nelle campagne di Russia e dell’Africa settentrionale portate avanti dalla Wehrmacht, nell’anno della svolta del 1942. Le temibili armate tedesche, che portavano ad espandersi i confini del totalitarismo nazista in ogni angolo d’Europa, in questo saggio del prof. Citino ven......more