Being there . . . . when Herr Hitler resolved to attack Russia, then eyewitness first-hand how in
early 1941 he was already sowing the seeds for Germany’s disastrous defeat and blowing half
the back of his own head off less than four years later. Watch how the “Greatest Military
Strategist in World History”, as his sycophants referred to him, diverted from that invasion
critical armored and airborne troops to smash the Jugoslav and Greek resistance while
simultaneously driving the British out of Greece and Crete. Delaying the start of his Russian
offensive, even though the start of his determined Russian “crushing” involved a minute
fraction of the immense German and satellite armies assembling on the 1,500-mile western
frontier of the U.S.S.R. On top of this, watch, wait, and hold your breath in the next step that
later would crush the formidable Nazi SS Panzer Divisions protecting Germany’s eastern fronts,
a stone’s throw from the Fuhrerbunker: the very daring of Britain’s offensive operations in the
Middle East causing Hitler and his highest military staffs to rethink that maybe the British and
her dominion forces were stronger than she was. If Churchill had Turkey and the Middle East
oilwells on his side, plus a dominating position on Russia’s southern flank, Hitler best gets his
better units back to eastern Poland to lead Operation Barbarossa. On June 22 of 1941,
impatient Hitler launched his armies in a monstrous frontal attack on the flimsy, outdated
Russian border-protecting armies. Note the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany – – barred by
the tenuous ring of British sea-power from breaking out of Europe into southern Asia and
Africa, the dictator unleashed his massive forces eastwards, like Napoleon, across the
boundless plains of Russia.
RECALLING “OPERATION BARBAROSSA”, early Sunday morning, June 22, 1941, WHEN 1,800
LUFTWAFFE PLANES AND 3,000,000 GERMAN TROOPS LED BY 3,580 MODERN TANKS SURGED
ACROSS THE POLISH BORDER IN A THREE-PRONGED ATTACK AIMED AT LENINGRAD, MOSCOW,
AND KIEV FOR OPTIMAL SURPRISE. THE GREATEST MILITARY ASSAULT IN HISTORY CAME AS A
BOLT OF LIGHTNING OUT OF THE SUMMER SKY. RUSSIAN DEFEAT AFTER DEFEAT FOLLOWED,
ALL FOR NAUGHT – GERMANY HAD BEGUN HER DSESCENT INTO HELL . . . .
Reviewed and Highly Recommended by Don DeNevi
“BARBAROSSA UNLEASHED – – The German Blitzkrieg through Central Russia to the Gates of
Moscow, June – December 1941”, by Craig W. H. Luther. Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, Pa, 19310:
originally published 2013, 711 pages,7 ½” x 10 ½ “, hardcover, $59.99. Visit by E-mail:
Info@schifferbooks.com.
This superb book examines in unprecedented detail the advance of German Army Group
Center through central Russia toward Moscow and subsequent winter battles into early 1942.
Based on hundreds of veterans’ accounts, archival documents, and exhaustive study of the
pertinent primary and secondary literature, the book offers new insights into Operation
Barbarossa. While the book meticulously explores the experiences of the German Landser in
Russia, in the cauldron battles along the Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow axis, it places their
experiences squarely within the strategic and operational context of the Russian campaign.
Controversial subjects, such as the culpability of the German eastern armies in war crimes
against the Russia people, are also examined in detail. Simply put, this book is the most detail
account to date of virtually all aspects of the German soldiers’ experiences in Russia in 1941.
David Glantz, one of the three best World War II historians to examine at length Hitler’s insane
idea of toppling the Soviet Union with one swift kick shattering it to the ground, writes in a
refreshing endorsement of Craig’s research and narration of it, “By exploiting a wide range of
new sources and fresh archival-based interpretations, the author book offers enthralling
perspectives on ‘Barbarossa’ through the eyes of German soldiers and their commanders.”
Echoes Juergen Foerster, a faculty member and famed World War II historian, “This is high-class
operational history full of illuminating details and stimulating ideas put in its proper political
and strategic context. All agree, author-researcher Craig Luther has added greatly to our
knowledge of that ferocious invasion. His is a work of outstanding scholarship.”
