The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944-1945 (Modern War Studies) by Robert M. Citino (PDF)

Description

By 1943, the war was lost, and most German officers knew it. Three quarters of a century later, the question persists: What kept the German army going in an increasingly hopeless situation? Where some historians have found explanations in the power of Hitler or the role of ideology, Robert M. Citino, the world’s leading scholar on the subject, posits a more straightforward solution: Bewegungskrieg, the way of war cultivated by the Germans over the course of history. In this gripping account of German military campaigns during the final phase of World War II, Citino charts the inevitable path by which Bewegungskrieg, or a “war of movement,” inexorably led to Nazi Germany’s defeat. The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand analyzes the German Totenritt, or “death ride,” from January 1944—with simultaneous Allied offensives at Anzio and Ukraine—until May 1945, the collapse of the Wehrmacht in the field, and the Soviet storming of Berlin. In clear and compelling prose, and bringing extensive reading of the German-language literature to bear, Citino focuses on the German view of these campaigns. Often very different from the Allied perspective, this approach allows for a more nuanced and far-reaching understanding of the last battles of the Wehrmacht than any now available. With Citino’s previous volumes, Death of the Wehrmacht and The Wehrmacht Retreats, The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand completes a uniquely comprehensive picture of the German army’s strategy, operations, and performance against the Allies in World War II.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Citino writes in an engaging style, supported by extensive archival and secondary research, and presents the German Army’s struggles on the personal, tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war. This book, like its two predecessors, belongs on the shelves of dedicated military historians.”—Army History”With its highly readable prose and excellent writing style, The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand is highly recommended for anyone trying to understand the Germany Army during the last days of the Second World War.”–Journal of Military History”As we have come to expect from Citino, the book is thoroughly researched, clearly narrated, and tightly argued. [He] takes military historians to school by demonstrating how operational history should be written, Citino’s body of work, The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand plus its siblings, is essential reading for those taking study of the German military operations to the next level.”–H-Net Reviews”An account and analysis of German military operations in the last year of World War II that is sure to enlighten anyone who wants some insight into the way that war ended and how the German military tried to cope with a multi-front conflict. Balanced and thoughtful reviews of plans and events on both sides of the fronts, careful utilization of an enormous literature, and shrewd judgments characterize a book that will receive and merit attention for many years.”–Gerhard L. Weinberg, author of A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II “Written with his customary verve and lively prose, Citino also displays his typically penetrating insight, formidable research, and depth of knowledge in describing German operations in the often overlooked last year and a half of the war. He shows a keen understanding of the German dilemma, a propensity for sharp observations, and, as always, a knack for challenging conventional wisdom. This is a compelling and thought-provoking book brimming with insight that forces the reader to reflect on the personalities and operations–both a product of a distinctive military culture–that continued to fuel the Nazi war machine until the bitter end of this most destructive war. A worthy successor to his earlier works on the Wehrmacht.”–Stephen G. Fritz, author of Ostkrieg: Hitler’s War of Extermination in the East “Citino combines accuracy, balance, and brilliant writing. Along with Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942 and The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943, this book is a must for anyone who wants to understand the Wehrmacht.”–Geoffrey Megargee, author of Inside Hitler’s High Command About the Author Robert M. Citino is the Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian at the National World War II Museum. His many books include the multi-award-winning The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943; Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942; and The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich, all published by Kansas.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944-1945 completes the massive and meticulous study of the operational history of the German Army during World War II by Robert Citino, a prolific author on German military history. To say that this is a thoroughly researched book is an understatement, given its ninety plus pages of end notes and thirty-seven pages of bibliography. A number of the citations expand on the argument in the text or deal with historiographical issues.The big question is: why did the German army continue to fight when the war was clearly lost by 1944? The Germans were greatly outnumbered in manpower and equipment, and the Allied control of the air made daylight ground movement virtually impossible. Citino argues that it was “the specter of 1918,” the stab-in-back myth that the World War I German army was victorious until socialists and Jews sold it out. “Human beings,” the author writes, “have an infinite capacity for believing falsehoods, fairy tales and self-justifying rationales for their own failure, and here also the officers of the Wehrmacht were all too human. This time, they swore, they would not weaken or waver: they would fight on till the end, till midnight, ‘even five past midnight,’ if that’s what it took.” (16-17) He calls it the “death ride.” Added to this was the fact that the vast majority of the generals were true believers in Hitler, despite their criticisms of the Fuhrer’s wartime military decisions in their postwar writings and their efforts to separate themselves from the atrocities committed against Russians, Jews, and others.Throughout this work, Citino praises a number of operations by the Americans and Russians, less so the British, especially Operation Market Garden. He compliments General Dwight Eisenhower for his recognition of the possibilities that Operation Wacht am Rhine held for the Allies since the Germans had come out from defensive positions and could now be killed and/or captured. The Russian offensives were less nuanced than those of the Germans; the Red Army relied more on sheer force given their manpower and equipment advantage. Operation Bagration in 1944 was well-conceived and completely broke Army Group Center, creating a massive hole exploited by mechanized forces. Occasionally, Citino applauds a German counterattack, like Field Marshal Walter Model’s concentric use of four understrength divisions to blunt the Soviet offensive east of Warsaw. His 233 tanks destroyed 550 of the Soviet Second Tank Army’s 800 tanks, sending that army home to refit. When determining why the Red Army stopped short of Warsaw and allowed the Germans to decimate the Polish uprising there, one should take into account Model’s counterattack and the fact that the Red Army had advanced some 450 miles, was at the end of their supply line, was in bad need of rest and repair..While everyone is familiar with the Battle of the Bulge and Patton’s role in it (especially if one has seen the movie Patton with George C. Scott in the title role), few are probably as acquainted with Operation Nordwind, which began on 31 December 1944. Put together in a little over a week, this last, great German offensive almost encircled U.S. Army’s VI Corps in the Alsace region. Much of this corps’ forces had been shifted to the north to deal with the German Ardennes offensive, and it was, therefore, not at full strength at the time of the attack. While the German offensive failed, they fought “with verve, spirit, boldness, and a frightening level of lethality.” (420) Citino points out that Allied airpower pummeled the Germans in the Ardennes, but the intervention of Allied fighters and fighter-bombers are not mentioned in this battle. Were they not available because they were needed in the Ardennes?Finally, if the German generals believed that the war was lost, why did they not join in the conspiracy to kill Hitler on 20 July 1944. Reasons given by the generals who stood on the sidelines included such statements that in wartime this act was nothing short of treason, their focus was on the Soviet offensive in the east, and their oath to Hitler was irreversible. Citino, however, cites a number of times that German generals had broken their oaths from November 1918 into the early Nazi rule. The author asserts that the vast majority of generals were committed to National Socialist goals and loyal to the Fuhrer.This is a superbly written work that will quickly engage anyone interested in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. While much of the book covers familiar ground, there are a number of nuggets of new information and interpretation to make the read worthwhile. (For example, Citino argues that Hitler was the most honest politician in the 20th century, because he did what he said he would.) If one has not yet read Citino’s first two volumes, he or she needs to explore all three.

⭐The best book on WWII I have ever read.

⭐After reading Robert Citino’s excellent book on 1943, The Wehrmacht Retreats, I eagerly awaited this one. It did not disappoint.Managing to pack a large narrative of 1944-1945 into one volume is difficult, but Citino manages to do so, beginning in the Korsun pocket and ending in the rubble of Berlin and the Ruhr. The book covers all the battles in detail, showing how the Germans, with their knack for bouncing back from defeat, continued to fight and attack, denying the Allies the easy win they hoped for but losing nonetheless. Citino has a kind of material determinism to his writing-he scoffs at “maskirovka” deception efforts by the Allies and (rightly) emphasizes that the summer victories of D-Day and Bagration were won against a Wehrmacht that had been reduced to a tattered wreck (which in no way discounts the gargantuan effort involved). Citino also avoids alternate-history romanticism, having dismissing arguments as to whether Elsenborn falling, the panzers moving toward Objective X instead Objective Y, or other zigzags would have made any difference.In addition to this slant, there’s a few sour notes. Citino’s bibliography is gigantic but includes very few Soviet primary sources, forgivable earlier but not likely today. He also appears to talk of German “big cat” tanks being pound-for-pound better than Allied ones, a now-outdated view. And his view of the Nordwind battle in early 1945 (which he considers a German tactical victory) smacks of either deliberate controversy or interpreting it to fit a narrative (that the Germans could still fight intensely).Despite this, the book is an excellent conclusion and an effective-enough study of the final year of World War II.

⭐I felt this was another excellent book by Citino , but not as good as his two preceding books “Death of the Wehrmacht” and “The Wehrmacht Retreats.” The current book (“Last Stand”) reiterates much of his declaiming from the previous two books on how the German Army emphasized maneuver warfare (“bewegungskrieg”) and really didn’t comprehend issues such as production, logistics, and intelligence. At least, they didn’t emphasize those things like the Americans, British, and the Soviets did.”Last Stand” explores more of the question of why the German generals and top civilian leaders such as Albert Speer followed Hitler to the bitter end. It’s a complicated question without a simple answer. I think Ian Kershaw in his book “The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany 1944 – 1945” discusses this in much more detail with much more analysis and explanation. Essentially, the German generals and officers in general, and even the lower ranks, and the civilian leaders wholeheartedly bought into the Nazi ideology. The post-war memoirs of assorted generals try to make it sound like they all fought the war reluctantly and, of course, had no personal involvement in the numerous atrocities. It’s very disturbing, I think, to realize that supposedly intelligent and well-educated people can do such things.

⭐This is the military history book of the year, for me. For those not accustomed to Mr Citino he is what I would call a ‘combative’ historian – i.e he batters you with his opinion but in a way that is very seductive. Even though one may disagree with his point of view – such as the ‘success’ of the Nordwind offensive – his excitable prose manages to slip into the thought patterns of even the most sceptical reader. Please do not take this the wrong way – Citino is not a revisionist historian, with all the fake news that the term implies. No. He is a classical historian with a desire to shed new light on history, especially the achievements (or not!) of the German army over the period 1870-1945. I know I have touched more on his style than the contents of the book, but it is his very ‘style’ that makes his writing so compelling to both novice and front veteran alike. The actual book destroys the myth that has driven the history of the Wehrmacht in the last year of WW2 – that it was a well organised weapon of war, led by staff officers at the top of the class. The truth, as he demonstrates with a passion, is that they were moral cowards; a group of men who could not see a way out of ending the war, their actions thus helping Hitler to destroy the world, or a good portion of it at least. A supreme book and one that deserves pride of place on any book shelf concerning the German side of the war, especially the strategic end of the spectrum.

⭐brill item; v good service

⭐A must own, third part of a terrific trilogy dealing with the German army in the Second World War. A must own set for both amateur and professional military historians!

⭐A lively and well-informed discussion of the wehrmacht;s final year and what motivated it to fight to the bitter end.

⭐I found this book well written and insightful. I can not say I agree with all his points but that is what make’s this a good book it is good to have ones views challenged so you look again at your views and can redraw your own conclusions. As it is written by an American it is a little bit one sided but so is the case when you read books written by Russian or British authors worth getting and reading.

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