"Fighting in Hell Review" Topic

" This is another book that has been sitting on my 'to read' shelf for some time. Edited by Peter Tsouras, he uses a number of studies written by former German generals for the US Army after WW2. The focus in this book is officers who had extensive experience of the eastern front. They are written by Germans and from a German point of view, translated but not interpreted by American personnel. They provide an interesting insight into combat on this front.

The main study is written by Erhard Rauss on Russian combat methods, followed by his views on the effect climate had on combat in European Russia. The other studies are on warfare in the far north and combat in forests and swamps.

One of the biggest surprises, to me at least, was how ill-prepared the German military was for fighting in the East. The General Staff had taken no interest in the history of wars in the north and east of Europe. I naively assumed their much-vaunted efficiency would have included the possibility that German troops might at some stage be required to fight in these regions. At the very least you would have thought some hurried work would have been commissioned in late 1940 when Hitler first indicated that he was considering such a move…"

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Armand

Guderian's memoir goes pretty quickly from how wonderful it was to be flying along the farm roads in their armored columns to how awful it was that his men were losing their feet to frostbite.

They did so much planning, but somehow didn't plan for the ordinary weather of the country they were invading.

German strategic intelligence was as horrifying bad as their tactical intelligence was good – much of the German high level planning was based on intelligence that was just wrong