paints up some WWII Soviet aircraft.
Panzers in the Defense of Festung Posen 1945
The first book published in English to describe the bitter battle for Festung Poznań in 1945. That Polish city, occupied by the Nazis since almost the very beginning of the Second World War in 1939, was declared a fortress (Festung) on January 20, 1945, and for the whole month, it saw heavy fighting between Wehrmacht and Waffen SS troops and the Red Army advancing directly towards Berlin. Among the garrison of the fortress, a special part was played by a small heavy panzer unit which possessed just one Tiger tank, two Panthers, one Panzer IV, and a handful of Sturmgeschütze.
Despite the difficulty and sparsity of sources, the authors were able to acquire an impressive wealth of information and memoirs, as well as rich iconography. Before Poland was able to regain her full political autonomy in 1990, the fighting in Poznań was described only by Zbigniew Szumowski and Stanisław Okęcki. These, however, were poor compilations, only marginally touching upon the participation of the German Wehrmacht. These authors looked upon this subject through the lenses of Soviet documentations and historiographical propaganda of their times. Sadly, they could not or would not make use of the documents in German archives. Their cardinal mistake was to overestimate the strength of the forces at play (especially on the German side), and the glorification of the Soviet victory, foregoing an honest analysis of the losses of human life, as well as equipment, on both sides.
This is the first book in English that allows the reader to follow the street-fighting in Poznań through the eyes of the Wehrmacht soldiers, documenting the story of the German armored forces engaged in the battles for the city.
Paperback
297mm x 210mm
96 pages
16 color photos
61 black-and-white photos
11 black-and-white maps
8 tables
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