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Crumbling Empire The German Defeat in the East, 1944
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Samuel W. Mitcham
Book Code: C6856
ISBN: 0-275-96856-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-96856-4
336 pages, photos, maps, tables
Praeger Trade
Publication: 6/30/2001
List Price: $36.95 (UK Sterling Price: £21.95)
Availability: Out of stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • Mitcham presents a clear and vivid picture of German military operations in 1944....[a]n excellent study of German leadership down to the brigade level with mini-biogra-phies of most of the German commanders. Crumbling Empire is a good introduction to the war on the Eastern front in 1944.
    —Daily News, Bowling Green, KY     November 2002
  • ...examines the decline of the Third Reich with crystal clarity and perceptive analysis. It is impressively documented and authentic.
    —January 2004
  • Endorsement From Robert Citino, Eastern Michigan University: Mitcham has done it again. Those who admired his earlier work on Rommel will find all the same qualities here: solid research, careful analysis, and, above all, great writing.
  • Endorsement From Walter Dunn
    author of Hitler's Nemesis and Kursk:     Mitcham has provided an extremely valuable service to the general reader of military history. The magnitude of the struggle on the Eastern Front was so great that it defies any attempt to condense the action to a meaningful narration for the general reader. Through Mitcham's describing the events as the individual German commanders saw them and reacted to the Soviet attacks, the reader becomes intimately involved. Numerous charts, tables, maps, and appendices are included for those who want more detail, but the narrative flows in a smooth fashion in highly readable and dramatic prose.
Description: The last place a German soldier wanted to be in 1944 was the Russian front. That summer, Stalin hurled into battle more than six million men and 9,000 tanks, supported by 16,000 fighters and bombers and more than 12,800 guns and rocket launchers. Despite this massive effort and the resulting decimation of German forces, events on the Eastern Front are largely neglected by historians who focus instead on German defeats in Normandy and the Ardennes. This account details the massive battles on the Eastern Front from the summer of 1944 until the fall of Budapest in early 1945, a period when Hitler lost the majority of his conquered Eastern territories and many of his best remaining divisions. To destroy the Third Reich, the Allies needed to defeat the German Wehrmacht militarily, and the decisive victories of this period occurred on the Russian Front. More German soldiers were lost in White Russia than at Stalingrad; more troops were lost in Rumania in a brief ten days than in the entire Normandy campaign; and German losses in Hungary were greater than the Battle of the Bulge. The most mobile army in the world in 1940, the German Army was the least mobile by 1944, and Hitler's "stand fast" and "fortified place" policies imposed a paralysis that neither senior German generals nor the High Command of the Army were able to overcome. Outnumbered 3 to 1 in men, 5 to 1 in tanks, and 20 to 1 in airplanes, the German Army was slaughtered, as casualties mounted and the empire crumbled.
Table of Contents:
  • The Cannae of Army Group Center
  • The Loss of the Ukraine
  • Stabilizing the Front
  • Intro the Courland Pocket
  • Rumania
  • The Retreat from the Balkans
  • The Battle for Hungry
  • Bibliography
  • Appendices
LC Card Number: 00-049171
LCC Class: D764
Dewey Class: 940
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