Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.

The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).

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Dr. Foo
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by Dr. Foo »

I liked this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Retreat-Hitlers-First-Defeat/dp/0312628196

It's an easy read. Full of first hand accounts and won't bog you down in scholarly dribble.
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Do not accept or follow any medical advice*
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by kfmiller41 »

Here is one I heartily recommend "An infantryman in Stalingrad" and also any of the other books by Leaping Horseman Publishers, they are all very in your face books about the fighting by individual units and are all well done with maps and pictures.

http://www.amazon.com/Infantryman-Stali ... stalingrad
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tevans6220
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by tevans6220 »

I'm reading Manstein's Lost Victories now. Very good read. Just got to the part about German attempts to relieve Stalingrad.
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by sh0nyu »

Just be very careful reading "old german generals" - they try to present a clean wehrmacht - they not only want to avoid facts about the war crimes, they also want to blame Hitler for all unsuccessful operations. It was said already but can't be said enough. I'm interested in reading them to, but always try to consider the above said.
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SigUp
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by SigUp »

For people understanding German the 13 volume series "Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg" by the history research office of the German armed forces is very good. Two volumes are (almost) solely dedicated to the Eastern Front, with the fourth volume about Barbarossa (1172 pages) and the eight volume about the Eastern Front in 1943/44 (1320 pages). The Eastern Front in 1942 is covered in volume six. There is an English translation of volumes four and six, although the availability is pretty limited.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany_an ... _World_War
swkuh
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by swkuh »

Thanks, SigUp! Seems an immense undertaking by qualified people. Will pursue this one.

Now, how about a three paragraph summary? (Joke, joke.)
Tashtego
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by Tashtego »

A Stranger to Myself. By Willy Peter Reese.
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by Tashtego »

The Black March. By Peter Neumann.
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by Tashtego »

Through Hell for Hitler. by Henry Metelmann.
rainman2015
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by rainman2015 »

Lots of very interesting books!

Randy
:)
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by Tashtego »

Another one, Randy is In Deadly Combat by Gottlob Bidermann.
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by Tashtego »

And one more, Hell's Gate by Douglas E. Nash.
solops
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by solops »

You really need to read several books to get a good picture of the Eastern Front. Most of the others I have seen above are deeply sourced on several of these.

"Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East" and "Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East" by Earl F. Ziemke and published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History. These are the definitive operational level histories based on captured German documents and interviews. Written prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, they lack depth from the Soviet perspective, but are so well researched the deficiency is irrelevant when combined with some other sources.


http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/ ... 0-12-1.pdf
http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/ ... 30-5-1.pdf


Operation Barbarossa by Bryan I. Fugate - outstanding look at Barbarossa from the Soviet view. Based on Soviet sources, it turns the conventional view of Barbarossa on its head. No other book takes the plunge into Soviet intentions like this one. Outstanding.



Standing Fast: German Defensive Doctrine on the Russian Front During World War II – by Major Timothy A. Wray. This is book from the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth. From the introduction:

“In this Research Survey, Major Timothy A. Wray provides an excellent survey of the intricacies of employing defensive tactics against a powerful opponent. Using after-action reports, unit war diaries, and other primary materials, Major Wray analyzes the doctrine and tactics that the Germans used on the Eastern Front during World War II. At the end of World War I, the Germans adopted the elastic defense in depth and continued to use it as their basic doctrine through the end of World War II. However, because of limitations caused by difficult terrain, severe weather, manpower and supply shortages, Soviet tactics, and Hitler’s order to stand fast. German commanders were unable to implement the Elastic Defense in its true form. Even so, innovative and resourceful unit commanders were able to adapt to the harsh realities of combat and improvise defensive methods that saved the German armies from complete annihilation.

U.S. Army unit commanders on the future battlefield, while battling a motivated and aggressive force, will also face hard battlefield conditions. Therefore, these commanders, in applying the AirLand Battle tenets of initiative, depth, agility, and synchronization, will have to demonstrate the same type of innovativeness and resourcefulness as the Germans did in Russia. To operate in the AirLand Battlefield, U.S. soldiers must depend on sound doctrine and the ability to execute it intelligently. All Army officers will benefit from Major Wray’s new and vital assessment of how German doctrine was modified by the test of war.

September 1986
I
~~~~~
FREDERICK M. FRANKS, JR.
Major General, USA
Deputy Commandant”

http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/d ... s/wray.pdf






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solops
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by solops »

If you want individual soldier stuff, read anything by Sven Hassel. He was there. Fought as a PFC on all fronts except Africa in a penal battalion, mostly on the eastern front, from what I can see. He writes from a bottom-of-the-trench view.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.-Edmund Burke
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; if it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.-Judge Learned Hand
Qitbuqa
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by Qitbuqa »

Not really a book, more like a 1979 interview with General Hermann Balck who was decorated among other things with a Knight's Cross with oak leaves, swords and diamonds.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a160703.pdf
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demyansk
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by demyansk »

Anything written by David Stahel. I have read all his books and you can find them on Amazon. He also quotes David Glantz as well. Stahel writes in a method that is easy to understand and doesn't bore you with to many numbers.
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demyansk
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by demyansk »

Man, Thanks for those links on Ziemke's books !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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uw06670
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by uw06670 »

Where the Iron Crosses Grow: The Crimea 1941-1944 by Robert Forczyk
very nice detail about the tactical situation on the ground and good overall strategic issues of the theater

- Mark
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demyansk
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by demyansk »

ORIGINAL: uw06670

Where the Iron Crosses Grow: The Crimea 1941-1944 by Robert Forczyk
very nice detail about the tactical situation on the ground and good overall strategic issues of the theater

I just read this book, easy read[img]

this is only one bookcase of ww2 books all on germany, ussr
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Eambar
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RE: Best Books on Eastern Front (that put you right there in the action)?!

Post by Eambar »

ORIGINAL: uw06670

Where the Iron Crosses Grow: The Crimea 1941-1944 by Robert Forczyk
very nice detail about the tactical situation on the ground and good overall strategic issues of the theater


I've been seeing this one come up on my Amazon recommendations, seems like it might be worth picking up.

Cheers,
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