Böcker av Samuel W. Mitcham Jr.

History's greatest military operation and the commanders who nearly led it to success . . . This book not only tells the story of Operation Barbarossa but describes the expertise, skills, and decision-making powers of the men who directed it.

They include German personnel records, unpublished papers, and the manuscripts of top German officers like general of Panzer Troops Baron Leo Geys von Schweppenburg, the commander of Panzer Group West.

How did an Austrian tramp named Adolf Hitler become Germany's chancellor, in a position to launch the most infamous reign of terror experienced in the 20th century? The book shows the Germany of the 1920s and early 1930s, as the Nazis grasped for power and Germany's democratic foundations crumbled.

His staff officers and company, battalion, and regimental commanders were an extremely capable collection of military leaders that included 12 future generals (two of them SS), and two colonels who briefly commanded panzer divisions but never reached general rank.

Hitler's tank divisions were some of his most feared troops and most lethal weapons in the taking and securing of territory during World War II. Mitcham assesses the performance and quality of each division, including how and why it changed over time.

Rommel's first field command during the war was the 7th Panzer Division, also known as the Ghost Division, which he led in France in 1940. It destroyed the French 1st Armored Division and the 4th North African Division, punched through the Maginot Line extension near Sivry, and checked the largest Allied counteroffensive of the campaign at Arras.

Mitcham covers the Battle of the Schnee Eifel from the German point of view in greater depth than any book has ever done, using unpublished German after-action reports and manuscripts, especially those of Lieutenant Colonel Dietrich Moll, the chief of operations of the 18th Volksgrenadier.

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.