'Without question one of the classics of post-war historical scholarship, Stone's boldly conceived and brilliantly executed book opened the eyes of a generation of young British historians raised on tales of the Western trenches to the crucial importance of the Eastern Front in the First World War' Niall Ferguson 'Scholarly, lucid, entertaining, based on a thorough knowledge of Austrian and Russian sources, it sharply revises traditional assumptions about the First World War.' Michael Howard

This classic WWII history presents a comprehensive yet vividly detailed account of the Third Reich’s epic and bitter clash with the Red Army. The opening onslaughts of Operation Barbarossa began on June 22nd, 1941, as German forces stormed into the Soviet Union. Few of them were to survive the five long years of bitter struggle. A posting to the Eastern Front during the Second World War was rightly regarded with dread by the German soldiers. They faced the unremitting hostility of the climate, the people and even, at times, their own leadership. There were epic conflicts, such as the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. But surrounding these famous events was a daily war of attrition which ultimately ground Hitler’s war machine to a halt. In this classic account, military historian James Lucas examines the Eastern Front from trench warfare to a bicycle-mounted antitank unit fighting against the oncoming Russian hordes. Told through the experiences of the German soldiers who endured these nightmarish years of warfare, War on the Eastern Front is a unique record of this cataclysmic campaign.

Histories of the German army on the Eastern Front generally focus on battlefield exploits on the war as it was fought in the front line. They tend to neglect other aspects of the armys experience, particularly its participation in the racial war demanded by the leadership of the Reich. This ground-breaking book aims to correct this incomplete, often misleading picture. Using a selection of revealing extracts from a wide range of wartime documents, it looks at the totality of the Wehrmachts war in the East. The documents have previously been unpublished or have never been translated into English, and they offer a fascinating inside view of the armys actions and attitudes. Combat is covered, and complicity in Hitlers war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. There are sections on the conduct of the war in the rear areas logistics, medical, judicial and the armys tactics, motivation and leadership. The entire text is informed by the latest research into the reality of the conflict as it was perceived and understood by those who took part.

A study, based on Soviet and German archival sources, of Soviet partisan activities in the rear of the German Army Group North 1941-44.

The Eastern Front gives an authoritative account of the epic clash between two infamous dictators, Hitler and Stalin, as they vied for supremacy during World War II. Exploring in detail the German and Soviet armies in 1941, it covers all the most infamous campaigns and offensive operations. A selection of action photos plus outstanding illustrations and art showcase the main battles, vehicles, uniforms, maps, and equipment.

By 1944, the overwhelming majority of the German Army had participated in the German war of annihilation in the Soviet Union and historians continue to debate the motivations behind the violence unleashed in the east. Jeff Rutherford offers an important new contribution to this debate through a study of combat and the occupation policies of three frontline infantry divisions. He shows that while Nazi racial ideology provided a legitimizing context in which violence was not only accepted but encouraged, it was the Wehrmacht's adherence to a doctrine of military necessity which is critical in explaining why German soldiers fought as they did. This meant that the German Army would do whatever was necessary to emerge victorious on the battlefield. Periods of brutality were intermixed with conciliation as the army's view and treatment of the civilian population evolved based on its appreciation of the larger context of war in the east.

Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and events on the Eastern Front that same year were pivotal to the history of World War II. It was during this year that the radicalization of Nazi policy -- through both an all-encompassing approach to warfare and the application of genocidal practices -- became most obvious. Germany's military aggression and overtly ideological conduct, culminating in genocide against Soviet Jewry and the decimation of the Soviet population through planned starvation and brutal antipartisan policies, distinguished Operation Barbarossa-the code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union-from all previous military campaigns in modern European history. This collection of essays, written by young scholars of seven different nationalities, provides readers with the most current interpretations of Germany's military, economic, racial, and diplomatic policies in 1941. With its breadth and its thematic focus on total war, genocide, and radicalization, this volume fills a considerable gap in English-language literature on Germany's war of annihilation against the Soviet Union and the radicalization of World War II during this critical year. Alex J. Kay is the author of Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940-1941 and is an independent contractor for the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences. Jeff Rutherford is assistant professor of history at Wheeling Jesuit University, where he teaches modern European history. David Stahel is the author of Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East and Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East.