Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West (Modern War Studies (Hardcover))
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.42 (641 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0700614907 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 456 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-12-25 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Starts with a Bang and Ends With A Dud Colin M. Kelly I served in the Army in the area that this book takes place (Buren, south of Paderborn), long after it took place, and enjoyed learning what happened to the towns and cities nearby. This book locks you in early on and is quite a page turner. My biggest fault is that it falls in the last 75-100 pages with what basically becomes the same story with a new town name. Something like, town preparesGermans run.Allies roll in.next town.t. A Shame Highlander Like other military histories, BFTR was both an excellent and a horrible book.In general, Zumbro adequately sets the background for the campaign, focuses on the principle factors that influence the strategic plan, presents the operational level very well, and delves into tactics to make his points. His greatest strength, I believe, is his ability to show the impact of the battle upon German soldiers, civilians, and forced labor. . Battles are much more than just armies fighting James V. Holton Well told book that looks at one of the last western offensives of World War Two. Zumbro's fits well into the "new military history" that goes beyond the hermetically defined "battle field" that excludes civilians, and focuses on the population who was every bit a part of this campaign.Drawn heavily from primary sources from the German side, this book exhaustively recounts the tragedy/victory which resulted in the destruction of
Going well beyond previous accounts, Derek Zumbro chronicles this key military campaign from a unique and fresh perspective—that of the defeated German soldiers and civilians caught in the final maelstrom of the war's western front. By taking us inside the first-hand experiences and memories of Germans from Reichsmarshals to Burgermeisters, Battle for the Ruhr gives a profound and harrowing ground-level view of the enormous destructive power of war.. Zumbro's deep research reveals the identities of specific characters discussed in previous works but never identified, describes the final hours of German officers executed for the loss of the bridge at Remagen, and offers new insight into Model's acquiescence to Hitler in military affairs. He tells of children pressed into service by a desperate Nazi regime-and of even more
"Portrays the full range of experiences that accompanied the Third Reich's death throes and adds a valuable and often fascinating bottom-up perspective to battle narratives from the Allied side." -- Geoffrey P. Megargee"Zumbro conveys the experience of urban combat from the German perspective while still making sense of the larger struggle. From the nightly terrors inflicted by aerial bombardment to the dogged struggle amid ruinstrewn cities, he captures well the essence of war at its most concrete--the daily struggle to survive and the almost routine agonies of existence amid the spreading chaos. Confusion, uncertainty, vicious resistance, revenge killings, casual violence on both sides--all these things, and
Derek S. Zumbro, a former Navy Special Warfare (SEAL) officer, is a respected translator of German-language sources whose translation of Gottlob Bidermann's In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front (see page 49) was a main selection of the History Book Club.