Overview

In the wake of the Red Army's signal victory at Stalingrad, which began when its surprise counteroffensive encircled German Sixth Army in Stalingrad region in mid-November 1942 and ended when its forces liquidated beleaguered Sixth Army in early February 1943, the Soviet High Command (Stavka) expanded its counteroffensive into a full-fledged winter offensive which nearly collapsed German defenses in southern Russia. Exploiting newly released Russian archival materials, After Stalingrad reveals the unbounded ambitions that shaped the Stavka's winter offensive and the full scope and scale of the Red Army's many offensive operations. For example, it reflects on recently rediscovered Operation Mars, Marshal Zhukov's companion-piece to the more famous Operation Uranus at Stalingrad. It then reexamines the Red Army's dramatic offensive into the Donbas and Khar'kov region during February, clearly demonstrating that this offensive was indeed conducted by three rather than two Red Army fronts. Likewise, it describes how the Stavka expanded the scale of its offensive in mid-February 1943 by ordering major strategic efforts, hitherto ignored, by multiple Red Army fronts along the Western (Orel-Smolensk) axis and, in Zhukov's forgotten operation Polar Star, along the Northwestern (Demiansk-Leningrad) axis as well. Finally, by restoring the full scope of these failed or partially failed Red Army offensives to history, this volume also reassesses the impact of Manstein's dramatic counterstrokes in the Donbas and Khar'kov regions, concluding that their impact was equivalent to that of a full-fledged strategic counteroffensive. This new study includes over 100 operational maps to highlight key aspects of the offensives.

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9781906033262

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Reviews

...sheds new light on not only events in Southern Russia during the winter of 1942-43, but also the fierce combat that took place across the German Eastern Front during the same period. Glantz has mined newly revealed primary source material from the Russian archives to produce a fresh look at this important time in the war. Most importantly, Glantz helps clear up past myths by showing the reader the incredibly ambitious strategic intent behind Stavka's 1942-1943 winter campaign... prepare to have your pre-existing vision of the Second World War's Eastern Front challenged and be ready to reappraise what you thought you knew about the war. --Globe at War

...sheds new light on not only events in Southern Russia during the winter of 1942-43, but also the fierce combat that took place across the German Eastern Front during the same period. Glantz has mined newly revealed primary source material from the Russian archives to produce a fresh look at this important time in the war. Most importantly, Glantz helps clear up past myths by showing the reader the incredibly ambitious strategic intent behind Stavka's 1942-1943 winter campaign... prepare to have your pre-existing vision of the Second World War's Eastern Front challenged and be ready to reappraise what you thought you knew about the war. -- Globe at War

""...sheds new light on not only events in Southern Russia during the winter of 1942-43, but also the fierce combat that took place across the German Eastern Front during the same period. Glantz has mined newly revealed primary source material from the Russian archives to produce a fresh look at this important time in the war. Most importantly, Glantz helps clear up past myths by showing the reader the incredibly ambitious strategic intent behind Stavka's 1942-1943 winter campaign... prepare to have your pre-existing vision of the Second World War's Eastern Front challenged and be ready to reappraise what you thought you knew about the war. ""-- ""Globe at War""

Author Information

A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College, Defense Language Institute, Institute for Russian and Eastern European Studies, and US Army War College, before retiring from the U.S. Army in December 1993, Colonel David M. Glantz served for over 30 years in various field artillery, intelligence, teaching, and research assignments in Europe and Vietnam, taught at the United States Military Academy, the Combat Studies Institute, and Army War College, founded and directed the U.S. Army's Foreign (Soviet) Military Studies Office, and established and currently edits The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. A member of the Russian Federation's Academy of Natural Sciences, he has written or co-authored more than 60 books and self-published studies and atlases, as well as hundreds of articles on Soviet military strategy, intelligence, and deception and the history of the Red (Soviet) Army, Soviet (Russian) military history, and World War II. In recognition of his work, he has received numerous awards including the Society of Military History's prestigious Samuel Eliot Morrison Prize for his contributions to the study of military history.

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