Overview

For Hitler and the German military, 1942 was a key turning point of World War II, as an overstretched but still lethal Wehrmacht replaced brilliant victories and huge territorial gains with stalemates and strategic retreats. In this major reevaluation of that crucial year, Robert Citino shows that the German army's emerging woes were rooted as much in its addiction to the ""war of movement""--attempts to smash the enemy in ""short and lively"" campaigns--as they were in Hitler's deeply flawed management of the war. From the overwhelming operational victories at Kerch and Kharkov in May to the catastrophic defeats at El Alamein and Stalingrad, Death of the Wehrmacht offers an eye-opening new view of that decisive year. Building upon his widely respected critique in The German Way of War, Citino shows how the campaigns of 1942 fit within the centuries-old patterns of Prussian/German warmaking and ultimately doomed Hitler's expansionist ambitions. He examines every major campaign and battle in the Russian and North African theaters throughout the year to assess how a military geared to quick and decisive victories coped when the tide turned against it. More than the turning point of a war, 1942 marked the death of a very old and traditional pattern of warmaking, with the classic ""German way of war"" unable to meet the challenges of the twentieth century.

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Robert M. Citino is professor of history at the University of North Texas and author of The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich; Quest for Decisive Victory: From Stalemate to Blitzkrieg in Europe, 1899-1940; and Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm: The Evolution of Operational Warfare, which won both the Society for Military History's Distinguished Book Award and the American Historical Association's Paul Birdsall Prize. Tom Beyer is a character actor who has appeared in over 100 TV shows, films, and commercials; has performed in innumerable plays and musicals; and has narrated many audiobooks. Grown in New York, fermented in Seattle, and aged in Los Angeles, his passions include Shakespeare, reading, intense physical exercise, and animal rescue. He has won awards for his stage work as both an actor and a director, and has adapted classical literature for the theater. He believes strongly in civic engagement, and volunteers for multiple organizations.

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