Selecting a beginning date for World War II can vary depending on whose ox was being gored...The majority of the German people were content to accept the Nazi regime's view that the First World War never really ended, and saw it as a continuation of hostilities which was interrupted by what they termed as the "November Criminals" before they could gain victory...The French, always willing to surrender to anyone on a "first come, first served" basis, have no actual starting date to mark since they were squabbling among themselves for the privilege of raising the first white flag...
A more memorable date for them would be June 22, 1940 when they surrendered, capitulated, and joined forces with the Axis Powers and became the Wehrmacht's shoeshine brigade...Citizens of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands went to sleep one night in May 1940, and awakened to find themselves occupied by German divisions...Dutch forces put up a valiant defense before they were forced to surrender to superior numbers...The peaceful yet gutsy Luxembourgers have had their ups and downs over the centuries, and are accustomed to passerby armies using their land as a thoroughfare to and from battle...They understand their strategic importance in much the same way as Switzerland...
Belgium's weakling King Leopold III quickly caved in although his military staff urged him to flee and establish a government in exile...The heavily reinforced Fort Eben-Emael was quickly taken from the Belgian Army by a handful of German airborne commandos led by a Sergeant...After a short sightseeing tour of Paris, and making sure the trees were properly pruned to let his Nazi hordes march in the shade, Hitler turned his attention to the main goal he had written of so much in Mein Kampf, the bountiful resources and killing fields of Soviet Russia...
The thoroughness of Mr. Fritz in his research did allow me to glean one new outlook for myself...I had hitherto thought of Hitler's longtime habit of pointing his ambitious underlings in a general direction, but on separate paths, then inviting detailed plans which he either approved or sent back for modification, to be a result of his inherent laziness, or his paranoiac fear of being overshadowed as the creator of original thoughts, of which both theories could gain credibility...But I can understand now after the author's explanation of the diligent study, and final analysis of the feasibility of negotiations with Russia (Ribbentrop's Eurasian bloc conception), the Naval Staff's plan to control the Mediterranean, and the talks with both Franco's Spain and his new collaborators, Vichy France, his decision to boldly attack Soviet Russia represented the most potential gain for the least possible risk of failure...
Operation Barbarossa was the military undoing of Hitler...Up to the point where he turned on his allies at the time, the Soviets, his armies had nothing but success in battle...He thought he was a military genius and couldn't be defeated, but his real secret was that he was a rank amateur who did everything unconventionally and took victories mostly by the element of surprise...Any first-year student of the Napoleonic wars could have told him to attack Russia in the spring, not when he could expect his forces to be mired in the mud at the beginning of October...
At the onset of the march to Moscow, the Russian peasants welcomed the invading Germans as their saviors from the slavery of Stalin...The Wehrmacht generals tried to persuade Hitler to feed the Russian peasants who would have been glad to help the German Army defeat Stalinism...Instead Hitler ordered them to take every scrap of food away from the non-Germans and kill as many as possible...Many of the Wehrmacht officers were not willing to indiscriminately order the deaths of civilians, prompting Hitler to send in the Waffen SS with their Einsatzgruppen to do the job...They went into that job with a willingness that bordered on enthusiasm...
When it was obvious his forces were stalled and should withdraw, he ordered them to fight to the last man, thereby ensuring the destruction of his most valuable and battle-hardened armies...At their next advance, they had to rely on green, inexperienced battalions, guaranteeing another defeat...This was the turning point of the European war as the Wehrmacht was on the defensive from then until its surrender...
I have mixed feelings about the author's style and composition of thoughts when reading this book...His approach to the subject from the differing angles of military, political, economic and ideological standpoints is unique, but generates some confusion in moving from one to another...A clearer separation may have been beneficial, and for me, makes the decision to study this era as seen from the viewpoints of many authors seem a wise choice...
As I moved from one chapter to the next, I began to be grateful that the book's scope was limited to the war on the Eastern Front...Without taking away from the author's factual thoroughness, painstaking and accredited research, and his generous acknowledgement of the summation of other authors such as Ian Kershaw and William Shirer, I would recommend students begin their studies with this book, rather than a later time...
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