The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943 [Hardcover]

Mr Citino has written an interesting and informative sequel to his "Death of the Wehrmacht". In the earlier book the author describes the early German victories of 1942 before describing the setbacks that occurred at Stalingrad and North Africa in the last half of the year. In his latest book, the saga of German deterioration continues with the coverage of key campaigns showing that after Germany's lost of momentum in 1942 their continued errors in strategic planning coupled with the inability to keep pace with mobilization and industrial output of the Russians would lead to further deterioration and loss of territory to the point that it became obvious by the end of 1943 Germany had little chance of winning the war. It will also be shown that while Germany was fighting a lost cause it would take the Allies with all its resources a long time to break German determination The campaigns discussed include the retreat of Manstein from the Don River to the Donets after the loss at Stalingrad, the lost of Kharkov, the battle for Kasserine Pass and the American contribution in North Africa, the Kursk offensive, the Russian counteroffensive at Orel, Belgorod and on the Mius River, the loss of Sicily and the invasion of Italy by the western Allies. Much is also said about Hitler's fanatical temperament and erratic leadership as well as the conflict with his generals, especially Manstein.

The concise discussion of the above sectors is very good and helpful. Background info of the battle zone, the circumstances that influenced both sides and the key people that have impact are presented allowing the reader to gain a good overall understanding of the situation. The author revises history a little in order to bring the ability of the Wehrmacht into its proper realm, lowering it a little from the exalted heights it had soared to over the decades. The Germans were good but they were human and they did make mistakes. The premier example and the biggest chapter deals with Operation Citadel. The author goes to great length showing the flawed strategic thinking that led the Wehrmacht to fail their objectives. The author shows that in wanting to take the initiative to encircle and destroy the Russians within the salient, the Germans had to revert to a WWI trench type warfare that was the antithesis to blitzkrieg and which would kill many of their men and destroy many panzers against an enemy that had more of both. Though the Kursk salient was situated ideally for both AGC and AGS to participate, Hitler choses a sector so obviously ripe to be attacked that it defies imagination that the Soviets wouldn't see it. This lack of imagination is compounded by delaying the launch for months to give the Soviets time to prepare and when Citadel is launched, its strictly a frontal attack with few surprises. The author is also critical of Manstein's "backhand" approach which had been successful a few months earlier at retaking Kharkov but the circumstances were much different in July than in March, April. The Russians were rested not overextended, and had time to concentrate greater forces and move more supplies to the area as well as learning from their earlier mistakes.
While I expected good coverage on the Russia Front, the coverage in North Africa was also enlightening and included an appraisal of American involvement in the defense of the Eastern Dorsal. Anderson and Montgomery of the British Army are of course also included in the discussion as the Allies squeezed Arnim into the Tunis corner.

Looking at it from any angle, the author believes Operation Citadel or any variant of it had no chance of success. When a second front opened in September with the Allies landing in Italy the troubles for Hitler just doubled in regards to strategic planning as well as allocation of men, panzers and supplies.
As the author points out, it will be easier for the reader to follow the author's train of thought if "Death of the Wehrmacht" which covers the key campaigns of 1942 and "The German Way of War" which explains German war heritage and philosophy have been read for he believes there is a strategic relationship between the handling of past German wars and this war. While explaining the strategic events of 1943, the author covers and analyzes the mistakes the Wehrmacht makes in thinking in short, maneuvering wars of encirclement like past wars and not thinking about a long war of attrition in the industrialized 20th Century against a superior enemy who had more men and tanks and was learning to fight as well as they did.

The author enlists and magnifies the concepts laid out in both of these books to show where German command went wrong. The wisdom of Clausewitz theory is also discussed, showing how Hitler's erratic leadership and micromanagement along with curtailing field commanders freedom will pay a heavy price on the war effort. The chapter on Kursk is a good example. Prussian/German battle history has predominately evolved around short maneuverable wars dating back to Frederick the Great. Operation Barbarossa with its encirclements worked in 1941 for the Germans were at their peak performance while the Soviets ignored battlefield reality. German circumstance in 1943 was much different but they weren't adjusting adequately to those changing conditions. Along the way with German attrition setting in and with Soviet improvements in operations and using maneuverability as a tool, German's chances of winning the war decreased dramatically after Stalingrad and Kursk.

There are 15 simple maps and a small gallery of photos included with the overview. The Bibliography and the Notes Section are extensive and worthy of an experienced author and academic. An Index but no Appendix closes out the book.

Before closing there are several issues that could be mentioned. First, while there is discussion of the Allies, especially in North Africa, the main focus of this narrative is predominately German centric. Also the author has limited his presentation to key strategic land campaigns. Freeing the shipping routes of German U-boats in the Atlantic and breaking the embargo of Great Britain were strategically important and could have been discussed but wasn't for it was outside the author's purview as was the smaller scale ejection of the Germans from the Kuban and the isolation of Crimea.

If you've read the author's other books then you know of his fascination with German/Prussian war heritage. Personally it doesn't consume me like Mr Citino who felt compelled to include it in his last two books though its well covered in his earlier books like "The German Way of War", "Quest for Decisive Victory" and "Path to Blitzkrieg". If you question this theme or want to learn more about Prussian thinking from command level not from the foot soldier level, the advancement of blitzkrieg or strategic thinking then reading the three mentioned books might help you understand the author's viewpoint and his interest in it.

I've enjoyed this book of strategic overview very much with its unambiguous narrative, meaningful positions well defended and thoughtful analysis. Anybody who has enjoyed the author's earlier works will like this one also as Mr Citino expands his series on the war. Highly recommended to both new and experienced students of the war along with Mr Citino's other books.

Choosing to read analysis of military history can be a difficult decision to say the least. This choice can be even more difficult in the genre of WWII history. There is no end to the offerings currently available or about to become so. Traditional divisions in the historiography amongst aviation, ground, and naval can be further subdivided by campaigns, weapons design, unit histories, individual offensives in some instances, and even synthesis of the political and racial goals of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. What has come to the fore, then, is typically the decision of the reader to choose either analysis of the quantitative advantages (weapons production and economic issues for example) of a particular army at a particular moment or that army's qualitative advantages (leadership and planning vs that of an opponent). The result has been primarily, books that either read more like a straight chronological narrative geared towards the WWII history enthusiast or scholarly works meant for specialists and perhaps history graduate students. Col David Glantz massive works on the Eastern front certainly fit this mold and although certainly great additions to the existing literature, they can be ponderous, to say the least, for the layperson to wade through. On the other hand, Robert Citino has specialized in the former type of historical analysis. Although he does not shy away from delving into weapon's development he has for the most part focused his analysis of Nazi Germany's war effort on the style, planning and leadership of that country and its opponents. In `The Wehrmacht Retreats' Prof Citino has produced a masterpiece which not only focuses on these topics but expands upon them and analyzes their own limitations in explaining why 1943 was the year of the Wehrmacht's retreat in all theaters. He writes in the introduction that the detailed operational analysis of this work "will attempt to place these modern events in the context of certain longstanding traditions of German military history and culture"(xxiv).

This book of moderate size(428 pp including notes and bibliography) is chronologically organized and divided into chapters shifting between the fight against the western Allies (North Africa, Sicily and Italy) and the USSR as the year progressed. Significant historical background is provided for each new chapter, which facilitates understanding of various factors involved in the various campaigns of 1943. Furthermore, the notes and bibliography are a treasure trove of further information for the enthusiast who wishes to delve deeper into particular campaigns or even individual aspects of the campaigns. This is truly one of the greatest strengths of this particular work. Although there are bound to be detractors who dislike this or that area of analysis, it is supported in the vast majority of analysis with the original source documents. In other words Prof Citino never expects the reader to merely take his word for it and constantly backs up what he asserts. In all honesty, it would be fair to write that one could create a comprehensive reading list of the European theaters operations from the primary sources cited alone. The chapter on the Kursk offensive is a great case in point with the author pointing out dozens of primary German language documents, English translations of the German and Russian sources, English secondary sources in books, military journals and scholarly journals just in endnot 13...truly impressive!

Although the narrative flows as well as any work of fiction a reader could find, another great strength of this book is the aforementioned analysis. It is thorough without being dull and is exceptional in its ability to challenge previous ways of determining the outcome of the war. For example, Prof Citino continues to develop his analysis of the `German way of war'-one of operational movement and maneuver-which was first presented years ago in a book by that title. In his chapter covering Gen Manstein's famous Kharkov counter offensive in February-March 1943 there is a magnificent short essay included on the limitations of Operational genius in determining battlefield outcome. In short, the point of this essay, as well as much of the later portions of the book, is that irrespective of any general's genius there are myriad circumstances that affect the course of the battle that are completely beyond his control. As such, narratives that heap effusive praise on this or that battlefield commander are to a large extent missing a huge part of the story. Manstein is the example of this in that despite re-taking Kharkov he was unable to finish the job. The Kursk bulge remained due to weather and manpower factors that he had could not affect despite his expertise in `war of movement' (73). Citino concludes the chapter with the assessment that rather than the Soviets or the Germans being masters of their way of war they were "trapped in the talons of their own doctrines"(74).

In conclusion, `The Wehrmacht Retreats' is a phenomenal work and should have a prominent place in any WWII enthusiast's library. The narrative is masterfully written, the sources cited are comprehensive and the analysis is as cutting edge as anything a reader is likely to find in the coming year. It should be an absolute first choice if one is trying to decide which book to purchase right now. Citino is a master of the genre and sits alongside Glantz and Kershaw as the best of the best in WWII history.

Robert M. Citino, The Wermacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War in 1943 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012).

This is an engaging look at how the Germans, with a long history of accenting Bewegungkrieg ("War of Movement"), of which Blitzkrieg was just the latest incarnation, and trying to avoid Stellungkrieg ("Static War of Position"), ended up fighting so well and for so long while on the defensive in World War II. The work looks extensively at operations in North Africa, Italy and the Eastern Front. In the process, the author is intrigued, but hard pressed, to explain how in their Operation Axis in 1943 after the Government of Italy surrendered to the Allies, the Germans were somehow able to kill 7-12,000 Italians soldiers and intern 600,000 others while 1 1/2 million Italian soldiers simply melted away. At the time, the Germans had approximately 600,000 troops in Italy and the Greek Islands, while the Italians had almost 3.5 million men under arms.
I also found of particular note the author's efforts to put the Battle of Kursk in a more balanced perspective, but I wish he had dealt more fully with the question of the actual size of the battle since it is often claimed as the largest tank battle in history. He is skeptical but doesn't give any examples of significant larger ones. By contrast, Valeriy Zamulin, in his Demolishing the Myth; The Tank Battle at Prokhokovka Kursk, July 1943: An Operational Narrative, makes a convincing case that Kursk was not, giving instead considerable documentation for what he believes was truly the largest tank battle in history: the July 1941 clash between the Soviet Southwestern Front and the 1st Panzer army and elements of the Sixth Army in the Brody-Berestechko-Dubno theatre. In that epic confrontation, Zamulin claims, the Russians counter-attacked with 5000 tanks and self propelled guns (of which they lost 2,648) while the Germans used 1000.
Of considerable interest and import is Citino's final emphasis on the German tradition of Tottenritt or "death ride" (with its accent on carrying out a senseless order to the best of one's ability), a concept which helps explain German performance from 1943 to 1945. Citino declares, "to ride the Tottenritt, you have to substitute faith - blind faith - for rational thought." In this regard, he underscores the performance of the Germans during Field Marshall Albert Kesselring's defensive war in Italy 1943-1944, going so far as to declare that "Smiling Albert" was "a stander" (Steher) and "...may well be one of the most important German commanders of all times..." for his superb use of Stellungkrieg during this particular Tottenritt.
This is a fine work for those interested in the European and North African portions of World War II.