This account of four of World War II's most colossal battles presents these epic conflicts from the perspective of the man largely responsible for Russia's most decisive victories during the Patriotic War.

The portions of the Marshal Zhukov articles here translated into English are based upon the Russian text appearing in Voyenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal, published by the Ministry of Defense in Moscow ... and in Stalingradskaya Epopeya, published by the Military Publishing House in Moscow.

'The best of the best' is how Marshal Georgy Zhukov has been described by his fellow Russian Generals. This book emphasises that Zhukov was a great general in the most stupendous war in history, and he stood apart in the galaxy of Russian generals who fought on the Nazi-Soviet front.Zhukov's leadership on the field is shown in such epic battles as Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin. Nobody was more decorated than Zhukov. This book also explores Zhukov's volatile relationship with Stalin and discusses his achievements and various appointments throughout the war. So why did one of the greatest military commanders of the twentieth century end his life in obscurity? This book holds the answers.

The Red Army’s defeat of the Germans during the Second World War is one of the great achievements in military history. The military man most responsible for that victory was Marshal Georgi Zhukov. Though less well known than some of his German or allied counterparts, Zhukov was a brilliant practitioner of a distinctive, and uniquely Soviet, style of operational art. This style was first tested against the Japanese Kwangtung Army at Khalkin Gol in Mongolia. Zhukov’s operational scheme at Khalkin Gol was the prototype for his later successes at Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk. Zhukov and the Red Army came of age together. Both rose from the ashes of the Tsarist Army and endured two decades of war, debate, reform and crisis. While Zhukov rose through the ranks of the cavalry, the Red Army underwent a period of great intellectual activity. By the mid 1930’s, Soviet military theorists began to explore new concepts of successive or “deep” operations that promised to avoid the positional warfare of World War One. During this period, Zhukov became an avowed “tankist” and was extremely well placed to participate in this “renaissance.” When Stalin launched his purge of the Red Army in 1937, Zhukov was a Corps Commander. Though interrogated at length, he survived. In 1939, Zhukov, then a Deputy Military District Commander, was summoned to Moscow. Zhukov was relieved to find that he had been ordered to proceed to Khalkin Gol in Mongolia where Soviet troops were facing a Japanese incursion across the border. After assessing the situation, Zhukov prepared a plan to drive the Japanese out of Mongolian territory. Upon assuming command and conducting a massive build-up of combat power, Zhukov launched a devastating offensive spearheaded by massed tanks and artillery that would become the prototype for Soviet offensives during the Second World War.

Throughout 1943, the German army, heirs to a military tradition that demanded and perfected relentless offensive operations, succumbed to the realities of its own overreach and the demands of twentieth-century industrialized warfare. In his new study, prizewinning author Robert Citino chronicles this weakening Wehrmacht, now fighting desperately on the defensive but still remarkably dangerous and lethal. Drawing on his impeccable command of German-language sources, Citino offers fresh, vivid, and detailed treatments of key campaigns during this fateful year: the Allied landings in North Africa, General von Manstein's great counterstroke in front of Kharkov, the German attack at Kasserine Pass, the titanic engagement of tanks and men at Kursk, the Soviet counteroffensives at Orel and Belgorod, and the Allied landings in Sicily and Italy. Through these events, he reveals how a military establishment historically configured for violent aggression reacted when the tables were turned; how German commanders viewed their newest enemy, the U.S. Army, after brutal fighting against the British and Soviets; and why, despite their superiority in materiel and manpower, the Allies were unable to turn 1943 into a much more decisive year. Applying the keen operational analysis for which he is so highly regarded, Citino contends that virtually every flawed German decision-to defend Tunis, to attack at Kursk and then call off the offensive, to abandon Sicily, to defend Italy high up the boot and then down much closer to the toe-had strong supporters among the army's officer corps. He looks at all of these engagements from the perspective of each combatant nation and also establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt the synergistic interplay between the fronts. Ultimately, Citino produces a grim portrait of the German officer corps, dispelling the longstanding tendency to blame every bad decision on Hitler. Filled with telling vignettes and sharp portraits and copiously documented, The Wehrmacht Retreats is a dramatic and fast-paced narrative that will engage military historians and general readers alike.

An examination of the final period of Nazi rule in Germany's eastern provinces at the end of the Second World War. It outlines the wartime role of this region and assesses the impact of Nazi 'popular mobilisation' initiatives during the closing months of the conflict.