About the Author (Robert M. Citino)
Robert Citino is an American military historian who, rather than call the Wehrmacht blitzkrieg “blitzkrieg,” stood on calling it “bewegungskreig.” He popularized this notion with his four books, starting with The German Way of War and ending with Wehrmacht’s Last Stand. All books published between 2005 and 2017
Chapter 1
Hitler and his generals had an illusion in early 1944 that the war on the Eastern Front could still be won. What they failed to come to certainty about was that the table had turned 180° against what it had been in 1941 when the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union. From January to the first days in February 1944, the author showed how the Russians sent the Wehrmacht on a blitzkrieg retreat that finally caused Manstein to lose his favor with Hitler. Full retreat for the Wehrmacht from here till the end in 1945; it’s the Russians’ turn for blitzkrieg.
Chapter 2
Jumping to the Italian campaign in the second chapter, the author first analyzed the unimportance of the Italian battles for both the Allies and the Germans. Then, he wrote that despite all odds against the Wehrmacht of almost infinity to 1, the Wehrmacht still inflicted heavy damage on the Western Allies. This chapter’s battles include the battle for the Gustav line, then for Anzio (the road to Rome), and ended with the Allies’ operation Diadem, where the Wehrmacht was overrun by the Allies from all sides and saw the downfall of the capable general Mackensen at the hands of field marshal Albert Kesselring.
Chapter 3
This chapter tells the tale of D-day in full. First, it analyzes the confusion within the German command structure and how it slowed its reaction to the Allies landing in Normandy. It then showed, throughout June 6, 1944, the actual German fierce response despite being outgunned, outnumbered, and outplanned by the Allies’ landing. By the end of D-Day, the Allies had established themselves firmly on Normandy beaches, and there was just nothing the Germans could have done in 1944. The Wehrmacht might have responded better if it were 1940/41.
Chapter 4
This chapter analyzes the Soviet Union’s Operation Bagration on a full scale and the utter destruction it caused to all Wehrmacht armies in much of Ukraine and Byelorussia. The author described the Soviet forces involved in the battle as they had been for the Wehrmacht during Operation Barbarossa in 1941. But with tanks in the ratio of 6000:118. The Germans were on the extreme lower side. Citino then concluded that the higher Wehrmacht officers used their oath of allegiance as an excuse to not oppose Hitler to end the war, while instead they were just protecting their own self-interest.
Chapter 5
This chapter expands on the battle that followed the Allies’ landing on Normandy on June 6, 1944. The Allies took their objectives one by one, suffering minimal and replaceable casualties. In contrast, the Germans suffered heavy and irreplaceable losses in men and equipment while defending Normandy. The author explained that less complexity and confusion in the Wehrmacht chain of command might have helped its fighters defend the beach better. Even so, it would not have stopped the Western Allies. In the end, Field Marshal von Kluge chose to pay for the failures in Normandy with his life before he could face Hitler and explain his failure to defend the beach in gibberish.
Chapter 6
Citino describes here the Red Army’s battle that crushed the Wehrmacht’s Army Group North Ukraine and Army Group South Ukraine. After being crushed mercilessly, Field Marshal Walter Model managed to withdraw much of the Wehrmacht’s remaining men to safety, saving the Germans from Soviet clutches to fight another day. The author also explains through history that Germany, from Frederick the Great to the Führer, wasn’t good at working with allies, even good ones. That might explain Germany’s relationship with the Romanians and the Italians as the war turned bitter in 1944-45.
Chapter 7
This chapter delves deeply into the sister operation of Operation Overlord, namely Operation Dragoon, which sealed the fate of the Wehrmacht in Northern France. Although the author described the operation as failing to trap the group of Germans in that arena, it was still a success for the Allies. The Wehrmacht was taking heavy, irreplaceable casualties, but it would be until 1945 before the Allies would finish the Germans in Germany. That point was especially made clear after the failure of the Allies’ operation Market Garden, Citino concluded.
Chapter 8
Citino offers here the last Wehrmacht grand offensive against the Western Allies in the embodiment of Operation Wacht am Rhein, or, in English, the Battle of the Bulge. At first, the odds seemed high in the eyes of the Germans that this would change the course of the war in their favor. At the beginning of the offensive, it seemed like the Allies’ army would fall to the Germans, but it was not 1939 or 1941; it’s 1944, and the Allies held all the positive cards. This chapter concluded that the Allies’ air superiority played such a role in the Allies’ victory.
Chapter 9
This chapter opens up with the Wehrmacht operation Nordwind and how it burst into the Germans’ faces cleanly. By April 1945, the Western Allies had reached and surrounded the Wehrmacht soldiers in the Ruhr. The supreme commander, Adolf Hitler, would soon commit suicide by the month’s end.
Chapter 10
This book concluded with the notion that it wasn’t only Hitler who fought the Second World War to the bitter end. But also officers who indeed sacrificed the lives of their men even after Hitler’s death on April 30, 1945. Robert Citino gave the example of Ferdinand Schorner.
