After Stalingrad: The Red Army's Winter Offensive, 1942-1943 (Hardcover)

by David Glantz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In the wake of the Red Army's signal victory at Stalingrad, which began when its surprise counteroffensive encircled German Sixth Army in Stalingrad region in mid-November 1942 and ended when its forces liquidated beleaguered Sixth Army in early February 1943, the Soviet High Command (Stavka) expanded its counteroffensive into a full-fledged winter offensive which nearly collapsed German defenses in southern Russia.

Exploiting newly released Russian archival materials, After Stalingrad reveals the unbounded ambitions that shaped the Stavka's winter offensive and the full scope and scale of the Red Army's many offensive operations. For example, it reflects on recently rediscovered Operation Mars, Marshal Zhukov's companion-piece to the more famous Operation Uranus at Stalingrad. It then reexamines the Red Army's dramatic offensive into the Donbas and Khar'kov region during February, clearly demonstrating that this offensive was indeed conducted by three rather than two Red Army fronts. Likewise, it describes how the Stavka expanded the scale of its offensive in mid-February 1943 by ordering major strategic efforts, hitherto ignored, by multiple Red Army fronts along the Western (Orel-Smolensk) axis and, in Zhukov's forgotten operation Polar Star, along the Northwestern (Demiansk-Leningrad) axis as well.

Finally, by restoring the full scope of these failed or partially failed Red Army offensives to history, this volume also reassesses the impact of Manstein's dramatic counterstrokes in the Donbas and Khar'kov regions, concluding that their impact was equivalent to that of a full-fledged strategic counteroffensive.

This new study includes over 100 operational maps to highlight key aspects of the offensives.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Helion and Company Ltd (March 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1906033269
• ISBN-13: 978-1906033262
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #93,375 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable - Soviet Side of Winter Battles, 1942/3, May 10, 2009

By	David M. Dougherty (Arkansas) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This work covers all the major Soviet offensives from the twin initiatives of Operations Mars and Uranus in November 1942 through the Rasputitsa in May, 1943. Operation Uranus, the encirclement of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, is not covered except to provide background for the offensives against the Rzhev and Demiansk salients at the same time. The author has previously covered the Mars (Rzhev salient) offensive in "Zhukov's Greatest Defeat" (1999)in more detail, but this volume adds materially to that work.

The offensives covered include:
Mars, November 1942 to December 1942
Demiansk, November 1942 to January 1943
Operation Gallop to Voroshilovgrad, January 1943 to February 1943
Mariupol (Donbas), February 1943
Central Offensives, Orel, Briansk & Smolensk,(3 operations, January-March 1943)
Polar Star (Demiansk) February 1943
Polar Star (Staraia Russa) March 1943 - Aprin 1943.

Author Glantz makes extensive use of operation plans, orders and reports presenting such documents in detail with short narratives sandwiched in between to tell the reader what happened on the ground. This makes for rather dull reading, but is necessary to accurately depict Soviet intentions and attempted movements rather than to gloss over these disappointments as only diversions or as having attained goals much less than what was originally stated as the objectives.

The second feature that is important is extensive order of battle information as well as strengths and casualties. Unfortunately it is difficult to follow the OB information in such short treatments.

As usual, author Glantz makes extensive use of maps in this volume appearing within a page or two of the narrative discussion to aid the reader in understanding the situations. Unfortunately, most of the maps are old German situation maps with Soviet units imposed on top and they are of such poor quality as to be almost unusable. The only really usable maps are those specifically drawn for this volume but they are in the minority. Many of the former have large blackened areas as from poor copier copies and the scales are so large that the place names and features are unrecognizable not to mention unit designations.

Although this work brings much newly released Soviet archival material to light, the lack of truly useful maps is a significant weakness. The author might well have been better advised to limit his coverage to only the Southern, Central or Northern Operational Areas in a single volume, provided better maps and greatly expanded his narratives instead of presenting just mainly operational plans and reports. In addition, although the actions and OB information on the German side are not the author's primary focus, they need to be expanded to provide a more coherent presentation of the battles. The author also does not expand on the personalities involved and most Soviet and German commanders are simply names used in passing without any depiction as to how those personalities influenced the battles. Lastly, author Glantz normally explains Soviet failures due to the "skillful and desperate" German defensive actions and counter-attacks. One suspects that more and different reasons may have been involved.

In short, this is a valuable work presenting material covered almost nowhere else. As such it is indispensible to the historian interested in the Eastern Front, but its deficiencies prohibit me from granting it a five star rating. Nonetheless, it is well worth the price as excepting two or three other works (at least two by author Glantz), the information contained within is not available elsewhere.

I recommend the purchase and reading of this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Typical Glantz - Lots of details and many maps, May 10, 2009

By	David E. Schranck "Dave" (Anaheim Ca) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book covers the period of mid Nov, 1942 to early Apr 1943, a critical period for both sides. It also represents the second time that the Red Army was able to regain much of the territory lost with a winter counter-offensive.
One of the reasons for writing this book was to correct or expand on campaigns that were distorted or omitted in prior books and documents written since the war. There has been much attention given to Operations Uranus, Little Saturn and Mars but the author shows that during this time frame the Russians were busy along their entire front.
In the first chapter, Mr Glantz summarizes 4 pages of campaigns broken down by axis of advance, Front, geographic location and time frame that will be covered in the book. It includes campaigns at Rzhev, Demyansk, Voroshilovgrad, Mariupol, Orel, Voronezh, L'gov, Bryansk, Smolensk, Staraya Russa and Velikie Luki. The author spends the most time on the following campaign areas: Orel-Bryansk-Smolensk, Voroshilovrad and Rzhev salient. The battle for Stalingrad is mention only in overview.
There are nine chapters devoted to the above campaigns. In most campaigns the Soviets gained ground but failed to achieve all of their objectives in any of their campaigns but suffered huge casualties in trying.
Mr Glantz shows the Soviet battle plans were too ambitious and had little chance of complete success. He also shows that at a time of losing its momentum, the Germans maintained their composure and fought reasonably well, spoiling Soviet initiatives wherever possible.
Mr Glantz has written several other books that reflect this same period. I'll mention two: "From the Don to the Dnepr" and "Zhukov's Greatest Defeat". His new book updates and corrects but does not replace these books. For example in the assault at the Rzhev salient in this second book, I noticed a few changes on the maps, changing map scales and troop dispositions.
Maps are important to help visualize what action an author is describing. This leads me to the biggest criticism of the book. There are 117 maps, set in a series that shows, for the most part, the daily or weekly progress each campaign is making. This is the weak link in Mr Glantz's book. You need a magnifying glass to read most of them, even the good ones. There are many maps that are so blurred and darkened that they give no value. The author must have wanted to use authentic maps that were used by the participants but should have considered using other maps after seeing the results.
This book fills in an important part of the timeline as the author works his way to the end of the war but I do question the timing of the publication and the delivery of the contents of the book. With Mr Glantz writing the definitive story of Stalingrad, why publish this book before Stalingrad where the period covered in this book starts at the later stages of Stalingrad and beyond. The author already has several full length books of part of what is covered here and if he has uncovered new material what is so pressing to publish before Stalingrad is finished. Extending this thought, there has been omissions on the battle of Kursk, especially on the German side, by Mr Glantz that could be filled in as he did with the campaigns covered in this book. I submit that it would have been better to wait publishing this book until after Stalingrad was finished and include the updates on Kursk and the later offensive on Orel as his 1943 update. Though the winter time period is extended, the title still fits. Perhaps writing for a different publisher is the answer to my query.
Though I haven't described in great detail the tactics of the campaigns, Mr Glantz proves his two objectives. First, the Soviets were extremely aggressive and campaigned along most of the front during this period. Secondly, Glantz using the official Soviet government's "History of the Great Patriotic War" as reference, shows the Soviets highlighted their victories and downplayed or even erased their losses in their history books.
Regardless of my timing comments, this book like Mr Glantz's other books are for the serious student of the war who wants to know all there is to know about it militarily. The tactical coverage of the battles is good especially on the Southwestern Axis and the Western Axis. If you like Mr Glantz other books, you'll like this one also.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent work - the usual Glantz high standard, June 6, 2009

By	Koba (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This work describes the Soviet offensive plan in the winter of 1942/43. What is "new" about this work is that he shows that the offensive at Stalingrad and afterwards was not the only offensive on the Eastern Front in early 1943 - in fact, the Soviets were attacking along the full length of the front. The other offensives were not mere diversionary operations, but intended to encircle and destroy both Army Group North and Army Group Center. Since these operations did not succeed, they have been de-emphasized in subsequent Soviet history. Furthermore, in the south, the Soviet offensive had far more ambitious objectives than is generally realized, and thus Manstein's defeat of this offensive is more significant than is generally realized.

Much of the book is dry reading - this division went here and did this, this division went here and did that - but Glantz's analysis of Soviet plans and their execution is well worth reading.

I agree with the other reviewers that the maps are the major weakness of this book. Many of them are so hard to read they're basically worthless. A dark photocopy of a blurry original doesn't help the reader very much at all. Too bad Glantz couldn't get better graphics support!

At the end he refers to this book as being in a "series", and I'm not clear what he means by that. He is also doing a Stalingrad series with a different publisher, and I'm not sure if this book is part of that series or a different series.

On the whole, an excellent work, and if you are a Glantz fan you will want to own this one.