Ardennes: The Secret War [Hardcover]

Charles Whiting (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2001 | Series: West Wall

The Allied advance on Germany's West Wall received its biggest setback from the German counter-offensive of December 16, 1944. The general outline of the Battle of the Bulge, or "Ardennes Offensive" as it is more commonly known in Europe, is well-known and has become a great military legend. However, as veteran World War II author Charles Whiting reveals here, the magnitude of the German surprise has been downplayed in the West and the extent of German deception and sabotage operations minimized.Charles Whiting traces German operations through the eyes of three key officers, all of whom he interviewed after the war. Hermann Giskes was a German Army counter-intelligence officer who had broken the Allied spy network in Holland and set up his own force of spies and saboteurs, who stood ready to aid any German offensive. Freiherr (Baron) von der Heydte was an aristocratic paratroop officer assigned to make a last desperate jump behind Allied lines. His small number of inexperienced troops were blown over great distances by the wind and tied down thousands of Allied troops who thought German paratroops were landing everywhere. Otto Skorzeny was an SS commando leader assigned to deploy agents in American uniforms behind Allied lines during the upcoming offensive. A joking remark by Skorzeny led Allied intelligence to believe that he had been assigned to assassinate Eisenhower and other Western leaders, setting off a panic that further hampered Allied efforts to contain the Bulge. These three officers were key members of a German "secret war" that was more extensive and came closer to success than many previous accounts have suggested.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Charles Whiting is one of the most prolific authors of books on World War II. He has written all eight of the books in the the West Wall Series published by Combined Publishing.

About the Author

Charles Whiting served with a reconnaisance outfit in WWII and has since become one of the premier historians of the war. Among his many best-selling works are Patton, The Last Assault, and Death on a Distant Frontier. He currently lives in York, England.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 196 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1st edition (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580970699
• ISBN-13: 978-1580970693
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,727,520 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Ardennes - The secret war - more of the same, August 10, 2011

By 

Maple - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ardennes: The Secret War (Hardcover)

As my title suggests, more of the tired 'weren't the Nazis wonderful but unlucky, weren't the Allies stupid but lucky?' school of history. I should have guessed what to expect when I saw David Irving listed in the bibliography - you'll remember him from the court case where he was outed as an apologist for the Third Reich - I digress

The book is badly written and poorly researched, the battle itself has been covered from every angle by historians and those on the ground at the time, I was rather hoping this would add to the sum of knowledge about the battle but I was to be disappointed, it's only for the Nazi fanboys I'm afraid.

The author makes some surprising conclusions about the success of the invincible Germans - according to Mr Whiting the para drop that scattered the half trained ersatz fallschirmjager all over the Ardennes was a success (which may come as a surprise to any of the survivors especially those who wrote about the fiasco afterwards)

Skorzeny was a covert-ops genius, ten feet tall and the brains of a rocket scientist - which doesn't exactly fit with the opinion of the Luftwaffe group that actually liberated Mussolini (he nearly blew their mission by muscling-in and stealing the credit), nor when discussion his background did Mr Whiting seem aware of Skorzeny's failures and poor planning skills on other ops.

And that's my problem with this book, unabated hero worship of the Germans and a dismissal of any unit or major player on the Allies side - makes you wonder how they won.

The author has a few problems with simple to verify facts that make me worry about the standards of his research, the USAAF flying B-29s in Europe? News to them, the Luftwaffe losses during Bodenplatte being about 100, when all other historians give figures around 300? Drawing the conclusion that Bodenplatte (surprise) was another German victory when in reality it destroyed the Luftwaffe while hardly effecting Allied air ops

Naah - my copy will be going in the bin