The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944 (Modern War Studies) [Hardcover]

David M. Glantz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2002 | Series: Modern War Studies

The German siege and Soviet defense of Leningrad in World War II was an epic struggle in an epic war, a drama of heroism and human misery unmatched in the annals of modern warfare. While innumerable writers have dealt at length with the besieged city itself, David Glantz provides for the first time the definitive military history of the conflict waged beyond the city’s borders.

One of the first major Soviet cities threatened by the German blitzkrieg, Leningrad was as much a symbolic target as it was a strategic one for Adolf Hitler, who fully expected the birthplace of the Russian Revolution to be reduced to rubble quickly and with ease. The Red Army’s ferocious defense of the city, however, made that impossible.

Glantz digs deep to recount the full story of how these two military giants bludgeoned each other for nearly three years with a relentless barrage of offensives and counter-offensives designed to crush one another, in horrendous weather and a harsh terrain and with staggering loss of life on both sides. His richly detailed history shows how battles and campaigns were conceived, engaged, and resolved—-including a half dozen or more "forgotten battles" that took place during the blockade. He explains how the struggle for Leningrad impacted other theaters of operation along the Eastern Front, eventually forcing the Germans into their long and costly retreat back toward Berlin.

Glantz also provides insights into conditions within the city, adding new details to the horrors of the siege; sheds new light on partisan warfare in the countryside surrounding Leningrad; and corrects many errors found in earlier works.

Based on an unparalleled access to Russian archival sources and going far beyond the military aspects of such renowned works as Harrison Salisbury’s 900 Days, Glantz’s book is a testament to the nearly two million Russians who lost their lives during the Leningrad conflict and confirms his status as the preeminent authority on the Russian military experience in World War II.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"An original and important contribution not only to the battle for Leningrad but also to a wider understanding of the Great Patriotic War. Drawing upon previously unavailable or neglected Soviet and German sources, it provides a major corrective to the shortcomings of previous accounts and will stand as a significant and durable achievement on a subject that continues to fascinate."-—John Erickson, author of The Road to Stalingrad

"An outstanding contribution to the study of the Second World War as it was fought on the Eastern Front."—-Malcolm Mackintosh, author of Juggernaut: A History of Soviet Armed Forces

"An exceptional work on one of the great campaigns of World War II."—-James S. Corum, author of The Roots of Blitzkrieg and The Luftwaffe

About the Author

David M. Glantz is the author of The Battle of Kursk, Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War, Zhukov’s Greatest Defeat: The Red Army’s Epic Disaster in Operation Mars,,/I> and When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler, all published by Kansas.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 704 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas; First edition (November 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700612084
• ISBN-13: 978-0700612086
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.9 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #394,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David M Glantz is a former US Army intelligence specialist with a unique knowledge of the Russian army and Russian military history. His WHEN TITANS CLASHED is the standard single volume account of the war in Russia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a detailed analysis of the battle for Leningrad, November 25, 2002

By 

1. "John Henninger" (Littleton, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

The opening chapters of the Battle for Leningrad describe the desperate counterattacks that the Russians made against the German invaders. According to Glantz these attacks stalled the advance of the German armies and prevented Leningrad and Moscow from capture. The second part of the book descibes the failed Soviet counteratttacks to relieve the city. Glantz believes that these attacks failed because they were dispersed and the Russians falied to combined artillery,air, and infantry effectively. The final section of the book details the lifting of the seige of Leningrad and how the Russians managed to operate more effectively by using deception and cordinating with other fronts in conducting offensive operations. However the Russian adavnce was slow because the terrain around Leningrad does not favor the massive tank armies that Russians usually employed on their offensives, but rather they had to rely upon the infantry to achieve a breakthrough. Glantz concludes his book by stating that although the Leningrad Front was a minor front it made the Germans commit ground forces to Leningrad that could have used to capture Moscow and Stalingrad. This is a book is a detailed military history of the battle and I would reccomend this book to military history buffs, but not your average reader since he or she might get bored and confused with the different army groups and fronts. This book emphasizes the military operations and glosses over the civilian suffering during the seige of Leningrad. If one is interested in the civilian view of the seige of Leningrad. I would reccomend "The People's War," edited by Robert W.Thurston.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great research, horrible writing!, October 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

David Glantz has achieved a reputation as a foremost scholar on the Soviet Red Army and its operations during World War II. He has achieved this reputation because of his meticulous research of the once unreachable Soviet archives and the use of his findings in those archives to write a number of books on the famous (and not so famous) campaigns of the Eastern Front. Glantz's heavy use of Soviet research materials to write his books results in their emphasizing the Soviet viewpoint. Thus, his books often contrast greatly with the East Front works of other western historians who often based their research almost entirely on the much more accessible German sources, which Glantz believes are as tainted by self-service and selective memory as the official Soviet account were by communist propaganda. By delving into the Soviet archives and developing a picture of how the Soviets really viewed "The Great Patriotic War," Glantz has been able to present a much clearer view of that struggle than was possible before the fall of the USSR.

Glantz is a thorough researcher and his books often show that a lot of what we knew about the East Front just wasn't true because much of it was tainted by German apologia and Soviet propaganda. By cutting through the myths, Glantz has made his mark as one of the preeminent historians on the East Front. However, unfortunately, he is a dull, dull, DULL writer!

"The Battle of Leningrad" has all of Glantz's trademarks: detailed research, a straight narrative of the campaign told mainly from the Soviet viewpoint, and a mindnumbing writing style. I don't consider myself a either a lightweight military history buff or someone who can't handle dry text, but "The Battle of Leningrad" with its page after page of unit number designations and Russian place names just made my eyes glaze over everytime I started to read it. Yes, I know campaign studies deal with unit designations and geographic features, but "The Battle of Leningrad" seems to be nothing but those elements related in a colorless prose. There is little about the personalities of the commanders, the differences in equipment, and although Glantz does draw upon some first hand accounts of those involved in the action he just isn't very good at blending those into the narrative.

I've enjoyed some of Glantz's books such as his single volume history of the Eastern Front, "When Titans Clashed," and his "The Battle of Kursk." However, those books were co-written by Jonathan House. I don't know exactly how House contributes to these joint efforts, but I have a suspicion that he is a much more polished writer than Glantz and thus he is the reason why those books are much more readable than the ones written just by Glantz himself.

If you're a specialist on the Leningrad campaign then "The Battle of Leningrad" will be an invaluable reference tool. However, if you're looking for a good read on an important campaign of WW II then either skip this book or have plenty of caffeine at hand when trying to tackle it.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For Specialists Only!, June 16, 2003

By 

David W. Nicholas (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

David M. Glantz is a retired army officer who spent most of the latter part of his career studying the Soviet army. He founded and then headed the army's study group that concentrated on the Soviet army (with the fall of Communism the center now devotes itself to the Russian army, and associated armed forces of nearby countries). He's now retired, and has been producing a book every two or three years on the Soviet army during the Second World War. The present volume is in many ways his most ambitious, an attempt to retell the whole of the battle of Leningrad, from the initial German attempts to capture the city through the lifting of the blockade almost three years later.

Glantz has several strengths as a historian, and a few weaknesses. His principal strength, and this can't be overstated, is his access to Soviet archives that no one else has gotten into since the war ended. One of his previous books, Zhukov's Greatest Defeat, recounts a large battle on the Eastern front in late 1942 that doesn't appear in many histories of World War II, because the Soviets successfully suppressed knowledge of it. There aren't any whoppers of that magnitude here, but there is a wealth of detail concerning operations, intentions, and forces that hasn't appeared elsewhere.

On the other hand, Glantz isn't Hemingway, or even Harrison Salisbury. His prose is rather wooden, and workmanlike, fine for retelling a story of a battle, but not much as literature. It's OK for the first 300 pages, but this book stretches to 470 pages of text, and it gets a little wearing. In other words, if you aren't *very* interested in the subject, I would recommend going elsewhere. On the flip side, if you *are* interested, there's more information here than you'll find anywhere else, and it's clearly presented and intelligently analyzed.

As an aside, you'll notice that all of the references above are to Glantz as a historian of the Soviet side of things. There are (of course) references to the Germans here, and to their dilemmas and opportunities, but the emphasis is on the Soviets. In most instances, the book only tells you what the Germans are doing to provide context for the actions of the Soviet army. He does provide a brief history of the city prior to the war, and some account of the privations of the citizens of the city during the war, but this has been done elsewhere, and better. I suppose if he didn't provide anything like this, he'd be criticized for its absence, but frankly it seemed a bit out of place.

Given that, this is one of the best books on the Eastern Front to appear in a good long while, and if you're as interested in this field as I am, it's a worthwhile addition to your library.