Customer Reviews

Kursk: The German View

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Author Steve Newton, who is well known to many Civil War students for his books like "Lost for the Cause: The Confederate Army in 1864," and "Seven Pines," is also a scholar of high merit when it comes to German and Soviet WWII operations. I believe he speaks/reads both languages, and is a firm believer in writing history from the manuscript sources. "Kursk: The German View," is the result of this high standard of excellence he has set for himself.

Students of Operation Barbarossa will find this collection of German material on Kursk indispensable to their study of the campaign. While Glantz and others have carved out a large niche describing the entire action, Newton has opted for a more limited approach, pulling together various high-ranking primary German sources rarely if ever used in their original form.

After a detailed and thoughtful Introduction, Newton presents the edited "papers," adding priceless footnotes and commentary from his deep well of knowledge on the subject. Every German perspective is corps level or close to it. The last 30% or so of the book is a collection of valuable chapters on a wide variety of subjects, all penned by Newton. He is clearly less enamored with German apologists who claim that a few more days would have scored a major tactical and strategic victory. The battle was completely avoidable and should never have been fought. (His insightful chapter on Hoth's orders/intent is worth the price of the book.)

The book's quality of production, editing, etc. is very high. This is a book to buy, read, and put on your shelf. It is definitely a keeper.

Beware: The book is not for neophytes. The detail is deep and the going is often tedious. The maps at the back of the book help wade through the chapters. Stick with it. When you close the book, you will feel a real sense of accomplishment--and know a lot more about Kursk then you knew going in. And the battle will never look quite the same.

This is a unique book. Newton has collected, translated, and extensively annotated reports of Citadel written by German commanders (mostly corps-level). He also provides extensive footnotes, where he offers analysis, corrections, and insightful commentary.

As such, it is a valuable collection of primary source material and sheds light on many of the command decisions that went into the battle. The primary contribution of the book is to completely strip away any lingering portions of the myth that had the Germans kept pressing they would have won the battle. In fact, the reports plainly show that the Germans were never even close to achieving victory.

Additionally, Newton's notes, analysis, and the reports themselves demonstrate that many of the German failures were due to bad tactical decisions. This convincingly strips away some of the sheen from German tactical commanders, who generally are portrayed in histories as being of uniform excellence. Newton's book shows that some commanders, particularly on the south face, made some extremely poor decisions. The attack of the Panthers in Grossdeutschland's sector gets attention in other sources mainly due to the popularity of that tank and its teething troubles. Newton instead focusses on the poor tactical handling of them, which single-handedly almost derailed all of Grossdeutschland's attack. Poor decisions in Army Group Kempf also get attention (e.g. the dismantling of an infantry division near Belgorod), as do the decisions to delay taking of key hills overlooking Soviet positions until just before the attack (when they could have been useful as artillery observation and intelligence positions). Another valuable addition the book provides is that the German command had from the start planned to "turn" units attacking the southern face to the north-east prior to proceeding north, in order to deal with expected arrivals of Soviet reserves. This lead to the clash at Prokhorovka, which thus was not necessarily "unexpected" by the Germans. The problem for the Germans turned out to be a lack of infantry divisions as well as the slow progress of Army Group Kempf. The reports also reveal the failure of using increased artillery, airpower, and new armored vehicles to make up for the deficiencies in infantry units.

Newton's book also hammers home the point that Citadel was doomed, particularly in the north, because the 9th Army had insufficient protection on its flanks. When the Soviet offensive was launched against the Orel sector, 9th Army was immediately forced on the defensive (it had already bogged down anyway). Soviet offensives in the south forced the application of the few German reserves (including the SS Wiking Division), thus sucking them away from being able to reinforce Citadel. Newton's book leaves the reader with the clear impression that German tactics were flawed in many respects, that the Soviets were able to disrupt the flow of the attack, and that the Germans were never near accomplishing the goals of Citadel, even though units in the south did continue to press northward after meeting the 5th Guards Tank Army in front of Prokhorovka. An excellent book to accompany the Soviet General Staff Study, but not one for the general reader as Newton's book assumes familiarity with the details of the battle.

Warning - this book is not for the "casual" WWII reader. The detailled account of the Kursk battle & the depth of its analysis require more than a fair knowledge of the Eastern front, of military terminology, of both german and soviet armies and some solid technical knowledge of the weapons used during Barbarossa. If you qualify as such a reader, this book is a must have. If you are "new" to the subject - yet still intrested - I recommended buying "Images of Kursk" by Nik Cornish, which is an easier read, and a good introduction.

Having waded through the detailed accounts, opinions and viewpoints of the German generals, I was stunned -- and lost; lost because I, just a loader in a German 150 mm Assauly Howitzer Panzer, never knew the Big Picture. Truly eye-opening in may ways and fascinating to the lowly Gefreite.

Having been at the receiving end of a T-34's 76 mm gun, I am missing out on many a thing; as I said, the Big Picture never was mine. What astounds me is the rather poor editing when it comes to the German titles or names: the 1st WSSD, the "Leibstandarte der SS Adolf Hitler" is constantly misspelled (Liebstandarte sounds rather weird in German and could well be misunderstood by persons who are intimately knowledgable in German).

This book is more for scholars accustomed to slogging their way through dry-as-dust recollections that, after all, are sixty years old by now. For those, it is a most valuable addition to accounts by the lower ranking officers and enlisted men. Buy it and treasure it if you are a historian, read it from the public library if you are interested. Forget it if you expect the dirty, muddy, and high-pucker-factor experience of the Landser,

Kursk: The German View by Steven H. Newton (Associate Professor of History, Delaware State University) is an annotated study of the battle of Kursk, fought in the summer of 1943, a crucial struggle and the largest tank battle of World War II. Translating the post-war reports written by German commanders themselves, Kursk: The German View is uniquely insightful and a welcome addition to military history shelves. Also very highly recommended is Professor Newton's German Battle Tactics On The Russian Front 1941-1945 (Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 0887405827, $24.95) and Retreat From Leningrad: Army Group North 1944-1945 (Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 0887408060, $24.95).

In this book, Steven Newton is part author and part editor for he has sifted and brought together a collection of articles written by noted German generals on key topics relating to the campaign. The book is unlike the fine books by Glantz and Healy but between the 3 authors, they have delivered a paradigm on the battle.
A breakdown of the chapters follows which includes the original author and the subject covered:

Busse: Operation Citadel overview.
Raus: The Kempf Group and its troubles during the assault.
Fanghor: 4th PzA's responsibilities.
Groeben: 9th and 2nd Pz Armies at Orel.
Kless: Support by Luftlotte 6.
Seidemann: Support of Luftlotte 4.
Teske: Railroad Transportation and the moving of men and supplies to the area.
Rendulic: 35th Corps east of Orel and the defense of the Russian counter offensive.
Roman: 20th Corps' defense against the Red Army counter offensive in August and beyond.
Raus: 11th Corps during the battles for Belgorod and Kharkov along its left flank.
Francke: 6th Army defending the Mius River line during mid July.

Mr Newton gives a little background about each author and then discusses the author's views. Mr Newton's comments are poignant and gives better understanding to the original author and his article.

The last 4 chapters are discussions and analysis by the author on the following topics:
Hoth and Manstein's deceisions on Prokhorovka.
Model and 9th Army's performance in the Orel sector.
Analysis of AGS's initial assault on the southern boundary of the salient.
A discussion on whether Kursk was the pivotal battle of the war.

I really enjoyed this book for the selection of original authors and their articles is very good. Mr Newton has chosen men who were actually there, discussing circumstances that are relevant to the battle or the counter offensive by the Red Army.
There is coverage that is not in the other two books mentioned and such would make an excellent third book for your "Trilogy on Kursk".

This book is a collection of articles written from the German view partly in response to Glantz's book on this battle. What you have here though is a collection of various articles, which often are primary sources and by no means do all the articles agree on everything.

This battle was Hitler's last chance to dominate the Russian front before the Americans and British landed in Europe. That is why Hitler wanted to make it big.

As such Hitler rejected a proposal to make a much smaller and earlier German attack. This would be unlikely to much of a dent in the Russian army. Another option would have been for the Germans to wait for Russia to attack, try and hold the Russians and then counter attack. This was ruled out by Hitler as Russia might not attack.

The problem was that a successful German attack in Kursk like what Hitler wanted, was beyond the resources of German military. Despite the best efforts of the German military, admitably the Germans did make some mistakes as the book points out, the Germans were unable to defeat the Russians at Kursk.

I found some of the articles and discussions very interesting on the battle, although some are a bit repetitive going over material covered in an early article.(This is however, a common problem when dealing with primary sources like these.)

At the end from Hitler's point of view, Kursk was a failure. The Russians attacked almost immediately despite their high losses which they could afford, many would argue correctly I think that the German losses were not that great at Kursk but the problem was Germany could not in 1943 afford these losses.

Hitler had lost his war in the East.

Clearly a new face, not only for Kursk battle, as shown in the title, but also for next Russian offensives (Orel, Mius River and Kharkov).
It is based primarily on German accounts and described the actions/views of the German side.
Part I is dedicated to the strategic analysis of Operation Citadel and we can find the accounts of Gen. Busse (Citadel Overview), gen Kempf (about Armeeabteilung Kempf), gen Fangohr (about 4 Pz Army), gen von Groeben (9 Army and 2 Pz Army). Luftwaffe actions at Kursk and their order of battles are described in two accounts by gen Kless (Luftflotte 6) and gen. Seidemann (Luftflotte 4). Railroad Transportation is covered by an account of colonel Teske.
Part II covered the tactical aspects of Citadel and described the operations East of Orel (by gen Rendulic), XX Corps defensive battles aug-oct 1943 (gen. von Roman), XI Coprs actions in the battles for Belgorod and Kharkov and finally the operations of 6 Army on Mius River Line (gen Francke).
Part III is author's analysis of Citadel. His analysis and critiques covered the Initial assault of AGS, 9 Army operations, the debate about Prohorowka (Hoth and von Manstein views). Finally, Mr. Newton presented an interesting analysis in order to answer to his own question "Was Kursk a decisive battle?"
Overall, there are many interesting details provided in this book, but somehow the text is dry (there are no photos) and the maps are satisfactory.
It is clear that the author did not want only to publish these German accounts, but also to present his own assessment about Kursk & Prohorowka battles as shown in part III.
Being from different services (Land and air forces) and branches (armor, infantry, transportation, artillery etc), at different levels (AG and corps level, etc) these perspectives are interesting and add new information about these battles that can be useful when you integrate them in a more elaborate material dedicated to these subjects.
It is good to have this book, which with a little more attention could be much better.