Customer Reviews

Thunder on Dnepr: Zhukov-Stalin and the Defeat of Hitler's Blitzkrieg

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There's an old saw about the aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg. Supposedly, some years after the battle, George Pickett was asked why his famous charge had failed. The questioner was no doubt expecting one of the stereotypical Virginian answers: lack of proper artillery support, lack of support from soldiers from other states, etc. Instead, Pickett responded that he thought the Union army had something to do with it.

Much the same debate goes on in the analysis of the early days of the German army in its campaign in the Soviet Union. Most of the discussion of what occurred and why is focused on the Wehrmacht and their choices, what objectives they strove for, which units were sent where, things like that. Relatively little discussion is directed towards the Soviets, who are seen as helpless, inert automatons, terrified of doing anything that would enrage Stalin. Bryan Fugate has been directly challenging this view of things for some years now, starting with his book Operation Barbarossa, and this current book is a further entry in his campaign.

Operation Barbarossa concluded that Stalin and the Soviet high command knew that Hitler was going to attack in the summer of 1941, and were at least somewhat prepared for the attack. The problem with that book was the lack of evidence proving his point. This current book makes pretty much the same argument, but with better (though still not completely convincing) evidence. Since the publication of his first book, Fugate has apparently come across recently-opened archives in the Soviet Union which seem to prove his point, notably the accounts of three wargames held by the Stavka in early 1941. The first two games are apparently well-documented, while the third is very mysterious and murky. Fugate believes that the third game predicted that the Germans would penetrate far into the interior of the Soviet Union, and showed that it would be wise for the Soviets to station a strong army behind the Pripyet Marshes where it could attack the southern flank of such an army as it advanced towards Moscow. Near as I can tell, co-author Dvoretsky helped Fugate find his evidence, and perhaps helped with the writing and analysis of this book also.

This supposition makes up the first quarter or third of the book, and the rest of the text discusses how the author sees Army Group Center's advance into the Soviet Union in 1941. Most of the narrative follows Guderian's Panzer Group and Fugate's fabled 21st Army as they fight in the southern region of Army Group Center's sector of the front. Zhukov, Fugate and Dvoretsky's hero, comes in for a considerable amount of praise as he supposedly makes few if any mistakes (while watching the collapse of the Soviet army) and outwits the Germans time after time. Stalin, even, turns out to be if not exactly a master strategist, then certainly more clever than Hitler.

The difficulty with all of this is that the authors' evidence for what they're saying is very thin to say the least. The supposed February wargame that predicted the campaign that summer was apparently kept so secret that no records of it have survived, except for some partial material that *may* relate to it which was captured by the Germans. Everything else is supposition and guesswork. Similarly, when it comes to the actual campaigns involved, the author attributes motive and intent to the various personalities involved, often with thin evidence, at best. For whatever reason, while he's sometimes hard on the Soviets, he's very tough on the Germans, especially Guderian, who comes off as a preening fool.

There is some value to this book in that the authors' analysis of why the campaign went the way it did (the actual causes on the battlefied, not the Generals' intentions) is rather good, and intelligent. Fugate and Dvoretsky make a plausible case for their supposition, but unfortunately supposition it must remain, at least until further archives are opened which prove one way or the other if these things happened, or what their affect was.

One further note. The prose here is very stilted and dry, and the books is pretty heavy sledding as a reading experience. Fugate is a historian (he has a doctorate from a university, in German and Russian military history) and Dvoretsky is a Russian soldier. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they already know a great deal about the Eastern Front in World War II, and want to know more about the campaign in 1941.

This book has caused me to re-evaluate my views of the 1941 part of the Great Patriotic War and my approach to creating a simulation of this campaign. The defense of the upper Dnepr has been documented in other books, but, that this defense was pre-conceived and not just spur-of-the-moment or last-ditch scrambling has never been made clear before now. I'm not sold on everything the author(s) contend. (E.g., rather than believe Pavlov was set up for failure, I'm more inclined to believe that Stalin allowed Zhukov and Timoshenko to start preparing a defense in depth in case Pavlov was wrong, which possibility showed up from the wargames, and/or in case the Germans struck while the Red Army was still being re-organized.) I perceive there were a number of reasons why the blitzkrieg failed in the Soviet Union. It is evident from the information in this book, that Soviet strategy for a defense in depth was a contributor. Overall I'm very pleased with the presentation of information in this book. The fresh perspective is both interesting and rewarding.

The authors have reconstructed, from circumstantial evidence, a revisionist interpretation of Red Army prewar planning and early war strategy. This is an excellent attempt to look at "the other side of the hill" (95% of what's out there being narrated from the German point of view. The authors know their material well, but the specifics of their case (a Soviet master plan based on February 1941 wargames kept secret from all but a handful of generals) hinges on only a few collateral documents. They can document a general similarity of Soviet operations with what they believe was the outcome of the wargame, but cannot conclusively link the two, except by arguing that Zhukov and Timoshenko were at the wargame and conducted grand strategy--ergo they must have employed the strategy from the game. This is dangerous ground upon which to rest your entire thesis. Nonetheless, this book is valuable for approaching the first weeks and months of the war from a Soviet perspective, and makes the point quite strongly that the Red Army had already thrown German operations off their timetable within the first month of the war.

When I saw this title I was hoping, against hope, that finally, the history of World War II in the former Soviet Union was coming into the light. That light being one of an objective look into the events surrounding the most titanic clash of arms in history. What we have, I am sorry to say, is something not far removed from the bad old days of "cold war" Russian propoganda. I find it hard to believe that the Wehrmacht, appearantly stumbled along from victory to victory against a well thought out plan by STAVKA to lure the Wehrmacht to Moscow and then destroy it. Fugates' narrative is 'almost totally lacking in description of the massive failing in the Red Army's training, organization, logistics, leadership, etc., etc., etc. The Germans, with appearantly inept planning, hopelessly divided comanders, and an interfereing Hitler, were snookered by Zhukov (who appearantly planned all this in a Feb 1941 wargame). I'm sorry folk, while we know the Germans had problems, it is vveeerryy hard to swallow Fugates' arguments. His saving grace is his description of the purges and its effect on the Red Army's officer corps. If he had only solidly linked these events to the hopeless performance of the Red Army from June 22 to the end of Nov 1941 he might of been closer to the mark. I have no doubt that someone, somewhere, will eventually write a truly definitive account of the invasion of the Soviet Union without either a German 'apologist' or Soviet 'trumpet' bias. It is not this one.

There is little attention given, as another reviewer has pointed out, to the negative aspects for the Germans of the Battle of Smolensk and little mention at all of that of Yelnia. The authors reiterate the sabotage of Hitler's strategy and the overall conduct of war by individual military figures, each with his own agenda. After reading this work, it comes as no surprise that Guderian was dismissed from command at the end of 1941, and David Irving's illuminating comments in Hitler's War, one work that modifies significantly the convenient view of conventional wisdom that Germany's military failures were all the fault of the Fuhrer, also make the same point. I seriously wonder if Germany had the economic means to wage a deep war in the Soviet Union, where significant advance leads to significant overexposure, but the authors do point out some possible better outcomes for the Third Reich, if campaigning had chosen different objectives, particularly NOT Moscow in 1941. I count this as a worthwhile addition to the growing literature about the prime theater of the European War which allows us to view it in much more realistic terms than before.

This book, published 13 years after "Operation Barbarossa" clarifies, complements and confirms the key points of the first book.
Mr Fugate is a Russian historian and enthusiast and as such writes from a Russian perspective. Loaded with new information, the author goes back and enhances his first book.
In his first book, the author not only presents the key facts of Operation Barbarossa but also presents a profile that Russia, despite making tactical mistakes, had a viable battle plan with a deliberate defense posture that enabled the Russians to eventually contain the German onslaught in front of Moscow in December 1941. From the author's prose in the first book, the reader can tell that the author feels the world has underestimated the Russians and wholeheartedly tries to correct that misconception.

In the authors' new book certain topics are enhanced and expanded. On the section of prewar history, the authors include the influence that Russian strategists like Suvorov, Tukhachevsky, Kutuzov, Shaposhinikov and others will have on the thinking of Stalin and Zhukov when they frequently order counter-attacks. In addition to this new prewar history, new slivers of information on the Bialystok Salient, Smolensk, Yelnya, Kiev, and Velikie Luki is presented. The fighting at or near the Dniepr River is an essential part to the author's scenario of a Russian defense profile. Also Stalin's mistake at Kiev, the wrangling of the German officers (Halder, Jodl and especially Guderian) that caused so much trouble was expanded. Mistakes of the German offensive attacking Moscow so late in the year and the refusal to allow 2nd PzG to move with AGS into the Caucasus and the weaknesses of the Blitzkrieg tactics are also highlighted.

There are a few maps and photos to add to the story. There is a Notes section and a Appendix which includes a number of secret documents that have been declassified that the author uses to buttress his defense of Russian capabilities.

Much of this book is a holdover from "Operation Barbarossa" and was mildly disappointing by not having more new information but if you don't have the first book, I would recommend this book for the authors present a Russian scenario that is quite plausible and is a counter balance to the many German-centric books on the market. Even if you have "Operation Barbarossa", the low investment in this new book clearly offsets any duplication.

This work is almost a new edition of author Fugate's earlier book, "Operation Barbarossa, Strategy and Tactics on the Eastern Front, 1941" (Presidio Press: 1984). I discovered this while reading when struck with the development of the theme that Zhukov and Stalin were familiar with the plan for Barbarossa and decided to echelon their forces deeply and in strength behind the Dnepr and Dvina rivers to defend Moscow. A quick check with Fugate's earlier work on my shelf confirmed my suspicions. For the doubters, see Chapter One, pages 13 through 59 of the author's earlier work for the development of the Soviet strategy propounded in this work. Thereafter I read to see what was new and interesting, and although there were a few points where the analysis was improved, on the whole I was disappointed. Even the maps and photos were the same or similar.

Author Fugate explains more fully the two war games held by the Soviet high command in January of 1941, apparently because documents had been made available by the Soviets/Russians since writing his first book. However, now Fugate alleges that a third war game took place in February, one without documentation except the memoirs of the men lionized by the author, Zhukov and Timoshenko. That this game took place is still speculative and the author's thesis needs confirmation of the game to be taken at face value. It should also be mentioned that Soviet plans and preparations prior to the German attack take up a full third of the book.

The battles in the Yelnia salient where exhausted German infantry confronted Soviet counter-attacks and were abandoned by Guderian while he headed southwards to encircle the Soviet forces in the Ukraine are apparently held by the author to be almost a turning point -- in essence they showed that the Germans could be defeated and illustrated how to do it in future campaigns. Frankly, this seems to be overblown. Yes, infantry without armor support can be defeated by a determined enemy, and when one advances too far too fast, it is possible to become overextended and suffer bloody checks. As far as being a blueprint for defeating the Germans, the Yelnia battle doesn't make the grade.

The author seems to place a great deal of blame on Guderian for taking ALL his armor south to encircle the Soviet forces in the Ukraine -- but what commander wouldn't use all the forces at his disposal (if allowed by higher headquarters) to defeat the enemy?

The major mistake Hitler made according to the author was to turn again towards Moscow immediately following his stupendous victory in the Ukraine. The author argues that once Hitler turned South to seize much of the Soviet Union's productive areas he should have changed his strategy and attacked further towards the Volga and the Caucasus, acquiring the Donbas industrial area and the oil fields in the Caucasus. This was there for Hitler's taking in the last quarter of 1941 according to the author, and might have been sufficient for the Germans to win the war. However, once the Germans ran into Stalin's prescient strategy of defending Moscow and was bled white while attempting to take it, the Soviet winter counter-offensive could defeat the Germans and end Hitler's chance to win the war. If this sounds like a stretch to the reader, well, it does to me too. But it's at least a new take on the subject.

The author admits the Germans won more devastating victories in the late drive on Moscow (Operation Typhoon), capturing another 658,000 prisoners in the cauldron battles of Briansk and Viazma, but asserts the Germans should have stopped there. He apparently gives little thought to what that would have done to German morale, both in the army and on the home front. Being pushed back is one thing, stopping while victorious and giving the enemy time to regroup and replenish is another.

Nonetheless, the idea that once Guderian turned South that the general German strategy should have been changed from capturing Moscow to acquiring the economic assets in the South is at least interesting. That was the strategy adopted by Hitler too late in his summer, 1942 offensive. Of course, continuing on to Moscow instead of turning South as in the original plan would be an equally interesting thesis. Here the author seems to believe that Soviet reserves defending Moscow would still have turned the tide, particularly given Zhukov's military genius and Stalin's and Zhukov's (& Timoshenko's -- apparently the only thing Timoshenko ever did that was right) clever plans to defeat the Germans at Moscow. Of course, then come in the other arguments: that the Germans had counted on a quick campaign ending before the onset of winter; that Guderian and other generals were simply following the German concepts of "mission orientation" and using the flexibility still afforded commanders in the field at that time; and that the amount of armor allotted to Operation Barbarossa (3,582 tanks and self-propelled guns) was clearly insufficient and that the German was mainly still horse-drawn instead of being mechanized.

The author asserts that Zhukov essentially made no mistakes while the Soviet armies disappeared in front of him, and that the losses west of the Dnepr were necessary sacrifices to slow down the Germans. Supposedly they were simply part of the plan since there hadn't been time in the five months since the supposed third war game to move the necessary troops into their proper positions. Again, if this sounds like a stretch, then the reader is comprehending the basic issues surrounding the author's contentions.

In short, I found the book mildly interesting while adding a few new rows to the ground already plowed by the author. The work is clearly not intended for newcomers to World War II, and one needs to already possess a comprehensive understanding of Operation Barbarossa and the issues contained in this work. The writing is sometimes repetitive and soporific, and the end notes are minimal and contain few primary sources. In many respects this work does not meet a minimal scholarly standard. The idea that Stalin and his high commanded expected the German attack in 1941 and constructed the best plans and utilized their manpower to the best possible effect from February, 1941 to June 22nd is simply too much for many historians (including me) to accept without substantially more documentation and analysis. Much more evidence points to Stalin dithering in his defensive preparations while expecting an attack more probably in 1942. Certainly Stalin's continual denouncing of intelligence indicating the attack as provocations would seem to indicate that author Fugate still has a long way to go to prove his case.

The battle(s) around Smolensk in July and August 1941 are often ignored by historians. The focus was on the salient at Kiev and the 'delay' on the attack of Moscow. The author(s) may be stating a stretch that the master plan of Stalin's was defeat of the Germans once they crossed the Dnepr, but they offer a fine, detailed analysis of the battles around Yelnia and the heavy losses the Germans absorbed while employing a static defense with no mobile reserve.

As far as the assertion of other's above that it is folly to state the USSR was prepared for war, they had advanced weapon systems in development or already deployed. Doesn't sound like a country planning on sitting out the war as neutral.

This remarkable book takes a completely fresh look at the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, using the Archives of the Soviet Ministry of Defence, the Soviet Army and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The authors are Brian Fugate, a distinguished American military historian, and Lev Dvoretsky, a retired Russian colonel and military historian.

They present their findings in their opening words: It is an enduring myth of the twentieth century that the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 caught Stalin and the Red Army totally by surprise. Their work demolishes this myth, sponsored by Khrushchev and repeated by virtually every historian since. For example, they found the logbook of Stalins appointments: he had meetings with thirteen political and military leaders on 21 June, and with nineteen on 22 June, which disproves Khrushchevs claim that panic immobilised Stalin after the invasion.

The book shows that the invasion did not catch Stalin and the Soviet High Command off guard: they had developed a skilful, innovative and highly secret plan to oppose it. This plan ensured that the Soviet Union would not only survive the biggest and most violent invasion in history, but would also defeat it. They developed the key elements of the strategy during three war games held in January and February 1941, probably the most important war games ever played.

The Red Army considered war games the ultimate form of strategic planning, the best way to test alternative strategies. General Pavlov, Commander of the Western Front, advocated a forward strategy of defending Bialystok, which jutted 150 miles into the Nazi-controlled part of Poland, following with a counterattack into Germany. This strategy meant placing the Red Armys main forces near the border. Marshal Timoshenko, commissar for defence, and General Zhukov, head of the Kiev Special Military District, proposed placing their main forces deep in Soviet territory for an active strategic defence. This would create the conditions for a counterattack by the strategic reserve that would sweep the invader out of the Soviet Union and destroy the core of his army. The general staff put the current military situation on the map board, then launched the Nazi attack and played out the moves, testing the two strategies.

The first game tested Pavlovs strategy. Zhukov led the German forces and broke through Pavlovs defences, surrounding and annihilating them. The second game tested the Zhukov-Timoshenko strategy. Zhukov led the Red Army against Pavlovs German forces which had advanced deep into the Soviet Union. Zhukov counterattacked, outflanked and defeated Pavlovs forces. The day after the Politburo received the reports of these games, it appointed Zhukov chief of the general staff.

The authors discovered details of the third game in Timoshenkos and Zhukovs private papers. It tested a more developed version of the in-depth strategy, with a defence zoned in three echelons (see Map). The first, tactical, echelon was behind the border. The first strategic echelon was 200 to 300 miles behind the first, on the upper Dnepr. This launched a powerful counterattack against the southern flank of Army Group Centre as it crossed to the north of the Pripyat Marshes. The second strategic echelon was a mobile reserve, massed around Moscow, ready to attack the flanks of the enemy as he advanced towards Moscow. The plan worked in the game: the Red Armys forces were placed accordingly.

The Red Army carried out this strategy in July and August 1941. It successfully counterattacked the southern flank of Army Group Centre as it moved along the upper Dnepr, delaying its advance on Moscow. The delay enabled the forces in the second strategic echelon virtually to destroy Army Group Centre at Moscow in December. As a result of adopting this strategy, The war was essentially won in 1941 along the upper Dnepr and at Moscow.

The authors conclude, the USSR was as well prepared for war in June 1941 as it possibly could have been.

Fugate strikes again...
'Thunder On The Dnepr' is basically a re-write of the same author's 'Operation Barbarossa' (now out-of-print but widely available used) whose first printing dates from about 1980ish, IIRC.
The Rezun-esque theme is the same; the overconfident but naive Wehrmacht arrogantly marches into the USSR, thinking it can conquer the unconquerable, but gets fatally ensnared in Zhukov and Stalin's cunning and devious "state defense plan" - a plan which has roots in Russia's strategic designs dating back centuries.
This time around however, Fugate says he has actual Soviet documents and the assistance of someone named Lev Dvoretsky to prove the thesis. One would think the authors are trying to "rehabilitate" the Red Army's poor historical reputation, but the real thrust of this book (and Fugate's 'Barbarossa') becomes clearer when one reads between the lines, and does a bit of Googling.
Mr. Dvoretsky is not really a historian - he is a Russian anti-communist who has co-authored a couple of books on the Red Menace which echo many of the same themes that right-wingers have been touting throughout the Cold War:

The Soviets, especially Stalin, fully intended to conquer the free world and possesed the means to do it. They had cunningly concealed the truth about their vast military might from western observers. All of the myths about woefully inadequate Soviet preparation for Barbarossa were all part of this charade. In reality, they were well-prepared for war and thus able to defeat the Germans at the gates of Moscow. This secret plan thus paved the way for the Soviet conquest of Europe. They allowed the myth of the "surprise" German invasion to stand because it made the USSR look like victims, when in reality Stalin was well prepared. If it weren't for Mr. Fugate, we would still go on believing the USSR was a victim of Nazi aggression. After the war, the USSR continued to hide their true military capability from the world, even fooling the CIA. If it weren't for Reagan and the US military buildup in the 80s, which caused it to collapse, the USSR would still be a threat to world peace today.

Fugate's writing appears to be part of this equation.
His claims that Stalin and the Red Army were fully prepared for the German invasion are supposedly based upon "new research", conducted after the collapse of the USSR, despite the fact that his previous book on the subject had exactly the same theme. Was that one written using "old research"?
The main problem is, well, his "new research". There isn't any. Footnotes are almost non-exsistent which is a bad sign when publishing a work supposedly based on "the archives" of the former Soviet Union.
In fact, there are only 3-4 citations of what could be called primary materials. The scant remainder are all based on secondary works long available to researchers. Much of the text is a verbatim copy of 'Barbarossa'.
Fugate has absolutely no evidence of his claims, and they can be dismissed.
The best thing about the book is his analysis of the German High Command. But again, Fugate relies too much on conjecture and supposition.
'Thunder On The Dnepr' is not a very good "history" book. Rather, it's the authors' opinion, presumably based upon right-wing revisionism.