54 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WWII Eastern Front History at Its Very Best!, August 3, 2006
This is a brilliant book; incredibly well researched, organized and written. Having exploited the latest Soviet and German archival material, "Thunder in the East" provides new and important insights into the German-Soviet war on the Eastern Front. And unlike previous Eastern Front histories, which tend to focus on one side or the other, Mawdsley, a professor of Soviet and Russian history, tells the story from both sides. The result is a powerful and balanced narrative, which touches on every aspect of the titanic struggle between Hitler's Third Reich and Stalin's Soviet Russia.
World War II historians have attempted to provide different explanations for the survival of the Red Army in 1941 and 1942, despite horrendous losses, and then its reemergence and resurrgence in 1943, leading to the defeat of the German armed forces in 1945. Mawdsley shows that rather than a single explanation, a number of factors were at work, depending on the period of the war, including the quantity of troops and equipment, the quality of technology, and the industrial capabilities of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
The author doesn't shy away from addressing the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and the deliberate elimination of Jews and Red Army prisoners by the German army working willingly alongside the SS. Accordingly to Mawdsley, some 500,000 Jews were murdered outright by mobile SS killing units and other Nazi police units, assisted by the German Army, in the first sweep of killing in the USSR.
In his conclusion the author discusses the cost of the war to the Soviet Union, noting that some 27 million Soviet citizens were killed, including 10 million Red Army soldiers. The war damaged the USSR more than it damaged Germany and cost the country ten years development. "It is probably also true," writes Mawdsley, "that the Soviet economy never recovered from the war." And he makes it clear that a Wehrmacht victory in Russia would have been far worse for both the Russians and the rest of Europe and the world.
"Thunder in the East" is World War II history at its very best!
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37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good start, May 12, 2006
If you are new to the Eastern Front this is an excellent new short history of the war. It concentrates a little on the military aspect, on the politics, economics, and of course the social intricacies of the war. The author uses a lot of newly released Soviet secondary sources, many of which I have at home and can vouch for, to present the war in a somewhat new light. There are a few mistakes and some omissions throughout the book but nothing too major. I like the authors conclusions about the purges in 1937-1938, while they were costly for the Red Army there is no reason to think that it crippled the officer corps, although it did create an atmosphere of fear and compliance with Stalin which in the end simply added to the disaster that was 1941. All the battles, offensive and defensive operations, are listed and gone through. Losses are given for the Red Army from Krivosheev's book for every operation, this book has become the standard use for Red Army losses in WWII although there are still some controversies about it. But in the end it's very interesting to see how Soviet losses (KIA, MIA, and POW) went down throughout the war. The author gives a good account of the Warsaw uprising and shows how impossible it was for the Red Army to do anything when it occurred, but something might have been done in late August or mid September. Then again the Poles wanted to take the city and use it as a bargaining chip against the Soviets, so it would have served no purpose in putting the Red Army in that kind of situation with no benefit to Stalin. Overall with the use of these new Russian sources from a variety of authors I have to say this is today the best short history of the war and I would gladly recommend it to anyone who wants an introduction to the Eastern Front.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Now THIS is military history!, September 19, 2006
Beautifully written, extremely informative, and well-packaged by the publisher, this is another must have for the WWII buff's library. Using the info from the Russian archives which has come out in the past 10-15 years, Professor Mawdsley does a magnificent job of presenting an overview of the War on the Eastern Front. It touches on about every matter you can think of, and has quality footnotes taking you to leading secondary works on almost each subject. A good bibliography, but an annotated one would have been even better. It focuses far more on Russian matters than German, but also has some interesting information on the Nazi side of the hill. Not the only book you should read on the Eastern Front, but a great place to start.
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