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One of Richard Muck's photographs taken in Cholm. This shows German soldiers crossing a roadway that was under Soviet observation/fire. The building in the foreground is the Women's High School.



The actual caption of the original photograph when it was published in 1943 was:

"The Soviets are breaking through. The defenders hurry to the forward trenches. From the Policemen's Gully in the north-east sector, strong flanking fire cracks through the streets."

I am starting today Kharkov 1942 by D M Glantz as my book on the eastern front. I have read his book on Barbarossa and was very impressed so hoping for more of the same. Also have his book on Leningrad in my to read pile.

Let us know how you get on Stephen. I've read Glantz: not easy, very detailed and thorough but worthwhile.

Totally agree with Geevee. I think I have all of Glantz's books bar a few. Very detailed but slow reads. Still waiting for his final volume on his Stalingrad trilogy.

Just finished my book; "Besieged: The Epic Battle for Cholm". A well written and very well researched account, over 100 pages of appendixes and notes and 328 B&W photographs.

Learnt that the Kriegsmarine had people involved in the siege! The Kriegsmarine Kraftfahrer (German navy drivers) had 7 NCO's and 72 men inside the pocket. I have never read that the German navy had drivers operating on the Eastern Front, had anyone else read that before?

by Jason D. Mark

Another photograph from my book on Cholm, taken by the German war photographer, Richard Muck.





Sentries on the airfield perimeter watch a rescue team bring in the 4-man crew of He-111 "A1+EH" from 1./Kampfgeschwader 53. The wreck blazes near the tree-line.

I have another reading commitment ("Gettysburg: The Last Invasion") but plan to be back with another Eastern Front book as soon as possible. Hmmm, maybe another Jason Mark book:

or by Jason D. Mark

Or:

or

Cholm sounds like one I would appreciate AR. I think with WW2 being a booming book market we now get more details, such as about the Kriegsmarine drivers. Interesting sidenotes!

I recall reading the German 7th army in Normandy was short of transport, and they were battling the bureaucracy trying to use the thousands of the trucks the Kriegsmarine had in the area. So that
would be a lot of drivers!

Stephen wrote: "I am starting today Kharkov 1942 by D M Glantz as my book on the eastern front. I have read his book on Barbarossa and was very impressed so hoping for more of the same. Also have his book on Lenin..."

Is it by Glantz himself or is it by him and someone else like

When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler

When Col. Glantz writes with someone else it has a tendency to reduce his natural inclination to act as an Intelligence officer. It isn't that the massive amounts of detail that he puts into books that he writes by himself is a bad thing, just that it does create a different feel to the read. And sometimes you can get lost in the details when what you want is more of an overview.

By the by I have quite a few books by Glantz, but for the most part I get mired down when trying to read them straight through. For research purposes though they are a gold mine. Combined with Charles Sharp's Russian OBs they are fantastic.

Dj wrote: "Stephen wrote: "I am starting today Kharkov 1942 by D M Glantz as my book on the eastern front. I have read his book on Barbarossa and was very impressed so hoping for more of the same. Also have h..."

I'm of the same mind on Glantz as you and your second paragraph Dj.

Stalin and his Generals:
Part III: The Deadly Friends

As this suggests it is still prior to the outbreak of war and is talking about the reactions and thoughts of various writers in regards to what the treaty between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany meant to them.

The first section is by Lieutenant General A. S. Iakovlev and in it he talks about the trip to Germany where the Germans showed off all their toys. His primary interest was the Aircraft. He also mentions the fact that the Russians were a little leery of what they were being shown since they didn't think that it would be possible that the Germans would be putting all of their front line equipment on display. At the end of his writing he talks about how the equipment that the Soviet Air Force was preparing was on par with the German's. Of course one of the things that he doesn't get into is that the German pilots generally had much more experience in combat then their Soviet Counterparts at the openings stages of the war.

The next writing is by V. M. Berezhkov, who went with Molotov to talk to Hitler and Ribbentrop about the lack of the Germans living up to their side of the economic treaty. It is an interesting account of the meeting from the Soviet side of the affair, although it doesn't generally seem to be in conflict with the way it is presented in Western books on the meeting.

There is a British bombing raid on Berlin during the time and Ribbentrop even in the Air Raid Shelter is telling Molotov that they need to make an agreement on spheres of control since England is already defeated. To which the author has Molotov quip that if England is already defeated whose bombs are falling on Berlin.

The third and finally writing in this section is by M. I. Gallai, who seems to have been a part of the Aeronautics Industry, takes a bit of a different angle on it than the first writing by Iakovlev. He talks about how the Germans sold them a number of their major plane designs, the actual aircraft. He states that many of the designs were quite good and included things that are only learned from combat experience. Simplicity and accessibility were the two major ones that he brings out. He considered both of these as being very important for mass trained pilots of average experience. He doesn't actually come out and say it, but it does sound a bit like he was comparing the German models as being more favorable in design to the Soviet counterparts.

I've seen Glantz mentioned here various times so I noticed a row of his books at the library. Whoa,
yeah those are some real tomes!

Geevee wrote: "I'm of the same mind on Glantz as you and your second paragraph Dj. "

I'm enjoying Eastern Inferno. it is a challenging read due to the graphic descriptions. I find that I can only read small amiunts at a time in order to absorb what I've read.
That being said, this book provides amazing insight to the daily life of German trench warfare.

Sounds like a great read Cindy, thanks for letting us know.

Hi Dj, I loved this quote from your book that you mentioned:

"There is a British bombing raid on Berlin during the time and Ribbentrop even in the Air Raid Shelter is telling Molotov that they need to make an agreement on spheres of control since England is already defeated. To which the author has Molotov quip that if England is already defeated whose bombs are falling on Berlin. "

I've really just started to get into Enemy At The Gates, it was hard to read while the US Open was on, I love Tennis. Now that I find myself with more time, I've really been reading it in earnest and I really find it a fascinating book. That is the thing that makes a history book great, even though you know how it ends, its wonderful to find out more and more about the event and look at it with great detail, so its not only a benchmark, but an experience that many people lived through.

Glad to hear you are enjoying "Enemy at the Gates" Tionne and very valid points about how the book can really make you feel for the people that experienced this climatic event in history.

Cindy wrote: "I'm enjoying Eastern Inferno. it is a challenging read due to the graphic descriptions. I find that I can only read small amiunts at a time in order to absorb what I've read.
That being said, this..."

Sounds very interesting Cindy - be grateful for your thoughts/review when you finish.

Dj wrote: "Any time, I would be more than happy to show you around. Although there is more to see than just book stores. LOL> Even if one of the book stores in question takes up a whole city block and is four..."

I think I might have to make the journey from near Toronto, Canada, to visit your bookshop,Dj! I wonder how my husband would feel about planning a trip to Oregon, centred around a book store?haha. We have plans to visit most of your beautiful West, and the rest of the USA, when he retires in a few weeks.
Anyway, a huge store, four stories high, sounds amazing. I guess that I would be spending my cross the border shopping limit, all in one place!

Laurel wrote: "Dj wrote: "Any time, I would be more than happy to show you around. Although there is more to see than just book stores. LOL> Even if one of the book stores in question takes up a whole city block ..."

Speaking of book stores, I stopped in today at the Jane Addams used book store in Champaign, Ill., one of my favorites. It is in a prominent location downtown and business is good. A new luxury hotel is going up directly across the street and the management believes their business will get even better. Yes, I'm grateful for all those who keep books alive!

Hell's Gate is in an oversize format, so the photos
are big and the so are the maps, which is nice!

Author Nash is a detail oriented writer, so you
have to pay your dues to get to the battle. There's
a short bio on all 143 commanders, (ok a bit of an
exaggeration, but seems like it) as well as the
disposition of each unit involved.

It's frustrating to read how each German officer
knows the salient, which is to become the Cherkassy
pocket, is ripe for a Russian attack, but no one
can convince Hitler of that.

Hitler fantasizes that the salient can be used to
launch an attack with his bedraggled forces.
Oddly the Ruskis do also. von Manstein has
slobberknockered them one too many times, so
they are wary.

There is an interesting evaluation of the
intelligence operations of both sides. One tends
to think of the Russians as a rolling mass of
tanks and men, but they deployed thousands
of mannequins, fake tanks and positions to
decoy the Germans. In this case it didn't
work. From radio traffic they correctly
predicted the Russian attack. However they
underestimated the massives size of the force
coming at them.

Conversely the Russians overestimated the
German strength. Once they identified a German
unit, they had the habit of thinking it was
at full strength.

It's January 24th 1944, the morning skies
are clear and cold. With a 14-1 artillery
advantage, the Russian barrage is about to start.

Damn, sounds good Carl, I have a copy that I should read then eh!

So I've just began reading Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944 and am hoping that I really like it, I haven't read too many books on the Eastern Front so it should hopefully be a fascinating read!

Hi Stephanie, I will be interested to hear your thoughts on this book. I have a copy but have not read it yet. I am pretty sure it will be a riveting read; the Siege of Leningrad is such a powerful story.

by Anna Reid

Two good books on the subject that I really enjoyed were:

by Michael Jones

by Harrison E. Salisbury

I am thinking of trying to slip this book in before the end of the theme month:


by Svetlana Gerasimova

Stephanie wrote: "So I've just began reading Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944 and am hoping that I really like it, I haven't read too many books on the Eastern Front so it should hopefully be a f..."

I am just about to start it too. I read Salisbury's "The 900 Days" many years ago, but Anna Reid enjoyed much greater access to Soviet/Russian archival material.

Should be a good book Manray9, keep us posted.

How are folks going with the Eastern Front theme reads?

Anybody come across some something different or very interesting in their books they would like to share?

I don't know if this book was mentioned before, but this was a great read about the Eastern Front:

by Vasily Grossman

Not mentioned so far Morgiana so thanks for the details :)

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Not mentioned so far Morgiana so thanks for the details :)"

Rick thanks!

This one should be also interesting:

by Deborah S Cornelius

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Hi Dj, I loved this quote from your book that you mentioned:

"There is a British bombing raid on Berlin during the time and Ribbentrop even in the Air Raid Shelter is telling Molotov that they nee..."

Yeah I thought that was very typical of the way Molotov is usually presented at disagreeing with someone. He generally takes a oblique angle at the disagreement with someone.

Laurel wrote: "Dj wrote: "Any time, I would be more than happy to show you around. Although there is more to see than just book stores. LOL> Even if one of the book stores in question takes up a whole city block ..."


Well we do have some spectacular Waterfalls and it is a short trip to Mt. Hood and the Coast beaches. LOL.

Dj wrote: "Laurel wrote: "Dj wrote: "Any time, I would be more than happy to show you around. Although there is more to see than just book stores. LOL> Even if one of the book stores in question takes up a wh..."

Might just do that! I think we could travel across the states visiting the people I have met on GR, I live near Toronto, so happy to give people the grand tour of Toronto, Niagara Falls etc!

finished my reading for the month with "forgotten soldier"... really good book

Good to see Sumit and a lot of people agree with you.

Good to hear you enjoyed the book Sumit, when I was a young soldier it was considered the book to read!

I've just started to read; The Rzhev Slaughterhouse to read as part of this months theme read on the Eastern Front.

by Svetlana Gerasimova

Looks like a good one Rick, the scale of the casualties is staggering . It is definitely one of those forgotten battles that Glantz talks about , which has been swept under the carpet by the Russians .

Hi Stephen, it certainly seems that way with what I have read so far. The battles around Rzhev cost the Russians more casualties than Stalingrad and it appears that official sources only quoted KIA and WIA but never the missing which was the bulk of the casualties for the Russian forces. It also seems that the fighting in this region tied up Army Group Centre when they should have been assisting Operation Blau.

Its interesting reading of the intensity and scale of the fighting around Rzhev in 1942, the losses on both sides appear staggering. Here is a first-hand account from a Russian soldier:

M. K. Sushkov of the 215th Rifle Division wrote: “The Germans launched a counterattack on 25 September �. On this day both sides fought with exceptional fury; I never witnessed such fighting until the end of the war, even on such directions as Orsha, Smolensk and Minsk, and in East Prussia.�

by Svetlana Gerasimova

I dare say I will need to grab my copies of these two books and try and read them soon as follow ups to this account:

by Lev Lopukhovsky

by David M. Glantz

According to German sources cited in this book, the total Russian losses for the first Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive (30 July � 30 September 1942) was as follows: "380,000 killed and wounded, 13,700 prisoners, 2,956 tanks, 227 mortars, 781 machine guns and 870 aircraft."

At the completion of the second Rzhev-Sychevka offensive, Operation Mars, the Russian forces suffered the following losses:

“The casualties in the armies, formations and units that took part in the operation were horrifyingly enormous. The 20th Army lost 58,524; the 8th Guards Rifle Corps over five days of combat lost 6,068 men; the 6th Tank Corps essentially lost its entire authorized strength twice over; the 5th Tank Corps lost its entire authorized complement of tanks in three days of fighting; the 6th Rifle Corps � 25,400 men; the entire 41st Army � 50,636 men; the 1st Mechanized Corps � 8,180 men; the 39th Army � 36,158 men; and the 19th Mechanized Brigade lost 2,446 men out of its starting 3,618 men. According to official data, the total losses of the two fronts amounted to 215,700 men, of which 70,400 were killed or missing-in-action, and 1,366 tanks. One can judge the equipment losses of the formations from a document of the General Staff dated 25 December 1942 about replenishing the losses of the 1st Mechanized Corps and the 6th Siberian Rifle Corps with the following weapons: 12,000 rifles, 6,000 submachine guns, 400 anti-tank rifles, 500 light machine guns, 250 heavy machine guns, 100 45mm guns, and 50 long-range field guns.

In the opinion of D. Glantz, German estimates of the total Soviet personnel losses in the operation were more accurate and equalled 335,000 men. According to German calculations, the losses of personnel of the Soviet rifle formations that participated in combat operations amounted to 50-80 percent, more than 200,000 men killed and wounded, 1,847 tank and 127 aircraft."

Here is some pretty amazing information from my book on the fighting around Rzhev during WW2:

“Between 1988 and 2003 in Tver� Oblast, the remains of more than 22,000 soldiers were recovered and interred with military honors and religious ceremony; the identities of more than 3,000 of the remains managed to be established.�

Which reminded me of this book:

by Donovan Webster

The losses are truly staggering.

More details about post-war activity from my current book:

“In 2006 alone, 82 search teams were working in Smolensk Oblast. Within Kalinin Oblast’s Iukhnov District, by April 2007, the remains of 20,954 Red Army soldiers and officers, who were killed in the Great Patriotic War, were found and reburied.�

Here is a report and photographs of interest:

Mike wrote: "The losses are truly staggering."

Hi Mike,

Apparently they suffered more losses in this sector of the front than at Stalingrad but it has largely been ignored.

Here is a very interesting observation on the fighting at Rzhev from a Russian participant:

“P. Mikhin, a former platoon commander in the 1028th Artillery Regiment of the 30th Army’s 52nd Rifle Division wrote back at the beginning of this century:

We learned to fight on the land of Rzhev, while our great commanders learned how to execute their forthcoming victories at our expense. For 15 months we battled for Rzhev and accomplished almost nothing, until the Germans left it themselves. Let us assume that these were victories for the enemy, but these were also our most terrible tragedies. The war didn’t develop on successes alone. But the history of it should complete and credible, no matter how bitter it was. War was this bitterness after all, so costly to many, who passed through the ‘Rzhev meat grinder�. The Germans were turning the handle, and we poured and poured thousands and thousands of soldiers into it.�

Another interesting quote from the book that may interest other readers of the conflict on the Eastern Front:

“In the opinion of D. Glantz and I.V. Isaev, the Second Rzhev-Sychevka Operation had an indirect, but fully tangible influence on the 1943 summer campaign. The Ninth Army, which had taken heavy casualties at Rzhev while stopping Operation Mars, was unable to replace those losses it incurred in the fighting. The German divisions defending the Rzhev bridgehead were unable to reach an acceptable level of combat-effectiveness, neither by May 1943, which was one of the reasons why Hitler postponed Operation Citadel, nor by the time of the Kursk offensive in July 1943. This became one of the reasons why the offensive against the northern shoulder of the Kursk bulge quickly ran out of steam.�

Reading about the Cherkassy pocket I'm reminded of and impressed by the courage and what must be a certain resignation to ones' fate, by both sides.
No matter how well they fight, the German units
are ground down by the continual attacks and the first wave (and second and third) Russians, frontnoviks, are sent to certain doom.

In retaking the Ukraine, the Russians rounded up the remaining men and sent them into the line, no training or uniforms, apparently just to see if the Germans would run out of ammo.