How Hitler Could Have Won World War II

A note on the Notes: Some references cite only the last name of the author or editor. These works are cited in full in the Selected Bibliography. References not so listed are cited in full where they appear. Numbers refer to pages.

Chapter 1: Germany’s Opportunity for Victory

p. 2: “after France fell.” Kimball, 48.

p. 2: “the European continent.” Ian Kersaw in Finney, 132.

p. 3: “Schutzstaffel or SS.” Dahms, 332–38.

p. 4: “or were murdered.” This book focuses on the military and political decisions open to Germany in World War II. Nothing in it should be misunderstood as approval for what the Third Reich did in six years of pillage and genocide, carried out by Nazi authorities and private soldiers alike. This book seeks to explore how close we came to losing the war, and how close Adolf Hitler came to creating the unspeakable world he wanted. There is insufficient space to examine the Holocaust and other murderous programs Hitler and Nazi Germany pursued to the very last days of the war. There are many fine books on this aspect of Nazism. Two of the best are Hitler’s Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, and an official German study of the Einsatzgruppen, or murder units, in eastern Europe from 1939 to 1942: Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges (The Troops of the War of Ideology) by Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm. For human losses, see Zabecki, vol. 1, 32–34 (Paul J. Rose); Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army, 83–84.

p. 6: “kinds of vehicles.” Fuller, vol. 3, 379–81.

p. 7: “‘had time to react.’” Rommel, 124.

p. 7: “infantryman could walk.” France had about 3,400 modern tanks, though not all were in organized tank units. Britain sent about 700 tanks to the Continent, mostly Mark VI light tanks, with 14-millimeter armor and armed with two machine guns, the rest Matildas, a powerful, slow (maximum speed 15 mph, but operating even slower) “infantry” tank with 70-millimeter main armor. Most were the Mark I version armed only with a machine gun, and only 50 were Mark IIs with a high-velocity two-pounder (40-millimeter) gun. On May 10, 1940, 2,300 French tanks had been formed into 51 battalions: 12 in three armored divisions, 12 in three light mechanized divisions, 27 in independent battalions. Each French battalion usually had 45 medium or light tanks, or 33 heavy tanks. The French deployed mostly infantry tanks with thick armor (34–60 millimeters), short range, and slow speed. Most had a good 37-millimeter gun, and some had an excellent high-velocity 47-millimeter gun. Either could pierce most German armor. See Goutard, 27–28; Zabecki, vol. 2, 1107–10, 1131–32 (Kenneth J. Swanson, Robert G. Waite, and John Dunn); Ellis, 88–89.

p. 8: “speed of only 240 mph.” This was the 1938 model with a 490-mile range used in the 1940 campaign. In 1941 the Ju-87D came out with a 4,000-pound pay-load and a 950-mile range. The D-model saw heavy and successful service in North Africa and Russia.

p. 8: “on the battlefield.” The German Wehrmacht (armed forces) were the first to develop close tactical or battle cooperation between aircraft and ground troops. A Stuka could drop a bomb within a hundred yards of any target designated by the ground forces. The Luftwaffe sent liaison officers to corps and panzer divisions to relay requests for support. In the campaign in the west, panzer forces could receive air support forty-five to seventy-five minutes after the request was made. See Corum, 271–75.

Chapter 2: The Campaign in the West: 1940

p. 9: “east of Holland.” Dahms, 162; Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 2, 238–47 (Hans Umbreit).

p. 11: “the French army.” Manstein, 100–102; Cooper, 198–200.

p. 11: “‘was inadmissible,’ Manstein wrote.” Manstein, 103–104.

p. 12: “‘of the German offensive.’” Ibid., 118.

p. 13: “‘had to say,’ Manstein wrote later.” Ibid., 121.

p. 15: “vulnerable to ground fire.” Goutard, 32–37.

p. 16: “on only slightly inferior terms.” Zabecki, vol. 2, 962, 964–66, 983–85 (Carl O. Schuster, Philip C. Bechtel).

p. 16: “could be moved forward.” Kiesling, 140–42.

Chapter 3: The Defeat of France

p. 20: “Walther von Reichenau’s following 6th Army.” Zabecki, vol. 2, 1471–72 (Kevin Dougherty); Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 2, 285–87 (Hans Umbreit); Dahms, 166–69; English and Gudmundsson, 61.

p. 21: “to Antwerp, Belgium.” The Allied land forces were divided into the 1st Group of Armies (Billotte), located between the English Channel and Montmédy, and including 7th Army (Giraud), the BEF (Gort), 1st Army (Georges Blanchard), 9th Army (André Corap), and 2nd Army (Charles Huntziger); the 2nd Group of Armies (Gaston Prételat) between Montmédy and Sélestat (thirty miles south of Strasbourg on the Rhine River), and including 3rd Army (Charles Condé), 4th Army (Edouard Réquin) and 5th Army (Victor Bourret); and the 3rd Group of Armies (Georges Besson) between Sélestat and Geneva, Switzerland, with 8th Army ( Joanny J.M. Garchery) and 3rd Army (Robert Auguste Touchon).

p. 22: “to the German panzers.” Goutard, 111–13.

p. 22: “‘Victory whatever the cost!’” Churchill, The Second World War, Their Finest Hour, 25–26.

p. 23: “in their thrust westward.” Guderian’s three divisions had 276 tanks each, Reinhardt’s two divisions 218 each; Hoth’s 5th Division had 324 tanks, his 7th Division 218; Hoepner’s two divisions had 324 tanks apiece, and the 9th Division (detailed to Holland) 229: total 2,683. Of these, 640 were Mark Is, 825 Mark IIs, 564 Mark IIIs, and 654 Mark IVs. The Mark Is were inadequate for combat and were relegated to reconnaissance. They weighed 6.5 tons, were armed with two machine guns, and had maximum armor 15 millimeters thick. The Mark IIs also were inadequate, weighed 10.5 tons, had only a 20-millimeter gun and 30-millimeter armor. The Mark IIIs carried a 37-millimeter gun and had 57-millimeter maximum armor. The Mark IVs mounted a short-barreled 75-millimeter gun and had maximum of 60-millimeter armor. All four models could travel at about 25 miles per hour. However, the tanks designated Mark IVs in the 6th, 7th, and 8th Panzer Divisions were Czech Skodas. They weighed 11.5 tons, could travel 21 miles an hour, had 25-millimeter maximum armor, and carried a 37-millimeter gun. See Goutard, 27; Chapman, 347; Zabecki, vol. 2, 1111–14, 1133 (Paul W. Johnson and Robert G. Waite).

p. 23: “‘think there is any danger?’” Chapman, 113.

p. 25: “‘guns had been abandoned.’” Ibid., 121.

p. 28: “‘boundless shores’ (Uferlose).” Dahms, 171.

p. 28: “and seized Bouvellement.” Guderian, 108.

p. 31: “attempted no further attack.” Ellis, 90–98.

p. 32: “‘and protective movements.’” Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk, 132.

pp. 33–34: “‘the liberation of the Old.’” Churchill, The Second World War, Their Finest Hour, 118.

p. 35: “51st Highland Division.” Rommel, 44–67.

p. 35: “‘the back of its neighbor.’” Kimball, 51.

Chapter 4: Hitler’s First Great Error

pp. 36–37: “‘their finest hour.’” Churchill, The Second World War, Their Finest Hour, 225–26.

p. 38: “pick up low-flying aircraft.” One of the greatest British feats in the war was breaking the German Enigma cipher machine’s code by the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley, between Oxford and Cambridge. Radio intercepts of Enigma-encoded messages gave the Allies advance warning of many German actions, plans, and dispositions. A Berlin commercial company invented the Enigma machine, and the army adopted it in the late 1920s and other governmental agencies in 1933. The machine mechanically enciphered plain text messages by means of three cipher drums, or rotors, with twenty-six letters along the rims and a fourth stationary reflector or reversing cipher drum. Changing the connections of these four rotors gave almost infinite potential codes. The Germans regarded Enigma transmissions as unbreakable. Polish intelligence turned over one of these machines to the British in late July 1939. Mathematicians at Bletchley began a laborious process of breaking the codes based on the repeated sequence of letters an operator was obliged to preface messages with to show the receiving station how he had geared or set the machine. Luftwaffe keys were the first broken, but Gestapo keys were never broken. The Bletchley operation was code-named Ultra. Its first great victory was in the Battle of Britain, when Ultra was able to give key advance information on Luftwaffe operations to the RAF. See Zabecki, vol. 2, 959–60, 1290–91 (Alexander Molnar, Jr.); Keegan, Second World War, 163–64, 497–502; Ronald Lewin, Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story, London: 1978.

p. 42: “role in deciding the war.” Shirer, 775–82; Dahms, 211; Zabecki, vol. 2 (Robert G. Waite), 1405–9; Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War, 87–108.

p. 43: “to British Guiana (Guyana).” Hitler made a great strategic error when he signed the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan on September 27, 1940. The alliance was aimed at maintaining American neutrality by raising the prospect of a two-front war, against Germany and Italy in Europe and against Japan in the Pacific. This threat increased the determination of American leaders to arm the nation. But the pact encouraged Japan to risk an attack on the United States in the belief that in a two-front war Americans would be unable to defeat the Japanese navy, leaving control of the Pacific to Japan. This decision probably cost Germany and Japan the war. By seeming to offer Japan the opportunity to exclude the United States from the western Pacific, the pact encouraged Japan to seize the colonies of Britain, France, and the Netherlands in Southeast Asia (the so-called southern strategy). This diverted Japanese attention from its designs on Siberia, and led to a neutrality treaty with the Soviet Union in April 1941.

p. 44: “American entry into the war.” Paul Kennedy points out that the economic power of the United States dwarfed that of every other nation. In 1938, with at least half of its capacity idle because of economic depression, the United States still produced almost 29 percent of the world’s manufactured goods, more than twice that of Germany, whose factories were operating at maximum capacity. In 1937 the United States had three times the income of the entire British Empire, almost seven times that of France, four times that of Germany, and sixteen times that of Japan. In 1937, the United States possessed 41.7 percent of the entire world’s war-production potential. Germany’s share was 14.4 percent, the Soviet Union’s 14, Britain’s 10.2, France’s 4.2, Japan’s 3.5, and Italy’s 2.5. See Kennedy, 325–33.

p. 44: “a peaceful solution.” Kimball, 69–76; Zabecki, vol. 1, 108–9 (Paul G. Pierpaoli, Jr.).

Chapter 5: The Fatal Turn to the East

p. 45: “‘the spring of 1941.’” Hitler’s meeting occurred at Berchtesgaden in his Berghof (retreat) at Obersalzberg in the Bavarian Alps. All the top leaders of the armed forces were there.

p. 45: “invaded Russia in 1812.” Liddell Hart, Strategy, 236.

p. 48: “against the Soviet Union.” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 3, 191–200; Shirer, 813–15.

p. 49: “if the United States entered.” Shirer, 829; Kimball, 84.

p. 49: “never counsel Hitler correctly.” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 3, 197.

p. 49: “than capture of London.” Fuller, vol. 3, 413.

p. 53: “a single panzer division for Africa.” Alexander, 237. Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov went to Berlin on November 12, 1940, to discuss a four-power entente and “delimitation of spheres of influence.” Joachim von Ribbentrop, German foreign minister, outlined a remarkable proposal for Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union to divide up Eurasia and Africa. But the plan had an air of unreality about it. Hitler had devoted large portions of Mein Kampf to describing his hatred of Communists and his desire to eradicate them. It is doubtful whether Joseph Stalin believed Hitler was serious. On November 26, he demanded a base in Bulgaria to secure control of the Dardanelles. This would place Romania under Soviet threat, and Romania’s Ploesti oil fields were a matter of life or death for Germany. Hitler abandoned the idea of a four-power alliance, and reached his final decision to attack the Soviet Union.

p. 55: “forced to cede to others.” Close to midnight on November 11, 1940, thirty obsolete Swordfish torpedo bomber biplanes from the British aircraft carrier Illustrious sank one and heavily damaged two Italian battleships lying at anchor at Taranto. The British lost two aircraft, and eliminated Italy as a naval competitor in the Mediterranean. The air strikes proved that bombers could sink capital ships. The Japanese learned the lesson, and were the first to realize that thereafter aircraft carriers were to dominate naval warfare. See Zabecki, vol. 2, 1708–9 (Francesco Fatutta).

p. 56: “for a hasty departure.” Beginning January 19, 1941, small British forces struck from Sudan in the north and Kenya in the south to evict the Italians from their East African colonies of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland, and from British Somaliland, which they had occupied in 1940. The British were aided by Ethiopians who accompanied Emperor Haile Selassie, exiled by the Italians when they conquered Ethiopia in 1935–1936. The Italians had 160,000 native and 100,000 Italian troops, but they retreated before the much smaller British forces. By April 6, 1941, the British had occupied Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, and most other important places in the colonies. The last Italian force surrendered at Gondar, Ethiopia, on November 27. The campaign demonstrated poor leadership by Italian officers and a tendency of Italian soldiers to surrender or run away.

p. 57: “680,000 troops in Romania.” Romanian King Carol II was forced to abdicate in favor of his eighteen-year-old son Michael I, but General Ion Antonescu took control of the country and joined the Axis on November 27, 1940.

p. 59: “Yugoslavia from all quarters.” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 3 (by Detlef Vogel), 417–84; Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War, 131–35.

Chapter 6: Attacking the Wrong Island

p. 62: “‘in the Mediterranean.’” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 3, 487.

p. 63: “‘toward the Suez Canal.’” Ibid., 488.

p. 65: “actually in British lines.” Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 238–43.

p. 69: “‘not let the army down.’” Zabecki, vol. 1, 268 (Philip Green).

p. 70: “‘The day of parachute troops is over.’” Ibid., 138–39.

Chapter 7: Rommel’s Unappreciated Gift

p. 71: “elements of his corps arrived.” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 3 (Bernd Stegemann), 615–30.

p. 71: “‘far as the eye could reach.’” Rommel, 101.

p. 72: “‘movement around the south.’” Ibid., 91.

p. 72: “‘according to his wishes.’” Schmidt, 77.

p. 73: “‘attempt to recover Benghazi.’” Alexander, 244; Rommel, 105.

p. 76: “the ‘armored brigade’” A British brigade was made up of battalions and corresponded in size and function to a regiment in the German, American, and most other armies. The terminology grew out of the fact that most British soldiers were assigned to a regiment, which was not a tactical organization but the military home of its members. Individual battalions of this regiment were attached to brigades, but were generally called “regiments” instead of battalions.

p. 76: “only a limited combat role.” At this time the Mark III had a 50-millimeter gun with moderate velocity, while the Mark IV had a short-barreled 75-millimeter gun with relatively low velocity. Both had a top speed of about 25 mph. Neither gun could penetrate the 78-millimeter frontal armor of the British Matilda infantry tank, and had difficulty stopping the faster (30 mph) British Mark V cruiser tanks with 40 millimeters of frontal armor. Moreover, the British tanks were armed with a two-pounder (40-millimeter) gun with higher velocity and slightly better penetration (44 millimeters of armor at 1,000 yards) than the German tank guns. Since the German medium tanks had only 30 millimeters of frontal armor at this time, the two-pounder could often stop them.

p. 76: “‘That’s your affair!’” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 3, 617.

p. 77: “‘at one stroke,’ Rommel wrote.” Rommel, 109.

p. 79: “the end of 1941.” Fuller, vol. 3, 419.

p. 79: “‘would have been impossible.’” Rommel, 120.

Chapter 8: Barbarossa

p. 82: “slightest threat to his dictatorship.” In the purges, beginning in May 1937, at least 30,000 of the Red Army’s 75,000 officers were imprisoned or executed, including the vast majority of senior officers. Another 10,000 were dismissed from the service. See Glantz and House, 11; English and Gudmundsson, 83.

p. 82: “Communist party agents in the army.” These political officers had the power to veto commanders’ orders during the revolutionary wars and disturbances in the 1920s and early 1930s. After 1934 Stalin withdrew this power, reimposed it during the purges, then withdrew it after the Finnish campaign. The commissars were restricted to political education of soldiers and ensuring political conformity among officers. See Keegan, Second World War, 177.

p. 82: “hobbled the German army.” Hitler insisted that all generals understand no holds were to be barred. In March 1941 he laid down the law to the chiefs of all three services and key army field commanders. Halder’s diary recorded Hitler’s words: “The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful, and unrelenting harshness. All officers will have to rid themselves of obsolete ideologies…. I insist that my orders be executed without contradiction. The commissars are the bearers of ideologies directly opposed to National Socialism. Therefore the commissars will be liquidated. German soldiers guilty of breaking international law … will be excused. Russia has not participated in the Hague Convention and therefore has no rights under it.” On May 13, 1941, Keitel issued a new order in the name of the Fuehrer, which limited courts-martial. Civilians suspected of criminal action were to be brought at once before an officer. This officer was to decide whether they were to be shot on the spot. In the case of offenses committed against enemy civilians by Wehrmacht members, prosecution was not obligatory, even where the deed was a military crime. See Shirer, 830–31.

p. 84: “have to defend all three.” Liddell Hart, Strategy, 255.

p. 84: “along the Bug River to Smolensk.” Army Group North had twenty infantry divisions, and three panzer and three motorized divisions, in the 18th Army under George von Küchler, 16th Army (Ernst Busch), and 4th Panzer Group (Erich Hoepner). Army Group Center had thirty-one infantry divisions, nine panzer and seven motorized divisions, and one cavalry division in 9th Army (Adolf Strauss), 4th Army (Günther von Kluge), 2nd Panzer Group (Heinz Guderian), and 3rd Panzer Group (Hermann Hoth). Army Group South had thirty infantry divisions, and five panzer and four motorized divisions, in 6th Army (Walther von Reichenau), 17th Army (Karl Heinrich von Stülpnagel), and 1st Panzer Group (Ewald von Kleist). Attached were the 3rd Italian Corps of four divisions, a Hungarian corps, a Slovak division, and a Croatian regiment. To protect the right flank of Army Group South were the 11th Army made up of Romanian and German forces, and the 3rd and 4th Romanian Armies, nominally under the command of Ion Antonescu, the Romanian dictator. The Finns in the north had sixteen divisions (150,000 men), assisted by four German divisions, two infantry, two motorized. In the German general reserve were twenty-four infantry divisions, and two panzer and two motorized divisions. See Fuller, vol. 3, 424.

p. 86: “‘of armaments manufacture, Moscow.’” Guderian, 515. Hitler’s entire Directive 21 of December 18, 1940, is reprinted in Guderian, appendix 22, 514–16. The essential elements also are in Fuller, vol. 3, 421–24.

p. 87: “‘were all grossly underestimated.’” Guderian, 261.

p. 88: “enemy flanks to create caldrons.” Count Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German General Staff 1891–1905, sought to achieve modern Cannaes in Vernichtungskriege, or “wars of annihilation.” The aim was to avoid frontal attacks by deep, concentric encircling movements around enemy flanks with infantry armies to drive enemy forces into pockets where they had to surrender or be annihilated. Blitzkrieg was different. Its principal element was a deep penetration through a narrow gap punched into the enemy’s line. The aims were to paralyze the enemy’s ability to respond and to gain decisive objectives far in the enemy’s rear. As happened in the campaign in the west in 1940, flanks remained only thinly guarded, or not at all, the speed of the panzer advance acting to prevent enemy reaction. For an analysis of Cannae, see Alexander, 45–48. For a summary of blitzkrieg and caldron battles, see Tarrant 5–7, 12–14, 31.

p. 89: “and 2,770 aircraft.” Shortage of oil was already severely restricting German operations. There was only enough for a small fraction of transport to be motorized, and this limited the number of mobile divisions. Most divisional supply was delivered from railheads by horse and wagon. Fuel shortage to some extent explains the lackadaisical German attitude regarding production of tanks. After the campaign in the west in 1940, Hitler doubled the number of panzer divisions but halved the number of tanks. In 1941 each panzer division (17,000 men) was authorized two or three panzer battalions, or 150–200 tanks, but divisions averaged only about 125. Motorized infantry divisions were slightly smaller, but now were equipped with an armored battalion (about 50 tanks). The typical German infantry division had 15,000 men, in three regiments, plus four horse-drawn artillery battalions. See Glantz and House, 28–29; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 157–58; Fuller, 425; Guderian, 144.

p. 89: “invisible to German intelligence.” The Soviet field army, when the Germans invaded, had six to ten divisions in two rifle corps, one incomplete mechanized corps, but little maintenance support. See Glantz and House, 36–41.

p. 90: “were many more warnings.” Ibid., 41–42; Shirer, 843–44; Keegan, Second World War, 179–80.

p. 90: “‘will be no war.’” Keegan, Second World War, 181.

p. 91: “in the 1940 campaign.” The tank division had 11,000 men in two tank regiments (375 tanks), one motorized rifle regiment, and reconnaissance, antitank, antiaircraft, engineer, and signal battalions. Most tanks were obsolete light models, but a few formations had the new KV-1 heavy and T-34 medium tanks, both vastly superior to the German Mark IIIs and IVs. The Red Army had about 1,800 of these new tanks when the war started. The T-34 weighed 26.5 tons and could travel at 31 mph (against the Mark IV’s 25 tons and 25 mph), and had good armor (45-millimeter front, 40-millimeter sides). It carried a high-velocity 76-millimeter gun compared to the Mark IV’s low-velocity 75-millimeter and the Mark III’s medium-velocity 50-millimeter gun. The 47.5-ton KV-1 also carried a 76-millimeter high-velocity gun, but had 90-millimeter armor. Both tanks were impervious to almost all German weapons, except the 88-millimeter high-velocity antiaircraft gun. Russian mechanized forces were weakened by bad logistic support and poor radios, which made coordinated maneuvers almost impossible. Also, the number of motor vehicles in mechanized corps was extremely low. See Glantz and House, 36; Keegan, Second World War, 177; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 158; Zabecki, vol. 2, 1115–17 (Paul W. Johnson, Robert G. Waite).

Chapter 9: Falling Between Two Stools

p. 92: “and achieved air supremacy.” Arguments that the Balkan campaign caused a fatal delay of six weeks in attacking Russia are incorrect. The campaign could not have commenced any earlier. Spring 1941 was exceptionally wet. The Bug River and its tributaries were still in flood stage well into May, and the ground nearby was swampy and almost impassable. See Fuller, vol. 3, 420; Guderian, 145.

p. 93: “submission in a week.” Only a day after the Germans invaded, Joseph Stalin caused the Supreme Soviet to establish the State Defense Committee, or GKO, with himself as chairman, with a Supreme Command, or Stavka, which he also dominated, placed under the GKO.

p. 93: “‘blinded us for a few moments,’ Guderian wrote.” Guderian, 156.

p. 94: “‘obedience and endurance.’” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 162.

p. 94: “something that shortly did happen.” On July 27, troops were read an order sentencing nine senior officers to death for being defeated. Others were shot in secret or committed suicide rather than face executioners. “Special sections” of the NKVD were deployed behind the lines to shoot deserters. On July 16 Stalin restored the “dual authority” of the political commissars—meaning once more they could overrule decisions of commanders.

p. 94: “‘by an order of an officer.’” Bartov, Hitler’s Army, 86.

p. 97: “‘an attack toward Moscow.’” Guderian, 190.

p. 97: “Ukraine and Crimea.” Ibid., 198–200.

p. 98: “Rasputitsa (literally ‘time without roads’).” Glantz and House, 80.

Chapter 10: Failure Before Moscow

p. 101: “‘unbounded determination to win.’” Kimball, 92.

p. 102: “first meeting of the two leaders.” At Placentia, FDR and Churchill agreed to the “Atlantic Charter,” which reflected American ideals. It included Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms”: freedom from want and fear, and freedom of worship and speech. Plans for a postwar international system remained vague. The charter called for “self-determination” of peoples to choose their form of government, but it didn’t condemn colonies of the imperialist powers or Stalin’s claims in eastern Europe. The charter also referred to “economic liberalism,” calling for equal access for all to trade and raw materials, thus implicitly opposing closed trading blocs, including Britain’s empire preference in commerce. See Kimball, 99–101, 205–6; Zabecki, vol. 1, 15–16 (Spencer Tucker).

p. 102: “convoys to Iceland.” Britain had occupied Iceland on May 10, 1940. The United States took over protection of the island in April 1941 and sent in troops to guard it in July 1941.

p. 103: “request by generals for retirement.” Goerlitz, 402–4.

p. 104: “clothing turning into rags.” Keegan, Second World War, 198–99.

p. 105: “‘the situation was reversed.’” Guderian, 237.

pp. 105–106: “‘great wear to the engines.’” Ibid., 233–34.

p. 107: “with no loss to themselves.” Glantz and House, 87.

p. 109: “‘very difficult to get out of.’” Mellenthin, 153.

Chapter 11: To and Fro in the Desert

p. 110: “‘carried there at all costs.’” Churchill, Second World War, The Grand Alliance, 246.

p. 111: “‘tearing my tanks to bits.’” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 179.

p. 112: “never be allowed to reorganize.” Rommel, 198–200.

p. 115: “conditions favorable to the British.” Liddell Hart, The Tanks, vol. 2, 103.

p. 115: “‘smash them in detail?’” Ibid.

Chapter 12: No Change in Strategy

p. 126: “supplies from America.” Dahms, 342–43.

p. 126: “oil fields of Iraq and Iran.” Rommel wrote that “in the summer of 1942, given six German mechanized divisions, we could have smashed the British so thoroughly that the threat from the south [Mediterranean] would have been eliminated for a long time to come. There is no doubt that adequate supplies for these formations could have been organized if the will had been there.” See Rommel, 192.

p. 129: “won the Battle of the Atlantic.” Dahms, 344–45.

p. 129: “the Caucasus oil fields and Murmansk.” Ibid., 342.

p. 130: “‘clear away the problems involved.’” Rommel, 191–92.

Chapter 13: The Drive to El Alamein

p. 131: “but he was turned down.” Rommel, 203.

p. 132: “nearly won a total victory.” On January 22, 1942, Hitler designated Rommel’s force as Panzer Army Africa. In addition to Africa Corps (21st and 15th Panzer Divisions) and 90th Light Division, it included the Italian 20th Corps (Ariete Armored Division and Trieste Motorized Division), 21st Corps (Pavia, Trento, and Sabratha Infantry Divisions), and 10th Corps (Bologna and Brescia Infantry Divisions). Later the Italians committed another armored division, the Littorio. Only it and 20th Corps were motorized, and hence of any use in mobile warfare. The others had little organic transportation. See Ibid., 181, 195, 198.

p. 132: “moved 2nd Air Corps back to Russia.” Ibid., 203fn; Dahms, 357.

p. 134: “be conducted offensively.” Rommel, 194.

p. 134: “‘decided to strike first.’” Ibid., 193–94.

p. 136: “‘far as the eye could see.’” Lucas, 98–99.

p. 137: “‘to wherever danger threatened.’” Rommel, 208.

p. 138: “‘and use up their strength’” Ibid., 211.

p. 139: “‘strength at the decisive point?’” Ibid., 217.

p. 141: “‘given me one more division.’” Ibid., 232.

Chapter 14: Stalingrad

p. 146: “and surrounded 6th Army.” Stalingrad’s main significance was to block oil from the Caucasus that Stalin had to have to stay in the war. Barge traffic from the Caspian to the Volga and northward became the main route for oil after the Germans broke the oil pipeline from the Caucasus at Rostov on July 23. Gunfire on the river was as effective in blocking barge passage as possession of Stalingrad itself. The Russians hurriedly laid a railway line west of the Caspian Sea from the oil fields at Baku to Astrakhan on the Volga. They also built a new rail line in the steppe from Astrakhan to Saratov, 250 miles northeast of Stalingrad, bypassing the city. In addition, the Russians sent 1,300 trucks a day over roads east of the Volga. When Averell Harriman asked Stalin if Russia needed more tanks, he answered that he’d rather have trucks. See Shirer, 909; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 247; Dahms, 370.

p. 147: “Baltic to the Black Sea.” The army had suffered over a million casualties and received 800,000 replacements, but required 200,000 men to police the million square miles of Soviet territory Germany had occupied. See Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 6, 778–85, 911–26. See also Theo J. Schulte, The German Army and Nazi Policies in Occupied Russia (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

p. 147: “Halder wrote in his diary.” Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 296–98.

p. 147: “forces that had been surrounded.” The German army survived the winter of 1941–1942 by holding key urban areas as bastions—Schlüsselburg, Novgorod, Rzhev, Vyasma, Briansk, Orel, Kursk, Kharkov, and Taganrog. Russians advancing around them could be cut off by flanking strokes from the strongholds. The German term for this process was einigeln, or to curl forces into a ball as der Igel, the hedgehog, does when it is threatened.

p. 149: “under Fedor von Bock.” Walther von Reichenau had replaced Gerd von Rundstedt as army group commander, but he died of a heart attack in January 1942.

p. 149: “the oil fields of the Caucasus with four.” Hitler assembled a million men in fifty-four divisions. In addition there were about 200,000 men in twenty allied divisions (six Hungarian, eight Romanian, and six Italian). The allied divisions were deficient in modern weapons and training. The main striking forces were 1,500 tanks in nine panzer and seven motorized (now designated panzergrenadier) divisions. Also, cannons mounted on tank chassis (self-propelled guns) were coming on line. Unlike previous campaigns, Schnellentruppen—fast troops—were not concentrated, but divided among the five armies (2nd, 6th, 17th, and 1st and 4th Panzer). The panzer armies had three armored and two motorized divisions apiece, but also thirteen infantry divisions between them. All the infantry divisions relied on horse-drawn wagons and the legs of the soldiers. There was thus a marked disparity in mobility between the fast troops and the foot-sloggers. The Soviets assembled about 1.7 million men in 81 rifle divisions, 38 rifle brigades, 12 cavalry divisions, and 62 tank and mechanized brigades in sixteen armies and four fronts. The Soviets had 3,400 tanks, 2,300 of them superior KVs and T-34s. See Tarrant, 30–32; Mellenthin, 144–59.

p. 149: “‘forces at Stalingrad to check it.’” Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 214.

pp. 149–150: “‘able to exact a heavy toll.’” Mellenthin, 160.

p. 152: “of the entire city.” On Soviet Lieutenant General V. I. Chuikov and his 62nd Army rested the defense of the city. Chuikov began with eight divisions. To neutralize German air and artillery superiority, he told his men to “hug” the Germans—remain so close that the enemy could not use air strikes or artillery without endangering his own men. The battle was fought out by small groups often separated by a single street or wall. German soldiers were in general better trained than Red soldiers, and by October had split Soviet defenses into four shallow bridgeheads, with front lines only 600 feet from the river front. The Reds resupplied and reinforced their troops at night by boats crossing the Volga. See Glantz and House, 122–23.

p. 153: “‘idiotic chatter’ in his presence.” Goerlitz, 418.

p. 153: “officers of the old German army.” Ibid., 418.

p. 153: “‘through the adjacent fronts.’” Manstein, 302.

p. 154: “either side of Stalingrad.” Stalin had divided his forces into twelve “fronts” under supreme headquarters or Stavka. These fronts usually had about four armies, which directly controlled attached divisions. There was no corps headquarters. What the Russians now called corps were groups of tank and motorized brigades that actually were the size of divisions, controlled by the front commander. Stalin sent a senior general and staff from Stavka to direct several fronts involved in a single operation. The system had the advantage of reducing intermediate headquarters and permitting fast movement of forces in fluid situations. It had the disadvantage of requiring commanders to direct large numbers of units. Stalin returned to army corps in the summer of 1943, before the system had been fully tested. See Liddell Hart, Second World War, 261; Glantz and House, 154.

Chapter 15: Manstein Saves the Army

p. 157: “‘hundreds of miles of front.’” Manstein, 320.

pp. 157–158: “Luftwaffe Field Division arrived too late.” The Luftwaffe Field Divisions were an invention of Hermann Göring, and they were a disaster. Göring formed them because the air force had far too many men for its few aircraft. He persuaded Hitler it was wrong to expose Nazi-indoctrinated air force men to reactionary army generals. He formed twenty-two Luftwaffe divisions, but the men had no training in ground combat, and the officers knew little of tactics or strategy. The divisions could only be used in static roles, and even here suffered extreme casualties and were largely ineffectual. See Goerlitz, 421.

p. 160: “forbidden ‘by order of the Fuehrer.’” Manstein, 334.

p. 162: “‘risks in the military field.’” Ibid., 277.

Chapter 16: The Western Allies Strike

p. 165: “peace feelers in Stockholm.” Dahms, 414.

p. 165: “invasions in the Mediterranean.” FDR sent Marshall and Ernest J. King, U.S. Navy chief, to London July 18–24, 1942, with orders either to convince the British chiefs of staff to accept Sledgehammer or agree that the Americans fight in Africa, while extracting from the British a promise to plan for a cross-Channel invasion in 1943 (Operation Roundup). Roosevelt knew the British would reject Sledgehammer and agree at least to plan Roundup. The real purpose of the conference was to demonstrate to Marshall the true state of affairs. See Liddell Hart, Second World War, 312; Kimball, 152; Bryant, 341–45.

p. 166: “cross-Channel assault might not be necessary.” Kimball, 166.

p. 166: “260 divisions actually in the field.” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 6, 713.

p. 167: “same time as Oran and Casablanca.” Churchill, Second World War, Hinge of Fate, 531–38.

p. 169: “French Admiral François Darlan, signed a cease-fire.” The diplomatic jostling leading up to Torch was complicated, but it was only a sideline. The Americans were hoping the French could be convinced to give up without a fight or after token resistance; hence Roosevelt’s insistence on the invasion looking like an American affair. FDR and Churchill refused to use Charles de Gaulle, chief of the Free French, because they didn’t like him for his insistence on French rights at every turn, and because officers in Africa were loyal to Vichy, not him. They settled on General Henri Giraud, an army commander in 1940 who had escaped from a German prisoner-of-war camp. Giraud turned out to have few brains and much conceit, and wanted to be supreme commander of the invasion. Admiral Jean-François Darlan, a notorious collaborator with the Nazis, commander of all French armed forces and presumed heir to Henri Philippe Pétain, leader of Vichy France, happened to be in Algiers visiting a severely sick son when the Allies arrived, and, after tortuous negotiations, became the designated French head of government, while Giraud became commander of armed forces. Darlan called off French resistance but was assassinated December 24 by a disaffected young Frenchman. French forces in North Africa went over to the Allies and formed the nucleus of a large French army, which served with distinction later. But de Gaulle remained the true French leader, as confirmed by his wild reception by the people of Paris on liberation day, August 25, 1944. See Liddell Hart, Second World War, 317–21, 326–32; Kimball, 167–70, 173–75; Bryant, 414, 419, 423–30; Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 6, 715–17; Blumenson, The Duel for France, 359–66.

p. 170: “arrow on French North Africa.” On August 19, 1942, the British undertook a raid against Dieppe on the French Channel coast with two Canadian brigades, commandos, and tanks (Operation Jubilee). The aim was to test landing tactics and amphibious equipment. The raid was repulsed, with 3,400 casualties among the 6,100 men committed. The Dieppe failure was a propaganda victory for Germany, and it seemed to confirm Hitler’s boasts about the impregnability of the European fortress. The Allies concluded that special assault methods and equipment had to be developed, cooperation between air, sea, and land forces improved, and that major seaports were too well protected to be assaulted. This led to building artificial harbors for the Normandy landings. See Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 6, 710–11; Zabecki, vol. 2 (Paul Dickson), 1447–49; Dahms, 369–70; Kimball, 163; Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1950), 626.

p. 173: “invasion of northwest Africa.” Rommel, 192.

p. 175: “British mobile columns.” Ibid., 327, 395.

p. 176: “to keep their weapons.” Ibid., 358fn.

p. 176: “‘very great value,’ Rommel wrote.” Ibid., 396.

p. 177: “‘of nothing but jewelry and pictures.’” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol 6, 730–31; Rommel, 365–66.

p. 177: “secure from encirclement.” On January 6, 1943, the Italian command asked Rommel to transfer a division to Tunisia to assist in the defense there. Rommel, eager to get his Africa Corps out of Libya, selected the 21st Panzer Division, but required it to leave all its tanks, guns, and other equipment, saying the division could be reequipped in Tunisia. See Irving, 257–58.

p. 177: “‘be it to the west or the east.’” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 6, 732.

p. 179: “armies, not the air forces.” RAF nighttime attacks with incendiaries burned out large parts of the residential areas in the industrial Ruhr of western Germany, Cologne, and elsewhere. The greatest attacks were on Hamburg and Berlin. The Hamburg assault, which began July 24, 1943, created horrible firestorms that killed 32,000 people, made 900,000 homeless, and destroyed more than a quarter of a million houses and apartments. The Berlin assault began on November 19, 1943. Luftwaffe night fighters and antiaircraft defenses were readier for this threat, shooting down 492 aircraft and damaging 952 more so badly they had to be withdrawn from use. The 2,700 dead were far below the loss at Hamburg. Of 250,000 bombed-out Berliners, Joseph Goebbels evacuated many, and the remainder got emergency shelter. U.S. Army Air Force leaders believed B-17 bombers could deliver precision strikes on selected targets by flying in close formations or “combat boxes” that German fighters would be unable to penetrate. They were wrong. Losses were heavy. U.S. Army Air Force chief Henry H. (Hap) Arnold sent in Republic P-47 Thunderbolts to protect the bombers. The P-47s had only a short range (590 miles), however, and were unable to accompany the B-17s deep into Germany. The American theory had its first great tests on August 17, 1943, when German fighters shot down 36 of 183 B-17s on a raid against ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt, and 24 of 146 bombers attacking the Messerschmitt works at Regensburg, both beyond the range of the P-47s. Production at both places continued. Eighth Air Force staged a second raid on Schweinfurt on October 14, 1943, using 291 B-17s. On the return flight, German fighters shot down 60 bombers, 17 crashed into the sea or in England, and 36 were damaged beyond repair—a single-day loss of 38 percent. Ball-bearing production was not interrupted. The cost was so great that doubts arose whether daytime bombing could be continued. However, Allied air commanders recognized the value of the North American P-51 Mustang fighter, which, with wing tanks, could reach a range of 2,200 miles, with a top speed (440 mph) comparable to the P-47, and higher than the top German piston-engined fighter, the Focke Wulf 190 (about 400 mph). P-51s did excellent service accompanying B-17s on deep raids into Germany. Even so, German industry was not paralyzed. Armaments minister Albert Speer transferred important industries to the east in 1942. Factories that had to remain were repaired quickly, large firms decentralized, and entire production branches transferred into caves, unused mines, and tunnels. Production actually increased. In 1943 Germany built 6,000 tanks (1942: 4,200) and 109,000 trucks and other vehicles (1942: 81,000); 36,500 cannons (1942: 23,500); 16,000 mortars (1942: 6,800); 4,180 antitank guns (1942: 1,300); and 4,400 88-millimeter antiaircraft guns (1942: 2,900); as well as 25,600 military aircraft (1942: 15,400). Most important, the destruction of German cities did not lead to a German collapse, as Sir Arthur T. Harris, chief of Bomber Command, had predicted. The German people began to identify their fate with that of the Nazi regime. See Dahms, 427–33; Crane, 93–119; Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II.

p. 179: “to defeat the submarine menace.” Early in 1943 Hitler replaced Erich Raeder with Karl Dönitz, his U-boat expert, as navy chief. A big reason for the Allied shipping losses in 1942 was the disruption of Magic intercepts because of a change in the naval code of German Enigma radio signals early that year. At the beginning of 1943 cryptologists at Bletchley, England, broke the code, but soon the Germans put a new roller in the Enigma machines and another blackout ensued. German naval intelligence had cracked the Allied code, leading to the greatest convoy battle of the war, which commenced on March 16, 1943. The fast convoy HX 229 caught up with the slower convoy SC 122 in the Mid-Atlantic. The two convoys, with nearly a hundred ships, ran into 38 waiting U-boats, which sank 21 freighters totaling 141,000 tons, at the cost of one submarine. This disaster set off extraordinary efforts. At Bletchley, Magic cryptologists broke the new Enigma code, while naval leaders at last solved the problem of the “black pit”— the Atlantic gap 600 miles wide not covered by air patrols that stretched from Greenland to the Azores. Here Dönitz concentrated his submarines, where they attacked convoys as they left air cover and broke off when they regained it. A conference in Washington called by Admiral Ernest J. King ordered escort carriers to shield convoys through the gap and stepped up use of B-24 Liberators to cover the gap from land. These measures, plus vastly improved radar (a 10-centimeter wavelength apparatus that could not be picked up by U-boats), broke the hold of the subs. In May, the Allies sank 41 U-boats, 24 by aircraft. With these catastrophic losses, Dönitz ended convoy battles until scientists could come up with defenses, but no one developed any. Germany had lost the “supply war.” See Dahms, 421–24; Overy, 25–62; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 370–94.

Chapter 17: Kasserine and the End in Africa

p. 183: “half the strength of the division.” The Allies relied on Ultra intercepts, which seemed to point toward Fondouk, though observers on the spot noticed a German buildup at Faid. The concentration on Fondouk, Omar Bradley wrote, “came to be a near-fatal assumption.” See Bradley and Blair, 127; Bradley, 25.

p. 184: “withdrawal to the Western Dorsals.” Bradley, 25.

p. 184: “some of the supply dumps there.” General Lucian Truscott described Fredendall as “outspoken in his opinions and critical of superiors and subordinates alike…. He rarely left his command post … yet was impatient with the recommendations of subordinates more familiar with the terrain and other conditions than he was.” Omar Bradley wrote that Fredendall’s command post “was an embarrassment to every American soldier: a deep underground shelter dug or blasted by two hundred engineers in an inaccessible canyon far to the rear, near Tebessa. It gave the impression that, for all his bombast and bravado, Fredendall was lacking in personal courage.” See Bradley and Blair, 128.

p. 184: “‘uncertainty of command.’” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 405.

p. 185: “‘small private show of his own.’” Rommel, 401.

p. 185: “‘against the strong enemy reserves.’” Ibid., 402.

p. 187: “far lower tank losses.” Blumenson, Patton, 181.

p. 187: “barred his return to Africa.” Rommel, 418–19.

p. 188: “the defeat at Kasserine.” Alexander’s most damning indictment of Americans was in a letter to Alan Brooke: “They simply do not know their job as soldiers and this is the case from the highest to the lowest, from the general to the private soldier. Perhaps the weakest link of all is the junior leader who just does not lead, with the result that their men don’t really fight.” See Hastings, Overlord, 25.

p. 188: “attacks eastward, out of the mountains.” Bradley and Blair, 141.

p. 188: “could find to oppose it.” Omar Bradley agreed with Alexander, for he wrote that 2nd Corps “did not possess the force required for so ambitious a mission. Had we overextended ourselves from Gafsa to Gabès, we might have been seriously hurt on the flanks by an Axis counterattack.” He also wrote: “Alexander was right, 2nd Corps was not then ready in any respect to carry out operations beyond feints.” Bradley wrote that Patton and he accepted the corps’s limitation “with good grace.” However, a May 1943 German evaluation was much more complimentary. It said Americans had an ability to learn on the battlefield and would develop quickly into worthy opponents. See Bradley, 59–51; Bradley and Blair, 142; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 413, 415; Doubler, 28. Bradley’s timidity shows a dramatic contrast with Rommel. One could scarcely doubt what Rommel would have done if he’d had four times as many men as the enemy placed firmly on the enemy’s flank.

p. 189: “turn into a superb field commander.” Bradley and Blair, 98–101, 139; Bradley, 43–45; Blumenson, Patton, 12, 17.

Chapter 18: The Invasion of Sicily

p. 195: “cross-Channel invasion.” Kimball, 214.

p. 196: “commanders in the Mediterranean.” Churchill, Second World War, Hinge of Fate, 812–31.

p. 196: “‘the Messina bottleneck first.’” Bradley and Blair, 162–63.

p. 197: “‘an overwhelming victory.’” Ibid., 162; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 446.

p. 197: “the Allies invaded Sardinia.” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 437–38.

p. 199: “‘surrenders were frequent.’” Ibid., 442.

p. 200: “‘on that goddamn beach.’” Kimball, 226. Churchill went ahead with a British-only effort to seize the Dodecanese Islands. The Germans beat the British to the islands, and the British failed badly, losing 4,500 men, 21 warships, and 113 aircraft. See ibid., 226–27; Michael W. Parish, Aegean Adventures 1940–1943 and the End of Churchill’s Dream (Sussex, England: The Book Guild, 1993).

p. 201: “Badoglio announced surrender.” Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 356–57.

p. 203: “delivered him from disgrace.” Blumenson, Patton, 209–18; Eisenhower, 179–83; Bradley, 160–62, 229; Bradley and Blair, 195–98, 201–2, 206–7, 218.

Chapter 19: The Citadel Disaster

p. 204: “and fighting troops.” Manstein, 443.

p. 204: “‘strongest fortress in the world.’” Mellenthin, 217.

p. 204: “mobilizing millions more.” Dahms, 439–40.

p. 205: “‘begging to be sliced off.’” Manstein, 445.

p. 205: “‘on the Black Sea.’” Ibid., 446.

p. 205: “they needed to prepare.” The original Tiger was a 56-ton machine mounting a high-velocity 88-millimeter cannon and 100 millimeters of armor, with a range of 87 miles. The 1944 model was several tons heavier with a slighter, longer range and shell-deflecting sloped sides on the turret like the Russian T-34. The Panther was first used in the Kursk battle. It was six tons lighter than the Tiger. It originally mounted an 88-millimeter gun, but later a 75-millimeter high-velocity cannon. Its range was 124 miles and it had 110-millimeter turret armor and 80-millimeter hull armor. Both were formidable weapons, and the Tiger was the best tank to come out of World War II.

p. 207: “‘my stomach turns over.’” Guderian, 306–9.

p. 207: “and 5,100 tanks.” Dahms, 442.

p. 208: “SS Panzer Corps.” The SS (Schutzstaffel, or protective staff) began in 1925 as Hitler’s bodyguard, and under Heinrich Himmler expanded into many fields: intelligence (Sicherheitsdienst or SD); concentration camp guards; police, including the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo or secret police); rulers of occupied territories; and the Waffen-SS or armed SS, which totaled 50,000 men in 1939 and 910,000 in 39 divisions in autumn 1944. SS divisions and corps were integrated into the Wehrmacht chain of command, and were generally directed by senior army generals. The Waffen-SS originally required volunteers to be of racially “pure Aryan” stock, but this provision disappeared in the late stages of the war. Although Waffen-SS units developed into effective fighting organizations, they were responsible for many atrocities, and were known for routine brutality. See Zabecki, vol. 1, 759–63 (Jon Moulton); 782–84 (Samuel J. Doss).

p. 209: “losses were often heavy.” Mellenthin, 230–31. After Citadel, the Germans abandoned the Panzerkeil for the Panzerglocke, or tank bell. Superheavy tanks went to the center of the bell, medium tanks left and right, and light tanks behind ready for pursuit. The commander traveled behind the leading medium tanks, in radio contact with fighter-bombers, while engineers in armored vehicles just behind forward tanks were ready to clear gaps through minefields.

p. 209: “‘quail-shooting with cannons.’” Guderian, 311. At a demonstration on March 19, 1943, Guderian discovered the fatal flaw in Porsche’s Tigers, but since Hitler was enthusiastic, Guderian had to use them. At this same event, Hitler and Guderian saw new armor plate “aprons” for the Mark III and IV panzers. These aprons or skirts hung loose about the flanks and rear of the tanks to cause antitank shells to detonate prematurely and not penetrate the main tank armor. The innovation was highly effective, leading the Russians to produce larger, high-velocity antitank guns and main tank guns. The T-34 gun was raised from 76 millimeters to 85 millimeters. See ibid.; Glanz and House, 162. p. 212: “the size of its own.” Manstein, 457.

Chapter 20: The Assault on Italy

p. 214: “Rome into Allied hands.” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 361–65.

p. 215: “forty self-propelled assault guns.” Mark Clark in his memoirs, Calculated Risk, wrote the Germans probably had “about six hundred tanks at Salerno.” See Clark, 199.

p. 218: “‘obtain tactical surprise.’” Linklater, 63.

p. 219: “ready to evacuate 6th Corps.” Cunningham, 569; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 463.

p. 221: “with John P. Lucas.” Eisenhower, 188.

p. 221: “obvious a place of landing.” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 469.

p. 223: “attacks on enemy positions.” Doubler, 13–21.

p. 225: “‘tactical move of my opponent.’” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 364.

p. 227: “‘was a stranded whale.’” Churchill, Second World War, Closing the Ring. 488.

p. 228: “attack on Cassino had failed.” Ibid., 500.

p. 229: “‘hours of such terrific hammering.’” Ibid., 506.

p. 230: “‘have been disastrous.’” Ibid., 429.

Chapter 21: Normandy

p. 233: “‘once it had been recognized.’” Guderian, 328.

p. 233: “the other south of Paris.” An eleventh division, 19th Panzer, was in southern Holland and would not be used unless the Allies invaded the Low Countries.

p. 234: “‘at any other point.’” Guderian, 329.

p. 234: “‘handling large ships.’” Ibid., 331; Rommel, 453. Another factor pointed to the Pas de Calais: Hitler’s new revenge weapons, the V-1 unmanned jet bombers or cruise missiles, and the V-2 rocket-propelled ballistic missiles, were coming on line. The Allies were aware of them, and knew, because their range was limited, they had to be launched from around the Pas de Calais. The Germans believed the Allies would invade there to knock out the launch sites as quickly as possible.

p. 234: “commander of the Panzer Lehr Division.” Rommel, 468.

p. 235: “extended to Normandy.” Ibid., 454.

p. 237: “along the Norman coast.” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 391–92; Shulman, 112.

p. 237: “further disorder and war.” Kimball, 238.

p. 238: “‘going to command Overlord.’” Eisenhower, 207.

p. 238: “‘his difficult subordinates.’” Hastings, Overlord, 29.

p. 239: “an American company’s 21,000.” Ibid., 34–35, 46.

p. 239: “work began apace.” Churchill, Second World War, Closing the Ring, 72–76, 586–87; Eisenhower, 234–35.

p. 240: “especially the Pas de Calais.” Eisenhower, 221–23, 225–29, 232–33; Bradley and Blair, 229–30.

p. 240: “fighters, now being introduced.” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 606–12.

p. 241: “in the west—inevitable.” D’Este, 76.

p. 241: “upon weather forecasts.” Eisenhower, 239.

p. 242: “assault ever attempted.” Ibid., 249.

p. 249: “among them three sets of brothers.” Man, 46–48.

p. 250: “‘and burn furiously.’” Ibid., 52–54.

p. 250: “‘get the hell out of here.’” Bradley and Blair, 251.

p. 251: “were at last released.” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 405; Rommel, 474.

p. 253: “by all its formations.” Rommel, 483; D’Este, 148, 162–63.

p. 253: “ballistic missiles.” The V-1 had a range of 140 miles, a speed of 350 mph, an 1,800-pound warhead, and was accurate only within an eight-mile radius. Although the Germans launched 9,200 against England, antiaircraft fire and fighters destroyed 4,600. The V-2 had a range of 200 miles, a 2,200-pound warhead, and was less accurate than the V-1. However, it flew at 2,200 mph, beyond the speed of sound, and gave no warning. The Germans fired 1,300 V-2s against thirteen British cities. Later the Germans fired V-1s and V-2s against targets on the continent. The V-1s killed a total of 7,800 people and injured 44,400. The V-2s killed 4,100 and injured 8,400. See Zabecki, vol. 2, 1054–57 (Jonathan B. A. Bailey and Robert G. Waite).

p. 253: “wholly defensive operation.” Rommel, 474–78.

Chapter 22: The Liberation of France

p. 254: “talk with the Fuehrer.” Rommel, 479–80.

p. 254: “most of them ill-trained.” Guderian, 334.

p. 254: “against the Allies.” Although Germany produced more than a thousand Me-262s, few ever got into the sky due to the quick work of Allied air forces. They bombed the refineries producing the special fuel for the jets, easily spotted the extended runways required for them to take off, and destroyed the Me-262s on the ground. See Shirer, 1099.

p. 255: “‘Make peace, you fools.’” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 100.

p. 255: “Allied aircraft near Livarot.” Rommel, 485–86. Heinz Guderian wrote that on July 18, 1944, a Luftwaffe officer, whom he did not name, informed him that “Field Marshal von Kluge intended to arrange an armistice with the western powers without Hitler’s knowledge, and that with this object in view was proposing shortly to establish contact with the enemy.” See Guderian, 338.

pp. 255–256: “‘grew increasingly violent.’” Guderian, 341–42.

p. 256: “Rommel chose poison.” Rommel, 503–6.

p. 256: “the British 2nd Army.” Bradley and Blair, 269.

p. 257: “to deal with it.” Michael D.Doubler, Closing with the Enemy (Lawrence: Kansas U. Press, 1944).

p. 257: “American casualties in Normandy.” Ibid, 37–38.

p. 258: “soldiers out of the hedgerow.” Ibid., 49–52.

p. 259: “equipped with the device.” Ibid., 46.

p. 260: “‘cut down by splinters.’” Rommel, 489.

p. 260: “Panzer Lehr virtually vanished.” Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit, 240.

p. 260: “30th Infantry Division, exulted.” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 145.

p. 261: “‘power at critical moments.’” Ibid., 147.

p. 262: “Mayenne, Laval, and Angers.” In a side action, the 5th Infantry Division of Walton Walker’s 20th Corps took both Angers and Nantes, thereby securing the Loire River line. Patton felt this operation was a diversion of strength, because there was little or no danger from Germans south of the Loire.

p. 263: “alerted them to the attack.” Bradley and Blair, 291–92.

p. 264: “‘pure utopia.’” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 193.

p. 265: “Jacques Leclerc.” Leclerc was the wartime pseudonym of Philippe François Marie de Hautecloque, a regular army captain who joined de Gaulle in 1940. He traveled through Chad to Libya and assisted Montgomery’s army on the desert flank. He formed the 2nd Armored Division in North Africa in 1943 from assorted French and French Empire sources.

p. 266: “‘toujours l’audace.’” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 216.

p. 266: “‘go beyond Argentan.’” Bradley and Blair, 298.

p. 266: “‘in the Canadian army.’” Ibid., 298.

p. 266: “the Germans in a trap.” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 207.

p. 268: “surrendered to the Americans.” Ibid., 227–28.

p. 269: “‘triumphal march to Germany.’” Ibid., 238.

p. 271: “a new defensive line.” An RAF study, published in 1945, and located in the early 1990s by Michel Dufresne, revealed that the Germans had 270,000 men in the Falaise pocket and on the roads to the Seine on August 19, 1944. Another 50,000 men were elsewhere west of the Seine. Of these 320,000 men, 80,000 were lost in the last twelve days of August, while 240,000 arrived at the Seine and crossed, plus 28,000 vehicles and several hundred tanks. The principal means were sixty ferry- and boat-crossing sites, and three pontoon bridges at Louviers, Elbeuf, and near Rouen. Some crossed in small boats and rafts. The bulk of the crossings occurred at night. By September 1, all the Germans were across. See ibid., 259. Allied losses in the Normandy campaign were 200,000, two-thirds of them American. Bradley listed German losses at 500,000, but actual losses were probably about those of the Allies. German records showed total casualties in the west from June 1 to August 31 were 294,000. See Bradley and Blair, 304; Mellenthin, 283.

p. 271: “‘don’t see it.’” Blumenson, Battle of the Generals, 255.

p. 272: “Is Paris burning?” Blumenson, The Duel for France, 360–61.

p. 272: “‘into Paris on August 25.’” Bradley and Blair, 309. A small French force, aided by civilians who hastily removed barricades, pushed through side streets from the south and actually reached the Hôtel de Ville shortly before midnight on August 24. See Blumenson, The Duel for France, 355.

p. 272: “‘back alleys, brothels, and bistros.’” Ibid., 359–66; Bradley and Blair, 309.

p. 273: “advance toward the Saar.” Only half of Patton’s army (two corps, Eddy’s 12th and Walker’s 20th) was available for immediate movement eastward. Troy Middleton’s 8th Corps was still in Brittany, and Haislip’s 15th Corps was deploying from Mantes. As a sop to Bradley, Montgomery got “operational coordination” of Hodges’s army, but not “operational direction,” which in theory remained with Bradley. See Bradley and Blair, 315, 318, 325.

p. 273: “‘such an opportunity.’” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 558.

p. 274: “‘if you’ll keep 3rd Army moving.’” Ibid., 562.

p. 274: “‘into Germany almost unhindered.’” Westphal, 172–74.

p. 274: “forces on the front.” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 428.

p. 274: “avoid being killed.” Liddell Hart, Second World War, 567; Bradley and Blair, 319.

p. 275: “the end of August.” Bradley wrote that the Americans began running out of gasoline on or about September 1. See Bradley and Blair, 321.

Chapter 23: The Battle of the Bulge

p. 276: “‘the objective Antwerp.’” Cole, The Ardennes, 2; MacDonald, 11. Another source for the battle is John S. D. Eisenhower, The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge (New York: Putnam, 1969; reprint New York: Da Capo, 1995).

p. 277: “‘the German officers corps.’” MacDonald, 21.

p. 278: “‘worth his while.’” Bradley, 454.

p. 280: “‘passed me on.’” Ibid., 467–69.

p. 280: “‘was really practicable.’” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 447.

p. 281: “mount an offensive.” MacDonald, 79.

p. 281: “‘sonuvabitch gotten all his strength?’” Bradley, 466.

p. 281: “he held in reserve.” Eisenhower, 342.

p. 285: “massacring eighty-six American prisoners.” On July 11, 1946, an American war crimes court convicted Peiper, Sepp Dietrich, and seventy-one other defendants, all former SS officers or soldiers. Peiper and forty-two others were sentenced to death. In time, attitudes changed due to a political climate more favorable to the Germans and the admission by the American prosecution that it had gained confessions by using hoods (as if the questioner was to be executed), false witnesses, and mock trials. None of the guilty were executed. All were ultimately paroled: Sepp Dietrich in 1955 and Peiper just before Christmas 1956. Peiper found Germany hostile to him, however, and moved to a village in Alsace. In the summer of 1976, two weeks after a sensational article about him appeared in the French newspaper L’Humanité, firebombs destroyed Peiper’s house and killed the sixty-year-old former SS commander. See MacDonald, 216–23, 620–23.

p. 285: “help of ‘artificial moonlight.’” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 459.

p. 287: “‘Christ come to cleanse the temple.’” Bradley and Blair, 365.

p. 287: “‘drive like hell.’” Bradley and Blair, 365–67; MacDonald, 514–21; Liddell Hart, Second World War, 656–57; Montgomery, 275–82.

p. 288: “‘Go to hell!’” MacDonald, 511–13.

p. 288: “‘when they were needed.’” Liddell Hart, Other Side of the Hill, 463.

p. 289: “lost a thousand aircraft.” MacDonald, 618.

Chapter 24: The Last Days

p. 290: “‘all this rubbish?’” Guderian, 382–83.

p. 291: “‘with what it’s got.’” Ibid., 387–88.

p. 293: “change Hitler’s mind.” Ibid., 393.

p. 293: “‘views on their superiors.’” Ibid., 397.

p. 294: “accused Guderian of treason.” Ibid., 401–2, 404–5.

p. 294: “all the more difficult.” On February 4–11, 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta, a resort on the Crimean peninsula. With victory only months away, the sole topic was the postwar world, especially eastern Europe. Stalin insisted on an eastern frontier of Poland approximating the line dividing German and Soviet occupation zones after the defeat of Poland in 1939. To compensate, the three Allied leaders agreed to extend Poland’s boundaries westward at the expense of Germany. The result established Germany’s eastern frontier along the Oder and Neisse rivers, giving Poland Silesia, Pomerania, and southern East Prussia (Russia took over northern East Prussia, including Königsberg). Stalin also backed a Polish government set up by himself (the Lublin government). The western Allies supported the Polish government in exile in London, but, since Russia occupied Poland, could do little to advance its cause. See Zabecki, vol. 1, 50–51 (Philip Green); Kimball, 308–18.

p. 294: “‘I can’t bear that.’” Guderian, 407; Shirer, 1097.

p. 296: “‘doesn’t fit the plan.’” Bradley and Blair, 405–7.

p. 297: “did not take place.” Shirer, 1103–5; Guderian, 422–24.

p. 298: “Eisenhower wrote.” Eisenhower, 396–97.

p. 299: “defense of the city.” Shirer, 1113.

p. 301: “‘be burned immediately.’” Ibid., 1123–27.

p. 302: “shot himself in the mouth.” There is some evidence that Hitler bit down on a cyanide capsule and almost simultaneously fired a bullet through his head. See Rosenbaum, 79–80.