TL;DR
David Stahel’s Retreat from Moscow provides a comprehensive, effective argument for looking anew at the battles of the 1941-1942 German winter campaign. Highly recommended for history and WWII buffs.
From the Publisher
A gripping and authoritative revisionist account of the German Winter Campaign of 1941–1942
Germany’s winter campaign of 1941–1942 is commonly seen as its first defeat. In Retreat from Moscow, a bold, gripping account of one of the seminal moments of World War II, David Stahel argues that instead it was its first strategic success in the East. The Soviet counteroffensive was in fact a Pyrrhic victory. Despite being pushed back from Moscow, the Wehrmacht lost far fewer men, frustrated its enemy’s strategy, and emerged in the spring unbroken and poised to recapture the initiative.
Hitler’s strategic plan called for holding important Russian industrial cities, and the German army succeeded. The Soviets as of January 1942 aimed for nothing less than the destruction of Army Group Center, yet not a single German unit was ever destroyed. Lacking the professionalism, training, and experience of the Wehrmacht, the Red Army’s offensive attempting to break German lines in countless head-on assaults led to far more tactical defeats than victories.
Using accounts from journals, memoirs, and wartime correspondence, Stahel takes us directly into the Wolf’s Lair to reveal a German command at war with itself as generals on the ground fought to maintain order and save their troops in the face of Hitler’s capricious, increasingly irrational directives. Excerpts from soldiers’ diaries and letters home paint a rich portrait of life and death on the front, where the men of the Ostheer battled frostbite nearly as deadly as Soviet artillery. With this latest installment of his pathbreaking series on the Eastern Front, David Stahel completes a military history of the highest order
Review: Retreat from Moscow
It’s commonly accepted that the winter of 1941-1942 was Germany’s first defeat. But in his previous work, David Stahel argued that the first defeat and the turning of the war occurred in the summer of 1941. In Retreat from Moscow, he argues that Germany wasn’t as defeated as the current narrative would suggest. The Red Army paid a heavy price with the front line stabilizing deep in Soviet territory from February to March of 1942. The book is meticulously built around proving this argument through exquisitely researched details. The notes and bibliography at the end of the book are detailed, numerous, and comprehensive. The bibliography is broken out into archival, websites, primary and secondary sources. All this research punctuates the text with more than just statistics; the maps helped me locate the detailed movements. Usually, I’m not a big map fan, but they worked for me in this book for some reason.
Retreat from Moscow starts in early December 1941 with the beginning of the Soviet counteroffensive to the halt Hitler ordered in mid December to the supply crisis of Christmas 1941 to the end of January 1942. Twenty-one chapters of detailed description and analysis that supports his conclusion. The Germans weathered the Soviet offensive by causing massive casualties among the Red Army. Stahel dictates the ups and downs of this campaign with accessible writing that held my attention. The writing is lively and tells a story rather than a dry recitation of the facts. This is excellent historical writing.
Depth
Retreat from Moscow is a deep book. Stahel moves from the unit level movements to the greater strategic decisions being made. The information is dense while remaining readable. Stahel has done extensive research. Of all the nonfiction books I’ve read this year, Stahel has collected the largest endnotes and bibliography. I cannot imagine the amount of work that went into just preparing for this book. His notes must be a few books unto themselves. I wonder if war gamers could use the book to reenact the winter campaign because the descriptions are so in-depth.
As much as I enjoyed this book, I didn’t know enough to get everything out of it that a military history buff could. It might have been too much for me at this point in my studies of World War II. The troop level movements were interesting, but I preferred the strategy and tactics a level up from there. I think for the casual history reader, this might be too information. However, the casual history reader can still enjoy Stahel’s work.
Did Stahel Argue Effectively?
In the introduction, Stahel states his thesis well and clearly. He uses the rest of the book as supporting arguments. So, was he successful? That’s a question for someone more knowledgeable about this material than I am. Success here would be defined as changing the current view of the winter campaign. It would also be defined among the scholars of WWII military history. Has he changed the course of the dialogue around the winter campaign? I don’t know. However, he argued effectively enough that I now view the winter campaign in a different light. Though Germany retreated, the high cost to the Red Army and the front line remaining deep in Soviet territory cannot be called a victory for the Soviet Union.
Conclusion
David Stahel’s Retreat from Moscow spares no detail in analyzing the German and Soviet troop movements. This in-depth account of the 1941-1942 winter campaign is a must have for military history fans. Retreat from Moscow caters to the hardcore scholars but is accessible to even the average history buff like me. Stahel have given us an excellent historical analysis. Recommended.
Retreat from Moscow is available November 19th from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.