Ostkrieg by Stephen Fritz : A review
For the last few years I've been on an "East Front" reading binge to supplement my normal diet of history reading (mostly WWII military history). In that regard, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Ostkrieg, and have placed it second only to Absolute War by Chris Bellamy as my favorite single volume history of the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. I highly recommend it!
I own, and have read many of Col. David Glantz's various histories on the same subject area. He is without a doubt the best and perhaps most informed military historian of the eastern front conflict. I recently read "When Titans Clashed" by Glantz and House, perhaps their most easy to read history of the entire conflict in a manageable 384 pages. Glantz has however some of the most exacting and detailed histories of the conflict, with some battles covered in multiple volumes. His histories, while excruciatingly comprehensive, are difficult to read. I treasure his analysis and observations on the conflict. Glantz is doing extensive work filling in the previously blank history of the eastern front that took place between the big and more well know battles and operations. While I treasure his books, his writing technique is definitely aimed at the serious historian. This is not to put Col. Glantz down, but rather to contrast the style of a known authority on the war with Stephen Fritz's excellent history. Mr. Fritz's style and breadth of writing make the subject a rich and very enjoyable reading experience.
This book is a strategic and operational level history of the war in the east. The large sweep of the war is covered, but the author inserts detail at the right time to bring the relevant subject into focus, often with a human vignette set in the context of the battle. This is history writing at its best and most engaging. It was a pleasure to read.
In trying to answer what this work brings to one already knowledgeable about the conflict, I would say Fritz's syntheses of the racial aspects of the war in the east, how the progression of the war influenced the actions that would become the holocaust, and how all these were aided and abetted by the Wehrmacht are on the cutting edge of modern historiography. I was initially afraid that the book would be more about the holocaust and less on the actual fighting and command decisions of both sides. Instead, the author points out how the rapid destruction of the European Jewish population was hostage to the circumstances of the war as a whole, and especially the progression of the war against the Soviet Union. While not stating it this way, I believe the author argues that the war in the east and the holocaust were part and parcel of one another. They were not separate events, but interdependent upon one another. Racial attitudes permitted the war to proceed, how it was fought and dictated the logic and time table of the holocaust. At this point I should mention two other excellent books detailing the Wehrmacht's contribution to the holocaust and the atrocities on the eastern front, they are "The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality" by Wolfram Wette and "The German Army and Genocide: Crimes Against War Prisoners, Jews, and Other Civilians, 1939-1944" Edited by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research.
On the decision to go to war, and the alternatives Hitler faced in 1940 and `41, Fritz does an excellent job in presenting all the modern historiography on the subject. He ties in many of Hitler's notions of the traumatic events of November 1918; the "Stab in the Back", hunger on the home front as well as Hitler's sense that the timetables of history were forcing him to act while he could on favorable conditions (before 1942, when US mobilization would come into play). Fritz does point out the logic in Hitler's decision in declaring war against the United States, even if it is somewhat bewildering in hindsight. As with many of the more recent authors who have gathered research material from other than self serving German Generals, Fritz points out both the bad and good military decisions Hitler made during the war. It is refreshing to see this discrimination in history. The various halts and readjustments during Barbarossa, to name just one example, are not just Hitler meddling in the battle, but rather rational choices he faced given the momentum (or lack there of) due to logistical concerns, fierce Red Army counterattacks and conflicting egos and objectives of his subordinate field and HQ commanders. Fritz also goes on to point out when victory was lost, but a stalemate might have been achievable (1942) and when it should have been obvious to all that Germany no longer controlled her future (1943).
More and more modern histories of this conflict address the demands of the home front and the pressures the Germans were under when it came to food and weapons production. Ostkrieg continues this emphasis, and often takes the reader to the home front to address pressures and concerns Hitler faced, and that influenced his evolving strategic thought on the war in the east. The desire for food, raw materials and as the war went on, labor forced Hitler and the other Nazi leaders to consider previously unthinkable actions, such as importing Hungarian Jews as slave labor, and actually attempting to not work them to death or kill them outright (as they had other Jews earlier in the war). As an aside, another excellent book often referenced by others as well as Fritz in Ostkrieg is "Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy" by Adam Tooze, an excellent and interesting book, if sometimes dry.
One of my little pleasures in reading a history book is in looking up the endnotes as I come to them and scanning the bibliography. I like to know where my author is getting his facts. This book was no exception. I spent well over a half hour going through his 52 page bibliography, checking off the articles and books I have in my library and making note for further book purchases. The endnotes (I really miss footnotes!) are extensive at 55 pages.
Could the Germans have won the war against the Soviet Union? Maybe in 1941, before the battles of Smolensk if Stalin had not been Stalin, or been more inclined to follow through with peace feelers. Would the capture of Moscow in December of 1941 made the Soviets sue for peace, or would it just have been a repeat of 1812, or a precursor of Stalingrad's Rattenkrieg one year earlier. Fritz is not the first to say that Germany, as fine as its military was, just wasn't big enough to finish the job if the enemy didn't cooperate and give up. Thankfully for the rest of the world, the Soviet Union and the Red Army didn't give up.
If I have a negative criticism, it is that there are not enough maps. There are seven well drawn maps in Ostkrieg, mostly small scale and large area, showing the front lines at different times of the war. I really wish authors and publishers of all military histories, but especially "east front" military histories would include enough maps of various scales so that when an author mentions a city, river or other landmark, it show up on at least one (preferably referenced) map. Nothing is so frustrating as following the narrative of a battle, hearing about a bridgehead across an important river near a town, looking for a map and not finding where that referenced point is. Being from the US, I might know where most significant battlefields of the American Civil War are, but in the steppes of Russia and Ukraine, give me a break! I want to see the geographic relationship between the forces. Too much is lost when excellent narrative isn't supported by sufficiently detailed maps. This isn't only a criticism of Fritz, Col. Glantz has some of the worse maps of any book I've ever seen. If only someone would publish a detailed atlas of the war in the east in English.
That small quibble aside this is a great book, and a great read. History at its finest.
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