Thunder in the East

The final recommendation I’d make is only partly related to Operation Barbarossa, but deserves inclusion in that discussion as well as the wider coverage of the war (for those seeking to go further). Mawdsley covers the war from many angles (economic, political, military as well as the experience of occupation) and provides insightful analysis for each turn of events. The endnotes and bibliography are exhaustive, providing a useful guide for whatever subject of interest a reader exploring the vast historiography of the Nazi-Soviet war might have. A first-rate read for both Operation Barbarossa and the wider war in the East.

Like Sebag Montefiore as Stalin biographer, Mawdsley was the first western military historian truly to exploit new sources from Soviet archives in order to probe more deeply into the Nazi-Soviet war on the eastern front. While earlier histories, such as John Erickson’s two volumes published in the 1975 and 1983, remain informative, Erickson was working at a disadvantage, as he would himself have been the first to admit. David Glantz, who has written a number of specialized studies of specific battles and campaigns, has worked with numerous Soviet sources – but he still relies predominantly on ‘official’ Soviet chronicles and… show more.