Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany's Winter Campaign, 1941-1942

Written by David Stahel

Narrated by Matthew Waterson

Germany's winter campaign of 1941-1942 has commonly been seen as its "first defeat." In Retreat from Moscow, David Stahel argues that, in fact, it was its first strategic success in the east. Though the Red Army managed to push the Wehrmacht back from Moscow, the Germans lost far fewer men (1:6), frustrated their enemy's strategic plan, and emerged in the spring unbroken and poised to recapture the initiative.

Hitler's new strategic plan called for holding important Russian industrial cities, which the German army would do. And the Soviet plan as of January 1942 aimed for nothing less than the destruction of Army Group Centre, but in fact, not a single German army, corps, or division was ever successfully destroyed. Lacking the professionalism, training, and experience of the Wehrmacht, the Red Army mounted an offensive that attempted to break German lines in countless head-on assaults, which led to far more tactical defeats than victories.

Through journals, memoirs, and wartime correspondence, Stahel takes us into the Wolf's Lair and reveals a German command at war with itself. And through soldiers' diaries and letters home, he paints a rich portrait of life and death on the front, where the men of the Ostheer fight against frostbite as much as they do Soviet artillery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Nov 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781452639918

David Stahel

David Stahel is the author of over a half dozen books about World War II, several focusing on Nazi Germany’s war against the Soviet Union (including Operation Typhoon and The Battle for Moscow). He completed an MA in war studies at King’s College London in 2000 and a PhD at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2009. In his research he has concentrated primarily on the German military in World War II. Dr. Stahel is a senior lecturer in European history at the University of New South Wales, and he teaches at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

Reviews for Retreat from Moscow

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

David Stahel is back with another slab of hell on the Eastern Front, this time to make the argument that, as bad as it was, the collapse of Operation Typhoon was not quite the disaster that the Germans deserved to experience. That this was the case is a commentary on the limitations of Soviet military of the time and how the professional leaders of the Red Army had their own delusional maximum leader to cope with.Apart from that it occurs to me, seeing as this is the fifth book in this epic, Stahel might have done a little recapitulation of the themes of his earlier books, which dwelt on personal and professional failings of the German officer corps. Seeing as this is more of a popular book, not everyone is familiar with the erosion of reputations that have occurred in the cases of men such as Guderian and Halder since the end of the Cold War, and the fading of the polite lie of a German army that did not share in the criminality of the Third Reich.