Osprey Men-at-Arms 326 : The German Army (3) 1939-1945 : Eastern Front 1941-1943

On 23 August 1939 Hitler concluded an alliance of convenience with the Soviet dictator Stalin to protect Germany's eastern borders during the 1939-40 western campaign. Nevertheless the Soviet Union remained Germany's arch-enemy, and on 18 December 1940 Hitler announced that Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the Soviet Union, would commence of 15 May 1941, a date postponed to 22 June 1941 by the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece. It would be the biggest conflict in military history, with some three million German troops and about 900,000 allies facing almost 4.7 million Soviet troops, and its outcome was to colour post-war European history for 50 years. The German army supported by the Rumanian, Finnish, Hungarian and Slova armies would attack the Soviet Union with three army groups spearheaded by Panzer and motorised divisions organised in four reinforced army corps, designated Panzergruppen. These would trap and smash the bulk of the Soviet Red Army in Belarus and occupy the three key cities of Leningrad [the cradle of Soviet communism], Moscow [the nerve centre of Soviet power], and Kiev, capital of the agriculturally rich Ukraine and gateway to the Caucasian oilfields. At least that was the plan. In the third of five books concentrating on the German Army of the Second World War [Men-at-Arms 311, 316, 326 & 330], Nigel Thomas examines the history of the conflict, and the organisation, uniforms and insignia of the German Army on the Eastern Front from 1941-43. There are numerous illustrations and photographs throughout, including eight full page colour plates by Stephen Andrew.

Contents

• The Context of the Eastern Front
• The Eastern Front 1941-3
• Army Uniform
• The Plates

Osprey Men-at-Arms