Chapter 1: The Roots of the War of Annihilation
Chapter 2: Plans and Preparations, 1940–1941
Chapter 3: Initial Victories and Atrocities, June to August
Chapter 4: The Second Phase: Expanding Conquests and Genocide,
August to October
Chapter 5: The Final Drive on Moscow and Systematic Killing,
October to December
Chapter 6: Failure and Its Consequences, to Early 1942
Conclusion
Bibliographic Essay
Appendix 1: The Levels of Command
Appendix 2: Principal German Army Commands and Staffs on June 22,
1941
Geoffrey P. Megargee is the author of Inside Hitler's High Command, which won a 2001 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for Military History and was a Main Selection of the History Book Club. He is an applied research scholar at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Balancing his presentations of the front line and the rear areas,
Megargee integrates the strategic, operational, and ideological
aspects of Germany's 1941 invasion of Russia into what is both an
excellent introduction to, and a superior analysis of, Operation
Barbarossa.
*Dennis E. Showalter, Colorado College; author of Patton and
Rommel: Men of War in the Twentieth Century*
Dr. Geoffrey Megargee has written an extraordinary account of the
Wehrmacht's wholehearted cooperation in the drastic radicalization
of the Final Solution in the course of Operation Barbarossa, the
invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Combining his own research
and the revolution in scholars' understanding of the German Army's
participation in the Third Reich's crimes, he has provided us with
an account that is both gripping and grim.
*Williamson Murray, professor emeritus, Ohio State University, and
senior fellow at the Institute of Defense Analysis*
Megargee has written an extremely important book, firmly linking
the German army to the criminal regime it served. It is essential
reading for students of World War II.
*Rob Citino, Eastern Michigan University*
It is about time for a careful survey of the initial stage of the
German invasion of the Soviet Union that combines the military and
ideological aspects of the titanic conflict, deals with them in
their relationship with each other, and does so on the basis of
current literature that all too often treats them in isolation from
each other. Here it is.
*Gerhard L. Weinberg, author of A World at Arms: A Global History
of World War II*
In the popular mind, German generals have often escaped
responsibility for both the failure of the Blitzkrieg in the east
and its criminal nature. Megargee is to be lauded for this
succinctly written book. He provides a much-needed and eminently
readable correction to both images. This study is an invaluable
contribution to the history of Operation Barbarossa and its
singular linkage between strategy and mass murder. It can be highly
recommended to all those who wish to bring themselves up to date on
this most important aspect of the Russo-German war.
*Jürgen Förster, independent scholar and adjunct faculty member at
the University of Freiburg*
Geoffrey Megargee provides a splendidly succinct double context for
understanding the Nazi 'war of annihilation' in the east and the
emergence of the Final Solution. First, he explores the
relationship between the Nazi regime and the Wehrmacht, with
particular attention to shared ideological values and mistaken
expectations concerning the waging of war in general and the
campaign against the Soviet Union in particular. Second, he
demonstrates how the mass murder of Soviet Jewry was embedded in
sweeping and pervasive criminal occupation policies that also
victimized millions of POWs and non-Jewish civilians. In so doing,
he lays waste to what he aptly terms 'the dual myth of German
military genius and moral correctness.'
*Christopher R. Browning, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill; author of Origins of the Final Solution*
Elegantly researched and written . . . this magnificent book serves
as a bitter indictment of force without accountability and ranks as
a cautionary saga of how this war of aggression ground to a halt.
Highly recommended.
*CHOICE*
Provides readers with thorough information and a good deal of
up-to-date analysis, underlining popularly overlooked connections
between German warfare and mass murders that belong to the most
notorious in history.
*American Historical Review*
An excellent synthesis . . . that manages to be both concise and
yet surprisingly substantive. . . . Geoffrey Megargee has written a
very fine, readable survey of the first six months of the
Nazi-Soviet war, one that effectively demonstrates the
relationships, on any number of levels, between the military sphere
of strategy and operations and the political imperative, which
encompassed ideology, economics, culture, and racial policy.
*H-German*
Megargee's book appears particularly useful for the college
classroom. His style is clear and concise.
*The Journal Of Military History*
Combining evidence from untapped German documents and the wealth of
scholarship on the Eastern Front, Geoffrey Megargee, of the
Holocaust Memorial Museum, provides a concise and quite
comprehensive look at the German campaign against Russia. . . . The
book looks at events both at the front and behind it, providing
detailed, grim evidence directly from German sources. War of
Annihilation is an essential work for anyone with an interest in
the Second World War.
*The NYMAS Review*
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