Karl-Heinz Frieser

A ground-breaking new study that transforms our understanding of one of the most famous battles of the Second World War, widely mythologized as the largest tank battle in history. Today in Russia there are three official sacred battlefields: Kulikovo, where the Mongols were defeated in 1380; Borodino, where Russian troops slowed Napoleon’s Grande Armée before Moscow in 1812; the third is Prokhorovka, where the Soviet annihilation of Hitler’s elite SS Panzer force on 12 July 1943 in the largest armoured clash in history has traditionally been described as a key turning point in the war. The Panzers of Prokhorovka challenges this narrative. The battle was indeed an important Soviet victory, but a very different one to that described above. Based on ground-breaking archival research and supported by previously unpublished images of the battlefield, Ben Wheatley argues that German armoured losses were in fact negligible and a fresh approach is required to understand Prokhorovka. This book tackles the many myths that have built up over the years, and presents a new analysis of this famous engagement.

Hitlers schneller Sieg ber die Westm chte war nicht als "Blitzkrieg" geplant. Die deutsche F hrung rechnete mit langj hrigen K mpfen wie im Ersten Weltkrieg und stellte ihre wirtschaftliche und milit rische Planung darauf ein. Erst der berraschende Durchbruch des Panzerkorps Guderian bei Sedan verlieh dem deutschen Angriff ungeahnte Eigendynamik und f hrte zum "Sichelschnitt", dem schnellen Panzervorsto zur Kanalk ste, wo die Alliierten bei D nkirchen eingekesselt wurden. Der Verfasser wendet sich gegen die g ngige Theorie von Hitlers "Blitzkrieg-Strategie" und stellt dar, welches Erfolgsgeheimnis dem Krieg 1940 tats chlich zugrunde lag.

Here, for the first time in English, is an illuminating new German perspective on the decisive Blitzkrieg campaign of 1940. Karl-Heinz Frieser's account provides the definitive explanation for Germany's startling success and the equally surprising and rapid military collapse of France and Britain on the European continent. In a little over a month, Germany decisively defeated the Allies in battle, a task that had not been achieved in four years of brutal fighting during World War I. First published in 1995 as the official German history of the 1940 campaign in the west, the book goes beyond standard explanations to show that German victory was not inevitable and French defeat was not preordained. Contrary to the usual accounts of the campaign, Frieser illustrates that the military systems of both Germany and France were solid and that their campaign planning was sound. The key to victory or defeat, he argues, was the execution of operational plans—both preplanned and ad hoc—amid the eternal Clausewitzian combat factors of friction and the fog of war. Frieser shows why on the eve of the campaign the British and French leaders had good cause to be confident and why many German generals were understandably concerned that disaster was looming for them. This study explodes many of the myths concerning German Blitzkrieg warfare and the planning for the 1940 campaign. A groundbreaking new interpretation of a topic that has long interested students of military history, it is being published in cooperation with the Association of the U. S. Army.