Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began the largest and most costly campaign in military history. Its failure was a key turning point of the Second World War. The operation was planned as a Blitzkrieg to win Germany its Lebensraum in the East, and the summer of 1941 is well-known for the German army's unprecedented victories and advances. Yet the German Blitzkrieg depended almost entirely upon the motorised Panzer groups, particularly those of Army Group Centre. Using previously unpublished archival records, David Stahel presents a new history of Germany's summer campaign from the perspective of the two largest and most powerful Panzer groups on the Eastern front. Stahel's research provides a fundamental reassessment of Germany's war against the Soviet Union, highlighting the prodigious internal problems of the vital Panzer forces and revealing that their demise in the earliest phase of the war undermined the whole German invasion.
David Stahel Livres
David Stahel se concentre sur l'armée allemande pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, en mettant un accent particulier sur la guerre de Hitler contre l'Union soviétique. Son œuvre explore des batailles et des opérations cruciales sur le front de l'Est, disséquant les décisions stratégiques et leurs conséquences étendues. L'approche de Stahel se caractérise par une recherche historique approfondie et un engagement à comprendre de manière exhaustive les complexités du front de l'Est. Ses livres offrent aux lecteurs des perspectives pénétrantes sur la progression du conflit et sa radicalisation.






Kiev 1941
- 486pages
- 18 heures de lecture
An account of one of the largest battles of World War II and its place in Germany's Eastern campaign.
Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany's Winter Campaign, 1941-1942
- 576pages
- 21 heures de lecture
Germany’s winter campaign of 1941–1942 is commonly seen as its first defeat. In Retreat from Moscow, a bold, gripping account of one of the seminal moments of World War II, David Stahel argues that instead it was its first strategic success in the East. The Soviet counteroffensive was in fact a Pyrrhic victory. Despite being pushed back from Moscow, the Wehrmacht lost far fewer men, frustrated its enemy’s strategy, and emerged in the spring unbroken and poised to recapture the initiative
The Battle for Moscow
- 456pages
- 16 heures de lecture
This is a major new account of the German drive on Moscow in November 1941, one of the largest and most significant battles of the Second World War. Drawing on unparalleled research, David Stahel explores the disastrous erosion of German strength, which, even before the Soviet winter had spelled disaster.
Operation Typhoon
- 418pages
- 15 heures de lecture
Operation Typhoon was launched by Hitler in October 1941 to capture Moscow and knock the Soviet Union out of the war. Traditionally viewed as a victory, this groundbreaking new account of the offensive reveals that despite success on the battlefield the wider German war effort was already doomed to failure.
Soldiers of Barbarossa
- 440pages
- 16 heures de lecture
Drawing from thousands of soldiers' accounts, letters, and diaries, historians David Stahel and Craig Luther tell the story of Barbarossa but also the story of men at war in the twentieth century.
A comparative biographical study of four leading German panzer generals in the Second World War. Using the private wartime correspondence of Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt, Stahel sheds new light on their private lives and public personas, their leadership at the front and their culpability in Nazi criminality.
Operacja Tajfun
- 424pages
- 15 heures de lecture
Historia jednej z najważniejszych operacji strategicznych II wojny światowej, która miała doprowadzić do zajęcie Moskwy przez Niemców. Praca starannie udokumentowana, szczegółowa i niezwykle zajmująco napisana.
Autor, korzystając z bogatych źrodeł, tak rosyjskich jak i niemieckich, przedstawia wielką operację militarną, w czasie której miało miejsce największe okrążenie wojsk w historii wojskowości. W ciągu zaledwie czterech tygodni, latem 1941 r., niemiecki Wehrmacht zadał bezprecedensową klęskę czterem armiom sowieckim, podbijając środkową Ukrainę. Była to bitwa o Kijów - jedna z największych batalii drugiej wojny światowej.