The German Army conducted offensive military operations more effectively than any other in the twentieth century. Its unparalleled tactical and operational virtuosity is obscured by the politically conditioned circumstance of its defeat in the century's two great wars. Writers on the Second World War compound the obscuration by thin treatment of the early German victories and exaggerated emphasis on the ponderous Allied trek to victory later in the war. The acknowledged superiority of the German Army in battle fighting, however, is exemplified by the offensives of 1939-1942, and German...

"According to received wisdom, the turning point of WW II in Europe was the battle of Stalingrad, but Stolfi argues persuasively that the first phase of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of Russia, was the decisive event. Barbarossa began in June 22, 1941; by mid-August the Germans had defeated eight of nine Soviet field armies and were in a position to capture Moscow and win the war in Europe. But then Hitler made what Sotlfi regards as his most momentous decision of the War: he ordered Army Group Center to veer southward into the Ukraine, despite the objections of several of his...