Search -
ARMAGEDDON OST: The German Defeat on the Eastern Front 1944-45
ARMAGEDDON OST The German Defeat on the Eastern Front 194445 Author:Nik Cornish By late 1944, with the Allies having successfully landed in France in June 1944 and subsequently expanded their bridgehead to encompass much of Northern France and Belgium in the west and with the Russians inexorably advancing westwards, World War II in Europe was rapidly approaching its finale. However, as evinced by the Ardennes campaign in th... more »e west, whilst Germany was facing ultimate defeat, like a wounded animal, it was still capable of inflicting major losses on Allied forces. In the east, it appeared that every inch of soil was defended to the last and some of the most bitter fighting of the entire war occurred during its final six months on the Eastern Front, as the Germans doggedly sought to defend the territory it had conquered in 1940 and that of its erstwhile Allies, such as Hungary. For the Germans, it was not just that the loss of this territory would bring the dreaded Red Army to the very gates of-and later into-Berlin but also it was these areas that much of the raw material required to sustain the war effort was derived. Despite the efforts of the remnants of Hitler's once great Wehrmacht, the Russian army proved unstoppable; sheer weight of numbers and quantity of materiel ensured that the best defence that the Germans could offer proved inadequate and, by May 1945, the fight had reached the very centre of Berlin. Armageddon had literally reached the heart of Hitler's Reich.
In Armageddon Ost, Nik Cornish examines the final six months of the war on the Eastern Front. Describing events in detail he records the gradual, but inexorable, advance of the Red Army towards ultimate victory. With a narrative drawn from a variety of sources, including first-hand accounts from those who actually fought in the war, the book records the movement of the Red Army through Hungary and the Balkans, through Poland and, ultimately through Germany itself.
Illustrated throughout with a superb range of photographs, many drawn from Russian archives and never previously published, the book is a sobering account of the destruction of this final phase of the war in the East.
With the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe having been marked during 2005, publication of Armageddon Ost is opportune; it will be required reading for all those with an interest in the history of World War II and of the campaigns in the east that were ultimately to prove so costly for the Third Reich.« less