R.h.s. Stolfi

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German panzers on the offensive

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 Panzers on the Offensive combines description and interpretation of the advances of nine German panzer divisions to reveal extraordinary details of the great victories. The author has based the study almost entirely on the division war diaries and is able to take the reader aboard the command and combat vehicles, escort him through the fighting, and extract reasons for German success in offensive maneuver war. Based as it is on primary source material, the book presents an authoritative and original interpretation of German success and not the familiar synthesis of secondary sources. The interpretation is constructed in enough detail to be a realistic basis for improvement of present-day military operations by the professional and to fascinate and inform the general reader.