X-Post: MiWSR: Heck on Hill, "The Red Army and the Second World War"

Whenever I read something like this I am amazed at how Jon House is completely neglected. It is known, especially among those of us who worked with him while he was at the US Army Command and General Staff college (twice, once as a young officer and later as a civilian professor), that Jonathan House is a fantastic military historian and has done much to take the encyclopedic, but verbose, writing of Dave Glantz and "synthesize" it into a more accessible narrative, analysis, and often both. It almost goes without saying that if House is not on the byline with Glantz, then Glantz's work is more in the realm of a research tool than a read. Glantz gets all the credit but House is the "secret ingredient" and many of us insiders have known that for years.

So when I read this review over at MIWSR the neglect of House, especially his _When Titans Clashed_, authored with Dave Glantz and now out in a new improved second edition, caused me to start pecking on this keyboard. Jon, who is among the most humble people I know, would never write something like this, but I will.
The book I just mentioned was first published over 20 years ago and it has the same thesis as Heck's book. The only key difference is that it includes the Manchurian campaign but does not include much of the context on deep battle and operational art thinking in 20 and 30s, but for the Red Army in WW II, in one volume, and in English, it is the champ and remains so. as for operational art/deep battle and the Red Army, a free publication by the Center of Military History here provides one just about everything one needs to know as well as a translation of reprint of G.S. Isserson's barely known classic on operational art from the Army University Press website. It is doubly odd that someone from Kings would not know, given that House was in England, at Kings London not too long ago, as a student!!!
Vr John
John T. Kuehn, Ph.D. US Army Command and General Staff College
links:
https://history.army.mil/html/books/070/70-89-1/cmhPub_70-89.pdf
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-…

A curious question has been popping into thought since Prof. Kuehn's reply on the Red Army history during WW II.

Just this past couple of weeks a TV documentary delving into the German move East into Russia{Soviet Union then}. with original film footage as its presentation showed the results of Gen Paulus' attempt to capture Stalingrad and its eventual well known outcome from WW II.
The curious question is about Hitler's order to stand in Stalingrad when Paulus was encircled by the Red Army and supposedly could have broken out to save his army for the German offensive into Russia.
Had Hitler said OK to withdrawal or just left it to Paulus to decide, a] could the Germans have broken thru the encirclement and b] if they had, what difference might t have made in the overall German offensive ? Would this outcome have merely prolonged or delay the Soviet successes in defeating Germany both in Russia and the overall War ? Wasn't such a move likely to make little or no difference in any or all outcomes ?

Doesn't seem like Paulus' Army would have any major effects upon the actual history to WW II in the East or elsewhere. Just thinking how it would have changed anything.

Stalingrad and Paulus

The failure of Barbarossa in front of Moscow (1941), was followed by the incapacity to capture the oil fields of Baku, the main objective of Operation Blau (1942). According to, controlling Stalingrad was a protection for the German armies in the Caucasus.
As he had already decided in 1941, Hitler chose in 1942 to resist in Stalingrad. Moreover, he transferred German reserves into Tunisia, a consequence of Operation Torch, so depriving the Ost Heer of the potential might to save the 6th Army.

1. Maybe could have Paulus quickly broken through, although a difficult and dangerous task with limited supplies and without any organized outside help (later known as Operation Winter Storm). The best results to be hoped for would have been to save an important part of the 275,000 men encircled, abandoning material and heavy weaponry.
2. On February 18, Goebbels called on for total war, more as a consequence of the failure of Operation Blau than a link to the capitulation of Paulus a few days before, So, to save a part of the 6th Army would have been without significant consequences according to the overall war.
3. Hitler's decision to resist in Stalingrad was probably a wise one, contributing to preserve the retreat of the German army group from the Caucasus. Added with a part of the Soviet armies encircling Stalingrad for three months, Russian Operation Little Saturn towards Rostow would have been more potent.

German losses in Stalingrad were around 170 000 German deaths from all causes, 90,000 prisoners being claimed by Russia. Note that more than 100,000 German prisoners were captured in Tunisia a few months later (spring 1943). For six months of war in the East in Operation Barbarossa beforehand (JUne to December 1941), the Ost Heer had lost 750,000 men, among them around 200,000 deaths.

So, the two strategic failures - Operation Barbarossa, then Operation Blau - confirmed that the war could not be won by Germany. Paulus' defeat at Stalingrad, although iconic, was just a single point within the general frame of the war in the East.
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Jean-Jacques Arzalier

I don’t know whether John T. Kuehn read my The Red Army and the Second World War before comparing it to David Glantz and Jonathan House’s When Titans Clashed, but it seems that he might not have done, for they are very different books. On page 9 of the introduction to The Red Army and the Second World War, I write:

This work does not offer a detailed narrative overview of the war, even if it does examine most of the key operations in chronological order along with analysis of key themes in the development of the Red Army at appropriate points. It is assumed that readers of this work will have read at least one of the many sound overviews of the war, be that the two volumes of John Erickson’s seminal history noted earlier, David Glantz and Jonathan House’s When Titans Clashed, Evan Mawdsley’s Thunder in the East, or Chris Bellamy’s Absolute War.

Jonathan House’s work is indeed excellent, be that work in co-operation with David Glantz or indeed written by House alone, and When Titans Clashed of course offers more than just an overview of the war on the German Eastern Front. I certainly very much recommend that readers take a look at When Titans Clashed if they have not already done so! Two books can of course share some similarities in terms of thesis – as many of the other books mentioned above do – yet provide varying amounts of detail on and consider different relevant themes in getting there. I won’t go on about what The Red Army and the Second World War offers that Glantz and House’s excellent book doesn’t, but hope that readers will appreciate the very meaningful differences if they read both When Titan’s Clashed and The Red Army and the Second World War (as I am confident that the MiWSR reviewer has in this case)!

Alexander Hill

University of Calgary

The book I just mentioned was first published over 20 years ago and it has the same thesis as Heck's book.....It is doubly odd that someone from Kings would not know, given that House was in England, at Kings London not too long ago, as a student!!!
 

John, the book in question is by Alexander Hill, from University of Calgary.  Timothy Heck, of King's College, is the reviewer.