War Without Garlands: Barbarossa 1941/42 - Hardcover

Robert Kershaw is a serving colonel in the British Army, having joined the Parachute Regiment after graduating in History from Reading University in 1972. His previous work, "It Never Snows in September" is considered a classic and is now in its fifth printing.

The author, a serving colonel in the British airborne, takes his title from the German expression "kein blumenkrieg" denoting the difference between the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 from the earlier easy conquests in the West. Unlike the relatively easy conquests in the West that were followed by parades with flowers, the early victories in Russia did not result in glorious parades. Kershaw weaves numerous German and Soviet diary and letter accounts in with cogent analysis to present a "soldier's account" of the massive German invasion of the USSR. It is important to note that this is not a comprehensive account of Operation Barbarossa. The contributions of Axis allies are almost totally ignored, with little or no mention of the Finns, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Italians and Spanish troops who participated in Operation Barbarossa. The six German divisions in Finland that attempted to take Murmansk and the bloody siege of Odessa are also ignored. Most of the focus is on ArmeeGruppe Center's area of operations, with much less detail on ArmeeGruppe North's efforts to take Leningrad or ArmeeGruppe South's advance to the Dniepr River and beyond. The author's main contention is that the main philosophy of Blitzkrieg - surround enemy armies and they will surrender - did not work in the USSR. The Wehrmacht surrounded numerous Soviet armies but Russian resistance in hopeless pocket battles caused horrendous German losses. Kershaw asserts that the Germans were "victored to death" in the pocket battles around Minsk and Smolensk in July-August 1941, suffering over 100,000 troops killed. As Kershaw states, the extended pocket battles "broke the tempo of Blitzkrieg". The German OKH staff then failed to realize how badly their own units had been hurt in the pocket battles when they ordered Operation "Typhoon", the final push to Moscow in October 1941. Soviet losses had been heavy, but the Germans underestimated Stalin's ability to mobilize new forces. Atrocious winter weather and dogged Soviet counterattacks then brought the weakened Wehrmacht to its knees just outside Moscow. All told, the Wehrmacht suffered 219,000 dead and 730,000 wounded in the nine months between June 1941 and February 1942 (Kershaw fails to mention that about 25% of the wounded would be returned to duty in a few months). Unfortunately, the lack of comprehensiveness tends to undermines Kershaw's hypothesis. He provides statistics on German personnel losses but not on replacements, which makes it difficult to determine how much the Wehrmacht was actually degraded. Statistics on German tank losses also would have been useful; for example, Germany lost 1,805 PzIII and PzIV tanks in this nine-month period, but they built 1,955 in the same period. The idea that "the seedcorn of Blitzkrieg" was lost in 1941 is premature, given the ability of the Germans to mount large-scale Blitzkrieg-type offensives in 1942 and 1943. Certainly the Germans were hurt badly, but the Wehrmacht still had a lot of fight left in it after the defeat before Moscow. Finally, the author's constant references to the "easy" campaigns in France and the "war without garlands" tend to become irritating and deceptive over time. While naïve German soldiers may have believed that Barbarossa would be over in 6-8 weeks like the earlier Blitzkriegs, it is doubtful that this sentiment was as widespread as the author claims. Kershaw ignores the fact that the simultaneous Afrika Korps campaigns in Libya were also fought without garlands and also exceeded the six-week paradigm. Anti-partisan campaigns in Yugoslavia would also be more "war without garlands". --By R. A Forczyk

First and foremost this book provies the reader with a view of the Barbarossa campaign through the eyes of the soldiers and civilians involved. Relying heavily on first person accounts (mostly personal diaries) the author does an excellent job conveying the "look and feel" of the campaign. The experiences of both sides are covered well. The second contribution of the book is a critical and well supported analysis of why the German invasion failed. The author presents the theory that the Germans were "victored to death" in the huge encirclement battles that took place during the summer and fall of 1941. Unlike their western counterparts, the Russian soldiers fought to the finish when surrounded, thereby inflicting severe casualties on the German infantry. I found the most interesting analysis to be an examination of the German high command's absolute failure to master the logistic requirements of the campaign. Kershaw does an excellent job outlining the real failure of the Germans - the battle of supplies. Overall I enjoyed this book very much and highly recommend it to the casual reader as well as the serious student of the Eastern Front. --By Keith Schur

There are numerous books written about the Russo-German war but none that I have seen which offer vivid detail to the degree of War w/o Garlands. The accounts of the fighting are well researched and enable the reader to grasp both the large perspective as well as that of the individual soldier very effectively. I particularly like the inserts from soldiers' letters and diaries. --By A Customer