Why Germany Nearly Won: A New History of the Second World War in Europe (War, Technology, and History)
Why Germany Nearly Won challenges today's conventional wisdom explaining Germany's Second World War defeat as inevitable primarily for brute force economic or military reasons created when Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Taking an entirely new perspective on explaining the Second World War in Europe, and its outcome, at its core Why Germany Nearly Won offers the reader three interrelated, unique, and potentially ground-breaking arguments. First, qualitative differences between the combatants proved more important in determining the War's outcome than have the quantitative brute force measures so commonly discussed in the past. Second, attacking the Soviet Union represented Germany's best opportunity to win a War which, by commonly cited measures of military potential, Germany never should have had even a remote chance of winning. Third, for reasons frequently overlooked and misunderstood Germany came far closer to winning the War than has previously been recognized.
Features:
- Twenty-four detailed maps show the position and movement of opposing forces during the key campaigns and battles discussed in the book.
- Thirty-four charts and figures are provided, including detailed orders of battle, tables of organization and equipment, economic figures, and equipment comparisons.
Highlights:Why Germany Nearly Won offers the reader a fresh perspective on World War II, including via:
- Creating a new framework for understanding the Second World War, one challenging today's conventional wisdom
- Advancing a new interpretation of Operation Barbarossa, usually seen as the great German blunder of the war by those subscribing to the brute force myth, as, in fact, Germany's last and best hope actually to win the war
- Demonstrating how closely fought the war actually was
- Explaining how the Mediterranean Theater of the War represented a crucial distraction and net drain on the primary German war effort in Eastern Europe
- Revealing why the combined arms panzer division proved key in bolstering the German army's renaissance; not the tank itself
- Profiling wartime changes to the German panzer arm as a metaphor for the larger story behind the Wehrmacht's rise and fall
- Exploring the Red Army's constantly evolving approach to war, including why the late war Red Army was so much more effective than its equally massive early war version
