W. E. D. Allen (1901–1973)

This book is an object lesson in why you have to be very wary of documents produced during an ongoing conflict. This volume purports to be an analysis of the Eastern Front, in the months leading up to Operation Barbarossa, through the end of 1943. One of the things about the book is that mistakes on the part of the Russians tend to be elided quite a bit. There's nary a word about the multiple errors made by the Soviet high command in the first three months of the war; to the contrary, the book emphasizes how badly the Germans failed in their objectives. There's also a great deal of speculation regarding the German plan of operations which is just that -- speculation. In my view, the speculation is wrong. Some of the points in the book remain valid today, such as the decline in quality of the Wehrmacht (referred to as the Reichswehr for some reason in the book) compared to the increase in quality of the Red Army. (There's one brief reference to how Lend-Lease helped in this regard.) The book also makes the annoying "von Paulus" error so often made by others. Some of the spellings of place-names are a bit odd on the maps, and there's references to Field Marshal "von Loeb" [sic]. Read it for an idea of how the war was presented to the British public during the war, but as for a reference, forget it.… (more)