Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/May 2023/Book reviews


 * By Hawkeye7

As the Second World War fades into history, interest fades. What remains is very uneven. There seems to be little written about the campaigns in North West Europe in 1945. Delayed by the German offensives in the Ardennes and Alsace, the campaigns of 1945 commenced in the Rhineland in mud and flood conditions far worse than those of 1917. Once across the river, Allied units took off in pursuit of what German ones remained. Increasingly these were scratch formations hurriedly thrown together that looked good only on maps. German units became immobile due to lack of fuel.

The defence of many localities in Germany fell to the aged men of the Volksturm and fanatical teenagers of the Hitlerjugend. The Allies uncovered the horrors of concentration camps and slave labour camps that held thousands of men and women from all over Europe in appalling conditions. There were Hungarian troops and SS units drawn from all over Europe. Some fought on because they believed in Hitler's cause, some because they had nothing to lose, and many more because it never occurred to them not to.

This book is the third in a trilogy on the campaigns in North West Europe. It is mostly assembled from personal accounts, but the author is cognisant of recent scholarship. He notes inconsistencies and improbabilities in American accounts of the Rhine crossings. At times it also has aspects of a travelogue, with notes about what the sites look like today.

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Various works