Douglas Nash

When I requested this book as an interlibrary loan I was a little bit suspicious that this was merely going to be another glorified coffee table book about the Wehrmacht in World War II; it's not. Nash gives you a fine blow by blow of how the battle developed from both sides of the hill (as much as documents allow), and is almost in the class of David Glantz's works on the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War. One advantage even over Glantz is that Nash builds a great deal of first-person remembrance into his study, which considering how the final breakout became almost a matter of being every man for himself, is an important thing.

My complaints are comparatively minor. One is that I'm not sure that any serious combat history of World War II in the 21st century should be using the "The Forgotten Soldier" as a source; it's validity is just too tendentious. This is particularly since Nash devotes some analysis to the historiography of the battle. Secondly, even though Nash had the material to fill a coffee table book, the format makes it a bit impractical to issue in a bargain paperback edition, and will thus diminish its circulation.… (meer)