Although there are times when this work does read like a doctoral thesis translated from the German, this does feel like an astute analysis of why German army intelligence consistently came up "small" against the Soviet Union. To Pahl, the issues are really quite basic; a lack of respect for the job, a lack of resources, bad organization (the separation between intelligence analysis and intelligence acquisition), and the reality that "Foreign Armies East" was never intended to be a tool of strategic import (even if the higher leadership was prepared to take the reports seriously).

Besides that, much of this story is wrapped up with the character of Reinhard Gehlen, who was brought in as a "broom" after the failures of 1941 and who then worked intensely to overcome the liabilities holding back intelligence work in the German army; up to and including dueling with the SS establishment until the very end of the war. The problem with Gehlen is that he appears to have gone into "internal immigration" early, and devoted his best thought into surviving the war, and guessed right in terms of betting on American interest: Pahl is certainly not that impressed with Gehlen's analysis in regards to the final Soviet offensive in the east. Besides that, the way that Gehlen seemed to go to seed in the last decade or so of his active career (having become head of the Federal Republic of Germany's intelligence service), makes one question how much competence the man had all along. ( )