World War II, Russo-German War

Introduction

The Russian-German War lasted from the German invasion of 22 June 1941 until 8 May 1945 and is often known by its Russian name as the “Great Fatherland (or ‘Patriotic’) War” (Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina). It was the largest military campaign ever fought, and the most costly in terms of human life. The outcome determined German defeat in World War II. Unlike many other campaigns of the war, it was primarily a land conflict, although an advanced one at a technical level. Another distinguishing feature was that one of the two major powers involved suffered prolonged occupation of much of its territory by the other, and so occupation policy and popular resistance to it (the “partisan” war) were significant dimensions. Related to this was the importance of ideology, which meant that many of the normal restraints of modern interstate warfare were ignored. This bibliography outlines major sources relating to the conduct of the war, and to the Soviet war effort; it also deals with the German war effort insofar as this was related to the fighting in Russia. Events before 22 June 1941, inter-Allied relations in 1941–1945 period, and the origins of the Cold War, although important topics in their own right, are beyond the scope of this outline.

General Overviews

Given the scale of the Russian-German conflict, writing a general overview has been a challenging task for historians. Any kind of comprehensive account requires collective authorship and a publication of great length and a decade or more of work; one-volume accounts are of necessity sketchy. Both types of book have been influenced by national perspectives and ideology.

Historiography

The ideological element of this conflict has figured heavily in the historiography of the war. The Communist government in Moscow controlled access to sources and directed history writing, with varying degrees of rigidity, until the late 1980s. Victory over Germany had become a means of legitimization of Soviet Communism, so blunders committed by the authorities were all but ignored, except during a period under Khrushchev (1956–1964) when historians were encouraged to criticize Stalin. Meanwhile, Western writing in the first decades after 1945 was conditioned by Cold War anticommunism, by the availability of captured documents generated within the Third Reich (and by the unavailability of Russian material), and by the influence of the memoirs of senior Wehrmacht officers. The development of West German writing can be traced in Müller and Ueberschär 1997, and the consequent impact on American and British perceptions is discussed in Smelser and Davies 2008. From the 1970s, much of West German historiography was devoted to healthy self-criticism. See especially German Occupation Policy and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union.

Müller, Rolf-Dieter, and Gerd R. Ueberschär. Hitler’s War in the East, 1941–1945: A Critical Assessment. Oxford: Berghahn, 1997.
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An extensive and invaluable review of the literature regarding the campaign, although with an emphasis on work in Germany.
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Smelser, Ronald, and Edward J. Davies. The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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How history was influenced by Cold War attitudes and the nature of the German sources.
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Official Histories

Multivolume histories published in the Soviet period vary in value. The usefulness of the first two (Pospelov, et al. 1960–1964 and Grechko, et al. 1973–1982), is now limited. The latest version, Zolotarev 1988–1989, produced in the Gorbachev years, has a more objective interpretation. The German work (Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt 1990–2008) is an essential source. Ziemke 1968 and Ziemke 1987 were an American attempt to write an official history.

Grechko, A. A., ed. Istoriia vtoroi mirovoi voiny 1939–1945. 12 vols. Moscow: Voenizdat, 1973–1982.
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Detailed multivolume official history which takes in non-Russian theaters of World War II. In some respects more objective than its predecessor (i.e. Pospelov), but compiled in the time of the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982) and more ambivalent about Stalin.
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Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt. Germany and the Second World War. 10 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990–2008.
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Translation of Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (The German Reich in the Second World War), publication of which ran from 1979 to 2008. Deals with World War II as a whole. West Germany delayed producing an official history, but this allowed a more objective view. This series includes a variety of views.
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Pospelov, P. N., ed. Istoriia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1941–1945. 6 vols. Moscow: Voenizdat, 1960–1964.
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Detailed multivolume official history, which deals with the whole war, not just the theaters in which the Red Army was fighting. An improvement over the crudest Stalinist historigraphy, but arguably follows Khrushchev in excessive criticism of Stalin. Provides hitherto unavailable operational detail, but now of limited use.
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Ziemke, Earl F. Stalingrad to Berlin: German Defeat in the East. Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1968.
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Based on German sources and has something of an official US Cold War orientation. For technical reasons the series was published in reverse chronological order, as this volume had most relevance to lessons relating to a defensive campaign against the Red Army. Clear discussion of complex operations, and outstanding maps.
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Ziemke, Earl F. Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1987.
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Has the strengths and weaknesses of Ziemke 1968. A projected volume on the beginning of the war was never published, but there is a useful if sketchy outline of events leading up to the Battle of Moscow in December 1941.
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Zolotarev, V. A., and G. N. Sevast’ianov, eds. Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina, 1941–1945: Voenno-istoricheskie ocherki. 4 vols. Moscow: Nauka, 1998–1999.
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Latest version of the “official” history. Articles by a number of Russian scholars, and more objective (though less comprehensive) than the two earlier multivolume official histories cited here, although it comes from the Russian military-history “establishment.” Contains some documents, but these are now available elsewhere.
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Nonofficial Studies

British and American historians initially approached the history of the war from a Russian or a German perspective. English-language histories such as Seaton 1971 and those of Ziemke (Ziemke 1968 and Ziemke 1987, cited in Official Histories) were based on captured documents, German memoirs, and German interpretations. Werth 1964 was an important exception; the author had witnessed the war at first hand. Interesting Russian source materials became available in the late 1950s and early 1960s during the Khrushchev “thaw.” Erickson 1975 and Erickson 1983 were groundbreaking because they took Soviet sources seriously. Glantz and House 1995, Mawdsley 2005, Roberts 2006, and the articles in Stone 2010 are balanced surveys, although they owe more to Russian sources than German ones.

Erickson, John. The Road to Stalingrad. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
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Comprehensive discussion, beautifully written. A work of enduring importance. Difficult to navigate through as an overall history, with documentation and bibliography that are difficult to use, a limited index, and sketchy maps; the bibliographical essay, however, is a valuable introduction to Soviet writing in the 1960s and early 1970s.
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Erickson, John. The Road to Berlin. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983.
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Second part of a major history (see Erickson 1975), beginning in the aftermath of Stalingrad. Comprehensive discussion, especially strong in use of Russian sources. Beautifully written, but difficult to navigate through; citations and bibliography are difficult to use, index is limited, and maps are sketchy. Substantial discussion of Soviet foreign policy.
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Glantz, David, and Jonathan M. House. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.
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A clear and well-informed outline of the war, by two authors who have written exhaustively about various aspects of the campaign. Excellent maps.
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Mawdsley, Evan. Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War. London: Hodder Arnold, 2005.
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Discusses both sides of the war, with extensive use of Soviet-published documents.
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Roberts, Geoffrey. Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
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Comprehensive discussion, making use of newly available Russian archival sources. Emphasis on foreign policy.
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Seaton, Albert. The Russo-German War, 1941–1945. London: Arthur Barker, 1971.
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A thorough operational narrative, based mainly on German sources.
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Stone, David R., ed. The Soviet Union at War, 1941–1945. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2010.
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A recent collection of articles by a number of leading specialists in the field.
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Werth, Alexander. Russia at War, 1941–1945. London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1964.
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A classic account by a British journalist with a Russian background, and one who was broadly sympathetic to the Russian cause. A good outline of events and provides a sense of what life was like in the wartime Soviet Union.
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Documents

Inevitably, collections of reprinted documents are selective, but they provide valuable information about motivation and perception and give a flavor of the times. Domarus 1997 and Stalin 1946 present a contrast of the two dictators. Acton and Stableford 2007 deals with Soviet history in general; Hill 2009 and Kudriashov 2010 relate specifically to the war effort in 1941–1945. Collections relating to particular operations or institutions are included in the appropriate sections.

Acton, Edward, and Tom Stableford. The Soviet Union: A Documentary History. Vol. 2. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2007.
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The fullest collection in English of material from the Soviet period. Contains some useful documents from the war years.
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Domarus, Max, ed. Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations,1932–1945: The Chronicle of a Dictatorship. Vol. 3, 1941–1945. London: I. B. Tauris, 1997.
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Hitler’s writings, organized on a day-by-day basis and with commentary. Originally published in two volumes in German by Domarus as Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945 (Neustadt an der Aisch, Germany: Schmidt, 1962). Invaluable for understanding the driving forces behind the German “war of annihilation.”
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Hill, Alexander. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941–45: A Documentary Reader. London: Routledge, 2009.
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The best collection in English of documents specifically relating to the war.
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Kudriashov, Sergei, ed. Voina: 1941–1945. Moscow: Vestnik APRF, 2010.
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Invaluable new, large one-volume collection, published under the auspices of the Vestnik (Bulletin) of the Presidential Archive. Contains important new documents on many aspects of the Soviet war effort.
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Stalin, Joseph. On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1946.
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Translation of O Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine Sovetskogo Soiuza, one of the final versions of which is the fifth edition published in 1951. This collection contains Stalin’s published speeches and also press reports of some meetings with journalists. Stalin’s published wartime writings have to be used with caution, but they do give an indication of what the Soviet dictator wanted soldiers and civilians (and allies) to think at different stages of the war.
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Literary Accounts

This section includes some literary works, and also first-person accounts by front-line troops (as opposed to memoirs by senior commanders). First-person accounts by Russian veterans have become more readily available in English since the end of the Soviet era; a good example is Gorbachevsky 2008. Sajer 1971 is the best-known German source, but its authenticity as a memoir is arguable. Malaparte 2000 is a fine description by an outsider. The best starting point for the study of fiction on the Russian side is Ellis 2011. Nekrasov 1962 and Grossman 1985 are important Russian novels.

Ellis, Frank. The Damned and the Dead: The Eastern Front through the Eyes of Soviet and Russian Novelists. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011.
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Important discussion of common themes in a wide selection of Russian war novels.
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Gorbachevsky, Boris. Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier’s War on the Eastern Front, 1942–1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008.
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A fine example of a post-Soviet memoir, this one by a man who served as a junior officer through three years of the war, notably in the terrible battles around Rzhev, west of Moscow. Full of detail about everyday life at the front.
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Grossman, Vasilii S. Life and Fate. London: Collins Harvill, 1985.
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Grossman, a war correspondent, wrote this novel in 1959 as Zhizn’ i sud’ba (Life and fate). Publication was not allowed for most of the Soviet era, as it was critical of many aspects of life in Stalinist Russia and made too much of the Jewish tragedy. First published in the West (in Russian) in 1980, sixteen years after Grossman’s death; publication in the USSR followed eight years later. Tracks a range of figures through the war, with special emphasis on Stalingrad and the Holocaust. Often seen as the best work of fiction on the Russian experience in World War II.
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Malaparte, Curzio. The Volga Rises in Europe. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2000.
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First appeared in English in 1957 (London: Alvin Redmond). Published in Milan in 1943 as Il Volga nasce in Europa (Milan: Bompiani). An outstanding account, of substantial literary and historical value, by an Italian journalist who accompanied German troops in southern Russia in 1941 and then witnessed events on the Karelian front in 1942.
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Nekrasov, Viktor P. Front-Line Stalingrad. London: Harvill, 1962.
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Published in the USSR in 1946 as the novella V okopakh Stalingrada (In the trenches of Stalingrad), and based on author’s experience as a front-line Red Army engineer. Nekrasov was a prominent author in the Soviet period and won the Stalin Prize, but he later went into exile abroad.
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Sajer, Guy. The Forgotten Soldier. London: Harper, 1971.
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Included here as a warning because of its evergreen status (originally published as Le Soldat oublié in 1967 [Paris: Robert Laffont]). Purports to be the autobiography of a front-line Alsatian soldier in the Grossdeutschland Division, but it was written by the French comic-book author Guy Mouminoux (b. 1927) and is essentially a work of fiction.
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Red Army

The Red Army, or RKKA (Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army), was the main Russian service involved in the war. The Air Force (VVS) was part of the Red Army. Space does not permit inclusion of material on the prewar Red Army, although both political purges and Industrialization in the 1930s had a major effect on the organization.

Command

Many Russian commanders were allowed to write memoirs, although in sanitized form. The most important are Zhukov 1971 and Vasilevskii 1981. Seaton 1976 remains the clearest account of the activities of Stalin himself, and many of the senior marshals and generals are described in Shukman 1993. An extraordinary range of command documents was made available in the series Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia.

Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia. Moscow: Terra, 1993–2001.
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“Velikaia Otechestvennaia” is a subseries of “Russkii arkhiv.” The documents published here are invaluable for understanding the Red Army and Soviet operations. Particularly important are the two books in Vol. 2 with orders from the People’s Commissariat of Defence, five books in Vol. 5 on the High Command (Stavka VGK), Vol. 6 on the Red Army’s political organs, four books in Vol. 12 on the General Staff, and Vol. 14 on Red Army rear services.
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Seaton, Albert. Stalin as Warlord. London: Batsford, 1976.
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This remains one of the more perceptive discussions of Stalin’s role, by an expert on the eastern front fighting. Seaton was able to make use of Russian material published in the 1960s and early 1970s, although much more material has become available since then.
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Shukman, Harold, ed. Stalin’s Generals. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993.
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Detailed biographies of Red Army officers by a range of expert authors, including some Russians.
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Vasilevskii, A. M. A Lifelong Cause. Moscow: Progress, 1981.
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After Zhukov, Marshal A. M. Vasilevskii was among the most important of Stalin’s advisors and commanders, and he headed the General Staff for most of the war. Translation of Delo vsei zhizni, which was published posthumously in 1975 (in two volumes) and has since been through various editions, the most recent published by Voenizdat in 2010.
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Zhukov, G. K. The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Jonathan Cape, 1971.
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Zhukov was Stalin’s most important general, but his historical record was affected by two falls from grace, one in the late 1940s and other in 1957. First published in Russian in 1969 after the fall of Khrushchev as Vospominaniia i razmyshleniia (Memoirs and reflections; Moscow: Agentstva Pechati Novosti). The 10th edition, published in three volumes by APN in 1990, restored many cuts made by censors. Like all memoirs this is self-serving, but it is still a valuable source.
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Organization and Losses

The fullest source is Glantz 1998 (along with Glantz 2005), but Dunn 1994 also has useful detailed material from German sources, and Dunn 2006 is good on the mobilization machinery. Grylev 1963 is a basic source for Soviet order of battle, while Krivosheev 1997 is essential for losses and some other statistics. Invaluable on prisoners of war held by the Russians are Karner 2002 and Zolotarev 1999.

Dunn, Walter S. Hitler’s Nemesis: The Red Army, 1930–1945. New York: Greenwood, 1994.
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An insightful source, making heavy but careful use of German intelligence material.
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Dunn, Walter S. Stalin’s Keys to Victory: The Rebirth of the Red Army. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006.
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Not as fully documented as Dunn’s previous works, but includes important insights on Red Army mobilization.
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Glantz, David M. Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
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Massive discussion of all aspects of Red Army formation. A fundamental source.
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Glantz, David M. Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941–1943. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005.
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Sequel to Glantz 1998 and a similarly important contribution.
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Grylev, A. N. Boevoi sostav Sovetskoi armii. 5 vols. Moscow: Voenno-nauchnoe Upravlenie General’nogo Shtaba, 1963.
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A basic source for the order of battle of the Red Army, giving details, by army group, for each month of the war. Originally issued as a secret publication in 1963 by the Military History Section of the Soviet General Staff.
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Karner, Stefan. Arkhipelag GUPVI: Plen i internirovanie v Sovetskom Soiuze 1941–1956. Moscow: Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Gumanitarnyi Universitet, 2002.
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In parallel with the more famous camp system for political prisoners and criminals, made famous by Solzhenitsyn in The GULAG Archipelago (1973), GUPVI was the Soviet organization responsible for running camps for prisoners of war and internees. Large numbers of Axis POWs remained in camps until 1955. This groundbreaking monograph provides details of Soviet policy and treatment.
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Krivosheev, G. F., ed. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century. London: Greenhill, 1997.
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A unique collection dealing with losses of personnel and equipment. Russian versions, also compiled by the team led by Krivosheev, are Grif sekretnosti sniat (No longer top secret, 1993) and Rossiia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil: Statisticheskoe issledovanie (Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century: Losses of the armed forces: A statistical study, 2001).
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Zolotarev, V. A., ed. Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg.: Sbornik dokumentov. Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia 13.2. Moscow: Terra, 1999.
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Treatment of German prisoners of war in Russia was for many years a forbidden topic, and this collection was a new departure.
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Motivation and Conduct

Merridale 2005 is the best source on the experience of ordinary Soviet soldiers; Reese 2011 brings to the discussion a military background and a record of earlier work on the interwar Red Army. Many women took direct part in the fighting; these are now covered by Krylova 2010 and Pennington 2010.

Krylova, Anna. Soviet Women in Combat: A History of Violence on the Eastern Front. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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A groundbreaking study of a very important subject; in contrast to the armies of other countries, women played an important combat role in the USSR.
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Merridale, Catherine. Ivan’s War: The Red Army 1939–1945. London: Faber & Faber, 2005.
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The standard account of the experience of front-line Red Army soldiers. An outstandingly perceptive work, based partly on interviews.
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Pennington, Reina. “Offensive Women: Women in Combat in the Red Army.” Journal of Military History 74.3 (2010): 775–820.
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A survey of the activity of female combatants in the Soviet forces, showing their wide range of combat activity and the successful performance of this duty.
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Reese, Roger R. Why Stalin’s Soldiers Fought: The Red Army’s Military Effectiveness in World War II. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011.
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An important study of a combat motivation, by a specialist who has written extensively about the prewar Red Army.
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Soviet Internal Security and Intelligence

The Soviet Union had elaborate and highly secret organizations that dealt with internal control and espionage in foreign countries; these had a number of organizational overlaps and are therefore dealt with together here. Parrish 1996 is still the best introduction to this complex subject. Khaustov 2006, Kondrashov 2010, and Stepashin 1995–2007 make available a selection of new documents.

Khaustov, V. N., ed. Lubianka: Stalin i NKVD-NKGB-GUKR “Smersh,” 1939–mart 1946. Moscow: MF Demokratiia/Materik, 2006.
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Collection of documents on internal security. Part of series covering Stalin’s use of the secret police and counterintelligence during his time in power. Deals with both intelligence about foreign countries and conditions in the Soviet Union.
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Kondrashov, V. V. Znat’ vse o protivnike: Voennye razvedki SSSR i fashistskoi Germanii v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (istoricheskaia khronika). Moscow: Krasnaia Zvezda, 2010.
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Soviet intelligence about the Germany, whether derived from spies, aerial reconnaissance, or radio intelligence and code breaking, has been poorly studied, except for the period immediately before 22 June 1941. This important survey contributes to filling this gap.
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Parrish, Michael. The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939–1953. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996.
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The “Great Terror” was a term Robert Conquest devised for the events of 1937–1938. This book covers the later Stalinist period, including World War II.
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Stepashin, Sergei V., ed. Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny: Sbornik dokumentov. 5 vols. Moscow: Kniga I Biznes, 1995–2007.
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Unique collection of documents published under the auspices of the FSB and relating to intelligence, antisabotage operations, and the creation of the partisan movement. Vols. 2–5 are each divided into two parts. Vols. 1 and 2 cover 1941,Vol. 3 1942, Vol. 4 1943, and Vol. 5 1944.
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German Army

Many sources, especially German ones, use the term Wehrmacht (“armed forces”) as shorthand for the Nazi-era German Army (Heer). This is misleading, especially where the Russian front and war crimes are being discussed; the German Navy and the Air Force (Luftwaffe) played a relatively small role in the Russian campaign and had limited contact with the occupied population. Another term that might be used is Ostheer (“Eastern army”), which was a name applied to Germany Army forces fighting in Russia. At an operational level, the distinction makes some sense, as until December 1941 Hitler was Commander in Chief of the Wehrmacht but not of the Army (commanded by Field Marshal von Brauchitsch).

Command

Documents relating to the top levels of the German forces can be found in Trevor-Roper 1964, Heiber and Glantz 2003, and Greiner and Schramm 1961–1979; Halder 1976 is a General Staff war diary from the period up to Stalingrad. Barnett 1989 and Hürter 2006 provide biographical material on the most senior generals. For structural problems—contrasted to the shortcomings of individuals—there is Megargee 2000.

Barnett, Correlli, ed. Hitler’s Generals. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989.
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A useful collection of articles, by various authors, on some of the most important German Army commanders.
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Greiner, Hellmuth, and Percy Ernst Schramm, eds. Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (Wehrmachtführungsstab) 1940–1945. 4 vols. Frankfurt: Bernard & Graefe, 1961–1979.
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The eastern front was initially run by the Army rather than the Wehrmacht (armed forces) high command; this is nevertheless a useful day-by-day outline of events, with some additional documents.
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Halder, Franz. The Halder Diaries: The Private War Journals of Colonel General Franz Halder. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1976.
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Originally prepared from Halder’s shorthand notes for the Nuremberg trials. The fuller German version is Kriegstagebuch: Tägliche Aufzeichnungen des Chefs des Generalstabes des Heeres, 1939–1942 (3 vols., Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer: 1962–1964).
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Heiber, Helmut, and David Glantz, eds. Hitler’s Generals: Military Conferences, 1942–1945. New York: Enigma, 2003.
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Translation, with additional notes, of Hitler’s Lagebesprechungen: Die Protokollfragmente seiner militärischen Konferenzen 1942–1945, which was prepared for its original publication in 1962 by Heiber. Covers the period from 1 December 1942 onward but with large gaps.
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Hürter, Johannes. Hitlers Heerführer: Die deutschen Oberbefehlshaber im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941/42. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2006.
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A study of the collective backgrounds, attitudes, and conduct of the commanders of German field armies on the eastern front.
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Megargee, Geoffrey P. Inside Hitler’s High Command. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.
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Analysis of the structural and cultural shortcomings of the German high command. These shortcomings, as much as Hitler’s foolish interference, help to explain the defeat.
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Trevor-Roper, Hugh R., ed. Hitler’s War Directives, 1939–1945. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1964.
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A basic source, giving the main Wehrmacht directives. The German version is Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung 1939–1945: Dokumente des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, edited by Walther Hubatsch (Frankfurt am Main: Bernard & Graefe,1962).
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Organization and Losses

The bedrock of the German war effort was the ability to raise troops and replace losses. In the end the Third Reich could not match the human resources of the coalition that opposed it. Müller-Hillebrand 1954–1969 details the mobilization mechanism, while Overmans 1999 is now the main source on losses.

Müller-Hillebrand, Burkhart. Das Heer, 1933–1945: Entwicklung des organisatorischen Aufbaues. 3 vols. Darmstadt: E. S. Mittler, 1954–1969.
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Fundamental work outlining the structure and mobilization of German Army, by a General Staff officer.
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Overmans, Rüdiger. Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1999.
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Very important source, giving monthly breakdowns of losses based on sampling of German Army records, and demonstrating the relative importance of the Russian front.
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Motivation and Conduct

Although the German General Staff system provided a tested command system, also essential was the operation of units in the field and the coherence and motivation of front-line soldiers and noncommissioned officers. Van Creveld 1982 discusses the front-line command system, and Fritz 1995 gives insights into the psychology of the troops. Related material, including the complicity of the German rank and file in war crimes, is discussed in Bartov 1986, Schulte 1989, and Wette 2006. Case studies are provided in Shepherd 2004. See also German Occupation Policy and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union.

Bartov, Omer. The Eastern Front, 1941–45: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare. New York: St. Martin’s, 1986.
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Discusses how local conditions and German perceptions contributed to the end of normal restraints on military behavior.
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Fritz, Stephen G. Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995.
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Study of life at the front for ordinary German soldiers.
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Schulte, Theo J. The German Army and Nazi Policies in Occupied Russia. Oxford: Berg, 1989.
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One of the first works in English looking at Germany policy in detail.
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Shepherd, Ben. War in the Wild East: The German Army and Soviet Partisans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
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Important case studies of different German Army formations on occupation duty in central Russia, showing the effect of variations in leadership.
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van Creveld, Martin. Fighting Power. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982.
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Attempts to explain the unique fighting power and resilience of the German Army, albeit mainly in contrast to American fighting personnel rather than Soviet personnel.
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Wette, Wolfram. The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
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Collection of essays, originally published as Die Wehrmacht: Feindbilder, Vernichtungskrieg, Legenden (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2002). Highly critical of the German Army and discusses and details its collective attitudes and involvement in war crimes.
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German Allies

The German offensive in the Soviet Union in 1941–1942 relied on manpower provided by Italy and some smaller European states to cover the less active parts of the front. During the time of the Soviet counteroffensive in 1944, the attempts by these allies to change sides caused serious complications for Berlin. DiNardo 2005 provides a general study, while Cornelius 2011, Giurescu 2000, and Vehviläinen 2002 cover Hungary, Romania, and Finland, respectively.

Cornelius, Deborah S. Hungary in World War II: Caught in the Cauldron. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011.
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Provides a balanced and well-informed view of Hungary’s involvement, stressing the difficult position in which the Budapest government found itself.
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DiNardo, Richard. Germany and the Axis Powers: From Coalition to Collapse. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005.
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Traces the important role of the smaller allies that sent forces to the Russian front: Italy, Finland, Romania, and Hungary.
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Giurescu, Dinu C. Romania in the Second World War, 1939–1945. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 2000.
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Concentrates on political, foreign policy, and military aspects.
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Vehviläinen, Olli. Finland in the Second World War: Between Germany and Russia. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
DOI: 10.1057/9781403919748Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Valuable synthesis of Finnish-language secondary sources on Germany’s most effective ally.
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Operation Barbarossa 1941

The fighting in the second half of 1941 has attracted much attention from historians, partly thanks to the spectacular German victories (and war crimes), and partly because the war could perhaps have been decided in this period. A number of accounts relating to German strategy and war crimes are provided in Boog 1998.

Boog, Horst, ed. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. 4, The Attack on the Soviet Union: Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.
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Published in German as Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt,1983), Vol. 4 of Das Deutsche Reich und der der Zweite Weltkrieg. Part 1 is preparation for the German invasion, and Part 2 is the campaign through the late winter of 1941–1942. Chapters by Horst Boog, Jürgen Förster, Joachim Hoffmann, Ernst Klink, Rolf-Dieter Müller, and Gerd R. Ueberschär. The chapters reflect the views of the individual authors, and there are implied disagreements.
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Planning and Invasion

Documents relating to the German plans are printed in Post 1995. The success of the surprise attack on 22 June 1941 raises some of the most important questions of the war. Why was the Soviet Union caught by surprise? Was Stalin planning a preemptive attack, as argued in Suvorov 2008? To what extent were war crimes an essential part of German planning? Gorodetsky 1999 and Mawdsley 2003 argue against the existence of a serious intent to mount a preemptive Soviet strike, relying on documents published in Naumov 1998. Further documentary material has now been made available in Gavrilov 2008. A range of discussion by specialists on the lead-up to war is included in Wegner 1997.

Gavrilov, V. A., ed. Voenaia razvedka informiruet: Dokumenty Razvedupravleniia Krasnoi Armii. Ianvar’ 1939 – iun’ 1941. Moscow: MF Demokratiia, 2008.
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Invaluable material, available in some cases for the first time, on what the Soviet high command knew on the eve of the German invasion.
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Gorodetsky, Gabriel. The Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
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Thorough account of prewar diplomacy, stressing Stalin’s misunderstanding of German intentions. Based on archival documents released in the 1990s. Highly critical of Suvorov’s interpretation.
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Mawdsley, Evan. “Crossing the Rubicon: Soviet Plans for Offensive War in 1941.” International History Review 24.4 (2003): 818–865.
DOI: 10.1080/07075332.2003.9641015Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A discussion of the preventive war debate, based on published Russian archival sources. Details Soviet offensive war plans, but argues they were not put into practice.
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Naumov, V. P., ed. 1941 god. 2 vols. Moscow: MF Demokratiia, 1998.
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Essential collection of documents on the state of the Red Army and its evaluation of the threat on the eve of the German attack.
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Post, Walter. Unternehmen Barbarossa: Deutsche und sowetische Angriffspläne 1940/41. Hamburg, Germany: Mittler, 1995.
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Gives German translations of the Soviet war plans, published in the early 1990s. Also contains German General Staff planning documents going back to the summer of 1940.
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Suvorov, Victor. The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008.
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Suvorov (real name, V. B. Rezun), who defected to Britain from Soviet military intelligence in the 1970s, has written a number of controversial books and articles about 1941, involving Stalin’s plans to profit from a war between the “capitalist” powers, and specifically to mount a preemptive attack on Nazi Germany. The best known is Icebreaker (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990); Chief Culprit is the most recent development of the argument.
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Wegner, Bernd, ed. From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia, and the World, 1939–1941. Oxford: Berghahn, 1997.
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Collection of thirty-five essays on preparations for the 22 June 1941 invasion, as seen from both sides. Originally published as Zwei Wege nach Moskau: Vom Hitler-Stalin-Pakt bis zum “Unternehmen Barbarossa” (Munich: Piper, 1991).
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Early Battles

This section deals with battles fought in the first months of the war, immediately after the initial invasion on 22 June 1941, and up until the start of Operation Typhoon against Moscow in October 1941. This is effectively dealt with in Megargee 2006. The early battles at Smolensk and Kiev are now well covered by Stahel 2009, Glantz 2010, and Stahel 2011. Van Creveld 1977 draws attention to the all-important supply factor.

Glantz, David. Barbarossa Derailed: The Battle for Smolensk, 10 July–10 September 1941. Vol. 1, The German Advance, The Encirclement Battle, and the First and Second Soviet Counteroffensives, 10 July–24 August 1941. Solihull, UK: Helion, 2010.
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Detailed discussion of the stalling of the campaign in western Russia in July–August 1941, which was arguably a critical turning point of the war.
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Megargee, Geoffrey P. War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 2006.
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A recent introduction to the criminal planning of the invasion and the reasons for the failure of the military campaign.
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Stahel, David. Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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Detailed discussion of the stalling of the campaign in western Russia in July–August 1941, which was arguably a critical turning point of the war.
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Stahel, David. Kiev 1941: Hitler’s Battle for Supremacy in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
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Continues the argument in Stahel 2009 that what appeared to be a great triumph in the Kiev encirclement was actually a battle fought under difficult conditions for the German Army. Its leaders had underestimated the difficulty of the campaign and in any event were mainly interested in taking Moscow.
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van Creveld, Martin. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
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Contains an important chapter, “Russian Roulette,” on the logistical difficulties (or impossibilities) of the German 1941 campaign.
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Battle of Moscow

The Battle of Moscow began with German Operation Typhoon, which was mounted in early October 1941 and was halted by a counteroffensive on 6 December. The best source for this, although not based on the latest Russian material, is Reinhardt 1992; for civilian aspects see Braithwaite 2006. Zolotarev 1997 provides excerpts from Soviet General Staff reports, as well as material about the two armies and their leaders. Throughout the winter of 1941–1942, and in the following year, there was heavy fighting in the area west of the Soviet capital, the later part of which is deal with in Glantz 1999.

Braithwaite, Rodric. Moscow 1941: A City and People at War. London: Profile, 2006.
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Excellent discussion of civilian and military aspects by a former British ambassador to Moscow, making use of newly available sources.
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Glantz, David. Zhukov’s Greatest Defeat: The Red Army’s Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999.
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Argues convincingly that the Soviet high command attached as much importance to the battles fought west of Moscow (under Zhukov) in the autumn of 1942 as it did to Stalingrad.
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Reinhardt, Klaus. Moscow: The Turning Point. Oxford: Berg, 1992.
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Important survey by a West German general, emphasizing poor German preparation for the 1941 campaign, and the decisiveness of the Battle of Moscow rather than the Battle of Stalingrad. Original German edition is Die Wende vor Moskau: Das Scheitern der Strategie Hitlers im Winter 1941/42 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1972).
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Zolotarev, V. A., ed. Bitva pod Moskvoj: Sbornik dokumentov. Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia 4.1. Moscow: Terra, 1997.
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Important collection of operational orders and reports from the Soviet high command.
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Siege of Leningrad

The tragedy of the “blockade” has aroused profound interest, especially in the fate of as many as a million civilian victims. Salisbury 1969 includes insights based on visiting the city during the war. Barber and Dzeniskevich 2005 contains specialized articles on aspects of the siege; Glantz 2002 is the fullest military account.

Barber, John, and A. R. Dzeniskevich, eds. Life and Death in Besieged Leningrad, 1941–1944, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2005.
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Collection of important articles by Western and Russian historians.
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Glantz, David M. The Battle for Leningrad, 1941–1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.
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The most detailed discussion of military operations.
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Salisbury, Harrison E. The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad. London: Pan, 1969.
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Classic and comprehensive account by an American journalist who visited Leningrad during the war. An early example of the more sympathetic American view of the Soviet war efforts.
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The 1942 German Offensives and the Battle of Stalingrad

Hitler’s “second offensive” began in May 1942. The preliminary battle, at Kharkov, is covered in Glantz 2002. There is debate on whether Stalingrad was the turning point of the war; on this see Wette and Ueberschär 1992. The battle was undeniably the point at which the Russians gained the initiative, and it was the first time that a large German formation surrendered. Citino 2007 is valuable for the context, and Boog 2001 is essential reading. Kehrig 1974 and Samsonov 1989 are definitive accounts from the German and Soviet sides, respectively. Beevor 1998 is a popular English-language summary of Stalingrad, with Glantz and House 2009 providing both a highly detailed narrative of the battle and a fresh analysis of the importance of its various stages.

Beevor, Antony. Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942–43. New York: Viking, 1998.
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Better on the German than the Russian side, but a thorough, readable discussion.
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Boog, Horst, ed. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. 6, The Global War. Oxford: Clarendon, 2001.
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Published as Der globale Krieg: Die Ausweitung zum Weltkrieg und der Wechsel der Initiative, 1941–1943 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1990). Includes a book-length section (365 pp.) by Bernd Wegner, with a history of the campaign in the East from the spring of 1942 to the spring of 1943, including Stalingrad.
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Citino, Robert M. Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
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Discusses the structural problems of German Army organization and preparation.
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Glantz, David. Kharkov 1942: Anatomy of a Military Disaster through Soviet Eyes. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.
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The Red Army’s Kharkov offensive in May 1942 was an attempt to maintain the strategic initiative after successful attacks against the Germans since December 1941. The failure of the Kharkov offensive opened a wide gap in the defensive line in southern Russia and allowed the success of Hitler’s Operation Blue toward Stalingrad and the Caucasus. Provides the fullest details available on this important operation, which was downplayed by Russian historians in the Soviet era.
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Glantz, David M., and Jonathan M. House. The Stalingrad Trilogy. Vols. 1–2. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.
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Two volumes were published in 2009: Vol. 1, To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April–August 1942, and Vol. 2, Armageddon in Stalingrad: September–November 1942. Both contain a very large amount of detail regarding order of battle and operations large and small. Many new and important comments on the development of this immense campaign.
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Kehrig, Manfred. Stalingrad: Analyse und Dokumentation einer Schlacht. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974.
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The fullest German operation account, which brought in many new sources.
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Samsonov, A. M. Stalingradskaia bitva. 4th ed. Moscow: Nauka, 1989.
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The standard Russian history, originally published in 1960.
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Wette, W., and G. R. Ueberschär. Stalingrad: Mythos und Wirklichkeit einer Schlacht. Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1992.
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Important discussion of the place of Stalingrad in the history of the Eastern campaign.
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Battle of Kursk and the Red Army Pursuit

Citino 2011 and Frieser 2007 put the German situation in 1943 into a general strategic context. Glantz and House 1999 and Bergstrom 2007 provide details of the great battle at Kursk, where the Russians won the greatest tank battle of the war. Zamulin 2011 and Zetterling and Frankson 2000 show the high cost paid by the Russian for their victory. Kursk was followed by battles fought across the Ukraine, the best known of which was the partial encirclement west of the Dnepr River at Korsun-Shevchenkovskii in January and February 1944; the fullest treatment of this action in English is Zetterling and Frankson 2008.

Bergstrom, Christer. Kursk: The Air Battle, July 1943. Hersham, UK: Classic Publications, 2007.
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The most detailed operational account in English of any of the major eastern front air battles. Based on German and Russian archival sources
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Citino, Robert M. The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011.
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Covers all fronts of the European war, and puts in context the temporary recovery after Stalingrad, the defeats at Kursk, and the resulting headlong retreat.
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Frieser, Karl-Heinz, ed. Das Deutsche Reich und der der Zweite Weltkrieg. Vol. 8, Die Ostfront 1943/44 Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2007.
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This volume of Germany and the Second World War (see Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt 1990–2008, cited under Official Histories) is not yet available in English. Articles by Bernd Wegner, Karl-Heinz Frieser, Klaus Schönherr, and Krisztián Ungváry cover the eastern front from the Battle of Kursk to the end of 1944.
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Glantz, David M., and Jonathan M. House. The Battle of Kursk. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999.
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Full-scale treatment of the battle, with a detailed operational narrative.
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Zamulin, Valeriy. Demolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, July 1943—An Operational Narrative. Translated by Stuart Britton. Solihull, UK: Helion, 2011.
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Detailed discussion by a Russian historian of the most dramatic aspects of the Kursk battle, showing the high level of Soviet losses.
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Zetterling, Niklas, and Anders Frankson. Kursk 1943: A Statistical Analysis. London: Frank Cass, 2000.
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A reevaluation of the battle, based mainly on German archives. Outlines the comparatively light losses suffered by German forces in the Battle of Kursk itself.
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Zetterling, Niklas, and Anders Frankson. The Korsun Pocket: The Encirclement and Breakout of a German Army in the East, 1944. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2008.
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Detailed treatment of a German action during the Ukrainian retreat that almost turned into another Stalingrad.
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Operation Bagration and the Battles of 1944

Surprisingly, the successful Soviet advance in the western part of European Russia and in eastern Europe has received only limited treatment from historians. An advance across the Ukraine was followed by the destruction of German Army Group Centre in Belorussia in June 1944 (Operation Bagration) and the rapid entry of the Red Army into Poland and the Balkans. For the strategic background see Frieser 2007. The great battle in Belorussia is described in Dunn 2000, Glantz 2007, and Niepold 1987. The political aspects of this advance are dealt with in Eastern Europe and Germany.

Dunn, Walter S. Soviet Blitzkrieg: The Battle for White Russia, 1944. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000.
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Important discussion, with a good grasp of the Soviet side but relying heavily on German sources.
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Frieser, Karl-Heinz, ed. Das Deutsche Reich und der der Zweite Weltkrieg. Vol. 8, Die Ostfront 1943/44. Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2007.
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In the original German-language version of the multivolume Germany and the Second World War (see also Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt 1990–2008, cited under Official Histories). This volume not yet available in English. Articles by Bernd Wegner, Karl-Heinz Frieser, Klaus Schönherr, and Krisztián Ungváry cover the eastern front from the Battle of Kursk to the end of 1944.
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Glantz, David M. Red Storm over the Balkans: The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
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Another groundbreaking work by Glantz, assessing another of the largely ignored setbacks in Soviet operations. The invasion of Romania was only carried through in the late summer of 1944, after the government in Bucharest had changed sides.
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Niepold, Gerd. The Battle for White Russia: The Destruction of Army Group Centre, June 1944. London: Brassey’s, 1987.
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Fullest treatment of this episode in English; told largely from the German side.
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Red Army Offensive in Poland, Germany, and Hungary in 1945

The fighting in Poland and Germany, especially the Vistula-Oder Operation and the Battle of Berlin, was some of the heaviest of the war, although the outcome was never in doubt. Müller 2008 provides the full strategic context, while Duffy 1991 is a thoughtful account of the Soviet advance into Germany proper. The final battle for Berlin is dealt with in Beevor 2002. The political aspects of this advance are dealt with in Eastern Europe and Germany.

Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945. London: Viking, 2002.
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A detailed popular narrative of the final battles, using both German and Russian sources, a sequel to his account of Stalingrad.
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Duffy, Christopher. Red Storm on the Reich: The Russian March on Germany, 1945. London: Routledge, 1991.
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Good overview of operations in East Prussia and other parts of Germany, convincingly explaining the delay in capturing Berlin.
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Müller, Rolf-Dieter, ed. Das Deutsche Reich und der der Zweite Weltkrieg. Vol. 10, Der Zusammenbruch des Deutschen Reiches 1945. Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2008.
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This volume is not yet available in English. Vol. 10.1 contains long articles by John Zimmerman on the campaign in Germany and by Manfred Zeidler on Red Army occupation policy. Vol. 10.2 contains articles by Andreas Kunz and Rolf-Dieter Müller on the Wehrmacht collapse, on the fate of German POWs (by Rüdiger Overmanns) and on deportations of Germans (by Michael Schwartz).
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German Occupation Policy and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union

This is one of the most researched aspects of the Russian campaign, significant both as part of the Wehrmacht war guilt controversy and as a basic factor underlying the German failure. An important element of the story is how the initial plans for economic exploitation and political terror developed before 22 June 1941 and involved both the Nazi leadership and the German Army; on this see Kay 2006. The pioneering study Dallin 1957 was based on German documents. German material has been published in Müller 1980 and Reemtsma 2002. A specialist study of the German mass murder of the Jews in Russia is Dobroszycki and Gurock 1993. The mistreatment of Soviet POWs, which also involved millions of deaths, is in Streit 1997.

Dallin, Alexander. German Rule in Russia, 1941–1945: A Study of Occupation Policies. London: Macmillan, 1957.
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The first full-scale study in English, based heavily on German sources. A second edition was published in 1981.
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Dobroszycki, Lucjan, and Jeffrey S. Gurock, eds. The Holocaust in the Soviet Union: Studies and Sources on the Destruction of the Jews in the Nazi-Occupied Territories of the USSR, 1941–1945. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993.
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Most studies of the Holocaust concentrate on central and western Europe. The full-scale genocide began in the western USSR in the summer of 1941, although it took a different form from what developed later. Soviet-era sources did not single out the suffering of the Jews; recent German discussions make much of the Wehrmacht’s complicity in the genocide.
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Kay, Alex J. Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940–1941. New York: Berghahn, 2006.
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The background to German policy, stressing the political and economic objectives that made a “winning hearts and minds” policy impossible of the Third Reich.
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Müller, Norbert, ed. Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in der UdSSR 1941–1944: Dokumente. Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1980.
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A useful collection of documents dealing with several levels of occupation policy.
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Reemtsma, J. P., ed. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht: Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941–1944. Hamburg, Germany: Hamburger Edition, 2002.
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Lavishly illustrated collection of materials, much relating to events in Russia. Based on an exhibition held in Germany, which aroused controversy owing to its criticism of the wartime German armed forces and to some minor technical errors.
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Streit, Christian. Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945. 3d ed. Bonn, Germany: J. H. W. Dietz, 1997.
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First published in 1978 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt). The main title comes from the prewar German decision that the normal laws of war would not apply to the Red Army. There is still no adequate treatment of this important subject in English.
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Soviet Partisan Movement

The USSR had a conventional war effort, but at the same time a large part of European Russia was occupied by the Germans. This and the nature of the Marxist-Leninist state meant that the resistance movement in Russia was different from that in other parts of occupied Europe. Armstrong 1964 is the pioneering study, followed by Grenkevich and Glantz 1999, and more originally by Slepyan 2006. Hill 2005 is an indispensible local study. The documents in Zolotarev 1999 are invaluable. See also Statiev 2010 (cited under USSR Borderlands).

Armstrong, John A., ed. Soviet Partisans in World War II. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964.
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Aspects of partisan warfare; prepared mainly using German documents.
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Grenkevich, Leonid D., and David Glantz. The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941–1944: A Critical Historiographical Analysis. London: Frank Cass, 1999.
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Essentially a summary of the movement, based mostly on Russian sources.
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Hill, Alexander. The War behind the Eastern Front: The Soviet Partisan Movement in North-West Russia 1941–44. London: Frank Cass, 2005.
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Excellent local study, well informed on both the German and Russian side.
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Slepyan, Kenneth. Stalin’s Guerrillas: Soviet Partisans in World War II. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006.
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The best current general treatment, showing the change of Soviet policy toward mass resistance and looking at partisans as a social phenomenon.
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Zolotarev, V. A., ed. Partizanskoe dvizhenie v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny 1941–1945 gg: Dokumenty i materialy. Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia 9. Moscow: Terra, 1999.
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Important collection of documents on the planning and conduct of the Soviet partisan movement, in a large Russian series.
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Soviet Occupation Policy

Less systematically studied than German occupation policy has been the policy of the Soviet government and the Red Army in those territories occupied (or reoccupied) in 1943–1945.

USSR Borderlands

The reconquest of the western borderlands involved the reincorporation of large regions inhabited by non-Russians; some of these regions had been annexed to the USSR only in 1939–1940 following the Nazi-Soviet pact. These included Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Baltic states. The documents in Estonian International Commission 2006 are a valuable case study. In some places a significant amount of popular armed resistance was encountered in the form of guerrilla groups, as detailed in Statiev 2010. On the role of traditional Russian nationalism as a consolidating factor, see Miner 2003.

Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against Humanity. Estonia 1940–1945: Reports of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against Humanity. Tallinn: Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against Humanity, 2006.
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Massive (1,337 pp.) collection of documents. Although Estonia was small in terms of geography and population and there was little ethnic Estonian resistance to the Germans, this is a valuable case study, taking in the forced annexation by the USSR in 1940, invasion and occupation by the Germans in 1941–1944, and “liberation” in 1944.
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Miner, Steven Merritt. Stalin’s Holy War: Religion, Nationalism, and Alliance Politics, 1941–1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
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Moscow’s “lenient” policy to the Russian Orthodox Church in the war years and its relationship to the spread of Soviet control to non-Orthodox areas on the Russian borderlands.
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Statiev, Alexander. The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511730399Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Sheds new light on conflict in Ukraine, Belorussia, and Baltic states, as Red Army and internal security troops struggled to reestablish control among competing guerrilla groups.
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Eastern Europe and Germany

Soviet policy beyond the 1941 borders of the USSR was more complex than in the borderlands. In the short term, the Red Army advance led to conflict with local forces that were fearful of, and hostile to, the Red Army. One extreme example was the Warsaw uprising, covered by Davies 2003; the conventional fighting in Hungary is dealt with in Ungváry 2003. Valuable documents on Soviet policy can be found in Volokitina 1997, Volokitina 1999, and Zolotarev 2000. Events in Germany are covered in Naimark 1995, with documents in Kynin and Laufer 1996–2000.

Davies, Norman. Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2003.
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The Warsaw uprising in August 1944 and the Soviet response to it are still contentious. This is told by Davies largely from the Polish point of view, but his work reflects a good understanding of Soviet military strategy.
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Kynin, G. P., and I. Laufer, eds. SSSR i germanskii vopros, 1941–1949: Dokumenty iz Arkhiva vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii. 3 vols. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnoshneiia, 1996–2000.
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Important documents on aspects of Soviet policy toward the main enemy.
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Naimark, Norman M. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
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Major study of Soviet occupation, with some material on the early period, including extensive misconduct toward German women.
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Ungváry, Krisztián. Battle for Budapest: 100 Days in World War II. London: I. B. Tauris, 2003.
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First full account from the Hungarian perspective, using German and Hungarian sources. Hitler mounted his last major counteroffensive in Hungary.
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Volokitina, T. V., ed. Vostochnaia Evropa v dokumentakh rossiiskikh arkhivov, 1944–1953 gg. Vol. 1, 1944–1948. Moscow-Novosibirsk: Sibirskii Khronograph, 1997.
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Important collection of archive documents relating to Soviet policy toward the countries of eastern Europe.
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Volokitina, T. V., ed. Sovetskii faktor v Vostochnoi Evrope 1944–1953: Dokumenty. 2 vols. Moscow: Rosspen, 1999.
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Important collection of archive documents relating to Soviet policy toward the countries of eastern Europe.
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Zolotarev, V. A., ed. Krasnaia Armiia v stranakh Tsentral’noi, Severnoi Evropy i na Balkanakh: Dokumenty i materialy: 1944–1945. Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia 3.2. Moscow: Terra, 2000.
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Valuable collection of documents on Red Army conduct in occupied territory, in a very large multivolume publication of documents.
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German Home Front

This is a large topic that would require its own bibliography; German efforts went beyond the war with Russia. However, it is useful to suggest some background sources. Echternkamp 2008, Kroener 2000, and Tooze 2006 represent important discussions of the wartime mobilization of the economy and society of the Third Reich and also discuss related policy in the occupied parts of Europe. Kershaw 2000 and Evans 2008 are now the standard starting point for the background of Hitler’s Germany.

Echternkamp, Jörg, ed. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. 9.1, German Wartime Society 1939–1945: Politicization, Disintegration, and the Struggle for Survival. Oxford: Clarendon, 2008.
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Published in two installments as Die Deutsche Kriegsgesellschaft 1939 bis 1945 (Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2004–2005). Covers various aspects of German policy, including use of forced labor and treatment of POWs. Vol. 9.2 was not yet available in English as of 2011.
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Evans, Richard. The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster. London: Allen Lane, 2008.
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Final part of a trilogy on Nazi Germany. An essential survey.
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Kershaw, Ian. Hitler 1936–45: Nemesis. London: Allen Lane, 2000.
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Masterful treatment of the overall German leadership, including many insights on the eastern front. Second part of a two-volume work.
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Kroener, Bernhard R., ed. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. 5, Organization and Mobilization of the German Sphere of Power. Oxford: Clarendon, 2000.
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Published in two installments in German in 1999, covering 1939–1941 and 1942–1945. Hans Umbreit deals with occupation policy, Rolf-Dieter Müller the German war economy, and Bernard Kroener manpower.
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Tooze, Adam. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. London: Allen Lane, 2006.
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Now a standard work on the war economy. Useful for discussion of ideological aspects of economic policy.
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Soviet Home Front

The Soviet home front is still much less understood than that of Germany in the same period. Barber and Harrison 1991 is the first brief general study, but the source base has improved greatly since the 1990s. Stone 2000 provides insights into a political and economic system that developed in the decade before the war; Weiner 2001 looks at important cultural aspects.

Barber, John, and Mark Harrison. The Soviet Home Front, 1941–1945: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II. Harlow, UK: Longman, 1991.
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Pioneering study on varying aspects of Soviet life behind the front lines.
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Stone, David R. Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926–1933. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.
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Provides the background to the militarized Soviet system dating back to the first Five-Year Plans, which allowed the survival and then victory of the USSR.
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Weiner, Amir. Making Sense of War: The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
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Makes conclusions about the impact of the war on the USSR, based on a case study of the Vinnitsa region of western Ukraine.
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Living Conditions

Information on everyday life in wartime Russia has become more available since the end of the Soviet period, but the problem still lacks a full-scale study. There are a number of relevant articles in Thurston and Bonwetsch 2000. Livshin and Orlov 2003 is a fascinating collection of documents on social conditions and popular attitudes, and Merridale 2000 reaches important conclusions based on interviews. Kucherenko 2011 covers the neglected subject of Soviet children. Forced labor played an important part in the Soviet war economy; see Bacon 1994.

Bacon, Edwin. The Gulag at War: Stalin’s Forced Labour System in the Light of the Archives. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1994.
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Forced labor in the Soviet prison-camp system, the Gulag, was important for providing labor for construction of factories and infrastructure in unsettled areas. It was both a means of social control and a major source of mortality for Soviet citizens in the war years.
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Kucherenko, Olga. Little Soldiers: How Soviet Children Went to War, 1941–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
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First study of an important theme, one with long-term consequences.
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Livshin, A. Ia., and I. B. Orlov, eds. Sovetskaia povsednevnost’ i massovoe soznanie: 1939–1945. Moscow: Rosspen, 2003.
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Unique collection of documents and statistics showing popular response to wartime hardships.
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Merridale, Catherine. Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russia. London: Granta, 2000.
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Powerful discussion of the tragedy of the people of the Soviet Union during and after the war.
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Thurston, Robert W., and Bernd Bonwetsch, eds. The People’s War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
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Articles by a number of specialists on various aspects of the Soviet home front, making use of new sources.
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War Economy

One fundamental German mistake was underestimating the development of the Soviet economy in the 1930s and the extent of war production in the prewar years. The Germans also underestimated the degree of social control and popular support, which blocked the expected collapse of the Communist system. Harrison 1996 is still the fullest technical study; Sapir 1997 is a shorter but perceptive survey. Beaumont 1980 and van Tuyll 1989 outline the role of Western economic aid. Moskoff 1990 details how the critical challenge of ensuring the food supply was met. Samuelson 2011 will, it is hoped, be the first of a number of studies of local conditions.

Beaumont, Joan. Comrades in Arms: British Aid to Russia, 1941–1945. London: Davis-Poynter, 1980.
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British supply to Russia was significant, especially in the earlier part of the war. This remains the fullest study.
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Harrison, Mark. Accounting for War: Soviet Production, Employment, and the Defence Burden, 1940–1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523625Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Fullest overall account, showing how the Soviet government reacted to the strains of war production.
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Moskoff, William. The Bread of Affliction: The Food Supply in the USSR during World War II. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
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Study of a critical economic sector.
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Samuelson, Lennart. Tankograd: The Formation of a Soviet Company Town, Cheliabinsk, 1900s–1950s. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
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Archive-based study by an expert on prewar military-economic mobilization.
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Sapir, Jacques. “The Economics of War in the Soviet Union during World War II.” In Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison. Edited by Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin, 208–237. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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Useful and perceptive short introduction to how the Russians were able effectively to mobilize their economy for war.
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van Tuyll, Hubert B.. Feeding the Bear: American Aid to the Soviet Union, 1941–1945. New York: Greenwood, 1989.
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Lend-lease was important both for provision of military equipment to the Red Army and for support for the Russian standard of living.