The German Army on the Eastern Front: An Inner View of the Ostheer's Experiences of War

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For the English-speaking world, the German army of the Second World War is generally viewed through the prism of war against the Western Allies. The brilliance and audacity of German panzer commanders and their troops led to the shocking defeat of French and British forces in 1940, while the Africa Corps proved extremely vexing to British forces in North Africa. Even after defeats at El Alamein, Tunis, Salerno, and on the Normandy beaches, the German army mounted a tenacious defence – symbolized by the battle of the hedgerows in Normandy, the defence of the Gothic Line, Arnhem and the Hürtgen Forest – that precipitously slowed the Allied advance and, as the Battle of the Bulge illustrated, it still possessed the striking power to mount an offensive that threatened Allied positions. By the end of the war, however, the German army was a mere shell of the force that had conquered continental Europe. Certainly Allied actions – both on the battlefield and in the air and at sea – contributed to this state of affairs. Much more important in the grinding away of the German army’s combat power and efficiency, however, was the war against the Soviet Union’s Red Army.

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