Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk: The Turning Point of World War II
    Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk: The Turning Point of World War II
    Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk: The Turning Point of World War II
    Audiobook10 hours

    Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk: The Turning Point of World War II

    Written by Dennis E. Showalter

    Narrated by Robertson Dean

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    While the Battle of Kursk has long captivated World War II aficionados, it has been unjustly overlooked by historians. Drawing on the masses of new information made available by the opening of the Russian military archives, Dennis E. Showalter at last corrects that error. This battle was the critical turning point on World War II's Eastern Front. In the aftermath of the Red Army's brutal repulse of the Germans at Stalingrad, the stakes could not have been higher. More than three million men and eight thousand tanks met in the heart of the Soviet Union, some four hundred miles south of Moscow, in an encounter that both sides knew would reshape the war. The adversaries were at the peak of their respective powers. On both sides, the generals and the dictators they served were in agreement on where, why, and how to fight. The result was a furious death grapple between two of history's most formidable fighting forces-a battle that might possibly have been the greatest of all time.

    In Armor and Blood, Showalter re-creates every aspect of this dramatic struggle. He offers expert perspective on strategy and tactics at the highest levels, from the halls of power in Moscow and Berlin to the battlefield command posts on both sides. But it is the author's exploration of the human dimension of armored combat that truly distinguishes this book. In the classic tradition of John Keegan's The Face of Battle, Showalter's narrative crackles with insight into the unique dynamics of tank warfare-its effect on men's minds as well as their bodies. Scrupulously researched, exhaustively documented, and vividly illustrated, this book is a chilling testament to man's ability to build and to destroy.

    When the dust settled, the field at Kursk was nothing more than a wasteland of steel carcasses, dead soldiers, and smoking debris. The Soviet victory ended German hopes of restoring their position on the Eastern Front, and put the Red Army on the road to Berlin. Armor and Blood presents listeners with what will likely be the authoritative study of Kursk for decades to come.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 27, 2013
    ISBN9781452685038
    Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk: The Turning Point of World War II
    Author

    Dennis E. Showalter

    Dennis E. Showalter is a professor of history at Colorado College who specializes in German military history. He is also the former president of the American Society for Military History. Showalter has previously taught at the United States Air Force Academy, the United States Military Academy, and the Marine Corps University. His recent publications include Patton and Rommel: Men of War in the Twentieth Century and Hitler’s Panzers: The Lightning Attacks that Revolutionized Warfare.

    Related to Armor and Blood

    Related audiobooks

    Wars & Military For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Valor ‘Gatling Gun Parker’

      Jan 24, 2023

      Valor ‘Gatling Gun Parker’
      2 min read

    • Article

      On Combat In The East

      Jul 11, 2023

      On Combat In The East
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Historian's View

      Oct 27, 2022

      The Historian's View
      4 min read

    • Article

      Red Alert

      Feb 1, 2019

      David Reynolds and Vladimir Pechatnov, eds., The Kremlin Letters: Stalin’s Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt, Yale University Press, 2018, 660 pages, $35. 978–0300226829 At first glance The Kremlin Letters: Stalin’s Wartime Corresp

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Nation’s Alibi

      Feb 25, 2020

      A Nation’s Alibi
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Nazi Invasion Of Poland

      Aug 8, 2019

      The Nazi Invasion Of Poland
      1 min read

    • Article

      At The Gates Of Moscow

      Jan 20, 2022

      At The Gates Of Moscow
      9 min read

    • Article

      Preparing For Kursk

      Jun 8, 2023

      Preparing For Kursk
      8 min read

    • Article

      Reduced To Rubble

      Feb 20, 2020

      Reduced To Rubble
      4 min read

    • Article

      Setting Soviet History Straight

      Oct 27, 2022

      Setting Soviet History Straight
      4 min read

    • Article

      Diversity On The March

      Oct 11, 2022

      Diversity On The March
      11 min read

    • Article

      Bomber Onslaught

      Apr 30, 2019

      Bomber Onslaught
      6 min read

    • Article

      Into The Meat Grinder

      Oct 6, 2022

      Into The Meat Grinder
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Dark Mirror

      Mar 14, 2024

      The Dark Mirror
      9 min read

    • Article

      Interview / Jonathan Dimbleby

      Apr 15, 2021

      Interview / Jonathan Dimbleby
      10 min read

    • Article

      The City That Refused To Die

      Aug 4, 2022

      The City That Refused To Die
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Embattled City

      Oct 11, 2022

      The Embattled City
      14 min read

    • Article

      German Vs. Soviet

      May 23, 2023

      German Vs. Soviet
      1 min read

    • Article

      Besieged

      Aug 25, 2020

      Besieged
      10 min read

    • Article

      Centuries Of Iron

      Jan 19, 2023

      Centuries Of Iron
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Third Reich In Photos Death Struggle Of 1941

      Aug 9, 2018

      WORDS PAUL GARSON  A RUSSIAN CIVILIAN UNVEILS A NEW POSTER, THE NAME OF HITLER SPELLED OUT IN CYRILLIC LETTERS History’s short-term memory, facilitated by Soviet efforts to fog over the perfidious treachery, often fails to recall that arch-enemies Na

      4 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Apr 13, 2021

      By Jan Eschbach ISBN: 978-3963600258 Zeughaus Verlag (2020) - ¤39.95 www.zeughausverlag.de Look at the (English) right-hand page of section XII in the Loeb edition of the biography of Maximinus Thrax in the Historia Augusta, and you find that the emp

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Armor and Blood

    4.5/5

    51 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk. The Turning Point of World War II by Dennis E. ShowalterRandom HouseAugust 27, 2013316 PageseBook ISBN: 978-0-8129-9465-0ISBN-13: 978-1-4000-6677-3542 NonfictionHistoryMilitary History & AffairsWorld War IIPublisher Contact: Steven Boriack, sboriack@randomhouse.com Reviewer: Thomas E. NutterDennis E. Showalter is a scholar and educator who has practiced his craft at Colorado College since 1969. He also has taught at both the United States Air Force Academy and the United States Military Academy, and has served as President of the Society for Military History. He has written the award-winning Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, as well as many other books and professional articles in the field of military history.Showalter’s most recent work is Armor and Blood, a detailed narrative of the planning, preparation, execution and ultimate failure of Operation Citadel, arguably Adolf Hitler’s greatest military gamble. And gamble it was, as Showalter constantly reminds the reader by liberally sowing his text with references to games of chance and the points in them at which an individual player must make a decision upon which the game’s outcome will be determined.Citadel was rife with vital points of decision for both sides. The first of these, and the one that set the dominoes in motion, concerned whether the Wehrmacht should undertake offensive operations in the East in 1943. That such an issue should present itself in the first instance, and in less than six months following the greatest debacle in German military history, was due to the uncanny ability of the Wehrmacht to resurrect itself in the face of disaster. To the casual eye, the successful offensives of the Wehrmacht in Russia during the summer and autumn of 1942 suggested that the German armed forces had recovered from their first defeat and returned to their former selves, masters of the cut and slash of Blitzkrieg. In truth, however, the Red Army had gutted its German counterpart during the summer and autumn of 1941, beginning a decline in the substance and capabilities of Germany’s armed forces that inexorably accelerated during the next four years. Manpower levels in German units declined by at least a third, causing the Germans to “recruit” men from the occupied territories, many of whom were not at all motivated to fight for the Third Reich. Allied bombing reduced German production of weapons and ammunition, often forcing the German Army to rely upon captured French and Russian equipment, with a resulting decline in German fighting power. The result had been the disastrous defeats at Stalingrad and Alamein.Nevertheless, the German Army and Air Force were resilient enough to at least partially recover from even these events, and German industry remained sufficiently productive to arm some powerful elite formations. The question on the table in the early spring of 1943 was whether these units should be shepherded and used defensively to take advantage of the large areas of Russia still under German control, or offensively in one more effort to crush the Red Army and bring the country to its knees. Adolf Hitler, whose opinion carried the greatest weight, believed that an opportunity to achieve the more aggressive purpose lay with the huge salient in southern Russia left by the Red Army’s post-Stalingrad offensive. At the center of that salient lay the city of Kursk, and the Fuehrer became enamored with the idea that German forces on either side of the salient would pierce it, meet at or near Kursk, and destroy enough Soviet forces to cause Russia to leave the war, or at the very least reduce its fighting power sufficiently to allow Germany to defeat the anticipated Allied invasion of western Europe. Showalter describes the decision-making process that consumed Hitler and the Generals who would have responsibility for conducting the Citadel operation, illustrating the ambivalence among these men that caused a plague of vacillation among them with regard to whether, if undertaken, the offensive would stand a chance of success. There were important German officers, among them Heinz Guderian, who remained opposed to the plan from start to finish. But the Fuehrer, whatever misgivings he may have had, was persuaded to forge ahead, in part because Field Marshal Erich von Manstein threw his considerable professional weight behind the idea. Professor Showalter contrasts the success of the Soviet intelligence system in divining both the timing and overall German plan for Citadel, with the chronic failure of German military intelligence, in this case its inability to obtain useful information about either Soviet plans for dealing with the operation or the forces that would be available for the purpose. Indeed, understanding that the Russians knew much of the German plans, and were preparing to thwart them, came primarily through photographs taken during Luftwaffe reconnaissance flights. What those photographs depicted likely would have persuaded any reasonable person to abandon the enterprise with dispatch and preserve the precious German panzer divisions to fight another day. For the Red Army had begun constructing mile upon mile of interlocking defensive belts, each of which included elaborate systems of trenches, gun positions, wire entanglements, bunkers, anti-tank ditches, and forts whose purpose was to funnel both man and machine into extensive minefields and killing grounds where the enemy’s soldiers and armored vehicles would be destroyed wholesale. Showalter is truly in his element in describing the reality of the fighting in the Kursk salient, which began on July 5, 1943 and lasted roughly two weeks. But the battle was fought literally around the clock, exhausting men and vehicles alike. The final numbers imply a clear German victory; the most reasonable accounting indicates that the Soviets lost eight times the number of German combat vehicles destroyed in Citadel, and six times the men killed and wounded. Yet the German armed forces clearly failed to meet their objectives, and whereas the Russians could replace the men and vehicles destroyed in the battle, the Germans could not. For the remainder of the war, German ground forces would be incapable of meaningful offensive operations. Likewise the Luftwaffe, whose ground support operations dropped quickly to nearly zero, in parallel with its ultimate failure to defend the Reich from the Allied bombing offensive.With due regard to the several excellent scholars and writers who have written so well on the same subject, it must be said that Showalter’s narrative of the battle is without peer. Professor Showalter did what any good historian would have done----read the secondary sources, met and spoke with survivors, mastered the pertinent original documents, and cogitated upon the whole----and produced a work that is accessible to both the professional and the casual reader alike.