Thunder on the Dnepr

It has long been thought that the failure of Germany to defeat Russia in 1941 was due primarily to interference in the plans and operations of the German armed forces by Adolf Hitler, and ultimately, that it was Field Marshal "Winter" and General "Mud" that stopped Army Group Center at the gates of Moscow. Certainly, the STAVKA (Soviet High Command) and the Red Army had little or nothing to do with it. But to Dr. Bryan Fugate, this view is too simplistic. A renowned expert on Soviet and German military history - he speaks both German and Russian - Fugate has long understood the great significance of the strategy developed by Soviet Generals Zhukov and Timoshenko that inflicted the devastating casualties on the advancing Nazis, making German victory impossible. This was the foundation of Fugate's previous book, the critically acclaimed and controversial Operation Barbarossa, a landmark study that brought the conventional historians out of their ivory towers into battle. Taking advantage of the new spirit of openness in the former Soviet Union, Fugate visited Russia to investigate precisely how the Soviets were able to outfox both Hitler and his acclaimed generals. In doing so, he teamed up with the eminent Soviet historian Lev Dvoretsky, using the most up-to-date research in formerly secret Soviet military and political archives. The result of this collaboration is Thunder on the Dnepr, a definitive work providing conclusive evidence that despite serious mistakes made by the Germans, the primary reason the Red Army was to prevail was due to war games conducted by Zhukov and Timoshenko in late 1940 and early 1941. The results of these exercises convinced Stalin that the Germans could be defeated before they reached Moscow, but that existing plans for the Red Army to counterattack immediately when the Germans launched their invasion were futile. Instead, a defense in depth anchored along the Dnepr River on the southern flank of German Army Group Center would slow and attrit the German forces. The authors contend that the battle for the little town of Yelnia was the first and most important turning point of the war. Not Stalingrad, nor Kursk, nor Leningrad. It was in this obscure village that Zhukov outwitted Guderian, Halder, and von Bock. Here the Red Army's "ambush" of Army Group Center caught the Germans by surprise when they were at their weakest, exhausted from constant combat. The meatgrinder at Yelnia followed by the Red Army's echeloned defense in depth set the stage for the decisive Soviet counterattacks in December 1941 at the gates of Moscow.