Beschreibung

On 2 August 1944, in the wake of the complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre in Belorussia, Winston Churchill mocked Adolf Hitler in the House of Commons by the rank he had reached in the First World War. 'Russian success has been somewhat aided by the strategy of Herr Hitler, of Corporal Hitler,' Churchill jibed. 'Even military idiots find it difficult not to see some faults in his actions.' Andrew Roberts' previous book "Masters and Commanders" studied the creation of Allied grand strategy; "The Storm of War" now analyses how Axis strategy evolved. Examining the Second World War on every front, Roberts asks whether, with a different decision-making process and a different strategy, the Axis might even have won. Were those German generals who blamed everything on Hitler after the war correct, or were they merely scapegoating their former Fuhrer once he was safely beyond defending himself? In researching this uniquely vivid history of the Second World War Roberts has walked many of the key battlefield and wartime sites of Russia, France, Italy, Germany and the Far East. The book is full of illuminating sidelights on the principle actors that bring their characters and the ways in which they reached decisions into fresh focus.

Klappentext

From the author of Masters and Commanders, Andrew Roberts' The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War has been hailed as the finest single-volume account of this epic conflict.

The Second World War lasted for 2, 174 days and claimed the lives of over 50 million people. Why did it take the course that it did? Why did the Axis lose? And could they, with a different strategy, have won?

Ranging from the Western front to North Africa, from the Baltic to the Far East, he brings the story of the war - and those who fought it - into focus as never before.

'One of the greatest historians of our time ... His masterpiece'
Oliver Marre, Observer

'An undoubted triumph. This, simply, is the best one-volume history of the Second World War currently available'
Laurence Rees

'Magnificent ... Stylish penmanship, gritty research and lucid reasoning, coupled with poignant and haunting detours into private lives ruined and shortened'
Economist

'Moving, thought-provoking, enlightening'
Roger Moorhouse, Independent

'An exceptional accomplishment ... the definitive single-volume history of the war ... Essential'
Peter Watts, Time Out

'In what might be his best book yet, Roberts gives us the war as seen from the other side of the hill - the German Reich'
Nigel Jones, Sunday Telegraph

Andrew Roberts's Masters and Commanders was one of the most acclaimed, bestselling history books of 2008. His previous books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (1999), which won the Wolfson History Prize and the James Stern Silver Pen Award for Non-Fiction, Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership (2003), which coincided with four-part BBC2 history series.