On 8 December 1941, Adolf Hitler proclaimed that his army failed to capture Moscow because of “severe winter weather” and “difficulties in bringing up supplies.” After the Second World War, the chief of the German general staff, Franz Halder, blamed Operation Barbarossa's failure on the “vast immeasurable space” of the Soviet Union and the “limitations of the Russian transportation network.” For the past eight decades, historians have done little more than repeat these excuses as to why the largest invasion in history ended in defeat.

 

In Why Barbarossa Failed, Harvard lawyer Timothy Manion takes historians to task for their failure to critically examine the post-war German narrative regarding Operation Barbarossa. Discarding the common excuses that predominate in popular tellings, Manion offers a refreshingly original account of the campaign based on a comprehensive review of the German and Soviet archives. The reasons for Operation Barbarossa’s failure were recorded in the war diaries of German officers at the front during the critical battles that brought the German army to a halt in the second half of July 1941. Their criticisms of the German general staff’s campaign plan were ignored by their superiors and have gone overlooked by historians for eight decades. Now published for the first time, these archival accounts of the decisive battles in Operation Barbarossa overturn the historical consensus and shed an entirely new light on the largest military campaign in history.

 

Features 16 never-before-published campaign maps from the German military archives.

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Praise for Why Barbarossa Failed:

 

“Timothy Manion argues lucidly and at times provocatively that the failure of Operation Barbarossa was not due to the commonly debated issues of the weather and logistics, but to wrong-headed strategy pursued by the Wehrmacht and it only achieved as much as it did due to equally wrong-headed Soviet military strategy. Manion bases his arguments on a solid exploration of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century strategic thinking and the antagonists’ interpretation of them. His account shows a mastery of the history of the campaign and the what-might-have-beens. This is fascinating reading!”

Roger R. Reese, Professor and holder of the Ralph R. Thomas Class of 1921 Endowed Professorship in Liberal Arts, Department of History, Texas A&M University; author of Why Stalin’s Soldiers Fought and Russia’s Army

 

"A most learned study of Barbarossa, demonstrating astonishing familiarity with the operational details at all levels and offering a wealth of dazzling insights into the campaign. Fascinating reading, even if one does not agree with the author regarding the causes of Barbarossa's failure."

Azar Gat, Ezer Weizman Chair in National Security, Tel Aviv University; author of War in Human Civilization and A History of Military Thought