Operation Barbarossa and Germany's defeat in the East / by David Stahel.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Pt. I. Strategic plans and theoretical conceptions for war against the Soviet Union -- Fighting the bear -- The gathering storm -- Barbarossa's sword--Hitler's armed forces in 1941 -- The advent of war -- Pt. II. The military campaign and the July/August crisis of 1941 -- Awakening the bear -- The perilous advance to the east -- The battle of Smolensk -- The attrition of army group centre -- In search of resurgence -- Showdown.

Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began the largest and most costly campaign in military history. Its failure was a key turning point of the Second World War. The operation was planned as a Blitzkrieg to win Germany its Lebensraum in the east, and the summer of 1941 is well-known for the German army's unprecedented victories and advances. Yet the German Blitzkrieg depended almost entirely upon the motorised Panzer groups, particularly those of Army Group Centre. Using archival records, in this 2009 book David Stahel presents a history of Germany's summer campaign from the perspective of the two largest and most powerful Panzer groups on the Eastern front. Stahel's research provides a fundamental reassessment of Germany's war against the Soviet Union, highlighting the prodigious internal problems of the vital Panzer forces and revealing that their demise in the earliest phase of the war undermined the whole German invasion.