Jack Radey - The Defense of Moscow 1941: The Northern Flank

By David M. Glantz

The SovietGerman War (19411945), known in the West as Hitlers War on Germanys Eastern Front during World War II, and to Russians as The Great Patriotic War, stands like a colossus astride the history of the twentieth century. The vast scale of the war, coupled with its unmatched ferocity and the human and material carnage it produced, has challenged the descriptive power of historians who have written about it and tested the imagination of readers who have attempted to comprehend it. Many past histories of the war have added to this confusion because they were marred by Cold War biases, the self-serving recollections of participants in the war, or, as was the case with many of the hundreds of histories written in the Soviet Union, appreciations designed to bolster the superiority of a political, economic and social system. Whatever the cause, these histories are replete with myth, legend, and outright inaccuracies, which have not only obscured or utterly concealed large segments of the war from the readers view but have also perverted accounts of those portions of the wartime narrative relatively well known to contemporary readers.

Thankfully, however, the fading of the Cold War fears and animosities, coupled with the death of most participants in the war and the waning of ideological struggles characterizing the postwar years, has been accompanied by unprecedented releases of documentary materials from the once-locked archives of the Soviet Union. Today, by exploiting these new materials and re-examining documents from archives long-open but poorly exploited, a new generation of historians is slowly lifting the veil of inaccuracy and misunderstanding that has cloaked and obscured our understanding of the war. This new book by Jack Radey and Charles Sharp stands at the forefront of this vitally important process.

The Defense of Moscow: the Northern Flank is revisionist history at its best. It describes but a single aspect of the famous battle for Moscow, which, together with Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin, is familiar to even the most casual readers of the histories of the war. This book demolishes myths and legends, replacing them with fresh and accurate insights as to how this battle, long famous as the first defeat suffered by Hitlers vaunted Wehrmacht, was actually fought and won by the soldiers and commanders of Stalins Red Army. Without stealing the thunder of Radeys and Sharps book, by unearthing, exploiting, and studying newly released archival materials, the two historians clearly demonstrate why and how the battle for Kalinin was fought. In the process, their study has shown how this fight, which historians have long treated as a mere side-show to the culminating stage of Operation Barbarossa, was, in reality, an important element in the German High Commands strategy for defeating the Red Army, capturing Moscow, and, ultimately, winning the war.

By skillfully exploiting newly released and long-neglected archival materials, the authors of this clear, concise, and well-written book have provided not only fresh insights as to how and why the battle for Moscow was fought, but also the necessary context for understanding why Germany ultimately lost the war. It is a must read for historian and layman alike. I hope this is but the first of many books penned by these historians.

David M. Glantz, Carlisle, PA