THUNDER ON THE DNEPR:
Zhukov-Stalin and the Defeat of Hitler's Blitzkrieg, by Bryan Fugate
and Lev Dvoretsky. 415 pages, illustrated. Presidio paperback, $22.95
My usual practice is to
read a book completely before reviewing it, but rarely one is so bad
that it isn't worth finishing.
Such is the case with
“Thunder on the Dnepr.” I got 100 pages into this ridiculous work
before quitting.
That was more than
sufficient to understand the thesis of Bryan Fugate and Lev
Dvoretsky: They believe that Stalin, who had been committed to
defense by an offensive into the enemy's territory, was converted by
three war games in January-February 1941 to a concept of defense in
depth – great depth, about 500 miles.
There are more than a few
problems with this concept, even before looking at Fugate and
Dvoretsky's evidence. For one thing, it meant giving up about
three-quarters of the USSR's productive capacity.
The evidence presented is
both thin and silly.
We are to believe that
everything turned on a war game conducted in February at some unknown
location. This produced a map which (on page 65) we are told was so
closely held that no one (except the 10 officers at the war game) saw
it for 56 years; although (on pages 66-67) we are told that the
Germans obtained not just one but two copies, including one that was,
curiously, stored in a “Komsomol House” in Ukraine.
In fact, defense in depth
would have been a good strategy, and it was used successfully in
1943. Even with two years hard experience, the Russians were so
unskilled that their victory at Kursk in 1943 cost them four times
the casualties of the Germans.
Fugate is pretty close to
tinfoil hat territory.
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