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Reassessing the reasons for the German military success over France in War of 1870 up to the Battle of Sedan, we rely on publications of contemporary artillery generals, such as Kraft zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and put the topic into the broader context of warfare since the 1866 German War. We reject the idea of success, being simply based on armament or a special 'soldierly spirit', but argue that the main reason for military success was based on reorganization of the Prussian artillery, which paved the way to the future 'battle of combined arms' and the dominance of fire over thrust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even after the First World War, the British and German armies remained strongly influenced by Clausewitz, for whom personality rather than mass was the best means to reduce friction. This article explores how this was reflected in their military doctrine between the two world wars. The German regulations showed a clear alignment with Clausewitz's thinking. The British tended to focus on the characteristics Clausewitz had argued were necessary for the troops, rather than for their commanders. The campaigns of 1939/40 caused the Germans to place even greater emphasis on boldness, while the British focused on steadiness and caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Johnson begins with the crisis year 1918-1919 when a defeated Germany faced Bolshevik Russia in the east. Johnson argues, surely rightly, that historians have underestimated the importance of earlier collaboration with Germany in explaining who was targeted by the Stalin purges. Johnson, Ian Ona Faustian Bargain: The Soviet-German Partnership and the Origins of the Second World War, Oxford University Press: New York, NY, and Oxford, 2021; xvii + 350 pp.: 9780190675141, $29.95 hardback So much has been written about the origins, significance and consequences of the pact made between the Soviet Union and Germany in August 1939 that it is a bold historian who claims to have found anything left to say. [Extracted from the article]

Dennis Showalter's influence on the scholarship of the First World War is unmatched among American historians. His work is especially important for two reasons. First, it studies the German Army using primary sources and original research, a particularly valuable contribution given the mythic and just plain false associations that many amateur scholars place on the German military. Second, Dennis's career involved long stretches of teaching cadets and military officers. His work thus combined an appreciation of the problems of the past with the challenges of the present day. The second half of this essay renders homage to that tradition by examining patterns in Dennis's writings of the First World War that remain relevant to an understanding of war in our own time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bastiaan Willems' impressive new study examines the Wehrmacht's contribution to the suffering of civilians in Germany itself during the war's final months. Yet Wehrmacht forces in East Prussia in 1945, from senior command levels down to the rank and file, were dismissive of civilian needs and subordinated them to the dictates of "military necessity". Willems begins by examining East Prussia's broader experience under the Third Reich, emphasizing, among other things, the region's long tradition of animosity towards "the East". [Extracted from the article]

The historiography of the German opposition to Hitler involved in the putsch on 20 July 1944 is very mature. Nevertheless we still lack a comprehensive view of the involvement in Nazi excesses of many major participants. This article presents new evidence and consolidates earlier knowledge about three key actors, Colonel Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg, Brigadier General Henning von Tresckow, and Fritz-Dietlof Count von der Schulenburg. It demonstrates that they were prima facie perpetrators of Crimes against peace, War crimes, and Crimes against humanity, as defined by international jurisprudence after 1945. The article should inform future studies of the conspiracy and of the mental trajectories of its participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the period immediately following the Second World War, during which Germany was occupied by the four victorious Allies, fierce competition erupted between them over the spoils of German military science and technology. Among this four-power squabbling, the British and Soviet authorities engaged in a particularly desperate struggle, especially over recruitment of expert German personnel, which they felt might give them the edge in any future conflict. This article explores the policies which arose from this struggle and shows that the first act of the Cold War arms race played out most vividly amongst the ruins of the Third Reich. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although historiography often attributes the German military leadership a high responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War, the action of the German military attaché in Paris, Detlof von Winterfeldt, has so far been ignored. This article shows how Winterfeldt assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the French army and describes how his reporting influenced the General Staff's evaluations in Berlin. It examines the concrete effects of his reporting on German military policies and military planning before 1914 to ascertain whether the General Staff relied on Winterfeldt's reports and if so, what difference they made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Nazi ideology had a profound impact upon the German officer corps in the Second World War not just for their well-established complicity in criminal activity, but also in their approach to warfare. This article demonstrates that Nazi ideology radicalized pre-existing notions of the German military ethos and conceptions of war, leading to an often irrational world view in which impractical, and even impossible, military undertakings could be ‘rationally’ explained, accepted, and understood. At the same time, seventy years after the war, a National Socialist influence upon German military thinking has seldom been discussed in the proliferation of Anglo-American operational histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 1917 the German army and navy were able to mount a successful joint operation to seize the Baltic islands in the Gulf of Riga. Although undertaken by each service for motives of its own, and against disintegrating Russian resistance, Operation Albion was the kind of improvised operation at which the German army in particular excelled. The operation featured an interesting employment of aircraft, and marked about the only time in the First World War where the German army and navy were able to co-operate successfully. The landings secured the islands of Oesel, Moon and Dagö, thus giving the Germans the ability to use the port facilities at Riga. After the war, however, the German military establishment quickly forgot about this operation, and paid little if any attention to it in both its professional military publications and in the Kriegsakademie. Thus Albion was an unlearned lesson for the Germans in the interwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the structure of the German High Command during World War II. Understanding of how the Nazi armed forces functioned; Operations Staff's function as an operational headquarters; Chief of the General Staff's loss of control of a significant portion of the army's field forces; Armed services' operation under the nominal leadership of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.