La batalla del Ruhr

Modern War Studies

by Derek S. Zumbro, Santiago Jordán (Translator), Efrén del Valle (Translator)

Este libro nos descubre un perfil inédito de la Segunda guerra mundial: el de las experiencias vividas, durante la primavera de 1945, por los soldados alemanes derrotados y por los civiles atrapados en el hundimiento del imperio nazi. Esta es una historia que se nos suele contar siempre desde la perspectiva de los vencedores, pero que cobra un nuevo y dramático aspecto en estas páginas, basadas en una amplia serie de entrevistas a los supervivientes, que nos hablan de la impotencia de un ejército que luchaba desesperadamente entre las ruinas de sus propias ciudades, de los oficiales ejecutados por la pérdida del puente de Remagen, del suicidio del mariscal Walter Model, del terror de los bombardeos nocturnos... Derek Zumbro, nos dice Stephen Fritz, reconstruye magistralmente la atmósfera de “confusión, incertidumbre, resistencia desesperada, asesinatos por venganza y violencia por ambos bandos, que caracterizó los días finales de la guerra y los primeros de una paz precaria”.

Genres: History, Military History, World War II, War, Nonfiction

616 pages, Hardcover

First published October 4, 2006

Reviews

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Especializado pero sin encanto.-

Género. Historia.

Lo que nos cuenta. El libro La batalla del Ruhr (publicación original: Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West, 2006) nos lleva al final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial en Europa en el frente occidental, a las acciones más destacadas y, lo que es más importante, a las actitudes de los aliados en aquellas fechas.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Joe Holman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. I love these slices of history. Especially when so well researched and so richly written.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book. It is written mostly from the German perspective during the waning days of the war. It explains why war-weary towns capitulated and why it was dangerous to do so. The book also documents the killing of German POWs and civilians by American soldiers. This is a topic that is not often discussed in histories of WWII. Zumbro is no apologist for the Nazis, but he does not gloss over unpleasant history.

If you are interested in a different perspective on the final days of WWII, this book is an excellent read.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised to find that this history was written almost entirely from the perspective of the German army and citizens. Zumbro gives a fairly detailed overview of the campaign from a strategic level, and punctuates this narrative with stories and anecdotes that illustrate the terror and confusion experienced by the retreating Germans.

[William Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presents a perspective on World War II that I had never really considered. It is absorbing! The focus is on what was happening within the German Army and to the citizens of Germany in the last few months of the war. It follows the fighting by German Army Group B defending the Ruhr from the steamrolling Ally Armies. Hitler placed his most trusted commander, Field Marshall Walter Model in charge and told him to defend the Ruhr, the industrial heart of Germany, to the death. Model's forces were war weary and disintegrating. Some units though reduced because of casualties were still well led and cohesive while others were totally unreliable. Many German officers were dejected and knew the war was lost. The citizens also were war weary and suffering horrendously because of Allied bombing! US forces, the Ninth and First Armies, as they broke out of Remagen and when they crossed the Rhine in other places were pressing hard to encircle Army Group B. Some fighting was hard and when the US troops were fired upon they employed strong artillery barrages and air strikes when available to pulverize cities, towns and villages. Many of the cities had already been relentlessly bombed by Allied air forces. Thousands of German citizens were left homeless and many were killed. After the artillery the tanks would lead the assaulting infantry into the community destroying anything that remained. To defend the communities the Germans collected retreating troops, local old men and young boys, recovering wounded and whatever else they could muster to establish roadblocks. Hitler had ordered that every community was to be defended. Many local mayors objected realizing that defense of the community would mean unnecessary destruction and death and they begged Nazi officials and military commanders to withdraw and let the community surrender. Sometimes they succeeded often they did not! Needless to say when the overwhelming force of the American forces pressed on the US soldiers who had lost friends wounded and killed in fruitless defenses by the Germans felt little compassion for the citizens or for the soldiers they captured. Many were killed after surrendering and many German people had their homes and property confiscated or outright stolen. Additionally as the Allies advanced they released foreign workers who had been forced to work in the Rhur either on farms or in industry. These individuals, some former Prisoners of War (POW), took revenge on the German citizens and often marauded throughout the area terrorizing the people, robbing them and indiscriminately killing.
Some German Generals realized the futility of continued fighting and decided to surrender their forces as soon as they could. Some fanatics would not condone this. Field Marshall Model surprisingly remained aloof from the politics of the NAZI Party but thought his duty was to continue fighting to the best of his ability. His Army Group was cut off and the Allies were defeating it piece by piece. Eventually cut off from withdrawal and surrounded, Model released his troops from fighting and committed suicide. As author Derek S. Zumbro points out, "...choosing to distance oneself from the iniquitous traits of a regime, especially while benefiting from its actions. does not mitigate the lack of moral responsibility that accompanies any reward" (Zumbro, p. 2).
I was conflicted as I read about the atrocities committed by US forces against POW's and German Citizens especially the outright thievery of property. I served 28 years in the US Army but was never faced with choices similar to those faced by leaders under the strain of combat and the loss of soldiers under their command. I'd like to think I'd act morally and properly but...? What I found contributing to the treatment was official policy. General Eisenhower issued "denazification" instructions that seemed to condone the taking or destroying of property directing the removal and destruction that signified NAZI. This is a very powerful book and should be read by those interested in WWII.

[Wayne Abrahamson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work was part of a required reading list for a graduate-level World War Two history class I had the opportunity to enjoy a number of years ago. Overall, this book, which is about Germany's last grasp at some sort of salvation in 1945, is a detailed account of that campaign and one that is written from the perspective of the German army and citizens fighting and surviving inside the 'Rhur Pocket.' Dr. Zumbro provides detailed overview of the campaign from a strategic level and expertly uses personal stories and anecdotes to illustrate the terror and confusion experienced by the retreating Germans. A good addition to any historian's bookshelf.

[Joe A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed account and well written. Brings home the tragedy and waste of final battle in the West. The author is able to give you a sense of the events from. the commanders as well as the common soldier and the civilians.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zumbro details the last major battle in the West from the German perspective, focusing on the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, but with enough attention to the high command to keep events in perspective.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solidly well researched and with anew angle -the german experience

[Cameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a magnificent piece of research, although sadly it suffers from unpolished and often awkward prose.

This book is the story of the collapse of the Third Reich in the Ruhr Valley, east of the Rhine, where Hitler's last military force (known as Army Group B) was surrounded and forced to surrender. Zumbro's 2006 work has already become a classic in the field.

The product of over 15 years of research, including hundreds of personally-conducted interviews with survivors of WWII, the book focuses largely on the German point of view, relying on first-person accounts from German soldiers and civilians as well as excerpts from diaries and reports. These accounts depict Hitler's armies as being at a severe disadvantage almost as soon as the Allies landed in Normandy, crippled by incompetence, poor decision-making, and dependence on Berlin to issue crucial orders. Fighting a retreating war across France, the Germans rallied at the borders of their own nation, although by then the superiority of the Allied forces was clear. Zumbro depicts the Battle of the Bulge as a plan of irrational desperation that had no chance to succeed simply because of the lack of fuel for tanks and other vehicles.

Zumbro uses Field Marshal Walter Model as a main character and paints him as a stoic professional soldier who used every possible resource and strategy to keep his army viable and pin down the Allies. Zumbro does not glorify Model, however: we see the Field Marshall as rigid and intolerant of his subordinates, and fiercely loyal to Hitler until the very end, when he shot himself in the head outside Dusseldorf on April 21, 1945.

Above all this is a human story, full of anguish and grief at the terrific destruction wrought on Germany in the final weeks of the war. Zumbro documents some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in bombing raids that continued long after the Ruhr's cities were rubble landscapes inhabited only by starving noncombatants. Even after the war many thousands died in prison camps or at the hands of former slave laborers. Hitler's final victims were the Germans themselves.

Regrettably, the book has only two very superficial maps, which prevents the reader from following events closely, even though the text often goes into great geographic detail.

Another major flaw is that Zumbro's prose is unpolished, awkward and frequently repetitive, which makes it dull reading. He is particularly fond of the word "decimated", often used multiple times on each page, which is intended to mean "virtually destroyed", although this is not the word's true meaning. Still, the book is a gold mine of information about the end of the war in Europe, and a good scholar will accept that many of the best historians are not great writers.

[Francis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Tells in great interesting detail this difficult battle. As another reviewer states it also shows what the local civilian populace suffered during this time. The Nazis told them that the Americans would rape and slaughter them. Instead it was quite the opposite. Much of the populace warmed up to the Americans.
The bombings were tragic but felt to be strategically necessary. If a town did not resist no problem, but if there was sufficient resistance then the air force was sent in to to soften things up first. Civilians did their best to try to avoid any resistance but sometimes the Nazis would cause commotion before skipping out of town.