Barbarossa

[tcm]

Not in the least bit boaty, the story of the german attack on russian from june 1941. It helps if youare already reasonably up on reading plenty of other nazi stuff first as Alan Clarke (yep, the MP, this his main historical work afaik from mid 60's) assums a fair degree of knowledge. As well as being a detailed blow-by blow account, with lots of personal background of army decisions of germans and (less so) russians, the book also failry clearly shows how the normandy landings in the west were only undertaken once it was pretty obvious that the main german armies were beaten and in near-chaotic retreat, and on a vastly smaller scale.

I particularly enjoyed the way that pages from within my copy of the book appropriately fell apart from the spine as i read it....

 

[jhr]

It's also worth tracking down his other main historical work, The Donkeys, (as in "Lions led by Donkeys") about the British Army in the First World War. It was one of the main sources of inspiration for "Oh! What a Lovely War" and, like Barbarossa, assumes a fair level of knowledge on the part of the reader. It's also an excellent read.

Clark is usually portrayed as a right-wing rotter (which he was, inter alia) but he was a far more complex and subtle character than that, and a bit of a scholar on the side.

 

[StugeronSteve]

Obviously not the leather (partially) clad lovely in the SciFi movie then /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif? Although, if Alan Clarke is involved, I'm sure that she could be worked into the story somewhere!