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    Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West
    Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West
    Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West
    Audiobook16 hours

    Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West

    Written by Derek S. Zumbro

    Narrated by Julian Elfer

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    With Allied armies poised on the banks of the Rhine, Nazi Germany tottered on the brink of collapse. The ensuing battles on German soil-especially those in the so-called Ruhr Pocket-were as fierce and hard-fought as any in the European theater. Going well beyond previous accounts, Derek S. Zumbro chronicles this key military campaign from a unique and fresh perspective-that of the defeated German soldiers and civilians caught in the final maelstrom of the war's western front.

    Best known for his translation of In Deadly Combat, the bestselling World War II memoir, Zumbro chronicles the relentless assault on the Ruhr Pocket through German eyes, as the Allied juggernaut battered the region's cities, villages, and homes into submission. He tells of children pressed into service by a desperate Nazi regime-and of even more desperate parents trying to save their sons from sacrifice at the eleventh hour. He also tells of unspeakable conditions suffered by foreign laborers, POWs, and political opponents in the Ruhr Valley and of the mass graves that gave Allied soldiers a grisly new understanding of their enemy.

    Zumbro also recounts the story of Field Marshal Walter Model's final hours. His eventual suicide effectively ended the existence of the Wehrmacht's once-formidable Army Group B after being pursued, methodically encircled, and finally destroyed by U.S. and British forces. Through interviews with surviving members of Model's former staff, Zumbro has uncovered the attitudes-and harrowing experiences-of beleaguered officers that official records could never convey.

    Other interviews with former soldiers reveal the extent to which Allied bombing contributed to the rapid deterioration of German combat effectiveness and tell of civilians begging soldiers to abandon the war. Zumbro's deep research reveals the identities of specific characters discussed in previous works but never identified, describes the final hours of German officers executed for the loss of the bridge at Remagen, and offers new insight into Model's acquiescence to Hitler in military affairs.

    By taking us inside the first-hand experiences and memories of Germans from Reichsmarshals to Burgermeisters, Battle for the Ruhr gives a profound and harrowing ground-level view of the enormous destructive power of war.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 19, 2019
    ISBN9781977339225
    Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West

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    Reviews for Battle for the Ruhr

    4/5

    24 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Well written, detailed and mostly unknown material regarding the German side of this battle. Well worth your time.
    • 5/5
      Excellent with previously unknown - to me, data and interviews
    • 4/5
      Excellent book. Aside from battle itself, all the other information about the war on the eastern front is fascinating.
    • 3/5
      This book was somewhat disappointing as it glossed over much of the Axis and Allies strategies and tactics used during Ruhr pocket battles. However, the documented human side of the conflict is very well written and focuses on German soldiers' and citizens' experiences while caught in a hopeless situation. Many of the personal accounts are very compelling.
    • 4/5
      I come away from this book with mixed feelings. On one hand, the author does succeed in giving an impressionistic survey of what this battle felt like from the perspective of the German civilian and those German soldiers who had reached the limits of endurance. However, it's probably inevitable that Zumbro can't give you much insight into the attitudes of those junior officers and senior NCOs of the Wehrmacht and the SS who were determined to fight on out of desperation, faith, honor and a sense that there was no choice but to fight.