Frank Ellis is something of a conundrum. His first book, “The Damned and the Dead: The
Eastern Front through the Eyes of the Soviet and Russian Novelists,” was an
interesting and insightful look at how Soviet literati treated the war years in
their works while simultaneously keeping in mind the censorship of the Soviet
state. When it came to Ellis’s analysis
of the war itself, there was simply too much lacking in his examination,
including his interest in Viktor Suvorov’s thesis, which once more makes an
appearance in this volume (Ellis refers to Suvorov as a “talented maverick”
(xxvii)). While I have in my possession
the author’s book on Stalingrad I have yet to go through all of it and so
cannot comment on its contents, but hope to do so soon.
This newest work, “Barbarossa 1941: Reframing Hitler’s
Invasion of Stalin’s Soviet Empire” makes me question the author’s intentions
and knowledge. This is without a doubt
the worst volume of the three that he has put out on the Eastern Front. What it seems Ellis enjoys doing is utilizing
his knowledge of Russian and German and then nitpicking from archival/primary source
material that has been around for decades but is not readily available to the
average Western reader. Examining and scrutinizing
primary source material is welcome when it comes to the Eastern Front. Unfortunately, authors who do so need to have
a firm grounding and grasp of both the primary and secondary literature that is
available on the topic, something Ellis is drastically lacking in and it shows
again and again. What he does is simply
pick out material that interests him, throw in woefully inadequate commentary
to make greater generalizations out of, and then move on to the next topic
without a real transition or thread to tie them all together unless it’s simply
the umbrella of “Barbarossa,” “Stalingrad” or “The Eastern Front.”
The current volume on “Barbarossa” consists of the following
chapters - here I will discuss the positive and negative aspects of each and give
some analysis of their worth. The
introduction already prepared me for disappointment. In many ways this chapter (and a few other
sections of this text in general) read like a bad version of Timothy Snyder’s “Bloodlands,”
which has numerous issues of its own.
The author presents varied flawed arguments and draws wholly flawed
conclusions from them. For instance, the
best Ellis can do is portray Hitler as somehow following in Lenin’s footsteps when
it came to his genocidal ambitions while fully omitting any and all German
precedents (see Fritz Stern’s “The Politics of Cultural Despair”). This is most readily evident when Ellis traces
how Germans forced Jews to wear armbands or badges to identify themselves in
public to “the same psychological terror tactic advocated by Lenin as early as
1918” somehow forgetting that Jews having to distinguish themselves from others
predates Lenin by a few centuries (xix).
This type of lazy research is evident in the first chapter as well when
the best that Ellis can do is trace everything to WWI/Soviet/Russian precedents
(59).
The first chapter discusses the “conception, planning, and
execution” of Operation Barbarossa. Ellis
has an outdated view of Blitzkrieg, arguing that Germany’s success before the
invasion of the Soviet Union can all be attributed to this innovative form of
warfare (see “The Blitzkrieg Legend” by Karl-Heinz Frieser for a recent
analysis of Blitzkrieg and why German propaganda, along with the allies, has
misrepresented German victories in the lead up to the invasion of the Soviet
Union). This first chapter is supported
by a limited source base, in many ways a useless introduction to the topic that
relies on outdated concepts and sources like Manstein to answer questions that
recent research has been done on and can analyze with greater authority than an
outdated self-serving memoir. Another
weakness is the analysis offered of Soviet theorists (Frunze, Triandafillov,
and Isserson) which is missing any mention of Svechin (See Harrison’s “The
Russian Way of War” for a detailed discussion of this highly important and
influential figure).
Close to the end of the first chapter Ellis already sets up
his premise for the next chapter, which deals with Germany’s Commissar
Order. He portrays all commissars as
being guilty of “Terror” within the Soviet state. And here we come to probably the most
disappointing and inept chapter of this entire volume. It’s hard to understand exactly what Ellis is
trying to accomplish. He claims he is
not taking anything away from the nature of the National Socialist system yet
he continually tries to diminish their responsibility when it comes to the
Commissar Order and justify its inclusion within the greater parameters of the
nature of the conflict on the Eastern Front.
He compares this order with Soviet actions at Katyn (84) but in general
the arguments he utilizes are at best fallacious. German thoughts on the internal actions and
developments within the Soviet Union should have no bearing on the rules of
warfare. Furthermore, there is no real
attempt to analyze who was a commissar or how they came to occupy this position
within the Red Army. All agency is taken
away from party functionaries, they are only characterized as robots fulfilling
genocidal orders and representatives of the Soviet regime. Worse is the comparison Ellis then makes
between the NKVD and commissars, claiming one is the same as the other. Here this entire chapter and argument unravel
since if the German state feared the actions of representatives of the Soviet
state then the Commissar Order should have also included the NKVD or simply all
representatives of the Soviet state within the Red Army and Soviet society in
general. But it did not. The entire chapter is marred by lack of
research, generalizations and assumptions that are the mark of an amateur
rather than historian.
The third chapter traces the diplomatic relationship between
Germany and the Soviet Union from the non-aggression pact of 1939 to the
outbreak of war in June 1941. Not
surprisingly, Ellis once again is lacking in the source material he
utilizes. Worse is that he takes the
word of figures such as von Ribbentrop at face value without any analysis or
contextualization. Ellis presents an
untenable argument for the start of the war claiming, similar to Suvorov, that
Germany “cannot be held solely responsible for starting World War II.” He misinterprets the language of the secret
protocols, lacks any type of documentation or primary research when it comes to
what was happening in those 17 days when the Soviets did not invade Poland and
in the end presents nothing new or original about the topic.
The next chapter deals with Soviet intelligence assessments
of German military intentions from 1939-1941.
For this chapter Ellis mainly utilizes the two volumes “Year 1941” that
were released decades ago and have been utilized by numerous authors and
historians since. What amazed me first
and foremost is that Ellis did not even bother to use “What Stalin Knew: The
Enigma of Barbarossa” by David Murphy.
Although Murphy has some issues with his work, it is simply a must read
for those trying to understand the intelligence situation within the Soviet
Union on the eve of the war. Once more
there is nothing new or original here, in fact Ellis now takes Soviet
intelligence reports about German troops, aircraft, etc., at face value without
any type of analysis. He presents a few
intelligence summaries without putting them into context, including military
intelligence in terms of German units being moved to the East but he never
addresses the German disinformation campaign, the numerous contradictory
reports that were coming in, or how often dates came and went of Germany’s
supposed invasion and what that could do to an agent’s credibility. While readers will themselves see the various
dates offered for when Germany will invade you will not see Ellis
contextualizing this information. Murphy’s
text is a better alternative in every way.
(Later in the text Ellis claims Sorge reported the correct date of the
German invasion, he did not.)
The fifth chapter deals with “NKVD Operations During
Barbarossa, 1941-1942” and is mainly composed of reports from another
multi-volume Russian publication on Security Organs that was published over a
decade ago. There are some interesting
reports here and as primary source material it can be a very useful source base
but, as previously mentioned, Ellis takes the reports at face value without
looking at the other side so that what you’re getting here is, at best, Soviet
impressions, rumors, etc., which do not add much to our overall understanding
of the period or events in question.
Chapter six might look interesting, but it is not. A diary from a 20th Panzer
Division veteran could be useful in understanding the German invasion and
advance into the Soviet Union up until the winter counteroffensive, but overall
it’s a rather dry read. I enjoy
memoir/diary literature for the most part, but this was one of the most boring
I’ve come across. Here I probably know
why no one has published it previously, it wouldn’t sell.
Chapter seven looks at Soviet literature on the German
invasion and 1941 in general. Here Ellis
is probably in familiar territory with literary analysis, some of it
interesting some less so. Once more,
however, it doesn’t alter our understanding of either Barbarossa, the Red Army
or the Soviet Union.
Finally, the eight chapter looks at Suvorov’s thesis on who
started the Second World War from his infamous text “Icebreaker.” First, a few issues I have with this
chapter. Ellis once more goes along with
the idea that the non-aggression pact meant war was a guarantee, it did
not. Secondly, Ellis does not provide
any of his own evidence and readily falls for Suvorov’s ideas which were made
from hindsight rather than research and analysis. Thirdly, Ellis claims Suvorov used “primary
source material,” if he means memoirs then he is right, although somehow he
readily forgets the amount of censorship that always accompanied any literature
on the war. If he means primary source
material from archives, then he is wrong.
I will give credit where it is due – Ellis addresses numerous claims
made by Suvorov and shows how they never support Suvorov’s foundational
assertion that Stalin was preempted.
That’s all fine and good.
Unfortunately, he once again takes a source at its word without doing
any research beyond the superficial. I
will offer only one example of the duplicity Suvorov’s text is full of and the
laziness Ellis exhibits within this entire volume. On pg. 436 Ellis quotes Suvorov who is
quoting S. Ivanov’s book on the “Beginning Period of the War.” Ellis quotes Suvorov as saying Ivanov claimed
“that Germany acted before Stalin could do so.”
Why couldn’t Ellis simply go to the original source and cite Ivanov’s
book? Here is what Suvorov quotes Ivanov
as saying: “As General Ivanov put it, 'The Nazi command simply succeeded in
forestalling our troops in the two weeks preceding the outbreak of war.'
(General of the Army S. P. Ivanov, Nachal'nyi Period Voiny, Moscow 1974,
p. 212).” On the surface it seems that
Ivanov is saying Soviet troops were preparing an outbreak of their own war,
i.e. preparing to start a war against Germany.
Since I have Ivanov’s book in my collection, I looked up the quote and
found that Ivanov was actually commenting on how German troops on the border
were able to complete their deployment and pre-empt Soviet troops coming from
the interior, who were recently called up to bolster the Western Military
Districts in case of war breaking out, in their deployment. As such German troops “thereby creat[ed] favorable conditions for the seizure of the strategic initiative in the
beginning of the war.” The only reason ‘two
weeks’ are mentioned by Ivanov is because that was when Soviet forces in the
interior were told to begin moving to the border regions. Suvorov quotes out of context and makes it
seem as if Ivanov is claiming that Hitler pre-empted a Red Army attack when in
fact he is saying no such thing – something Ellis could have readily understood
if he did the necessary research.
In the end I found this book almost completely useless.
I am amazed, shocked, and utterly horrified
that a university press would produce such a complete embarrassment to
historical literature.
5 comments:
Hi there
Totally agree with this comment, the book's not worth it.
Actually I saw this was posted on Amazon, but then removed: why for ?
Was it at the author’s request ?
Hello,
Glad you agree and I hope the review was useful. I'm actually unsure of why my review disappeared from amazon, unfortunately ALL of my reviews were removed and I was accused of 'review manipulation.' Apparently amazon has been regularly 'purging' reviewers, some for valid reasons others, it seems, get caught in the crossfire.
I am amazed that your reviews were removed from Amazon, I always found them very informative. I haven't read this book yet, but have read the authors other book and was most unimpressed. I might now have to buy this book just to review it, the other reviews make me a bit ill...
It was/is quite unfortunate that amazon decided to take such measures with many reviewers (not just myself). It is a fact that amazon does not value quality reviews, quantity makes up for quality. Nonetheless, I'm quite disappointed that neither authors, publishers or readers will be able to readily see my reviews on amazon - especially since many were for books that no one else has apparently read or taken the time to review. There's not much that can be done but at least I have this blog and a few other outlets where my reviews can be found.
First time I heard Amazon removed critical reviews, this is quite surprising. I guess there are Amazon people tasked to review the reviews and feedbacks.
Anyway, I value your opinion though I've not read the book. Likely I will not read it based on your review.
Post a Comment