New Release Books by Soviet General Staff

The Iasi--Kishinev Operation, 20-29 August 1944: The Red Army's Summer Offensive into the Balkans details the Soviet preparation and conduct of the Red Army's massive offensive into Romania in the summer of 1944. The seventh of the ten strategic operations conducted by the Soviet armed forces that year, the operation successfully carried out the task of destroying German forces in northern Romania and taking Germany's Romanian satellite out of the war, and was the first step in Stalin's consolidation of a Balkan empire. The study, unlike many others in this series, is based only in part on materials published by the Soviet General Staff's historical section. Nonetheless, this and other material was written and published for the purpose of generalizing the experience of the war's experience for training commanders and staffs in the preparation and conduct of multi-front offensive operations. The study is divided into two parts. The first deals with the operation as a whole. This includes the preparations by the Second and Third Ukrainian fronts for launching the operation. This includes an overall strategic appreciation of the situation as it obtained by the summer of 1944 and the Stavka's instructions for carrying out an operation along the southern strategic direction. This is followed by a minute examination of the two fronts' plans for organizing and exploiting a breakthrough of the enemy front, as well as the individual army commanders' plans for their own sectors. The study concentrates on such standard operational indices as the length of the attack front, the density of forces along the breakthrough front, the echeloning of forces for the attack, and cooperation among the combat arms. Whereas the first part offers an operational-strategic overview of the operation, the second is firmly focused at the tactical-operational level. This study is actually a doctoral dissertation dealing with the Third Ukrainian Front's 37th Army, which played the leading role in the front's offensive across the Dnestr River, from where it subsequently linked up with the Second Ukrainian Front's forces to encircle the German Sixth Army. Many of the operational indices highlighted in the first part are repeated here in even greater detail. The successful conclusion of the Iasi--Kishinev operation destroyed the German position in the Balkans and laid the groundwork for the Red Army's subsequent advance into Hungary and Central Europe. As one of the army's more successful offensive operations, it is worthy of study by history buffs and professional officers alike.

Berlin Operation, 1945, tells the story of the Red Armys penultimate offensive operation in the war in Europe. Here the forces of three fronts (Second and First Belorussian and First Ukrainian) forced the Oder River and surrounded the defenders of the German capital, reduced the city and drove westward to link up with the Western allies in central Germany. This is another in a series of studies compiled by the Soviet Army General Staff, which during the postwar years set itself the task of gathering and generalizing the experience of the war for the purpose of training the armed forces higher staffs in the conduct of large-scale offensive operations. The study is divided into three parts. The first contains a brief strategic overview of the situation, as it existed by the spring of 1945, with special emphasis on German preparations to meet the inevitable Soviet attack. This section also includes an examination of the decisions by the Stavka of the Supreme High Command on the conduct of the operation. As usual, the fronts materiel-technical and other preparations for the offensive are covered in great detail. These include plans for artillery, artillery and engineer support, as well as the work of the rear services and political organs and the strengths, capabilities and tasks of the individual armies. Part two deals with the Red Armys breakthrough of the Germans Oder defensive position up to the encirclement of the Berlin garrison. This covers the First Belorussian Fronts difficulty in overcoming the defensive along the Seelow Heights along the direct path to Berlin, as well as the First Ukrainian Fronts easier passage over the Oder and its secondary attack along the Dresden axis. The Second Belorussian Fronts breakthrough and its sweep through the Baltic littoral is also covered. Part three covers the intense fighting to reduce the citys defenders from late April until the garrisons surrender on 2 May, as well as operations in the area up to the formal German capitulation. This section contains a number of detailed descriptions of urban fighting at the battalion and regimental level. It closes with conclusions about the role of the various combat arms in the operation.

"The Battle of Moscow, 1941–1942: The Red Army’s Defensive Operations and Counteroffensive Along the Moscow Strategic Direction" is a detailed examination of one of the major turning points of World War II, as seen from the Soviet side. The Battle of Moscow marked the climax of Hitler’s “Operation Barbarossa,” which sought to destroy the Soviet Union in a single campaign and ensure German hegemony in Europe. The failure to do so condemned Germany to a prolonged war it could not win. This work originally appeared in 1943, under the title "Razgrom Nemetskikh Voisk pod Moskvoi" (The Rout of the German Forces Around Moscow). The work was produced by the Red Army General Staff’s military-historical section, which was charged with collecting and analyzing the war’s experience and disseminating it to the army’s higher echelons. This was a collective effort, featuring many different contributors, with Marshal Boris Mikhailovich Shaposhnikov, former chief of the Red Army General Staff and then head of the General Staff Academy, serving as general editor. The book is divided into three parts, each dealing with a specific phase of the battle. The first traces the Western Front’s defensive operations along the Moscow direction during Army Group Center’s final push toward the capital in November–December, 1941. The study pays particular attention to the Red Army’s resistance to the Germans’ attempts to outflank Moscow from the north. Equally important were the defensive operations to the south of Moscow, where the Germans sought to push forward their other encircling flank. The second part deals with the first phase of the Red Army’s counteroffensive, which was aimed at pushing back the German pincers and removing the immediate threat to Moscow. Here the Soviets were able to throw the Germans back and flatten both salients, particularly in the south, where they were able to make deep inroads into the enemy front to the west and northwest. The final section examines the further development of the counteroffensive until the end of January 1942. This section highlights the Soviet advance all along the front and their determined but unsuccessful attempts to cut off the Germans’ Rzhev–Vyaz’ma salient. It is from this point that the front essentially stabilized, after which events shifted to the south. This new translation into English makes available to a wider readership this valuable study.