Where the Iron Crosses Grow: The Crimea 1941-44
Written by Robert Forczyk
Narrated by Michael Prichard
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
From 1941, when the Soviets first created the Sevastopol fortified region, the Crimea was a focal point of the war in the East. German forces under the noted commander Manstein conquered the area in 1941–42, which was followed by two years of brutal colonization and occupation before the Soviet counteroffensive in 1944 destroyed the German 17th Army.
Robert Forczyk
Robert Forczyk has a PhD in International Relations and National Security from the University of Maryland and a strong background in European and Asian military history. He retired as a lieutenant colonel from the US Army Reserves having served 18 years as an armour officer in the US 2nd and 4th infantry divisions and as an intelligence officer in the 29th Infantry Division (Light). Dr Forczyk is currently a consultant in the Washington, DC area.
More audiobooks from Robert Forczyk
Panzer Ace: The Memoirs of an Iron Cross Panzer Commander from Barbarossa to Normandy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Desert Armour: Tank Warfare in North Africa: Beda Fomm to Operation Crusader, 1940-41 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We March Against England: Operation Sea Lion, 1940–41 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tiger Battalion 507: Eyewitness Accounts from Hitler's Regiment Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Where the Iron Crosses Grow
Related audiobooks
War on the Eastern Front: The German Soldier in Russia 1941-1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Battle of Kursk: The History and Legacy of the Biggest Tank Battle of World War II Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Slaughter in Ukraine: 1941 Battle for Kyiv and Campaign to Capture Moscow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Operation Pedestal: The Fleet That Battled to Malta, 1942 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On a Knife’s Edge: The Ukraine, November 1942-March 1943 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Case White: The Invasion of Poland 1939 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943-44 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enduring the Whirlwind: The German Army and the Russo-German War 1941-1943 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Battleground Prussia: The Assault on Germany’s Eastern Front 1944-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzkrieg: From the Ground Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radio Operator on the Eastern Front: An Illustrated Memoir, 1940-1949 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Panzers on the Eastern Front: General Erhard Raus and His Panzer Divisions in Russia 1941-1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Germans in Normandy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adventures in My Youth: A German Soldier on the Eastern Front 1941-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Between Giants: The Battle for the Baltics in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stalingrad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Collision of Empires: The War on the Eastern Front in 1914 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's Soldiers: The German Army in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Case Red: The Collapse of France Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Germany Ascendant: The Eastern Front 1915 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fur Volk and Fuhrer: The Memoir of a Veteran of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/512th Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Division in Normandy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On to Stalingrad: Operation Winter Thunderstorm and the attempt to relieve Sixth Army, December 1942 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Russia's Last Gasp: The Eastern Front 1916–17 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Campaigns of World War II: The Eastern Front: Digitally narrated using a synthesized voice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red Road From Stalingrad: Recollections of a Soviet Infantryman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Asian History For You
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gulag: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shogun: The Life and Times of Tokugawa Ieyasu: Japan's Greatest Ruler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dressed for a Dance in the Snow: Women's Voices from the Gulag Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Japan's Infamous Unit 731: Firsthand Accounts of Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Short History of Russia: How the World's Largest Country Invented Itself, from the Pagans to Putin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ancient Aliens®: The Official Companion Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Krakatoa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Hell And Back: The Last Train From Hiroshima Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Putin Interviews: Oliver Stone Interviews Vladimir Putin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk About Their Lives Inside the World's Most Secretive Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger, the Deadliest Animal in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler's Bunker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for Where the Iron Crosses Grow
22 ratings5 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a very technically written book with a lot of precise numbers. It is excellently written and extremely well researched. The author's predictions based on history have come true in the last 5 years. Although some readers found the numerical details overwhelming, others appreciate the detailed account of the theater and the author's ability to predict the future based on the past.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is an historical and well documented rendition of the order of Battle in the Crimea with both failed and successful strategies by the Russian and the German armies from 1941 to 1944 resulting in the heavy loss of manpower. Heavy-duty weaponry such as the 62cm “Thor” proved to be impractical. The tenacity and flexibility of the Russians was a surprise to the Germans. Crimea was of strategic importance to both Russia and Germany. Hitler was determined to rid it of the enemies of the Third Reich and to exploit its resources. Crimea as a prize was elusive. Russia eventually gained control over the region after a two year Nazi occupation. Under Stalin’s orders the Tatars were removed and ethnically cleansed being considered as traitors to the motherland and the russification of the area began. Russia lost the Crimea in 1991 to the Ukraine peacefully. Recent efforts to annex it back to Russia by Russia to keep the Crimea out of NATO have been successful but the outcome is tenuous at best. This is a very useful text for the war historian and goes beyond 1944. Attention should be paid to the Postscript 2014, as a forecast of where all this action is heading. History tends to repeat itself and we do not learn its lessons.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robert Forczyk has produced a detailed but easily read narrative of a much neglected area of the 1941-45 Russo German war.
Whilst other authors have written extensive tracts on the initial phases of Barbarossa, Kursk, Moscow, Leningrad, etc. for some reason the battles for the Crimea have largely been ignored.
What is even more surprising is why? From a purely military point of view it has everything. Naval battles, amphibious landings, sieges, air battles and naval evacuations the size of Dunkirk.
Logistics is key in any battle and Forczyk describes well the German quandary of trying to balance limited resources across multiple threats, as well as the friction between the Germans and their Rumanian allies who fought better, than is normally described.
The book also gives insight into Wehrmacht complicity in war crimes and the grim matter of ethnic cleansing on both sides. Whilst rightly so there is focus on German atrocities, Forczyk also describes the little known story of the Crimean Tartars where the Soviets carried out the forced deportation of 180,000 Crimean Tartars to Uzbekistan on the belief that many had collaborated with the Germans, resulting in 109,000 Tartar dead within 3 years.
The last chapter brings the book back to the present day with a contemporary view of Russia's recent invasion and annexation of the Crimea.
Overall a great addition to any Eastern Front library, but would benefit from the addition of maps.1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I couldn’t get past the first hour. It reads like a series of numbers repeated over and over while the author minutely lists the exact numerical and alphabetic designation of every unit, battalion, weapon, munition, etc of every one of the combatants. After wading through forty minutes of this, hoping it was a quickly passing phase I jumped ahead and found myself in the same mire of irrelevant numerical details including how many shells of what caliber from what gun were fired on what date for what duration. I had to give up. if you want to know about a meal do you read the menu or the bill? I go for the menu. The author’s Case Red on the other hand is proving excellent if also occasionally surreal in its alphanumerical binges.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This author is proof the future can be predicted by the past. not only a VERY detailed account of this theater, but sums up the current situation and what to expect (all his predictions based on history have came true in the last 5 years)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A very technically written book. with a lot of very precise numbers. Read like a textbook sometime. But it was excellently written and extremely well researched.