Rating: 
Summary: A little lacking...
Review: Well written and interesting, this work by Alan Clark suffers from a few noticeable shortcomings. On the positive side, I was intrigued by the description of the plotting of the Eastern Generals against Hitler. But the coverage was only cursory and for background information as Clark focused on the military aspects of the conflict rather than the political machinations of the upper echelon of the German military and civilian leadership. A more complete coverage of the plots would have been welcome.
As for the negatives, given that Barbarossa is focused on the military engagements on the Eastern Front, maps are essential to fully understand the ebb and flow of the conflict. But with only a few maps, I had to repeatedly look at other sources to take the abstract descriptions given by Clark and place them geographically.
The other issue that cropped up was Clark's rather sympathetic view of Hitler. While acknowledging the fact a number of elements factored into Germany's military failures, Clark seems to give Hitler a free pass for the most part. The infighting between staffs and the personal ambitions of the generals are allowed to blossom seemingly with Hitler's consent. The debacle at Stalingrad is a direct result of Hitler's unwillingness to accept any sort of withdrawal. These are just a few examples where I feel Clark is not as critical of Hitler as he should be. Despite these quibbles, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone interested in the Eastern Front of WWII.
Rating:
Summary: A Flawed Overview
Review: A book which suffers serious flaws.
Perhaps the least of my criticisms, but the most annoying, is the failure to provide decent maps. In order to visualize any campaign textual description alone is inadequate. In Clark's book, arrows used for both German and Russian unit movements are the same shade of grey and are faint. Frequently, place and geographical names cited in the text are not on the maps and even more often, the places themselves are not shown. The maps themselves show only the large-scale movements of the armies, without regard to specific dates. In a book of this genre, maps are crucial to an understanding of events, and should be attended to by the author and publisher almost as much as the text, and certainly deserve more than the footnotes!
There are a plethora of details regarding Nazi planning, command decisions, strategy. This detail is glaringly omitted in Clark's treatment of the Russian side of the fight. It has been mentioned in previous reviews that this is due to Russian archival materials being unavailable when the book was written. This may be true. It also may be true that the author had less interest in the Soviet side, did not bother to research this aspect, or -- if I may be so bold -- was uninterested in the Russian material. Even before "perestroika", it seems that more information could have been secured had Mr. Clark wished to dig for it.
I bogged down in Mr. Clark's pages of transcripts of meetings between the OKW and Hitler. I am not as enamored of the erstwhile Fuehrer's mental processes as is Mr. Clark.
I look forward to reading more modern and balanced accounts.More recommended: Stalingrad, Anthony Bevor
Rating:
Summary: Readable but dated
Review: Alan Clark is a former Conservative British member of parliament who is now more famous for publishing a tell all series of diaries which are both witty and iconoclastic. Barbarossa is a book he wrote in the early sixties and is a history of the Nazi invasion of Russia. The book is a good narrative history of the campaign and one can learn about the ebbs and flows of the military strength of both sides and the key events. The book is now a little dated and probably the best one volume history is When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army stopped Hitler by David Glanz. The reason why it is dated relates to the partial opening of the former Soviet Archives which now allow for a better understanding of what happened. One example of this is the Mars operation, an attack which was launched on Army Group Centre by General Zhukov at the same time as operation Saturn the attack on the Sixth Army at Stalingrad. Operation Mars was a complete disaster. An initial penetration was cut off and the Soviets lost 200,000 men. After the war Zhukov covered up this failure for reasons of pure vanity. Clark in his history accepts the disinformation which was put out by Zhukov that it was a feint attack to prevent Army Group Centre reinforcing the Sixth Army. Other material has led to modern historians having a better understanding of the Stalingrad campaigns and the Battle of Kursk. In the past there has been a considerable debate about whether Paulus should have broken out from the Stalingrad encirclement. Glanz has shown that this was not a realistic possibility as the Sixth Army was only supplied on a shoe string and had low stocks of ammunition and petrol prior to the Soviet attack. Despite all of this Clarks book is interesting. As most people would be aware after the war the German Generals in their memoirs tried to deflect blame from themselves onto Hitler. Clark was one of the first writers to come to a more objective analysis of Hitler's role. (Although ironically this could be for the wrong reasons. In his diaries he confesses to being sympathetic to the Nazis.)
Rating:
Summary: A high level POLITICAL history of the war lacking in details
Review: Alan Clark's account is best understood as a political - vs. a military - account of the Russo-German war. Although skillfully written and in general a gripping read, Clark's "literary" style of writing may not be to everyone's liking. The focus of the work is on the strategic and political developments, primarily from a German perspective. The material on the Russian side of things does appear somewhat dated, probably because when the book was written (in the 60s) perestroika was but a mere twinkle in the eyes of a young Soviet. The focus of the book explains the dearth of legible battle maps and the lengthy quotations from the Fuhrer's meeting transcripts. Only 4 battles (Moscow 41, Stalingrad, Kursk, Berlin) were discussed in any depth. The destruction of Army Group Center in 44 was breezily covered in a few pages, and the recapture of Ukraine (where the great German divisions were destroyed) received literally a few sentences. Even those battles covered were presented in such a way to frustrate the reader looking for factual references - one has to scour through the pages looking for German casualty numbers at Stalingrad, for instance. Despite its flaws, I found the book interesting on two accounts. First, Clark argues that Hitler was an evil genius worthy of that sobriquet. His grasp of the military situation in the early days of the war was superb, and as Clark puts it, the great irony was that Hitler could not fully control his marshals when he was at his military best, and by the time he had reined in his generals, he had become so disenchanted with the officer corps that he lasped increasingly into fantasy. Second, Clark demonstrates the clear complicity of the German Army in numerous war crimes despite the German officers' pious protests that they were "professional soldiers" completely unlike Himmler's murderous thugs. The General Staff, for instance, recommended that instead of occupying Leningrad and feeding its population, it's better to fence off the city and starve the inhabitants to death. It even helpfully suggested that artillery be used to block off escape, since it's "doubtful whether infantry would shoot at women and children trying to break out".
Rating:
Summary: A high level POLITICAL history of the war lacking in details
Review: Alan Clark's account is best understood as a political - vs. a military - account of the Russo-German war. Although skillfully written and in general a gripping read, Clark's "literary" style of writing may not be to everyone's liking. The focus of the work is on the strategic and political developments, primarily from a German perspective. The material on the Russian side of things does appear somewhat dated, probably because when the book was written (in the 60s) perestroika was but a mere twinkle in the eyes of a young Soviet. The focus of the book explains the dearth of legible battle maps and the lengthy quotations from the Fuhrer's meeting transcripts. Only 4 battles (Moscow 41, Stalingrad, Kursk, Berlin) were discussed in any depth. The destruction of Army Group Center in 44 was breezily covered in a few pages, and the recapture of Ukraine (where the great German divisions were destroyed) received literally a few sentences. Even those battles covered were presented in such a way to frustrate the reader looking for factual references - one has to scour through the pages looking for German casualty numbers at Stalingrad, for instance. Despite its flaws, I found the book interesting on two accounts. First, Clark argues that Hitler was an evil genius worthy of that sobriquet. His grasp of the military situation in the early days of the war was superb, and as Clark puts it, the great irony was that Hitler could not fully control his marshals when he was at his military best, and by the time he had reined in his generals, he had become so disenchanted with the officer corps that he lasped increasingly into fantasy. Second, Clark demonstrates the clear complicity of the German Army in numerous war crimes despite the German officers' pious protests that they were "professional soldiers" completely unlike Himmler's murderous thugs. The General Staff, for instance, recommended that instead of occupying Leningrad and feeding its population, it's better to fence off the city and starve the inhabitants to death. It even helpfully suggested that artillery be used to block off escape, since it's "doubtful whether infantry would shoot at women and children trying to break out".
Rating: 
Summary: A decent factual and theoretical description
Review: Alan Clark's work was a very successful account of the most improtant and most brutal front of the WWII. Although he did leave out several important points and slighted a few significant battles, he captured the main scoreline of the confrontation very well. He also managed to misspell several myths that have been prevalent among many history professionals and amateurs. First of all, he was able to show that Hitler was not a hindrance to Wehrmacht's war effort in 1941 but, on the contrary, very helpful in helping prevent a desperate situation.
Bitter German Generals have for decades lamented that had they been allowed to storm toward Moscow they would have been successful in taking the city and ending the war in 1941. That is far from truth as Alan Clark shows. He points out that German tanks have been moving for two months without reprieve, the supply lines became longer and harder to maintain. The soldiers were getting tired, and what is even more alarming, the Russian resistance was stiffening (as Battle around Smolensk showed). Also, one should remember that forces facing German Army Group South were not destroyed unlike those facing the other two Army Groups. These forces were far to the West of the line of the advance of Army Group Center and could threaten to cut it off. Also, Alan Clark did well to misspell the notion that General Winter was the main reason for German failure to win the war in 1941. Overall a very good reference by a very well versed and very knowledgeable author.
Rating:
Summary: Good look at the Eastern Front from a German perspective
Review: I thought the book started strong with considerable detail about the disagreements on strategy between the various generals and field marshalls and Hitler. It effectively outlines the fact that the Wehrmacht had competing theories on how to effectively invade a country and the thesis seems to be that had they had a more definitive strategy and kept with it, they might have defeated the Soviet Union. I don't entirely agree with that thesis but that is besides the point.
Clearly the first half of the book is the best part. After the battle of Stalingrad and the great lengths to which the Wehrmacht tried to stabilize their southern wing, the book focuses on the Battle of Kursk and the mindset that led up to it. The book then descends into a cursory look at the mindset of the principal actors on the German side.
Little is said (maybe nothing) of the Bagration offensive that decimated Army Group Center, an event that coincided with Hitler's brush with death from a bomb plot and probably shortened the war in europe by a year.
There are some moments in the second half that are interesting as Guderian has to try to maintain a cohesive defense in the face of increasing emotional instability among those around him. Overall, it is a fair look at the war on the Eastern Front, but students of World War II will find it lacking on many levels. Even so, it is a worthwhile read.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent account of a terrible conflict
Review: If you belong to the large number of people who believe that America won the war against Nazi Germany (with a little help from the British), this is not a book for you - or maybe it is! Anyway, this is an incredibly well-researched and very detailed account of possibly the worst (at any rate bloodiest) military conflict ever fought on this Earth. One might fear that a book on such an enormous subject would either be superficial, presenting a clinical picture of the fighting without describing the real human suffering, or loose itself in gory detail. It does neither, not least due to the brilliantly flowing style of the narrative, which makes the historical characters - from private soldier or civilian to generals and heads of state - come alive in the pages.
The book does not take sides in the conflict and one senses that Alan Clark - a British conservative who went on to have a spectacular political career - views the regimes of Hitler and Stalin as equally loathesome, all though in this conflict Germany as the aggressor was unquestionably most in the wrong.
Barbarossa is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand not only the Russo-German conflict and its decisive impact on WW II but also the birth of the cold war, founded as it was on the military and political division of Europe and fuelled to a large extent by Russian paranoia towards the West as a direct result of the events of 1941-45.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting military history of the eastern front
Review: In "Barbarossa", Alan Clark illuminates an aspect is of WW II that is largely overlooked in America--the Eastern Front. In this work, Clark makes convincing arguments that the Russians could probably have defeated the Germans single-handedly and that Hitler was not the bumbling military fool that most people take him for. Clark describes in great detail the various strategies adopted by both sides, but it is clear that he has more information on the German command decisions than on the Russians. This is due primarily to the fact that Russia had not unlocked many of its files at the time he wrote this book. Clark's main focus is on four events: The initial invasion and drive to Moscow, the drive and battle for Stalingrad, the Kursk salient operation, and the fall of Berlin. Throughout it all, Clark debunks the theory of that the German generals could have won the war if Hitler had let them. In fact, in several cases, Hitler made decisions that most likely saved the German army from disaster. The second most apparent theme is the resilence of the Russians. As a student of history, I was amazed by the Russian's ability to overcome one disaster after another and eventually build the most powerful army in the world has ever seen. The one drawback of the book is Clark's attempts to deal with the social and political aspects of the war. In what is primarily a military history, these discussions seem oddly out of place and are a distraction, but they only constitute a small fraction of the book. Oh the whole however, it is an excellent book that flows well and illustrates the importance of this "forgotten" front.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting military history of the eastern front
Review: In "Barbarossa", Alan Clark illuminates an aspect is of WW II that is largely overlooked in America--the Eastern Front. In this work, Clark makes convincing arguments that the Russians could probably have defeated the Germans single-handedly and that Hitler was not the bumbling military fool that most people take him for. Clark describes in great detail the various strategies adopted by both sides, but it is clear that he has more information on the German command decisions than on the Russians. This is due primarily to the fact that Russia had not unlocked many of its files at the time he wrote this book. Clark's main focus is on four events: The initial invasion and drive to Moscow, the drive and battle for Stalingrad, the Kursk salient operation, and the fall of Berlin. Throughout it all, Clark debunks the theory of that the German generals could have won the war if Hitler had let them. In fact, in several cases, Hitler made decisions that most likely saved the German army from disaster. The second most apparent theme is the resilence of the Russians. As a student of history, I was amazed by the Russian's ability to overcome one disaster after another and eventually build the most powerful army in the world has ever seen. The one drawback of the book is Clark's attempts to deal with the social and political aspects of the war. In what is primarily a military history, these discussions seem oddly out of place and are a distraction, but they only constitute a small fraction of the book. Oh the whole however, it is an excellent book that flows well and illustrates the importance of this "forgotten" front.
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